"Formidable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the generosity of his sweet wife, in her eagerness to shut up her formidable protector while she had even been chided for it by Bertalda. He pressed her therefore in his arms with the utmost affection, and said with emotion, "The stone shall remain, and all shall remain, now and ever, as you wish to have it, ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries: - Masterpieces of German Literature Translated into English, Volume 5. • Various
... faithfully, we shall easily repulse the strongest efforts the cruelest enemy can make against me and these kingdoms. If I am only supported by the valour of the English nation, all the weak threats of the Normans will no longer seem formidable to me." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 530, January 21, 1832 • Various
... in government and religion, they are sure to fall into the immediate hands of spiritual inquisitors, to be whipped and tortured into an acknowledgment of the error, or threatened with the further pains of eternal damnation if they persist in their contumacy. Thanks be to GOD, there is not yet so formidable a junction of the secular and ecclesiastical powers in this country; and there is reason to hope there are but few of the clergy who would desire it. Yet such is the deplorable condition we are in, and so notorious is it to all, that should any man, be he who he may, tell me that our civil liberties ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, volume II (1770 - 1773) - collected and edited by Harry Alonso Cushing • Samuel Adams
... from the mental and physical atmosphere of the perishing city, the unique excitement of the day: when he had felt as if snatched from his quiet pasture by the roots; and by the extraordinary good fortune that had delivered this perfect girl and her formidable parent almost into his hands. Under his sternly controlled exterior his spirits sang wildly that his luck had turned, and dazzling visions of swift success and fulfillment of all ambitions snapped on and ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... sorry figure by the side of the stately Moro and the handsome Sanseverini brothers; but his good nature and genial manners atoned for his want of presence, and surprised Beatrice and her ladies, who had expected a far more formidable personage. "He was little in stature and of small sense, very timid in speech owing to the way in which he had been treated as a child, and as feeble in mind as he was in body, but the kindest and gentlest creature alive," says Commines, who accompanied Charles to Asti, and ...
— Beatrice d'Este, Duchess of Milan, 1475-1497 • Julia Mary Cartwright
... admirers and critics, speaks of the 'deep feelings for his kind' which he cherished in his large heart, and again of the 'sentiment, jealously hidden but genuine, which extracts the venom from that formidable Thackeray'. Large-hearted and generous to one another, they were ready to face adventure, eager to fight for an ideal, however impracticable it seemed. This was as true of Tennyson, Browning, Matthew Arnold, and all the genus irritabile vatum, as of the politicians and the men of action. They ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... the largest vessel of the little fleet; next came the "Alliance," under command of Capt. Landais; then the "Pallas," an old merchantman hastily remodelled, and mounting thirty-two guns; then the "Cerf" with eighteen guns, and the "Vengeance" with twelve. Though not a very formidable armada, this little fleet might have done great good to the American cause, had Paul Jones been given proper authority, and had his daring plans been countenanced by the French authorities. But, though nominally commander-in-chief, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... his gallantry in escorting the fair one home, resolving likewise to declare his passion in plain terms. Accordingly, having put on his hat and cloak, and stationed himself at the gate, he appeared as formidable as any doughty knight in the days of romance, ready to offer his protection to some forlorn damsel. No sooner, however, did the lady appear, than he became so confused as not to be able to answer her greeting. She was also confused ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 375, June 13, 1829 • Various
... which was the first of October, they consulted together as to their future plans, and the aids they should require in the formidable combat they were about to sustain. On the Saturday, they confessed and received the Holy Communion, without which, when it is possible to receive it, St. Cyprian would not suffer confessors to be exposed to martyrdom for the faith, because it is the Body and the Blood of Jesus Christ which gives ...
— The Life and Legends of Saint Francis of Assisi • Father Candide Chalippe
... every day, but to read about others; about the sword-fish, which has neither scales for its protection, nor teeth, but whose snout forms a bone, four or five feet long, set with sharp pointed teeth on each side—somewhat like a double-edged saw; this bone is a most formidable weapon when used against large fish, and is so strong that it has even pierced through the planks of a boat; about the tiny Sea-horse, with its head so curiously like that of a horse, and its wing-like fins; about the Whale, which is not really a fish at all (and why it is not will be ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... bright with the dust of car-wheels, and himself holding the car-wheel in his upraised arms, Abhimanyu looked exceedingly beautiful, and imitating Vasudeva (with his discus), became awfully fierce for a while in that battle. His robes dyed with the blood flowing (from his wounds), his brow formidable with the wrinkles visible thereon, himself uttering loud leonine roars, lord Abhimanyu of immeasurable might, staying in the midst of those kings, looked exceedingly resplendent on the field ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... the Sleeper and the Waker recalls the similar device practised by the Chief of the Assassins—that formidable, murderous association, the terror of the Crusades—on promising novices. Von Hammer, in his "History of the Assassins," end of Book iv., gives a graphic description of the charming gardens into which the novices were carried ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... is a great, perhaps an indispensable condition of autocracy, [Footnote: Fisher Ames, frightened by the democratic revolution of 1800, wrote to Rufus King in 1802: "We need, as all nations do, the compression on the outside of our circle of a formidable neighbor, whose presence shall at all times excite stronger fears than demagogues can inspire the people with towards their government." Cited by Ford, Rise and Growth of American Politics, p. 69.] security was ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... of my watch, Jack Johnson, was a trump, and a smart officer to boot. He was six years older than I, and, though thoroughly good-natured, was formidable enough from his strength and determination to have his will respected. He became my patron and protector. Rightly, or wrongly I am afraid, he always took my part, made excuses for me to the officer of our watch if I were caught napping under the half-deck, or otherwise ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... took shelter from the tempestuous barbarism in the midst of which they lived. But before any portion of the city, except that facing the river, could boast of a fortified enclosure, hostile enterprises were directed against it. Birman pirates, ascending the Meinam in formidable flotillas, harassed it. Thrice they ravaged the country around; but on the last of these occasions great numbers of them were captured and put to cruel death by P'hra Rama Suen, successor to Thibodi, who pursued the routed remnant to the very ...
— The English Governess At The Siamese Court • Anna Harriette Leonowens
... imagined are never feared, and my leading characteristic was the most sanguine hope. Were all the dangers of life to present themselves to the imagination in a body, drawn up in battle array, the prospect would indeed be dreadful; but coming individually they are less formidable, and successively as they occur are conquered. Foreboded, their aspect is terrific; but seen in retrospect, they frequently excite present satisfaction and future fortitude: and this is the way in which they have most frequently been ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... history of Camboja, if not altogether tranquil, at least records several long reigns of powerful kings who were able to embellish their capital and assure its security. The Chams were exposed to attacks not only from Annam but also from the more formidable if distant Chinese and their capital, instead of remaining stationary through several centuries like Angkor Thom, was frequently moved as one or other of the three provinces became ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... commotions of the earth. Comparatively with the descriptions I have read of earthquakes in South America, Calabria, and other countries, those which happen in Sumatra are generally very slight; and the usual manner of building renders them but little formidable to the natives. ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... allude to the tigers of a large size which abound here, and which, having cleared the jungles of wild-hog and jackalls, and nearly so of deer, have lately commenced preying on man, to whom they have become a most formidable and dreaded foe. Were I to set down the number of unfortunate individuals who have, since 1839, been killed by these lords of the forests, I should scarcely expect to be credited. Let any one look over the newspapers of the Island for the last five or six years, and they will ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... were to present himself as I have done; the purport of his coming friendly; the place and opportunity suiting, as at present; the time also considerately chosen—after dinner; and the spirit not more abrupt in his appearance nor more formidable in aspect than the ...
— Colloquies on Society • Robert Southey
... suit your self-complacency: she liked My head enough, but loved some heart beneath Some head with plenty of brown hair a-top After my young friend's fashion! What becomes Of that fine speech you made a minute since About the man of middle age you found A formidable peer at twenty-one? So much for your mock-modesty! and yet I back your first against this second sprout Of observation, insight, what you please. My middle age, Sir, had too much success! It's odd: my case occurred four years ago— I finished just while you commenced that turn I' the wood of life ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke
... her son, then crossed to the safe, larger and more formidable than the one above from which she had been removing her jewels, took out a document and returned to the two men. She had something of the ominous air of a tragedy queen who is ...
— No. 13 Washington Square • Leroy Scott
... anxious to open an account, but that he would probably have gone to the length of selling Eph a barrel of molasses "on tick" rather than run any risk of offending so formidable ...
— The Village Convict - First published in the "Century Magazine" • Heman White Chaplin
... river-side, prepared to do her best to execute the command. But the river-god inspired the reeds with harmonious murmurs, which seemed to say, "O maiden, severely tried, tempt not the dangerous flood, nor venture among the formidable rams on the other side, for as long as they are under the influence of the rising sun, they burn with a cruel rage to destroy mortals with their sharp horns or rude teeth. But when the noontide sun has driven ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... insurrection, which had caused the loss of so many lives in April 1816. Government infers, that they could, neither of them have been aware, that this ruffian was the original instigator and most active leader in that formidable insurrection; that it was chiefly, if not entirely, owing to his endeavours to inflame the popular phrenzy, and to collect partizans from the neighbouring towns, that the efforts of the local authorities, to quell or avert the rising storm, failed wholly of success; that he stood charged as a ...
— A Journey through the Kingdom of Oude, Volumes I & II • William Sleeman
... day's experience of the formidable guest whose anticipated visit had so sorely and so absurdly discomposed us all. I could hardly believe that I had actually wasted hours of precious time in worrying myself and everybody else in the house about the best means of laboriously entertaining a lively, high-spirited girl, who was ...
— The Queen of Hearts • Wilkie Collins
... devils perceived the manner of the Decider of life, they were all likewise so seized with consternation that they bustled with hand and feet; while with hearts also full of resentment: "You, sir," they replied, "were at one time such a terror, formidable as lightning; and are you not forsooth able to listen with equanimity to the two sounds of 'Pao-y?' our humble idea is that mortal as he is, and immortal as we are, it wouldn't be to our credit if ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... table while he gazed at the teams toiling amidst the grain. There was wealth enough yonder to release him from his torturing anxieties, and after all, he felt, something must turn up before the reckoning was due. It was not in his nature to face a crisis, and with him a trouble seemed less formidable if it could only be put off a little. Edmonds, who knew with what kind of man he had to deal, said nothing further, and quietly reached ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... were as exclusively native Chilenos, a mixture generally of Indian and Spaniard—a more detestable amalgamation the earth does not produce—if the devil was to cross the breed, it would rather improve it than otherwise. One of the most formidable, most blood-thirsty, and most successful of these pirates wound up his affairs not a great while before I arrived in the Pacific, Jack ...
— An Old Sailor's Yarns • Nathaniel Ames
... power that comes therefrom animating his deadness and strengthening his weakness, and himself an emblem and an embodiment of the redeeming love of Christ—and though he spoke no word he would be sure to preach Christ; and though he struck no blow he would be a formidable antagonist to the hosts of evil, and the icebergs of sin and godlessness would run down into water before his silent and omnipotent shining. ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... the great idea, the seven woke in riotous spirits next morning, which not even the near prospect of an interview with Mr. Runciman could daunt, although he was quite sufficiently formidable at close quarters to make ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... Czehryn, the capital and key of the Ukraine, and the repulse of the serasker Ibrahim before its walls in the following year, showed the necessity of vigorous measures: and, in 1678, the grand vizir in person appeared at the head of a formidable force in the Ukraine, bringing with him George Khmielnicki, son of the former ataman, who had long been confined as a state prisoner in the Seven Towers, but was now released to counteract, by his hereditary influence with the Cossacks, the adverse agency of Doroszenko. Czehryn, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... champions of religious liberty, and almost alone in condemning the punishment of death for heresy. Indeed, the whole future of the Roman church is said to have been changed by his death at the Castle of Gotlieb in 1417, and the supremacy of the Italian party assured by the decease of its most formidable opponent. The brass that marks his burial place in Constance cathedral is supposed to have been executed in England, and sent thence some time after his death. It is engraved in Kites' "Monumental Brasses ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... presented by the colonists, for the suppression of the Thirty-nine Articles and the admission of Dissenters, was in itself a formidable array of difficulty, notwithstanding the next uprising of Episcopalian remonstrance. A sea of troubles! But reason, the true pilot, never deserted Sir Howard. The greatness of the cause ...
— Lady Rosamond's Secret - A Romance of Fredericton • Rebecca Agatha Armour
... capture and kill the animals which form the food of this predatory shark. To remedy this, the fore part of the head and its cartilages are prolonged into a flattened plate, the length of which is nearly equal to one third of the whole body, its edges being armed with formidable teeth, that are never shed or renewed, but increase in size with the growth ...
— Sketches of the Natural History of Ceylon • J. Emerson Tennent
... had their effect on the villagers, for a man came from the gate to the strangers and asked their business. The Indian interpreter, who had been carefully schooled on his way up, and who, moreover, was proud of the trust reposed in him by the formidable white men, gave a dignified and courteous answer. The white men were, he explained, creatures of another world, a world that lay beneath the rising sun; the sun was their father, and his glory was in his children's faces. They held the thunder and lightning in the hollow of their ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... would be influential, be Olivier le Daim, the barber; if you would, under Mary de Medicis, be glorious, be Sillery, the Chancellor; if you would be a person of consideration, be La Hannon, the maid; if you would, under Louis XV., be illustrious, be Choiseul, the minister; if you would be formidable, be Lebel, the valet. Given, Louis XIV., Bontemps, who makes his bed, is more powerful than Louvois, who raises his armies, and Turenne, who gains his victories. From Richelieu, take Pere Joseph, and you have Richelieu nearly empty. There is the mystery the less. His Eminence ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... officers had roped off the end of the pier to prevent any one rushing in, and now there stood at the steps the formidable ambulance. ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis
... Ninon, "I have not enough power or authority to render my intentions formidable, and my long regrets will be excused, I hope, since, if madame left Versailles, she would cause the same grief there that she ...
— The Memoirs of Madame de Montespan, Complete • Madame La Marquise De Montespan
... the past tense in speaking of the practical men—for although they were very formidable thirty years ago, I am not sure that the pure species has not been extirpated. In fact, so far as mere argument goes, they have been subjected to such a feu d'enfer that it is a miracle if any have escaped. But I have remarked that your typical practical man ...
— Science & Education • Thomas H. Huxley
... been in question, Murray would have given the cold shoulder to Aston; but as Violet tolerated Aston, he perforce must put up with him. Aston, on his part, admired and feared Murray, whom he regarded as a formidable rival. ...
— Up in Ardmuirland • Michael Barrett
... sometimes[1009]: his mind is as exalted as his stature[1010]. I am half afraid of him; but he is no less amiable than formidable. He will, if the forwardness of his spring be not blasted, be a credit to you, and to the University. He brings some of my plays[1011] with him, which he has my permission to shew you, on condition you will hide them from every ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... seemed a formidable amount of work for one head and one pair of eyes to do; and when Jane was told that the salary was 30 pounds a-year, and that so many applications had been and were likely to be sent in, that great interest was necessary for success, she was by no means ...
— Mr. Hogarth's Will • Catherine Helen Spence
... has of obtaining water during the dry season is to dig with his tusks into the bed of the river, till he finds the water, which he draws up with his trunk. Moreover, he has to defend himself against the rhinoceros, which is a formidable antagonist, and often victorious. He requires tusks also for his food in this country, for the elephant digs up the mimosa here with his tusks, that he may feed upon the succulent roots of the tree. Indeed, an elephant in Africa without his tusks ...
— The Mission • Frederick Marryat
... his hand in parting salute, all of us saw suspended from his right wrist a most formidable weapon, apparently of his own construction. It was a pick handle with a heavy iron knob on one end and the same end cushioned with a mass of barbed wire rolled up like a ball of yarn. He smiled ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... that came at this time were more formidable. They seemed always just about to break and roll over the little boat in a turmoil of foam. There was a preparatory and long growl in the speech of them. No mind unused to the sea would have concluded that the dingey ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... nation of antiquity. In conformity to this plan, we shall briefly notice their first establishment in Spain, as it was from the mines of this country that they drew great wealth, and thus were enabled, not only to equip formidable fleets and armies, but also to extend ...
— Robert Kerr's General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 18 • William Stevenson
... chaste and formidable archangel Amor, is the true subject of these poets' adoration; the woman into whom he descends by a mystic miracle of beauty and of virtue becomes henceforward invested with somewhat of his awful radiance. She is a gentle, gracious lady; a lovable and loving ...
— Euphorion - Being Studies of the Antique and the Mediaeval in the - Renaissance - Vol. II • Vernon Lee
... herself, and then in Helen, in Ridley, in St. John, they all had their share of it—and she would find it in ten people out of every twelve she met; and once linked together by one such tie she would find them not separate and formidable, but practically indistinguishable, and she would come to love them when she found that ...
— The Voyage Out • Virginia Woolf
... a victory by springing some disgraceful and rascally mine under the feet of the adversary at the eleventh hour; would it not be wholesome to vary this thing for once and spring as formidable a mine of a better sort under ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... one's days. The reticence which the members of the Clubs feel in regard to them—a reticence found highly amusing by outsiders—extends to the Woodbridge community, and there is, accordingly, a somewhat formidable atmosphere about them which is vaguely felt by all. But here we must let the affair rest. They are not to play any other part in our story than to shed their benign influence over the hero, and we may dismiss them except for an occasional inevitable ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... connection with his parents, and his brothers and sisters; but, as it is our aim to conceal nothing which ought to be revealed, we must add there was still another who filled his thoughts more than all the rest united. This person was Bridget Yardley, the only child of his father's most formidable professional competitor. ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... we have offered us a more formidable candidate for public favor than our old friends, the attenuated Monthlies. "The Undergraduate" has almost the dimensions of the "North American Review," and, like that, promises to visit us quarterly. It is the first fruit of a spirited and apparently well-matured plan set on foot by students ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... when Sophie Polopinsk, a little girl but a short time from Russia, wheeled up the truck, climbed with great difficulty upon it and promptly lost herself in a volume of Tolstoi's "Resurrection," a volume almost as large as the small person herself, and formidable with its Russian characters. In telling you of Sol Flotkin I may be giving you the history of a dozen or so small Russian Jews who have come to Crunden. At the age of ten, Sol had read all of Gorki, Tolstoi, Turgenev ...
— Library Work with Children • Alice I. Hazeltine
... war, and that this ought to open her eyes as to the expediency of peace. While there was a general satisfaction in Europe that the steady exhaustion of her strength in this eternal contest made her daily less and less formidable to other nations, there were on the other hand puerile complaints at court that the conditions prescribed by impious and insolent rebels to their sovereign were derogatory to the dignity of monarchy. The spectacle of Spain sending ambassadors to the Hague to treat for peace, on the basis ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... drank, and what their trade was; whether they did their washing at home, and burned tallow or wax, and mixed chicory with their coffee, and were over-fond of Gruyere cheese—the biggest, cheapest, plainest, and most formidable cheese in the world; whether they fried with oil or butter, and liked their omelets overdone and garlic in their salad, and sipped black-currant brandy or anisette as a liqueur; and were overrun with mice, and used ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... their confused way of thinking, that they are not acquainted with the most common and ordinary Systems of Arts and Sciences. A few general Rules extracted out of the French Authors, [2] with a certain Cant of Words, has sometimes set up an Illiterate heavy Writer for a most judicious and formidable Critick. ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... late. Over her head he saw Tipping enter the room, and stand glaring at them menacingly. Dulcie saw him too, and sprang away to the window, where she tried to dry her eyes unperceived, and then ran past him with a hurried good morning, and escaped, leaving Paul alone with the formidable Tipping. ...
— Vice Versa - or A Lesson to Fathers • F. Anstey
... tho' the General was not fortunate enough to overtake them, yet he drove them towards Slane, where they were attacked by General Meyrick, and in several subsequent days were met by different military bodies who successively routed them, so that at length this formidable body ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... a game of billiards, and refuse a cigar, a very formidable cigar, very black and very thick and very long. I don't smoke, and am no hand at a cue. Besides, I want to talk about Etoiles Mortes, about Les Trepassees de Francois Villon, about Dejanire ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... We find, consequently, that though before Bolinbroke's departure from England Richard had remitted four years of his banishment, as a sort of peace-offering perhaps to John of Gaunt, no sooner was that formidable person dead, than Richard, throwing off all semblance of moderation, exiled Bolinbroke for life, and ...
— Henry of Monmouth, Volume 1 - Memoirs of Henry the Fifth • J. Endell Tyler
... acquaint the reader with the movements of Mr Vanslyperken, we must again revert to the history of the period in which we are writing. The Jacobite faction had assumed a formidable consistency, and every exertion was being made by them for an invasion of England. They knew that their friends were numerous, and that many who held office under the ruling government were attached to their cause, and only required such a demonstration ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... it is very interesting to place beside Burchell's statement the following passage from a letter written by Darwin, Aug. 7, 1868, to G.H. Lewes; "That Natural Selection would tend to produce the most formidable thorns will be admitted by every one who has observed the distribution in South America and Africa (vide Livingstone) of thorn-bearing plants, for they always appear where the bushes grow isolated and are exposed to the attacks of mammals. Even in England ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others
... face being distinguished; but when the man reached the staircase, a ray of light from without made it stand out like a silhouette, and Jean Valjean had a complete view of his back. The man was of lofty stature, clad in a long frock-coat, with a cudgel under his arm. The formidable neck ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... Carignan took precedence of all manner of Louvois of whatever generation, and that he would not stir. His companions had applauded his spirit, and both parties having found allies among the other retainers of the nobles on the ground, the battle had become general, and the number of fists engaged was formidable. ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... arrival, when we finally secured time to look about us, we were struck with the appearance of the really formidable fleet of warships collected under Admiral Sampson's flag. For size of individual ships and weight of armor and armament, there had never been anything in the history of the United States to ...
— A Gunner Aboard the "Yankee" • Russell Doubleday
... high noon above the Orient, where the Peiho flows beside the populous town of Yang-Tsun. The Boxer army routed by the battle of Peit-Tsang had massed its front before the town, a formidable array in numbers, equipment, and frenzied eagerness to halt here and forever the poor little line of foreign soldiers creeping in upon it from the sea. The Boxers knew that they could match the fighting strength of this line with quadruple force. The troops ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter
... he take that?" said Trent, smiling secretly at the landscape. The picture of this mildest of men calling the formidable Manderson to ...
— The Woman in Black • Edmund Clerihew Bentley
... somewhat eccentric advance, retreat, and quick dash maneuver for three successive days, dodging the formidable car of the magnate, and hoping that Honey might not be at her customary place at the front window to watch him off to his train. At first, he was amused. It was a joke on himself, he thought. But repetition presently dulled the edge of comedy. On the fourth occasion ...
— Skinner's Dress Suit • Henry Irving Dodge
... broke gently in his face. "I saw she was quite capable of it," he went on, "and I stopped. It was the first time I had seemed formidable to a woman, and I raised my hand to my head—my hat was gone—to smooth my ruffled hair; then my glance fell from my shirt sleeves, soiled and in tatters, down over my torn trousers to my shoeless ...
— The Rim of the Desert • Ada Woodruff Anderson
... danger hung like a black cloud over the capital founded by Alexander, whose growth had been so rapid. True, General Satvrus asserted that he was strong enough, with the troops at his disposal, to defeat the formidable hordes; but a second dove, sent by the epitropus who had remained in Alexandria, alluded to serious disaster which it would scarcely be possible ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of Europe and Asia, now a most thoroughly naturalized American from Newfoundland to Georgia, westward to Nebraska. Its violet flower-heads, about an inch and a half across, and as high as wide, are mostly solitary at the ends of formidable branches, up which few crawling creatures venture. But in the deep tube of each floret there is nectar secreted for the flying visitor who can properly transfer pollen from flower to flower. Such a ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... intelligent lot of youngsters, he told himself, and the prospect of having two of them for guests did not look so formidable after all. ...
— The Tangled Threads • Eleanor H. Porter
... Reviewer entrenches himself within formidable-looking psychological outworks, and there is no getting at him without attacking ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... expressing contempt. He never rises so high, as in the act of trampling. He is a "good hater," and expresses his hatred with a mixture of animus and ease, of fierceness and of trenchant rapidity, which makes it very formidable. He only, as it were, waves off his adversaries disdainfully, but the very wave of his hand cuts like a sabre. His satire is not savage and furious, like Juvenal's; not cool, collected, and infernal, like ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... of forming the most dangerous of these intermediate agents; but in my opinion, without justice. The most formidable, to my thinking, is the conductor of the orchestra. A bad singer can spoil only his own part; while an incapable or malevolent conductor ruins all. Happy indeed may the composer esteem himself when the conductor into whose hands ...
— The Orchestral Conductor - Theory of His Art • Hector Berlioz
... affectionate good-bye, and she pressed him to her breast again and again, the tears filling her eyes, and a sad misgiving chilling her heart. The reports at the time were that the Indians to the southwest were unusually quiet, no word having yet reached the capital of New Mexico of the formidable raids that were being organized in the Apache country. Besides this, the stage, which was properly an ambulance, drawn by a single powerful horse, was escorted by twelve Indian fighters armed to ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... Government. But the situation invited, urged, induced men, to persist. They clearly saw, as their co-operating friends in the North had seen long before, that a compact vote of all the Southern States could be used as the sure foundation of a formidable, and, as they hoped, irresistible political power. It was this hope which nerved their arms for every encounter: it was this prospect of domination that steadily encouraged them to continue a battle which ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... broader than ever. His shoulders were about to swell through his faded blue coat, and the hand resting easily on the rein had the grip and power of a bear's paw. His rugged face had been tanned by the sun of the far south to the color of an Indian's. He was formidable to a foe, and yet no gentler heart beat than that under his old blue uniform. Secretly he regarded the young lieutenants, his superiors in military rank and education, as brave children, and often he cared for them where his knowledge and skill were greater than theirs ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... but for the formidable adjective Susannah might have originated, and indeed expressed some idea of her own; but to confront a position described by her sister as "embarrassing" was quite beyond her powers, and she could only repeat feebly, "I'll give her half my money—I'll give her half my money. We can't ...
— M. or N. "Similia similibus curantur." • G.J. Whyte-Melville
... subject, I began to see as it were with new eyes; I was enabled to make several necessary discriminations, to reconcile things before seemingly contradictory, and to answer many objections which had hitherto put on a formidable shape. But most of all was I rejoiced at the thought that I should soon be able to prove that which I had never doubted, but which had hitherto been beyond my power in this case, that Providence, in ordaining laws relative to the agency of man, had never made that to be wise which was immoral, ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... sentinel when I glanced out of my window. He is a harmless enough fellow, Parker by name, a garroter by trade, and a remarkable performer upon the Jew's harp. I cared nothing for him. But I cared a great deal for the much more formidable person who was behind him, the bosom friend of Moriarty, the man who dropped the rocks over the cliff, the most cunning and dangerous criminal in London. That is the man who is after me to-night, Watson, and that is the man who is quite unaware that ...
— The Return of Sherlock Holmes - Magazine Edition • Arthur Conan Doyle
... first place, it must be said that Monseigneur the Duke of Burgundy had by nature a most formidable disposition. He was passionate to the extent of wishing to dash to pieces his clocks when they struck the hour which called him to what he did not like, and of flying into the utmost rage against the rain if it interfered ...
— Classic French Course in English • William Cleaver Wilkinson
... now, as the sailors forced their way on, they found plenty of antagonists. Most of them seemed to be armed with stout clubs like capstan-bars, with which they struck blow after blow of the most formidable character from where they kept guard at various turns of the narrow passage, while the sailors could not reach them ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn
... epic on mythology, Wesley remarks, "But this [mythology] being now antiquated, I cannot think we are oblig'd superstitiously to follow his Example, any more than to make Horses speak, as he does that of Achilles." To the question of the formidable Boileau, "What Pleasure can it be to hear the howlings of repining Lucifer?" our critic responds flippantly, "I think 'tis easier to answer than to find out what shew of Reason he had for asking it, or why Lucifer ...
— Epistle to a Friend Concerning Poetry (1700) and the Essay on Heroic Poetry (second edition, 1697) • Samuel Wesley
... with the funereal song of the screech-owl, and the lugubrious melodies which the current from the blast without caused in the large open chimneys,—was the concert, which from December to April lulled the inmates of St. Hibaut to sleep; music that would I doubt not have reduced even the formidable proportions of the inimitable Lablache, and made Mario sing out ...
— Le Morvan, [A District of France,] Its Wild Sports, Vineyards and Forests; with Legends, Antiquities, Rural and Local Sketches • Henri de Crignelle
... market and buy our wild flowers would never see any if they could not buy them in the city. Imagine, if you can, yourself living in a big city, far away from Crow Hill, where the Mayflowers grow—Philadelphia or New York, or some such formidable-sounding place. The city might engross your attention so you'd be happy for months. But along comes spring with its call to the woods and meadows. Still the city and its demands grip you like a vise, and you can't run away to where the wild green things are pushing to the light. Suppose ...
— Amanda - A Daughter of the Mennonites • Anna Balmer Myers
... designation below his rank asked to be relieved from the service, and his corps was assigned to General Rufus King, and soon after to General Sigel. General Pope took the field on the 14th of July with a formidable force. General McClellan was still within twenty-five miles of Richmond, and with Pope in front of Washington, the Confederate authorities were at a standstill and could not tell which way to advance with hope of success ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Vol. 1 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... Ivo threw out a screen of archers and horsemen to harass the powers of Mortain what time he formed his battle in three great companies, a deep and formidable array of knights and men-at-arms whose tall lances rose, a very forest, with pennons and banderols a-flutter in the gentle wind of morning. Far on the left showed the banner of his marshal Sir Bors; above his right battle flew the Raven banner of Sir Pertolepe ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... presence as insulting. The crown officials and Loyalist leaders, however, exulted in this show of force, and ascribed to it a conservative influence and a benumbing effect. "Our harbor is full of ships, and our town full of troops," Hutchinson said. "The red-coats make a formidable appearance, and there is a profound silence among the Sons of Liberty." The Sons chose to labor and to wait; and the troops could not ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... sit and grumble over our formidable fetiches. Like all idolaters, we sometimes turn iconoclasts. In a short-lived fit of anger we smash the Machine. Having accomplished this feat, we feel a little foolish, for we don't ...
— By the Christmas Fire • Samuel McChord Crothers
... enthusiasm carries him away; and here he is, troubling himself about the discussions in court, neither less nor more than Crochard, surnamed Bagnolet. He thinks only of the honor he will reap for having handed over to the jury such a formidable rascal as"— ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... a formidable rival in the species stenophylla. The flavor of this variety is pronounced by some as surpassing that of arabica. The great disadvantage of this plant is the fact that it requires so long a time before a yield of any value can be secured. Although the time required for the maturing ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... Pleasant's hair in tumbling down. It tumbled down accordingly, and she twisted it up, looking from under her bent forehead at the man. In taking stock of his familiarly worn rough-weather nautical clothes, piece by piece, she took stock of a formidable knife in a sheath at his waist ready to his hand, and of a whistle hanging round his neck, and of a short jagged knotted club with a loaded head that peeped out of a pocket of his loose outer jacket or frock. He ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... considered. It will occasionally happen, indeed, that two ships draw so near in a calm as to incur some risk of falling on board one another. I need scarcely mention, that, even in the smoothest water ever found in the open sea, two large ships coming into actual contact must prove a formidable encounter. As long as they are apart their gentle and rather graceful movements are fit subjects of admiration; and I have often seen people gazing, for an hour at a time, at the ships of a becalmed fleet, slowly twisting round, changing their position, and rolling from side to side, as ...
— The Lieutenant and Commander - Being Autobigraphical Sketches of His Own Career, from - Fragments of Voyages and Travels • Basil Hall
... I possessed the conrage to resolve against the repetition of my error. Could I have declared this resolution to myself, to forego the miserable proceeding which I had that night begun, I feel that I should then have taken one large step toward my own deliverance from that formidable fiend which was then raging unmastered in my soul. But I lacked the courage for this. Fatal deficiency! I felt impressed with the necessity of keeping a strict watch upon Edgerton. I had seen, with eyes that could not be deceived, the feeling which had been expressed ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... had this tenacity of purpose in a wonderful degree. When he started in the printing business in Philadelphia, he carried his material through the streets on a wheelbarrow. He hired one room for his office, work-room, and sleeping-room. He found a formidable rival in the city and invited him to his room. Pointing to a piece of bread from which he had just eaten his dinner, he said: "Unless you can live cheaper than I can you can not ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... father in the spacious house in Queen Anne Street, where, as soon as he threw open the door, he caught sight of the lightly built but vigorous and active-looking officer in scarlet, seated at the window overlooking the Park, deep in a formidable-looking letter. ...
— In Honour's Cause - A Tale of the Days of George the First • George Manville Fenn
... front of the only cottage visible to my eye. A tall elderly negro man came out, and took his seat on a mound of turf a few feet from the cottage; he was followed by a lad, about twenty years of age, who bore in his hand a formidable cowskin. For the information of my readers, I must observe that a cowskin is a large whip, made like a riding whip, out of the hide of the hippopotamus, or sea-cow, and is proverbial for the severity of punishment it is capable of inflicting. ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was hedged about with restraints which fretted Tallente and rendered conversation monosyllabic. It was served, too, in the larger dining room, where the table, reduced to its smallest dimensions, still seemed to place a formidable distance between himself and his hostess. A manservant stood behind Lady Jane's chair, and the butler was in constant attendance at the sideboard. Under such circumstances, conversation became precarious and was confined chiefly to local topics. When ...
— Nobody's Man • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... enchantment. Later on it learnt that that strength was the strength of Antaeus, of a peasantry that stood firmly rooted in their native soil. Organization and good leadership alone were needed to transform these ardent masses into the most formidable soldiery; and the brilliant military prospects now opened up certainly knit Buonaparte's feelings more closely with the cause of France. Thus, on September 21st, when the new National Assembly, known as the Convention, proclaimed the Republic, we may well believe that sincere convictions ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... she perceived two strangers in the room, a gentleman in moustaches, who shook hands with Owen, and a lady, whom from her greeting to Miss Charlecote (for introductions were not the way of the house) she concluded to be the formidable Rashe, and ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... of a formidable personage. He was a tall, heavy, dark young man, with immense sloping shoulders, a black moustache, and incandescent eyes, which he used as though he were somewhat suspicious of the world in general. ...
— Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.) • Arnold Bennett
... with one most formidable preliminary. You saw an article the other day in one of the journals, perhaps, in which some old Doctor or other said quietly that patients were very apt to be fools and cowards. But a great many ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the impact of mere common sense that the current system crumbles. It is simply unanswerable common sense which will infuriate those who do not like the book. When common sense rises to the lyric, as it does in the latter half of the tale, you have something formidable. Here Wells has united the daily verifiable actualism of novels like "Love and Mr. Lewisham" and "Kipps," with the large manner of the paramount synthetic scenes in (what general usage compels me to term) his "scientific romances." In the scientific ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... subsisted for more than a week. I once put a wasp into the net; but when the spider came out in order to seize it, as usual, upon perceiving what kind of an enemy it had to deal with, it instantly broke all the bands that held it fast, and contributed all that lay in its power to disengage so formidable an antagonist. When the wasp was set at liberty, I expected the spider would have set about repairing the breaches that were made in its net; but those, it seems, were irreparable; wherefore the cobweb was now entirely forsaken, and a new ...
— Oliver Goldsmith • Washington Irving
... eighty-nine thousand men, of whom fifty-seven thousand were intended for colonial garrisons and for the prosecution of the war in America. These numbers were in fact never reached, but the army of forty thousand in America was formidable compared with Washington's forces. The British were not hampered by the practice of enlisting men for only a few months, which marred so much of Washington's effort. Above all they had money and adequate resources. In a word they had ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong |
