"Onset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... romantic Fur Brigade would be sweeping southward on its voyage from the last entrenchments of the Red Gods to the newest outposts of civilization—a civilization that has debauched, infected, plundered, and murdered the red man ever since its first onset upon the eastern shores of North America. If you don't believe this, read history, especially the history of ...
— The Drama of the Forests - Romance and Adventure • Arthur Heming
... the table, rich with every dainty of the season, that earth, air, and sea, could provide. Grace being first said by the chaplain, the bishop sat down "richly to enjoy;" but it happened in the first onset, that a morsel too large for his lordship's swallow stuck in his throat. The bishop grew crimson—purple—black in the face; the chaplain started up, and untied his neckcloth. The guests crowded round, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... sides was dreadful. Here were both generals, here the major part of the Roman horse and infantry, here the Spaniards, veteran troops, and experienced in the Roman manner of fighting, and the Ligurians, a nation inured to war. The elephants were also driven to the same place which, on the first onset, disordered the van, and had made even dislodged the standards; but afterwards, the contest growing hotter, and the shout increasing, they became less submissive to their riders, and ranged to and fro between ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... comick calamities, may be reckoned the pain which an author, not yet hardened into insensibility, feels at the onset of a furious critick, whose age, rank, or fortune, gives him confidence to speak without reserve; who heaps one objection upon another, and obtrudes his remarks, and enforces his corrections, without ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... the example of a young prince, of manners eminently popular, produced upon the young nobility of the realm must be taken into account in the narrative of that life which was so brilliant and so misspent; so blessed at its onset, so dreary in its close—the life of Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire. Descended in the third degree from Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, Georgiana Spencer is said to have resembled her celebrated ancestress in the style of her beauty. She was born in 1757. Her father, John, ...
— Beaux and Belles of England • Mary Robinson
... came. Lashing their ponies into mad gallop, now sitting erect, the next moment lying hidden behind the plunging animals, constantly screaming their shrill war-cries, their guns brandished in air, they swept onward, seeking to crush that thin line in one terrible onset. But they reckoned wrong. The soldiers waited their coming. The short, brown-barrelled carbines gleamed at the level in the sunlight, and then belched forth their message of flame into the very faces of those reckless horsemen. It was not in flesh and blood to bear such a ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... their master's foes. They charged first into the group about M. Beaucaire, and broke and routed it utterly. Two of them leaped to the young man's side, while the other four, swerving, scarce losing the momentum of their onset, bore on upon the gentlemen near the coach, who went down beneath the fierceness ...
— Monsieur Beaucaire • Booth Tarkington
... with different names. In the poem now examined, when the English are represented as gaining a fortified pass, by repetition of attack and perseverance of resolution; their obstinacy of courage, and vigour of onset, is well illustrated by the sea that breaks, with incessant battery, the dikes of Holland. This is a simile; but when Addison, having celebrated the beauty of Marlborough's person, tells us, that "Achilles thus was form'd with ev'ry grace," here is no simile, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... period between the tick bite and the onset of the disease in the many animals he has experimented with corresponds very closely to this period as observed ...
— Insects and Diseases - A Popular Account of the Way in Which Insects may Spread - or Cause some of our Common Diseases • Rennie W. Doane
... that it is never lawful for a private individual to kill any one whatever. We say, from a technical standpoint, that he does not kill but arrests the onset ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... companion behind a rock and with sword advanced leapt straight for the tree; and there, in the half-light, came on a fantastic shape and closed with it in deadly grapple. My rusty sword had snapped short at the first onset, yet twice I smote with the broken blade, while arm locked with arm we writhed and twisted. To and fro we staggered and so out into the moonlight, and I saw my opponent for an Indian. His long hair was bound by a fillet that bore a feather, a feather ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... forest where they found Torborg and all her men and where a sharp battle began. No warrior could have fought more bravely than the man-like princess, and her men stood up for her boldly, but they gradually gave way before the onset of Rolf ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... Queen was able to strike just abaft the starboard wheel-house, crushing the wheel, disabling the starboard rudder, and starting a number of leaks abaft the shaft. The starboard engine was thus useless and the Indianola helpless to avoid the onset of the Webb, which struck her fair in the stern, starting the timbers and starboard rudder-box so that the water poured in in large volumes. This settled the fight, and Brent reported to Colonel Brand that the enemy was disabled. The ...
— The Gulf and Inland Waters - The Navy in the Civil War. Volume 3. • A. T. Mahan
... perform, and for which he had come at their call. This had the desired effect; for he induced them to make a charge, which was gallantly performed, and in such a brave manner that the Indians fled, scarcely making an effort to defend themselves. Five of their number were killed at the furious onset of the Mexicans, but unfortunately, as he anticipated, only the murdered corpses of the women and children were the result ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... laid in, to stand a siege. Everything was done which could be done to repel an assault from they knew not how many savages, aided by British leaders, for the band from old Chilicothe, was to be joined by warriors from several other tribes. In ten days, Boonesborough was ready for the onset. These arduous labors being completed, Boone heroically resolved to strike consternation into the Indians, by showing them that he was prepared for aggressive as well as defensive warfare, and that they must leave ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... (Aedes aegypti) viral disease associated with urban environments; manifests as sudden onset of fever and severe headache; occasionally produces shock and hemorrhage leading to ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... resource to which he instantly turned. He held it in his right hand in such a position that the bear could not reach his person without receiving its point. His rifle, held in his left hand, served as a kind of shield. Thus prepared, he awaited the onset of the formidable animal. When within a foot of him, it reared itself erect to grasp him with its huge paws. In this position it pressed upon the knife until the whole blade was buried in its body. ...
— The First White Man of the West • Timothy Flint
... mountain-road Was stopp'd, and could not breathe beneath the load Of the dead bodies. 'Twas a day of shame For them whom precept and the pedantry Of cold mechanic battle do enslave. Oh! for a single hour of that Dundee Who on that day the word of onset gave! Like conquest would the Men of England see; And her Foes find a like ...
— Poems In Two Volumes, Vol. 1 • William Wordsworth
... capital, and staked his last fortunes on a battle in the field. The allied army was 80,000 strong. Napoleon, with 60,000 men, commanded by Soult, Lannes, Murat and Bernadotte, advanced rapidly from the direction of Vienna, as far as Brunn, and there awaited the onset. ...
— Notable Events of the Nineteenth Century - Great Deeds of Men and Nations and the Progress of the World • Various
... go in silence—conscious on the one hand that he had himself played a mean part in their conversation, and on the other that Anderson, under this onset of sordid misfortune, was somehow more of a hero in his eyes, and no doubt in other people's, ...
— Lady Merton, Colonist • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... The ranks of Balfour's regiment broke. He was cloven down while struggling in the press. Ramsay's men turned their backs and dropped their arms. Mackay's own foot were swept away by the furious onset of the Camerons. His brother and nephew exerted themselves in vain to rally the men. The former was laid dead on the ground by a stroke from a claymore. The latter, with eight wounds on his body, made his way through ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... of en no more if I was you, Joe," said Uncle Chirgwin. "Leave the likes of en to the God of en. Brace yourself agin this sore onset an' pray to Heaven to forgive ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... army was too small notwithstanding this desperate effort to strengthen it. They stood, however, all day in a compact band, protecting themselves with their shields from the arrows of the foot soldiers of the enemy, and with their pikes from the onset of the cavalry. At night the Danes retired, as if giving up the contest; but as soon as the Saxons, now released from their positions of confinement and restraint, had separated a little, and began to feel somewhat more secure, their implacable foes returned again and attacked ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... supplied him with the steadiest and the most daring soldiers that Europe had seen since the fall of the Roman Empire. The renown of the Spanish infantry had been growing from the day when it flung off the onset of the French chivalry on the field of Ravenna; and the Spanish generals stood without rivals in their military skill, as they stood without rivals in their ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... were not beneath one like Margaret—one who was religious as she. It requires time for religion to avail anything when self-respect is utterly broken-down. A devout sufferer may surmount the pangs of persecution at the first onset, and wrestle with bodily pain, and calmly endure bereavement by death; but there is no power of faith by which a woman can attain resignation under the agony of unrequited passion otherwise than ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... "The signal for engaging was no sooner given," says the writer in the "Universal History," "than the Turks with a hideous cry fell on six galeasses, which lay at anchor near a mile ahead of the confederate fleet." "With a hideous cry,"—this was the true barbarian onset; we find it in the Red Indians and the New Zealanders; and it is noticed of the Seljukians, the predecessors of the Ottomans, in their celebrated engagement with the Crusaders at Dorylaeum. "With horrible howlings," says Mr. Turner, "and ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... reloaded their muskets. The conflict that ensued was desperate beyond description. Every bit of cover—bush, tree, or boulder—held its man. With dogged valour the savages stood their ground, till driven back by the very impetus of the onset. The enemy were massed deep in front and but little impression could be made on their compact ranks. More distressing still, the Americans had brought their heavy artillery into play, and it began to thunder against the defences. On this day Brant was an inspiring figure ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... battle, wedged in the heart of the Shield-ring. He heard the shouts of the enemy, and the clangour of blows, and the sharp intake of breath, but chiefly he heard the beating of his own heart. The ring swayed and moved as it gave before the onset or pressed to an attack of its own, and Biorn found himself stumbling over the dead. "I am Biorn, and my father is King," he repeated to himself, the spell he had so often used when on the fells or the ...
