"Eleventh hour" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to send for you at the eleventh hour," said Grace in a puzzled tone. "No wonder you were late. What ...
— Grace Harlowe's Junior Year at High School - Or, Fast Friends in the Sororities • Jessie Graham Flower
... 'Mr. Gastrell' was also in the passenger list, because a cousin of mine should have been on board. At the eleventh hour he was prevented from sailing, and it was upon receipt of a cable from him that I decided to catch the next boat to the Canaries and ...
— The Four Faces - A Mystery • William le Queux
... acumen of prejudged scientific opponents, or the subtlety of orthodox special pleaders, have yet exerted their full force in mystifying the real issues of the great controversy which has been set afoot, and whose end is hardly likely to be seen by this generation; so that, at this eleventh hour, and even failing anything new, it may be useful to state afresh that which is true, and to put the fundamental positions advocated by Mr. Darwin in such a form that they may be grasped by those whose special ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... way to the place of punishment Reynard tried to think of some plan by means of which he could save himself even at the eleventh hour; and knowing that some scheme would occur to him if he could only gain a little time, he humbly implored permission to make a public confession of his manifold sins ere he paid the penalty of his crimes. Anxious to hear all he might have to say, the king granted ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... cry of despair, and stared with wide, straining eyes as the flames rolled onward, every minute drawing nearer to the landing. The fire now raged behind them, as it was raging on the mainland. But still they looked shoreward. Even at the eleventh hour John might arrive. What he would do if he did come they had not reasoned out. Neither did they realise that nowhere on that lake could anything live, ringed in by such a fiery furnace. They imagined that out upon the water they would find refuge from the flames, ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... blushing girl went on, "could we not, even now, at the eleventh hour, turn to account these wasted lives of ours, and seek some occupation at once ...
— The Wouldbegoods • E. Nesbit
... simple. There had never been any people to shake her convictions with arguments, nor books to suggest doubts. And now in her soul she had called for help and she believed it would come even at the eleventh hour. ...
— The Motor Maids at Sunrise Camp • Katherine Stokes
... "what do you wish me to do? Shall I resign, now at the eleventh hour? If I do, it will be a sign of weakness. It will be a confession that every word in this circular is true. It will proclaim the fact that I am ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... him. To be so near the realization of his dream of adventure, and to be stopped at the eleventh hour by this stupid, cautious boatman! Waggie, who had been frisking near ...
— Chasing an Iron Horse - Or, A Boy's Adventures in the Civil War • Edward Robins
... man, now seated beside Estridge, who had coolly and cleverly taken his sporting chance in remaining till the eleventh hour and the fifty-ninth minute in the service of his country. Then, as the twelfth hour began to strike, he bluffed ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... voters filed within a specified time. The effort to secure these names lagged and without doubt would have been given up had it not been for Frank E. Mace, former State Forest Commissioner, who organized committees all over the State at the eleventh hour and petitions bearing 12,000 signatures were filed July 3, within 90 days after the Legislature adjourned, as required. As there was doubt about the constitutionality of this referendum, the State Supreme Court, on July 9, 1919, was requested ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume VI • Various
... fete of your Louis Napoleon, the distribution of the eagles. We have done our possible and impossible to get tickets, because I had taken strongly into my head to want to go, and because Robert, who didn't care for it himself, cared for it for me; but here's the eleventh hour and our prospects remain gloomy. We did not apply sufficiently soon, I am afraid, and the name of the applicants has been legion. It will be a grand sight, and full of significances. Nevertheless, the empire won't come so; you will ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Volume II • Elizabeth Barrett Browning
... contrast, they at the same time record that of faithful souls, who, upheld by its strength, never swerved from their allegiance to God. They tell of saintly penitents, dating their first correspondence with its inspirations from the eleventh hour, and of docile hearts, obedient from earliest childhood to its voice. They show us, side by side, profaned temples re-consecrated, and holy sanctuaries never sullied; scentless flowers restored to fragrance, and garlands of purity from which not a blossom or even a leaf had ever fallen. ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... weak and a coward, and would lack the power to stand on her legs and declare herself to be the perpetrator of such villany. Her mother, as she knew well, would always have preferred that her elder daughter should be the bride; but her mother was not the woman to have the hardihood, now, in the eleventh hour, to favour such an intrigue. Let her wish be what it might, she would not be strong enough to carry through the accomplishment of it. They would all know that that threat of hers of setting Exeter on fire would be carried ...
— He Knew He Was Right • Anthony Trollope
... to display their effectiveness as the moral guides of nations. In those fateful years between 1908 and 1914, during which we now see so plainly the preparation for this world-tragedy, they might have done much. They did nothing. They might have seen, at least at the eleventh hour, the iniquity of sustaining the military system, and have cast the whole of their massive influence on the side of the promoters of arbitration. I do not mean that any man should advocate disarmament, or less effective armament, in England while the rest of the world remains armed. ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... however, China in her hour of need found many who were willing to succour her; with the result that although she lost something in these negotiations, Japan nevertheless failed in a very signal fashion to attain her main objective. The Pyrrhic victory which she won with her eleventh hour ultimatum will indeed in the end cost her more than would have a complete failure, for Chinese suspicion and hostility are now so deep-seated that nothing will ever completely eradicate them. It is therefore ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... tell Aemilianus why I have examined so many fishes already and why I am unwilling to remain in ignorance of some I have not yet seen. Although he is in the decline of life and suffering from senile decay, let him, if he will, acquire some learning even at the eleventh hour. Let him read the works of the philosophers of old, that now at any rate he may learn that I am not the first ichthyologist, but follow in the steps of authors, centuries my seniors, such as Aristotle, Theophrastus, Eudemus, Lycon, and ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... yet asked Mr. Blagdon to drive her home. Though she had made up her mind to do so, it would only be at the last possible moment of the twelfth hour. It was now that eleventh hour in which heroines are rescued by bold lovers. But Mister Masters was no bolder than a mouse. And the moon sailed higher and ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... me, very good," he said, fervently. "His habit is to move in mystery, yet sometimes he permits us to think we see and understand him. I am old, dear, and must go; but now, in this eleventh hour, when my hope was beginning to die, he sends me this one with a promise, and I am lifted up. I see the way to a great part in a circumstance itself so great that it shall be as a new birth to the whole world. And I see a reason for the ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... Susy and the luggage of the whole party (little Nat's motor horn included, as a last concession, and because he had hitherto forborne to play on it); and in the second, the five Fulmers, the bonne, who at the eleventh hour had refused to be left, a cage-full of canaries, and a foundling kitten who had murderous designs on them; all of which had to be taken because, if the bonne came, there would be nobody left to ...
— The Glimpses of the Moon • Edith Wharton
... the one career in which men seldom recover from their mistakes. I hope that even at the eleventh hour you will relent. It will be a grief to all of us to see you slip away from ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... At the eleventh hour, William bethought himself of an invincible fighting man, Otto von Bismarck, widely known for boldness ...
— Blood and Iron - Origin of German Empire As Revealed by Character of Its - Founder, Bismarck • John Hubert Greusel
... and persistently labor to develop, instruct and discipline a body of men until he and they are working in absolute accord, all the intricate parts of the human machine nicely adjusted and moving without the faintest friction, and then to find himself at the eleventh hour set to one side, a stranger to his men and a rival to himself set in his stead, and be bidden to move on as a sort of martial second fiddle, while the credit and reward go to the new first violin. Nor was Harris the last by ...
— Tonio, Son of the Sierras - A Story of the Apache War • Charles King
... injudicious statements of Mackenzie and his Radical ally in England, Joseph Hume, and the defection of the Methodists, whose leader, Egerton Ryerson, had quarreled with Mackenzie, resulted in the overwhelming defeat of the Reformers. The sting of defeat, the failure of the Family Compact to carry out their eleventh hour promises of reform, and the passing of Lord John Russell's reactionary resolutions convinced a section of the Reform party, in Upper Canada as well as in Lower Canada, that an appeal to force ...
— The Canadian Dominion - A Chronicle of our Northern Neighbor • Oscar D. Skelton
... black tail-coat, a black bowler hat, and a knitted muffler, with a large rucksack and a conspicuously foreign-looking bicycle, to the hospitalities of Dower House. Mr. Van der Pant had escaped from Antwerp at the eleventh hour, he had caught a severe cold and, it would seem, lost his wife and family in the process; he had much to tell Mr. Britling, and in his zeal to tell it he did not at once discover that though Mr. Britling knew French quite well he did not know ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... his mind the recollection of "other eyes as innocent as thine, child." In short, he was that most touching of all beings, the Hero-cum-Villain. And it was with a sigh of relief that we saw him at the eleventh hour, having successfully twitted the "Government Men" and the Excise (should he have an additional penchant for smuggling), safely restored to the arms of the long-suffering possessor of the ...
— Pirates • Anonymous
... the fatal day of sale arrived. N——, in the depth of his distress had early sent for me to consult whether even at the eleventh hour something could not be done to avert the calamity. A sinking man catches at a straw. It wanted less than three hours of the time of sale when I entered the grounds of Fernlands. The gate was half off its hinges, the posts plastered with advertisements ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 490, Saturday, May 21, 1831 • Various
... eleventh hour,' he urged, 'there is time to correct any glaring falsehoods, insults, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... thing in yachts. I've had a letter and several cypher telegrams from the assistant conductor, a useful chap, telling me the whole story of the plot, which he's nosed out; and I'm faced with humiliating failure unless I can save the situation by a grand coup at the eleventh hour. Now, you can guess why on the spur of the moment I bought up your rights to dig in ...
— It Happened in Egypt • C. N. Williamson & A. M. Williamson
... relief, Columbus might perish in the island, the report brought back by Escobar must have completely disappointed him. No time was to be lost if he wished to claim any merit in his deliverance, or to avoid the disgrace of having totally neglected him. He exerted himself, therefore, at the eleventh hour, and dispatched a caravel at the same time with the ship sent by Diego Mendez. The latter, having faithfully discharged this part of his mission, and seen the ships depart, proceeded to Spain on the further ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... hungrily in their faded eyes. Once more the wide lane opened magically for him—but again Judge Maynard's measured progress was momentarily barred. Curiosity may have prompted it, and then again it may have been that he was betrayed by the very fury of his desperate, eleventh hour effort to assert his right to the center of that stage—the right of long-established precedent—yet even those two long files of old men gasped aloud their dismay at his temerity when Old Jerry thrust his way forward and planted himself ...
— Once to Every Man • Larry Evans
... determined to try and remedy his defects, to the mature business- or even professional-man, humiliated because his accomplished wife's every sentence made him feel ashamed of his squandered youth, and so constrained, at the eleventh hour, to employ a private tutor—it is difficult for me not to recognize that in a country where the children enjoy so many privileges, where they are taught regularly, systematically, patiently, conscientiously—where, in short, everything is taught, and everything is taught well—there must ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... remarks, genuine repentance is never too late. God can pardon the sins of a century as easily as those of a day. Our friend was the means, in the hand of God, of leading many, when worn by sickness and at the eleventh hour of life, to the Lamb of God. His carefully kept diary records many such instances. We give one. He says, 'I remember one Sunday coming from Hessle with the Rev. C. Jones. Our "hearts burned within us as we talked by the way," and when we got to Coultam ...
— The Hero of the Humber - or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe • Henry Woodcock
... she rejoined. "If Chris has brought herself even at the eleventh hour to be open with you, none will rejoice more sincerely than I. It has always been my principle that wives should have no secrets from their husbands. But, knowing her as I do, I question very much if this can be the case. I have remonstrated ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... of the position they would be willing to make proper concessions, and he said in conclusion that the people of Johannesburg, if they were as good as their professions and desired reform and not revolution, would even at the eleventh hour be willing to meet the Government. The member of the Reform Committee replied that this was undoubtedly the attitude of the Johannesburg people, but that it was absolutely useless to keep on patiently ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... Russian hosts which had marched across Poland into Galicia, and even into eastern Prussia, Germany abstained from further efforts on the Western Front, hoping, no doubt, to carry out, even at the eleventh hour, the plan so carefully formulated before the war commenced, upon which her future greatness was to be established. It has ever been the maxim of a great commander to divide his enemies, to split ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... Commissioners of the Treasury; But it is possible that the delay of letters going and coming, with the time necessary between the receiving their answer and procuring the money, may force the decision of this proposition on me at the eleventh hour. I wish, therefore, to avail myself of your counsel before your departure, on this proposition. Your knowledge of the subject enables you to give the best opinion, and your zeal for the public interest, and I trust your friendly disposition towards me will prompt you to assist me with ...
— The Writings of Thomas Jefferson - Library Edition - Vol. 6 (of 20) • Thomas Jefferson
... and his staff reached the railway station," she continued; "they travelled to Delhi with the last train that left Lahore, just at the eleventh hour; for immediately afterwards the Russians entered the town. The wreck of the army is now marching to Delhi, but their pursuers are close at their heels. God alone knows what will be the fate ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... had finished speaking, Jill Carden, the English girl, understood that with her only rested the decision, that even now, at the eleventh hour, she was still ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... line deeply pondering the startling report of the good Colonel. We had been hearing various rumors that the enemy was frantically suing for peace; all these we had set down as but propaganda. If the end were in sight, why this terrific eleventh hour barrage? ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy
... effect upon Lane was, however, little short of exhilarating. It brought him sympathy, understanding, and a fair measure of support from people who, not until the eleventh hour, had really comprehended their own danger and it inspired him to redouble his efforts to organize a brigade ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... Naval Brigade reads like a fairy story. Ladysmith on the point of exhaustion, with all its troops engaged and no big guns wherewith to meet the terrific assaults of the six-inch cannon on Pepworth Hill, was almost in despair. At the eleventh hour up came the Naval Brigade under Captain the Hon. Hedworth Lambton of H.M.S. Powerful with 280 Bluejackets, two 4.7 guns, and four twelve-and-a-half-pounders. Then the affair was done. It was just one, two, three, and away—for the fourth splendidly-directed ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... house, I understood well enough the springs one was moved by. Gravener had spoken of me there as an old friend, and I received a gracious invitation to dine. The Knight's widow was again indisposed—she had succumbed at the eleventh hour; so that I found Miss Anvoy bravely playing hostess without even Gravener's help, since, to make matters worse, he had just sent up word that the House, the insatiable House, with which he supposed he had contracted for easier terms, ...
— The Coxon Fund • Henry James
... throttling mountain. The failure of the Italians to achieve what here upon the ground appears so simple, delivered Italy hand-bound to strangers. Had they but succeeded in arresting Charles and destroying his forces at Fornovo, it is just possible that then—even then, at the eleventh hour—Italy might have gained the sense of national coherence, or at least have proved herself capable of holding by her leagues the foreigner at bay. As it was, the battle of Fornovo, in spite of Venetian bonfires and ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... information. I only know that it proved correct in each particular. I was not indeed deeply interested before the event, since Raffles assured me that it was "a one-man job," and naturally intended to be the one man himself. It was only at the eleventh hour that our positions were inverted by the wholly unexpected selection of Raffles for the English team in ...
— A Thief in the Night • E. W. Hornung
... here Came Three Damsels, clothed in white, With their spindles every night; One and Two and three fair Maidens, Spinning to a pulsing cadence, Singing songs of Elfin-Mere; Till the eleventh hour was toll'd, Then departed through the wold. Years ago, and years ago; And the tall reeds sigh ...
— Sixteen Poems • William Allingham
... given already, the number of persons who, under the law, were qualified for registry was about exhausted; and because of the expense I did not feel warranted in keeping up the boards longer, as I said, "to suit new issues coming in at the eleventh hour," which would but open a "broad macadamized road ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... would be guilty of high-treason, and liable to all the penalties which attached to that crime. The only "non-content" to this measure in the house of lords was the Bishop of London: and he only opposed it because government had taken it up at the eleventh hour, and without consulting the hierarchy. The second reading was moved in the house of commons on the 5th of August by Sir Robert Peel, who took occasion to explain that it did not do away with any security which had been taken for the established church by the act passed in 1829 for the relief ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... sing the song, "Here's to the Maiden of Bashful Fifteen." Mr. Moore did not sing it, but Mr. Labouchere did. The explanation of this, we understand, was not that Sir Harry's heart failed him at the eleventh hour, but that Mr. Labouchere threatened to fling up his part unless the song was given to him. However, Mr. Moore heard Mr. Labouchere singing the song, and that was revenge enough for any man. To Mr. Henley the part of Joseph evidently presented no serious difficulties. ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... 'And it came to pass at the eleventh hour that this poor soul repented.' It knocked at the gates, but they were shut—tight as a plaster—a great, burning plaster. They had pasted our marriage certificate all across the door, and it was made of red-hot iron—people ...
— Soldiers Three • Rudyard Kipling
... influence which this Authorized Version has had on the ideals and the literature of the English race. Had it not been for this Version, current English speech and literature would be vastly different. Such words and expressions as "scapegoat," "a labor of love," "the eleventh hour," "to cast pearls before swine," and "a howling wilderness" are in constant use because the language of this translation of the Bible has become incorporated in our daily speech, as well as in our ...
— Halleck's New English Literature • Reuben P. Halleck
... in the Manger, 52 The banked oars fell an hundred strong, 1 The dark eleventh hour, 9 The Doorkeepers of Zion, 29 The fans and the beltings they roar round me, 81 The first time that Peter denied his Lord, 125 The Garden called Gethsemane, 85 The overfaithful sword returns the user, 87 There are no leaders to lead us to honour, and yet without leaders ...
— The Years Between • Rudyard Kipling
... ever entered into my calculations or found room in my hopes. By a brisk appeal to them, it almost seemed that I might work my salvation in this eleventh hour. ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... eye on the two men. He did not mean to give them even the slightest chance to play a trick in the eleventh hour. Frank Bird was a pretty hard fellow to catch napping, he usually had his eyes open, and especially when he knew there was ...
— The Aeroplane Boys Flight - A Hydroplane Roundup • John Luther Langworthy
... Committee of the Netherlands was one of the earliest formed, Belgium only came in at the eleventh hour; she will, however, owing to the zealous activity of Mr. Lenders, the consul in London, send an important contribution worthy of her interest in the North Sea fisheries. We ought also to mention that Newfoundland is among those colonies which have shown great energy, and she may be expected ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 385, May 19, 1883 • Various
... tempestuous and incessantly active life, was the night before the introduction of the Home Rule Bill. There are points to be finally settled—clauses to be ultimately fixed—phrases to be polished or pared at the eleventh hour in all human affairs. Measures finally settled and fixed for weeks before the last hour exist—like all perfection—only in the brains and pages of dramatists ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... already living in those whom they have taught; and happily, as none can know when he shall die, so none can make sure that he too shall not live long beyond the grave; for the life after death is like money before it—no one can be sure that it may not fall to him or her even at the eleventh hour. Money and immortality come in such odd unaccountable ways that no one is cut off from hope. We may not have made either of them for ourselves, but yet another may give them to us in virtue of his or her love, which ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... also that promise of protection from Schauenburg. Luther answered Spalatin, 'The die is cast, I despise alike the wrath and the favour of Rome; I will have no reconciliation with her, no fellowship.' Friends who heard of his new work grew alarmed; Staupitz, even at the eleventh hour, tried to dissuade him from it. But before August was far advanced, four thousand copies were already printed and published. A new edition was immediately called for. Luther now added another section repudiating the arrogant pretension of ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... not through any emotion approximating inhospitality but wholly because of her mistrust as to the effect of this alien note upon her dinner, which was quite impromptu, having been arranged at the eleventh hour in deference to the wishes of Jerry Dane, a partner of Colcord's, who was handling the ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1917 - and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... moon-god; they had repulsed Shamash, the Sun, and Eamman, both of whom had come to the rescue; they had driven Ishtar and Anu from their thrones: the whole firmament would have become a prey to them, had not Bel and Nusku, Ea and Merodach, intervened at the eleventh hour, and succeeded in hurling them down to the earth, after a terrible battle. They never completely recovered from this reverse, and the gods raised up as rivals to them a class of friendly genii—the "Igigi," who were governed ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 3 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... the eleventh hour to check Jimmy. This was not a matter, he perceived, to be decided recklessly, on the spur of a sudden impulse. Above all, it was not a matter to be decided before lunch. An empty stomach breeds imagination. He ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... question of woman's enfranchisement," wrote Senator Dolph, of Oregon, "and also with your effort to secure a chairman of the committee who favors the movement and is able to present it with intelligence and ability." Speaker Reed closed his letter by saying, "When the eleventh hour comes, we all shall flock in, clamorous for pennies." Words of encouragement were received from many others, and Senator and ex-Governor Francis E. Warren, of Wyoming, wrote: "I am always in harness for woman suffrage wherever I may be. My spoken and written testimony for a score ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... possibly disappoint her. I can speak feelingly as to the annoyance (for I have known it by my own experience) when after inviting a number of my friends to meet some strangers, the strangers have sent an excuse almost at the eleventh hour. I think no inducements, however strong, could tempt me ...
— The Best American Humorous Short Stories • Various
... had not been successful, after all; it had failed ignominiously at the eleventh hour. A great deal of effort had been expended in the private office of this director and that, and a futile attempt made to bring four or five of them together at the office of the bank itself, that the matter might be clenched and the contract signed. But the directors were ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... chapel. A sorrow nobly borne confers a kind of moral rank. Her neighbors, with respect and pity, stood aside silently. She appeared to be quite unconscious of them. At Phyllis and Elizabeth she looked with great sad eyes, and shook her head mournfully. To the preacher she said, "It's t' eleventh hour, sir, and no ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr
... for the purpose of giving me such advice as this, that you accompanied me from Philadelphia to this city? You knew, all the while, the object of my journey, and yet now, in the eleventh hour, when an excellent opportunity presents itself for the accomplishment of that object, you seek to dissuade me from my purpose. Have I entirely mistaken your character? Are you really as weak-minded, and as devoid of courage and spirit, as your language would seem to indicate? When that ...
— My Life: or the Adventures of Geo. Thompson - Being the Auto-Biography of an Author. Written by Himself. • George Thompson
... there had been nothing wrong in the relations between Warren and Mrs. Lawrence up to that night. But we are pretty sure that they met at the station to go away together. What is more reasonable than to presume that she lost her nerve at the eleventh hour: that, unhappy as she was at home, she was unable to take the step which would forever make her ...
— Midnight • Octavus Roy Cohen
... murmurs, the faint creak of upper branches, and the infinitesimal voices of insects in the grass, there was silence: the pleasant and somnolent hush, swathed in which that part of Canaan crosses to the far side of the eleventh hour. ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... been frivolous—for ever since I have learned to love you, I have been so wrapped up in my love, with my happiness gilding everything about me, that I have never really faced the prosaic facts of life or discussed with you what our marriage will really necessitate. And now, at this eleventh hour, I realise that I have led you on in ignorance to an act which will perhaps take a great deal of the sunshine out of your life. What have I to offer you in exchange for the sacrifice which you will ...
— A Duet • A. Conan Doyle
... fear, discontent, or any of the passions that debase; a life so honest and composed; a soul like an ancient violin, so subdued to harmony, responding to a touch in music—as in that dining-room, with Mr. Hunter chatting at the eleventh hour, under the shadow of eternity, fearless ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... e'en in the final hour, 'spite of his creed of crime, His ruthless heart and fierce belief, love triumphed for a time. "Irene! girl!" he wildly prayed, "brave not Rome's fearful power! Mad as thou art, she'll pardon thee, e'en in the eleventh hour; Cast but one grain of incense on yon bright and sacred fire, And outraged as thy rulers are, 'twill calm ...
— The Poetical Works of Mrs. Leprohon (Mrs. R.E. Mullins) • Rosanna Eleanor Leprohon
... where anybody might get in. One of the Austrian Columns was just entering Panten when the Fight began: in Panten that Column has stood cogitative ever since; well to left of Loudon and his struggles; but does not, till the eleventh hour, resolve to push through. At the eleventh hour;—and lo, in the nick of time, Mollendorf (our Leuthen-and-Hochkirch friend) got his eye on it; rushed up with infantry and cavalry; set Panten on fire, and blocked out that possibility and the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... eleventh hour, there was one more brief interruption. On the 1st of January 1492 the last of the Moorish kings sent in his surrender to King Ferdinand, whom he invited to come and take possession of the city of Granada; and on ...
— Christopher Columbus, Complete • Filson Young
... permission to edit this precious find; but owing to the desire conceived later on by Pope Leo XIII. that an undertaking of such importance should be carried out by an ecclesiastic of the Roman Catholic Church, Lagarde's hopes were dashed at the eleventh hour, and Monsignor Ciasca, to whom the task was confided, accomplished all that can reasonably be expected from pious zeal and ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... who can say? Let it be hoped for the sake of maiden modesty it came from Montagu. What drove them to this step may well have been the fear that Lord Dorchester might, to all intents and purposes, imprison his daughter on one of his estates. Even at the eleventh hour, Lady Mary was determined that there should be no misunderstanding between her and her fiance. She wrote to him saying that if she came to him in this way, she would come to him without a portion. To this part of her letter he ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... themselves, any more than their master-spirits and spokesmen, spared the shame of their duplicity in those early days of August 1914. A large group of them, including commercial and professional men, drew up a long address to the neutral countries, in which they said that down to the eleventh hour they had "never dreamt of war," never thought of depriving other nations of light and air or of thrusting anybody from his place. And yet the ink of their protest was not yet dry when they gave themselves the lie by showing that down to the last ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... after the new light dawned upon her spirit, in the year 1833, Mary was numbered with the dead. She had embraced the faith which makes no difference between those who come at the first or the eleventh hour, and those who were present at the dissolution of her soul and body, doubted not that Jesus had whispered to her the same consolation that fell upon the heart of the thief upon the Cross, "This day shall thou be with ...
— Legends, Traditions, and Laws of the Iroquois, or Six Nations, and History of the Tuscarora Indians • Elias Johnson
... tables. The heat was insufferable and I thought with joy of the morrow, of the deck of the steamer, the freshening breeze, the sense of getting out to sea. I was even glad of what I had learned in the afternoon at the office of the company—that at the eleventh hour an old ship with a lower standard of speed had been put on in place of the vessel in which I had taken my passage. America was roasting, England might very well be stuffy, and a slow passage (which at that season of the year would probably also be a fine one) ...
— The Patagonia • Henry James
... when some of Johnson's friends desired that Dr. Warren should be called in, he said they might call in whom they pleased; and when Warren was called, at his going away Johnson said, 'You have come in at the eleventh hour, but you shall be paid the same with your fellow-labourers. Francis, put into Dr. Warren's coach a copy of the English Poets.' CROKER. Dr. Warren ten years later attended Boswell in his last illness. Letters of Boswell, p. 355. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 4 (of 6) • Boswell
... communications from Count Berchtold to the Austrian Ambassador at Berlin and four replies from that official, but not a letter or telegram passing between Berchtold and von Bethmann-Hollweg or between the German and Austrian Kaisers. The Austrian Red Book gives additional evidence that at the eleventh hour, and shortly before Germany issued its ultimatum to Russia, Austria did finally agree to discuss the Servian question with Russia; but the information, which Germany presumably gave to its ally of its intention to send the ultimatum to Russia, is carefully withheld. ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... good 'un, but when he'd bin dashed agin' the cliffs two or three times an' washed back again among the wreck of spars, cargo, and riggin', we thought it was all over with all of us. Hows'ever we wasn't forsooken at the eleventh hour, for a wave all of a sudden washed him high and dry on a ledge of rock, an' he stood up and waved his hand and then fell down in a swound. Then we thought again it was all up with us, for every wave went roarin' up to young Mister McLeod, as if it wor mad to ...
— Wrecked but not Ruined • R.M. Ballantyne
... tourists in Constantinople, were placed in open carriages by their dragomans, and driven in a long procession to the Seraglio to see the Sultan's treasures. Those of them who had waited two weeks for this chance looked aggrieved at the more fortunate who had come at the eleventh hour on the last night's steamer, and seemed to think these latter had attained the privilege without sufficient effort. The ministers of the different legations—as is the harmless custom of such gentlemen—had impressed every one for whom they ...
— The Princess Aline • Richard Harding Davis
... "the danger is great. I do not try to conceal it from you. It was my intention this morning to see you and Julie safe on the Lyons train, but John and I have beheld signs, not military, perhaps, but of the soul, and we are firm in the belief that at the eleventh hour we shall be saved. The German ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... quickly as she perceived it came the thought that no one else must know. Something must be done, even though it was at the eleventh hour. ...
— Rosa Mundi and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... be fully accomplished." The whole of the 51st Psalm, she said, seemed to suit her case, and with solemnity repeated, "'Create in me a clean heart, oh God! and renew a right spirit within me.' If I am saved, it will indeed be at the eleventh hour, I ...
— The Annual Monitor for 1851 • Anonymous
... death. I could not but think of the lasting gratitude of Christian Logan and her children, which had led them to remember this man daily in their prayers; who could tell how great a part those prayers had had in securing for him the grace to make his peace with God at the eleventh hour? ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... the ship had been "nipped;" how, after inconceivable toil, the members of the expedition had gained the land; how they had marched southward toward the Chuckch settlements; how, at the eleventh hour, the survivors, exhausted and starving, had been rescued by the steam whalers; how these whalers themselves had been caught in the ice, and how the survivors of the Freja had been obliged to spend another winter in the Arctic. She learned the details of their final return. In the quiet, darkened ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... his policy was encouraging and bringing round him, as dependents and followers, the members of the mendicant orders—the labourers called to the vineyard in the eleventh hour, as he calls them. These he set to cater for him, and he triumphantly asks, "Among so many of the keenest hunters, what leveret could lie hid? What fry could evade the hook, the net, or the trawl of these men? From the body ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... she had ever made in her life. She wondered afterwards how she had ever brought herself to accomplish it. It was so hard—so hideously hard—to face him, this man who loved her so overwhelmingly, and tell him that he had failed to win her love in return. And at the eleventh hour—to treat him thus! If he had taken her by the throat and wrung her neck, she would have considered him justified and herself but ...
— Greatheart • Ethel M. Dell
... doubtful. The former errors of the King might be imputed to youth, to the pressure of circumstances, to the influence of evil counsel, to the undefined state of the law. We firmly believe that if, even at this eleventh hour, Charles had acted fairly towards his people, if he had even acted fairly towards his own partisans, the House of Commons would have given him a fair chance of retrieving the public confidence. Such was the opinion of Clarendon. He distinctly states that the fury ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... States there was wide sympathy with this attitude; but under the act the president had no option but to enforce the higher duties if the concessions were not given. Fortunately he was left to decide as to the adequacy of such concessions, and this made agreement possible at the eleventh hour. President Taft proposed a conference at Albany; the Dominion Government accepted, and an agreement was reached on the 30th of March, the last day of grace but one. Canada conceded to the United States its intermediate ...
— The Day of Sir Wilfrid Laurier - A Chronicle of Our Own Time • Oscar D. Skelton
... though the day was far spent, was to have her ten shillings. "What, have you forgotten your New Testaments?" Priscilla cried, when more murmurs greeted this announcement. "Don't you remember the people who came at the eleventh hour to labour in the vineyard and got just the same as the others? Why should I try to improve on parables?" And there was something about Priscilla, an air, an authority, that twisted the women of Symford into any shape of agreement she chose. The twenty-four went their several ways. ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... (Sir C. Grogram, Devonport) said that...." The words came haltingly to my ears as the man's voice followed the jerks of the little instrument "... the Government obviously could not ... alter its policy at ... eleventh hour ... at dictates of ... quite irresponsible person in one of ... the daily ...
— The Inheritors • Joseph Conrad
... people wanted, after it understood the purport of the "Once-a-week-to-Falmouth" order; and after the interchange of two or three more notes, he broke off relations with Germany on April 6, 1917. At last, at the eleventh hour, the United States by President Wilson's consent joined the great alliance of free nations in their life and-death struggle to make the world safe for Democracy. Now the President had to prepare for war, and prepare in haste, which rendered careful plans and economy impossible. At the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer
... never concurred in the restoration of the Stuarts, till it appeared that nothing else could save the nation from the tyranny of the army? Grant that such a man had, by his recent services, fairly earned his pardon. Yet were his services, rendered at the eleventh hour, to be put in comparison with the toils and sufferings of those who had borne the burden and heat of the day? Was he to be ranked with men who had no need of the royal clemency, with men who had, in every part of their lives, merited the ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... national memorial to the British soldiers who gave their lives in the Great War, 1914-1918. It is simple in form, but very solemn in outline, and you could not help knowing that it meant something to do with the dead. On Armistice Day, each November 11—for you know that the Great War ended at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—there is a solemn service here, and during the two minutes' silence, after the strokes of Big Ben have begun to sound, thousands of people stand bareheaded ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... the politicians had their way and Castelnau, Joffre's second in command, came over to their view and set out for Verdun to organize the defence for the position at the eleventh hour. He had with him Petain, the man who had commanded the French army in the Battle of Champagne and henceforth commanded the army that was hurried to the Verdun sector. France now took up definitely the gage of battle as Germany had laid it down. Verdun now ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... this hub bub was always to last!" a voice speaks suddenly. It is the Hon. Mr. Snivel, who looks in at the eleventh hour, as he says, to find affairs always in a fuss. "Being a man of legal knowledge-always ready to do a bit of a good turn-especially in putting a disordered house to rights-I thought it well to look ...
— Justice in the By-Ways - A Tale of Life • F. Colburn Adams
... fellow-man; he was taken down from it cleansed by the blood of Christ. He came to the cross still savage and full of rage, and while he was upon it he became so meek and pitiful that he lamented for the sufferings of another more than for his own. One member only was left to him, and at the eleventh hour he came to work in God's vineyard, and yet so eagerly did he labour that he was the first to finish his work and receive his reward. Indeed he behaved like a just man; for he first accused himself and confessed his sins, saying, "and we, indeed, justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds." ...
— Light, Life, and Love • W. R. Inge
... Mrs. Feversham caught a quick breath. "At the eleventh hour," she said then, and her eyes met her brother's. "Yes or no?" ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... in his madness. In the Dresden interview he had warned Metternich that not till the eleventh hour would he disclose his real demands. And now was the opportunity of trying the effect of a final act of intimidation. On August 4th he was back again in Dresden: on the next day he dictated the secret conditions ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... I see! it was for this that I was preserved: I to be a sort of new-fangled Adam—and this little creature to be my Eve! That is it! The White does not admit defeat: he would recommence the Race again! At the last, the eleventh hour—in spite of all—he would turn defeat into victory, ...
— The Purple Cloud • M.P. Shiel
... unexpected arrival. During the month in which she had received no letter from Eleanor, Guido Savelli had reconsidered his decision not to appear in America and instead of canceling his contract had sailed at the eleventh hour to fulfill it, taking ...
— Grace Harlowe's Second Year at Overton College • Jessie Graham Flower
... [20:3] And going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the market; [20:4]and he said to them, go also into the vineyard, and whatever is right I will give you. And they went. [20:5]Again going out about the sixth and ninth hours, he did likewise. [20:6]And going out about the eleventh hour he found others standing, and said to them, Why stand you all the day idle? [20:7]They said to him, Because no man has hired us. He said to them, Go also into the vineyard. [20:8]And when it was evening ...
— The New Testament • Various
... it, I believe it, but no one must know. I see it all. She repented of marrying me at the eleventh hour, and ere it was too late she fled with the lover who must have awaited her, in an ...
— Kidnapped at the Altar - or, The Romance of that Saucy Jessie Bain • Laura Jean Libbey
... friend with incredulous eyes. She had counted on her to the uttermost; she could not believe that at the eleventh hour Peg would ...
— The Beggar Man • Ruby Mildred Ayres
... Roosevelt turned upon the machine. All through the stormy days of that stormy Chicago convention Senator Borah could be found at the side of that one leader for whom he had a consistent regard. He was with him up to the very last moment before the die was cast. He was almost successful at the eleventh hour in inducing Mr. Roosevelt to abandon his mad project. They were closeted together on the evening of the clamorous meeting of the progressives in a hotel ...
— The Mirrors of Washington • Anonymous
... with the intellectual development of a gorilla the pachymenia of the rhinoceros and the dental physiognomy of the wart-hog. ROOSEVELT, once our friend, is plainly the enemy and must be watched. Should he decide, however, even at the eleventh hour, to fall in line with civilisation, he can rely on finding in Germany, in return for any little acts of useful neutrality which he may be able to perform, a generous ally, a faithful upholder of treaty obligations, and a tenacious friend. There must ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various |