— The Path of the King • John Buchan
... come, La Hire will come, and with them our veterans, and behind them all France!" And so we were full of heart again, and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the clash of steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in fancy see our prisoner free, her chains gone, her sword in ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... manner he was at times deliberate, and apparently very considerate, and again he was rapid and vehement. When he would demolish an adversary, he would commence slowly, as if to collect all his powers, preparatory to one great onset. He would turn and talk, as it were, to all about him, and seemingly incongruously. It was as if he was slinging and whirling his chain-shot about his head, and circling it more and more rapidly, to collect all his strength for the fatal blow. All knew it would fall, but ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... stage of the war. Next to McClernand came Prentiss with a raw division, and on the extreme left, Stuart with one brigade of Sherman's division. Hurlbut was in rear of Prentiss, massed, and in reserve at the time of the onset. The division of General C. F. Smith was on the right, also in reserve. General Smith was still sick in bed at Savannah, but within hearing of our guns. His services would no doubt have been of inestimable value had his health permitted his presence. ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... of Time or Eternity, God-gifted organ-voice of England, Milton, a name to resound for ages; Whose Titan angels, Gabriel, Abdiel, Starr'd from Jehovah's gorgeous armouries, Tower, as the deep-doomed empyrean Rings to the roar of an angel onset— Me rather all that bowery loneliness, The brooks of Eden mazily murmuring, And bloom profuse and cedar arches Charm, as a wanderer out in ocean, Where some refulgent sunset of India Streams o'er a rich ambrosial ocean isle, And crimson-hued ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... apprenticeship, so methodical an oppression, such varied forms of violence. Like generous Poland, Italy was shattered, partitioned by strangers, and treated for centuries as a res nullius. The firm resolve of the Bohemian people to revive the glorious kingdom which has so valiantly stemmed the onset of the Germans is the same resolve which moved our ancestors and our fathers to conspiracy and revolt, that Italy might become a united state. The impetuous and vigorous character of the Southern Slavs and ...
— Independent Bohemia • Vladimir Nosek
... really and truly—I've nothing to wear." "Nothing to wear! Go just as you are; Wear the dress you have on, and you'll be by far, I engage, the most bright and particular star On the Stuckup horizon—" I stopped, for her eye, Notwithstanding this delicate onset of flattery, Opened on me at once a most terrible battery Of scorn and amazement. She made no reply, But gave a slight turn to the end of her nose (That pure Grecian feature), as much as to say, "How absurd that any sane man should suppose That ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VIII (of X) • Various
... intoxication of ardour that would have seemed foreign to his gentle nature, but for the impetuous desire to protect his brother. Their leaders down, the enemy had no one to rally them, and, in spite of their superiority in number, gave way in confusion before the furious onset of Adlerstein. So soon, however, as Friedel perceived that he had forced the enemy far back from the scene of conflict, his anxiety for his brother returned, and, leaving the retainers to continue the pursuit, ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... well as those who heard of it, ashamed to desert their leader, and inspired them with courage against their enemies. After covering Metellus with their shields and rescuing him from danger, by making a vigorous onset they drove the Iberians from their ground; and, as the victory now changed sides, Sertorius, with a view of securing a safe retreat for his men, and contriving the means of getting together another army without any interruption, retired to a strong city in the mountains, and ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... the interior with scattered hamlets and towns. They learned the name of the king, and also that of the city which he made his capitol. Latinus himself, at the same time, heard the tidings of the arrival of these strangers. His first impulse was immediately to make an onset upon them with all his forces, and drive them away from his shores. On farther inquiry, however, he learned that they were in a distressed and suffering condition, and from the descriptions which were given him of their dress and demeanor ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... so readilie to doo his dutie, and that with such a shew of skill and experience, that Suetonius hauing conceiued an assured hope of good lucke to follow, caused the trumpets to sound to the battell. The onset was giuen in the straits, greatlie to the aduantage of the Romans, being but a handfull in comparison to their enimies. The fight in the beginning was verie sharpe and cruell, but in the end the Britains being a let one to another ...
— Chronicles (1 of 6): The Historie of England (4 of 8) - The Fovrth Booke Of The Historie Of England • Raphael Holinshed
... occasional earthquakes, hurricanes along Atlantic coast; frequent flooding of lowlands at onset of rainy ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... visits the wife accompanied, or rather, brought the patient to the clinic and I could get but little information and consequently progressed but little. I asked him, in her presence, to come alone the next time—which he did. The description of the onset of the attack, which was furnished me on his previous visits, proved the hysterical nature of the condition: he had suddenly been attacked by nausea and vomiting, fell to the floor, lay there, more or less unconscious (as he described it) for five or ten or more minutes, was ...
— The Journal of Abnormal Psychology - Volume 10
... morning we will again trade with you, and I shall remain till the weather is moderate that we may go, as we have agreed, to see Poulaho at Tongataboo." Maccaackavow then got up and said: "You will not sleep on shore? then Mattie" (which directly signifies we will kill you) and he left me. The onset was now preparing; everyone as I have described before kept knocking stones together, and Eefow quitted me. All but two or three things were in the boat, when I took Nageete by the hand, and we walked down the beach, everyone in a silent kind ...
— A Voyage to the South Sea • William Bligh
... by exercise in a gymnasium, and, moreover, he had taken a course of lessons in the manly art of self-defense. He had done this, not because he expected to be called upon to defend himself at any time, but because he thought it conducive to keeping up his health and strength. He awaited O'Reilly's onset with watchful calmness. ...
— The Young Explorer • Horatio Alger
... a plain, which was the kind of ground most favorable for the operations of that species of force, Cyrus felt some solicitude in respect to the impression which might be made by it on his army. Nothing is more terrible than the onset of a squadron of horse when charging an enemy upon the field of battle. They come in vast bodies, sometimes consisting of many thousands, with the speed of the wind, the men flourishing their sabers ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... western point of the high wooded island of Orleans, and came in view of the superb Falls of Montmorenci; two hundred and fifty feet of sheer precipice, leaped by a broad full torrent, eager to reach the great river flowing beyond, and which seemed placidly to await the turbulent onset. As Robert gazed, the fascination of a great waterfall came over him like a spell. Who has not felt this beside Lodore, or Foyers, or Torc? Who has not found his eye mesmerized by the falling sheet of dark polished waters, merging into snowy spray and crowned with rainbow ...
— Cedar Creek - From the Shanty to the Settlement • Elizabeth Hely Walshe
... Ralph, who leapt nimbly on one side (else had he been slain at once) and fetched a blow at the Sun-Knight, and smote him, and brake the mails on his left shoulder, so that the blood sprang, and fell on fiercely enough, smiting to right and left as the other gave back at his first onset. But all was for nought, for the Knight of the Sun, after his giving aback under that first stroke drew himself up stark and stiff, and pressing on through all Ralph's strokes, though they rent his mail ...
— The Well at the World's End • William Morris
... occasion...." He hurried on with it suddenly as a thing to be got over with at all hazards. "It was to say that I hoped you might not find it utterly beyond you to think of marrying me." He saw her sway a little, holding still to her chair, and moved toward her a step, dizzy himself with the sudden onset of emotion. "But now that it is said, if it distresses you we will say no more about it." She waved him back for a moment without ...
— The Lovely Lady • Mary Austin
... advice, agreeing as it did with what his own terrors suggested, was readily received. He ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided his fate. Clive snatched the moment, and ordered his troops to advance. The confused and dispirited multitude gave way before the onset of disciplined valour. No mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone ventured to confront the English, were swept down the stream of fugitives. In an hour ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Unsheathing his sword, and glancing scornfully round upon his courtiers, Pepin leapt into the arena, and drew the attention of the combatants upon himself. Raging with fury, they turned to attack him; but with cool and measured steps he evaded their onset, and by a succession of well-aimed blows struck off, one after the other, the heads of lion and bull. Then, throwing down his streaming sword, he accosted the astonished courtiers: "Am I worthy to be your king?" A deafening shout was the reply, and the name of "Pepin the Short" was ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... was unrestrained pleasure and genial delight on this evening. Lady Rosamond was seated beside the gay and attractive secretary, who was endeavoring to engage his companion as an ally against the more formidable onset of Captain Douglas. She did fairly surprise the latter by the earnestness of her replies, her forcible expressions, and the weighty arguments upheld by superior judgment. Lieutenant Trevelyan, as he converses with Lady Douglas, betrays ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... impatience, and gathering a vast blanket shawl of crimson and green around her imposing figure, she stood with her arms wreathed together in the gorgeous folds, steadily regarding the impetuous young creature, till the fury of her first onset had exhausted itself. ...
— Mabel's Mistake • Ann S. Stephens
... rushed across the intervening space, and flung himself into the group around Frank with such force that two of the Nationals were hurled to the ground, and Frank set at liberty. Inspirited by Bert's gallant onset, the Garrisons returned to the charge, the Nationals gave way before them, and Bert was just about to raise the shout of victory when a big hulk of a boy who had been hovering on the outskirts of the Nationals, ...
— Bert Lloyd's Boyhood - A Story from Nova Scotia • J. McDonald Oxley
... good look out, and learning next morning, that a roosting party were out, Marion detached my brother colonel Horry, with some choice cavaliers, to attack them; which he did with such spirit, that at the first onset he killed nine, and made the balance, sixteen, all prisoners. The rogues were so overloaded with plunder, that for their lives they could not regain their camp, though in full view of it when they were charged. This brilliant stroke of my brother, ...
— The Life of General Francis Marion • Mason Locke Weems
... ill that day in the sight of all the people, for the challenger of the Knights Tilters was more than a match for each that came upon him. He rode like a wild horseman of Yucatan. Wary, resourceful, sudden in device and powerful in onset, he bore all down, until the Queen cried: "There hath not been such skill in England since my father rode these lists. Three of my best gentlemen down, and it hath been but breathing to him. Now, Sir Harry Lee, it is thy turn," she laughed ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... first onset the mulatto had the best of it; his lithe dark limbs coiled about his adversary with paralyzing force: but soon the greater weight of the English youth began to tell; his young, well-knit figure straightened ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... reflected the last flash of human reason in his troubled mind. His eyes became suddenly inflamed with fever, his words incoherent, his looks haggard. Having caused them to sound the trumpets at the entrance of his tent, as for an onset, he ranged his battalions for an imaginary field of battle, and disposed his manoeuvres, and gave the word to charge against the enemy.[18] Then, sinking back upon his pillow, he breathed in subdued accents, "Let me at least avenge her innocent blood. Why, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLV. July, 1844. Vol. LVI. • Various
... lives, all is over for us!' But Roland, with Oliver at his side, swept a clear space with Durendal, and none might come near him; the Archbishop kept his enemies at bay with his lance. Four times the Franks endured the shock of the onset, but at the fifth they were borne down by numbers, and now only ...
— The Book of Romance • Various
... had singled out, as his probable captor, one peculiarly unattractive-looking horseman, whose crimson sheepskin coat and long horsetail plume were streaming in the wind, and just as he had braced himself to meet the onset against the great "loess," or dirt-cliff, he felt a twitch at his black upper robe, and a low voice—a girl's, he ...
— Historic Girls • E. S. Brooks
... glory of the nation, that it shamed and taunted the timidity of friends, that it scorned and scouted and withered the temerity of domestic foes, that it bearded and defied the British lion, and, rising and swelling and maddening in its course, it sounded the onset, till the charge, the shock, the steady struggle, and the glorious victory all passed in vivid ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... sides, he dashed between the conflicting bands. We, his staff, followed him to surround and protect him; obeying his signal, however, we fell back somewhat. The soldiery perceiving him, paused in their onset; he did not swerve from the bullets that passed near him, but rode immediately between the opposing lines. Silence succeeded to clamour; about fifty men lay on the ground dying or dead. Adrian raised his sword in act to speak: "By whose command," he cried, ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... kingdom, and was in his turn supplanted by Theodoric the Ostrogoth. It was from her almost impregnable isolation that the attempt was made by Byzantium—it seemed and perhaps it was our only hope—to reconquer Italy and the West for civilisation; while her fall before the appalling Lombard onset in the eighth century brought Pepin into Italy in 754, to lay the foundation of a new Christendom, to establish the temporal power of the papacy, and to prophesy of the resurrection of the empire, ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... absorbed by daily cares, any understanding in which ideas involuntarily translate themselves through imagery. Owing to this palpable form it is able to give its weighty support to the conscience, to counterbalance natural egoism, to curb the mad onset of brutal passions, to lead the will to abnegation and devotion, to tear Man away from himself and place him wholly in the service of truth, or of his kind, to form ascetics, martyrs, sisters of charity and missionaries. Thus, throughout society, religion becomes at once ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... body that it is evidently desirable to have considerable bodies of such troops, as they greatly facilitate the execution of a slow and methodical retreat, and furnish the means of thoroughly examining the road itself and the neighborhood, so as to prevent an unexpected onset of the enemy upon the flanks of ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... mysteries which had offended him then with only vague disgust, as for matters which were outside his own care. Now they all took shape satyric, like hideous heads thrust out of the dark to loll their tongues at him. To the shock of his first dismay succeeded the onset of rage, white and cold and deadly as a night frost. Eh, but he would meet his teeth in some throat! But he would go slowly to work, clear the ground and stalk his prey. The leopard devises creeping death. He made up his mind. Gaston he sent to the South, to ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... vast armies preparing for a grand encounter. Nearly all the citizens of the city had left their homes and fled southward. While General Burnside waited for his pontoons, General Lee was fortifying the Heights in rear of the city, and concentrating his forces for the anticipated onset. This state of things was ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... this. It was stated that this was chorea, but of course we can not be sure on this point. Annie was always regarded as a very nervous child; she was frequently a somnambulist until she was about 12. She is very nervous before the onset of menstruation. Of recent years she has been an excessive user of tea— at times before we first saw her she is said to have had 12 cups of tea in a day. At times she was then suffering from sleeplessness, and was wont to ...
— Pathology of Lying, Etc. • William and Mary Healy
... sentences are charged with a heroic energy, and, when he is telling a great tale, their rise and fall are like the flashing and falling of the bright sword of some great champion in battle, or the onset and withdrawal of Atlantic surges. He can at need be beautifully tender and quiet. Who that has read his tale of the young Finn and the Seven Ancients will forget the weeping of Finn over the kindness of the famine- stricken ...
— The Coming of Cuculain • Standish O'Grady
... scientific way of fighting is different from that. But in the old time the one thing needful was that a man should stand firm and resist the shock of the enemies as they rushed upon him. Unless our footing is good we shall be tumbled over by the onset of some unexpected antagonist. And for good footing there are two things necessary. One is a good, solid piece of ground to stand on, that is not slippery nor muddy, and the other is a good, strong pair of soldier's boots, that will take hold on the ground ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... were pretty well matched. The pistol had fallen at the first onset, and for a few minutes it seemed doubtful which should prove the victor, as they swayed to and fro, straining their dark and sinewy forms in deadly conflict. At last the strength of Talaloo ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne
... landward side of his men, and ordering Thorward to do the same in the direction of the water, he calmly awaited the onset. ...
— The Norsemen in the West • R.M. Ballantyne
... Calvo—your bright smile haunts her still. And there shall be blood on your sword, and blood—twice—thrice—on your brow. Your captain shall die in your arms; and you shall lead charge after charge, and shall step up from rank to rank; and all at once, one day, just in the final onset, with the cheer on your lips, and your red sword waving high, with but one lightning stroke of agony, down, down you shall go in the death ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... which is described as being in use among the New Zealanders, in which, after the first onset, every man chooses his individual antagonist, and the field of battle presents merely the spectacle of a multitude of single combats, is the same which has, perhaps, everywhere prevailed, not only in the primitive wars of men, but up to a period of considerable refinement in the history ...
— John Rutherford, the White Chief • George Lillie Craik
... Lee in the hearts of the Southern soldiers was Thomas Jonathan Jackson, better known by the sobriquet of "Stonewall," which General Bee gave him during the first battle of Bull Run. Driven back by the Union onset, the Confederate left had retreated a mile or more, when it reached the plateau where Jackson and his brigade were stationed. The brigade never wavered, but stood fast ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... separated from the herd, and was seen approaching the spot where we were. This was just what the fair rider wanted. At a touch of the spur, the horse sprang forward, and galloped directly for the bull. The latter, cowed at the sudden onset, turned and ran; but his swift pursuer soon came within lazo distance. The noose circled in the air, and, launched forward, was seen to settle around the horns of the animal. The horse was now wheeled round, and headed in an opposite direction. The rope tightened with a sudden pluck, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... the debate among the characters, and not the onset of Hera and Athena in the chariot of Heaven, that gives its greatest power to the Iliad. The Iliad, with its "machines," its catalogue of the forces, its funeral games, has contributed more than the Odyssey to the common pattern of manufactured epics. But the essence of the poem ...
— Epic and Romance - Essays on Medieval Literature • W. P. Ker
... whether there was any one within the cabin. As he approached the door, there was a low savage growl from the faithful watcher within. Very stealthily he tried to open the door, but it was locked, and in response there was such a furious onset upon the other side, accompanied by such fierce growls, that he started ...
— The Award of Justice - Told in the Rockies • A. Maynard Barbour
... entering on the work they came about. Two of them laid hold of two anchors which hung from the bows of the ship, and endeavoured with their girdles to tug the ship on shore. The rest lay close to the ship's sides, and gave a brisk onset with slings and other weapons; but the great guns soon forced them to retire, with twelve or thirteen killed, and many more wounded. After this, the Dutch sailed peaceably along the coast, with a good gale of wind, continuing their course W.N.W. and N.W. by W. The 2d they were in lat. 3 deg. ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... consideration —the Irish, for four hours, received and repulsed the various charges of the Puritan horse. Then as the sun began to descend, pouring its rays upon the opposing force, O'Neil led his whole force—five thousand men against eight—to the attack. One terrible onset swept away every trace of resistance. There were counted on the field, 3,243 of the Covenanters, and of the Catholics, but 70 killed and 100 wounded. Lord Ardes, and 21 Scottish officers, 32 standards, 1,500 draught horses, and all the guns and tents, were captured. Monroe fled in ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... cheating and bad faith, as the breaking of all convention treaties has proved. Under such a load of demoralization, all of them combined are perhaps not more than a match for the Grand Trunk. One of the American roads will have to stand in the van and sustain the first onset, and the elected one will be the NEW YORK CENTRAL. In every point of view it is the one best able to do so. It is managed and controlled by men of large experience and iron will—men who do not know what defeat is, and who, come what may, ...
— Old Mackinaw - The Fortress of the Lakes and its Surroundings • W. P. Strickland
... took in the tremendous crisis. Stumpy's band, with Pearse at their leader's side, had been driven back in the first attack to the rock itself; and now stood with their backs to it grimly waiting for the second onset. They had fought hitherto for her; she saw to it that they did not change their allegiance. Leaping up to the ledge behind ...
— The Pirate Woman • Aylward Edward Dingle
... he walked out to battle, and assailed at once most of the living writers, from Dryden to Durfey. His onset was violent: those passages, which while they stood single, had passed with little notice, when they were accumulated and exposed together caught the alarm, and the nation wondered why it had so long ...
— The Dramatic Works of John Dryden Vol. I. - With a Life of the Author • Sir Walter Scott
... or bear malice for, what is spoken in character; and most perfectly in character was that vulgar and violent onset against me, when ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... caught a contiguous step. He repeated his interrogatory in a louder tone, but it obtained no response. Again he stopped. Suddenly he was seized; an iron grasp assailed his throat, a hand of steel griped his arm. The unexpected onset hurried him on. The sound of waters assured him that he was approaching the precipitous bank of that part of the river which, from a ledge of pointed rocks, here formed rapids. Vigorous and desperate, Egremont plunged like ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... solitary knight advance against them, laughed loudly at his folly. Their foremost horsemen were already half-way over when Bayard, with his lance in rest, came flying down upon them. His onset swept the first three off the bridge into the river, and instantly the rest, with cries of vengeance, rushed furiously upon him. Bayard, not to be surrounded, backed his horse against the railing of the bridge, rose up in his stirrups, swung his falchion with both hands above ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... Suvaroff's own. On reaching Novi he learnt that the army of Mantua was also before him (Aug. 15). It was too late to retreat; Joubert could only give to his men the example of Republican spirit and devotion. Suvaroff himself, with Kray, the conqueror of Mantua, began the attack: the onset of a second Austrian corps, at the moment when the strength of the Russians was failing, decided the day. Joubert did not live to witness the close of a defeat which cost ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... invariably get the better of his antagonist. The Rangers realized their advantage in this respect. It encouraged them to rush into close quarters, where the rapid discharge of their pistols soon told upon the enemy, no matter how bravely they had withstood the onset. I have seen the victory decided alone by the superiority of the pistol over the saber, where the opposing columns had crossed each other in the charge and, wheeling, had ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... water as quickly as on land, at once charged the invaders in front, and sent round a detachment to take them in the rear. The assault was accordingly soon changed into a disgraceful flight, in which those who had been the loudest in urging to this rash onset set the example. Barca Gana, who had boasted himself invulnerable, was deeply wounded through his coat of mail and four cotton tobes, and with difficulty rescued by his chiefs from five La Sala horsemen, who had vowed his death. The army returned to their ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... which were of perpetual recurrence in those times, he encountered the Count de Lourain in a pitched battle, and—so runs the story—in the first onset Colin Maillard lost both ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... So fierce was that onset that each horse fell back upon the ground and only by great skill and address did the knight who rode him void his saddle, so as to save himself from a fall. And in that meeting the horse of Sir Turquine was killed outright and the back of Sir Launcelot's horse was broken and he could not ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... though shorn and shattered, Slain and bleeding half their men, When they heard that Irish slogan, Turned and charged the foe again. Knox and Wayne and Morgan rally, To the front they forward wheel, And before their rushing onset ...
— Poems of American Patriotism • Brander Matthews (Editor)
... it is itself a little hill; and yet it is only a stone that has fallen from the neighbouring mountain. Suppose a band of living men should rush with all their might against that stone, they would be broken and it would not be moved. If they retire and repeat the onset, the rock lies still in majestic repose, while their feeble limbs are mangled on its sides, and their life-blood sinks into the soil at ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... an aide-de-camp gallops up to say that the orchard has been carried at the point of the bayonet, the Nassau sharp-shooters who held it having, after a desperate resistance, retired before the irresistible onset of the French infantry. "A moi! maintenant!" said General Foy, as he drew his sabre and rode down to the head of his splendid division, which, anxious for the word to advance, was standing in the valley. "En avant! mes braves!" cried he, while, pointing to the chateau ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... and as I retraced my steps cries of El enemigo! El enemigo! hailed me at almost every pace. Hundreds of questions as to the whereabouts of the attacking forces were hurled at me as I went, but I dared not stop to respond, or without a doubt I should have betrayed myself. At the onset, boylike, I had considered this a "splendid joke," but now the alarm was so widespread that I did not know whether to feel startled by the result or flattered to think I had succeeded in putting an entire town in ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... Man mustered his forces The war of wars to wage, And with storm and thunder of onset Did the foe of foes engage, And the Lord of Death, the undying, Was beset and harried sore, In his immemorial fastness At night's aboriginal core. And during years a thousand Man leaguered his enemy's hold, While nature was one ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... independence from the beginning, as far as inquiring friends are concerned; and in New York we shall be so lost to sight that nobody will know how we are living. You can work at your new play while we're waiting, and we can feel that the onset in the battle ...
— The Story of a Play - A Novel • W. D. Howells
... the queen was left alone with three or four young men of Berlin, who defended her until two hussars, who had covered themselves with glory during the battle, rushed at a gallop with drawn sabers on this little group, and they were instantly dispersed. Frightened by this sudden onset, the horse which her Majesty rode fled with all the strength of his limbs; and well was it for the fugitive queen that he was swift as a stag, else the two hussars would infallibly have made her a prisoner, for more than once they pressed so close that she heard ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... tendency to death. Sound obviates this debility, and restores to the system its natural degree of excitement. The schoolboy and the clown invigorate their trembling limbs, by whistling, or singing, as they pass by a country churchyard, and the soldier feels his departing courage recalled in the onset of a battle, by the ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... and foe, expected that Edmund would await the onset in his entrenched camp. Great, therefore, was the surprise, when he led his forces without the entrenchments, with the observation that the breasts of Englishmen were ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... chance to see Horsemen with martial order shifting camp, To onset sallying, or in muster rang'd, Or in retreat sometimes outstretch'd for flight; Light-armed squadrons and fleet foragers Scouring thy plains, Arezzo! have I seen, And clashing tournaments, and tilting jousts, Now with the sound of ...
— The Divine Comedy • Dante
... the enemy attempting to hinder it. Caesar then marched into the Delta, whither the king had retreated, overthrew, notwithstanding the deeply cut canal in their front, the Egyptian vanguard at the first onset, and immediately stormed the Egyptian camp itself. It lay at the foot of a rising ground between the Nile—from which only a narrow path separated it—and marshes difficult of access. Caesar caused the camp to be assailed simultaneously from the front and from ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... boisterously the wind roared to-day across the low-hung, cloud-smeared sky, driving the broken rack before it, warm and wet out of the south! What a wintry landscape! leafless trees bending beneath the onset of the wind, bare and streaming hedges, pale close-reaped wheat-fields, brown ploughland, spare pastures stretching away to left and right, softly rising and falling to the horizon; nothing visible but distant belts of trees and coverts, with here and there the tower of a hidden ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... beasts are pourtrayed in a style of pompous obscurity. We may dimly discern the form of the bestiarius, who is armed with a wooden spear; of another who leaps into the air to escape the beast's onset; of one who protects himself with a portable wall of reeds, 'like a sea-urchin;' of others who are fastened to a revolving wheel, and alternately brought within the range of the animal's claws and borne aloft beyond his grasp. 'There ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... what to do for some moments. I thought of setting myself in an attitude of defence, and involuntarily had turned my gun which was now empty—intending to use it as a club. But I saw at once, that the slight blow I could deliver would not stop the onset of such a strong fierce animal, and that he would butt me over, and gore me, ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... Fancher's militia came up, sober farmers of the village that lay below us buried in smoke; and our dragoons listened to the tales of these men, some of whom had been in the village when the onset came, and had remained there, skulking about to pick off the enemy until their ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... danger. She compared the two men, as she knew them. She wondered how they would seem to a complete stranger. Palmer, she thought, would be able to attract almost any woman he might want; it seemed to her that a woman Brent wanted would feel rather helpless before the onset he would make. ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... oratory, added force to the excitement of the occasion. So fluent and melodious was his elocution that his cause naturally begat sympathy. No one had time to deliberate on his rapid words or canvass his sweeping and accumulated statements. The dashing nature of the onset, the assurance, almost insolence of his tone; the serious character of the accusations, confounded almost ...
— Hidden Treasures - Why Some Succeed While Others Fail • Harry A. Lewis
... "The combined forces of ignorance, vice and prejudice have blocked the wheels of advancing civilization, and Michigan, once the proudest of the sisterhood of States, has lost the opportunity of inaugurating a reform; now let the women organize for a final onset." However, no active suffrage work was done until December 3, 1879, when Susan B. Anthony was induced to stop over on her way from Frankfort to Ludington and give her lecture, "Woman Wants Bread; Not the Ballot." She was our guest, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... open to him. Suddenly he perceived that the daisies, which all day long had been full-facing the sun, like true souls confessing to the father of them, had folded their petals together to points, and held them like spear-heads tipped with threatening crimson, against the onset of the night and her shadows, while within its white cone each folded in the golden heart of its life, until the great father should return, and, shaking the wicked out of the folds of the night, render the world once more safe with another glorious ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald |
