"Fortress" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... report of this event while he was yet on his way. He hastily turned back, and fortunately escaped destruction. Immediately after Egmont's seizure a writing was extorted from him, addressed to the commandant of the citadel of Ghent, ordering that officer to deliver the fortress to the Spanish Colonel Alphonso d'Ulloa. Upon this the two counts were then (after they had been for some weeks confined in Brussels) conveyed under a guard of three thousand Spaniards to Ghent, where they remained ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... you so highly prize. But as it is easy to foresee that from different causes and from different quarters much pains will be taken, many artifices employed, to weaken in your minds the conviction of this truth, as this is the point in your political fortress against which the batteries of internal and external enemies will be most constantly and actively (though often covertly and insidiously) directed, it is of infinite moment that you should properly estimate the immense value of your national union ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 4) of Volume 1: George Washington • James D. Richardson
... The fortress at Urbino. [Footnote: 1049. In the original the text is written inside the sketch in the place here marked ...
— The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, Complete • Leonardo Da Vinci
... expecting to hear the tramp of the Indians behind them, but, as it continued quiet, Mickey ventured upon a more critical inspection of their fortress, as it may be termed. He found little which has not already been mentioned, except the fact that the wall on their left sloped inward, as it ascended, to such a degree that the width at the top was several feet less than at ...
— The Cave in the Mountain • Lieut. R. H. Jayne
... and Dutch legations were then and subsequently burned. With the aid of the native converts, directed by the missionaries, to whose helpful co-operation Mr. Conger awards unstinted praise, the British legation was made a veritable fortress. The British minister, Sir Claude MacDonald, was chosen general commander of the defense, with the secretary of the American legation, Mr. E. G. Squiers, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... away, almost fainting, and placed her in one of the carriages always standing in the courtyard of the Palais Royal. During the route Bathilde did not speak; she was cold, dumb, and inanimate as a statue. Her eyes were fixed and tearless, but on arriving at the fortress she started. She fancied she had seen in the shade, in the very place where the Chevalier de Rohan was executed, something like a scaffold. A little further a sentinel cried "Qui vive!" the carriage rolled over a drawbridge, ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... may be had than to wake up in the harbour of Aden some fine morning—it is always fine there—and get the first impression of that mighty fortress, with its thousand iron eyes, in strong repose by the Arabian Sea. Overhead was the cloudless sun, and everywhere the tremulous glare of a sandy shore and the creamy wash of the sea, like fusing opals. A tiny Mohammedan ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hard ultimatum, she established the blockade which women declare by frigid glances, disdainful gestures, and a certain fortress-like demeanor, if we may so call it. She thought herself delivered from Calyste, supposing that he would never dare to break openly with the Grandlieus. To desert Sabine, to whom Mademoiselle des Touches had left her fortune, would ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... keeper of their love and trust. Now limb doth mingle with dissolved limb In nature's busy old democracy To flush the mountain laurel when she blows Sweet by the Southern sea, And heart with crumbled heart climbs in the rose: — The untaught hearts with the high heart that knew This mountain fortress for no earthly hold Of temporal quarrel, but the bastion old Of spiritual wrong, Built by an unjust nation sheer and strong, Expugnable but by a nation's rue And bowing down before that equal shrine By all men held divine, Whereof his band and he ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... position of Fort Sumter. Thereafter a precarious relationship betwixt peace and war had subsisted between him and the South Carolinians. It was distinctly understood that, sooner or later, by negotiation or by force, South Carolina intended to possess herself of this fortress. From her point of view it certainly was preposterous and unendurable that the key to her chief harbor and city should be permanently held by a "foreign" power. Gradually she erected batteries on the neighboring mainland, and kept a close surveillance ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... hillside below him. The Indian fires were waning again and the gleams of light on rock and tree were growing fainter and fainter. The sounds of savage revelry, too, were more subdued, though a hoarse, monotonous chant came up from below. As has been said, Pike's watch-tower and fortress was fully a quarter of a mile south of the road and about a third of a mile from the abandoned camp, but in the absolute silence that reigned in every other quarter the sounds from the Apache war-dance in that clear mountain air were almost ...
— Sunset Pass - or Running the Gauntlet Through Apache Land • Charles King
... system, that had been the living fortress of the scientific civilisation, reeled and fell upon the millions it had held together in economic relationship, as these people, perplexed and helpless, faced this marvel of credit utterly destroyed, the airships of Asia, countless ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... also a choice amusement, as it offered an inaccessible station for the boys who used these missiles to the annoyance of the passengers. The gateway is now demolished; and probably most of its garrison lie as low as the fortress. To recollect that the author himself, however naturally disqualified, was one of those juvenile dreadnoughts, is a sad reflection to one who cannot now step ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... stone, over which they had to climb; rifts that they had to leap, and various natural ruggednesses of this kind, to seem in opposition to the theory that the zigzag way was the work of hands, while at every halting-place the same thought was exchanged by Bart and the Doctor—"What a fortress! We might defend it ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... been advanced regarding the Dhlodhlo building. One regards them as a fortress. The objection to this is that the terraced and ornamented wall is so far from contributing to defence that it actually facilitates attack; for, by the help of the terraces and of the interstices among the stones which the ornamental pattern supplies, ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... money for his own use, or whether he shall take it for the Company's use. But it may be said of man as it is said of woman: the woman who deliberates is lost: the man that deliberates about receiving bribes is gone. The moment he deliberates, that moment his reason, the fortress, is lost, the walls shake, down it comes,—and at the same moment enters Nobkissin into the citadel of his honor and integrity, with colors flying, with drums beating, and Mr. Hastings's garrison ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... obtain the Welsh name of Din or Dun Monaidh, from its being "the fortress of the hill," and was its other Cymric appellation Agnedh, connected with its ever having been given as a marriage-portion (Agwedh)? Or did its old name of Maiden Castle, or Castrum Puellarum, not rather ...
— Archaeological Essays, Vol. 1 • James Y. Simpson
... appeared quite innocent, and they could not find anything whereupon to ground a condemnation, yet they made the king believe he was a dangerous man in the article of religion. He was then shut up in a certain fortress of the Bastile for life; but as his enemies heard that the captain in that fortress esteemed him, and treated him kindly, they had him removed into a much worse place. God, who beholds everything, will reward every man according ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... wall, guarded by heavy iron bars and massive wooden shutters. The interior of the square formed a large court-yard, entrance to which was gained by two archways, one at each extremity. These were closed by great jail-like doors—in fact, the whole structure had some resemblance to a fortress, a style of architecture peculiar to this region, and rendered necessary for security against the annual raids ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... ancient industries established there; Esdud, the ancient Ashdod, where later a station on the military railway was built; Gath, where the Turks made a most desperate attempt to delay our advance; Akron, the once great frontier fortress of the Philistines; these were among the chief. In addition there were modern Jewish colonies, depleted of their male inhabitants but otherwise untouched, where a kind of coarse red wine was obtained which helped greatly to ward off ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... led us through a perfect wood of olive-trees, thickly planted and loaded with fruit. The hills are often variegated with the cypress, &c., and near to the sea are beautifully romantic. We dined at the fortress of Paleocastazza, on the top of a high hill, on provisions we took with us,—the air good, and the prospect delightful. This place was formerly a convent; the church still remains in use, and we visited two of the old Greek priests. One of them is ninety-five years old; he was ...
— Memoir and Diary of John Yeardley, Minister of the Gospel • John Yeardley
... forgotten more slowly than an insult, and nothing more quickly than a benefaction." It is Fichte who first said: "Education is based on the self-activity of the mind." Napoleon coins the good metaphor: "A mind without memory is a fortress without garrison." Buffon said what professional psychologists have repeated after him: "Genius is nothing but an especial talent for patience." Schumann claims: "The talent works, the genius creates." ...
— Psychology and Social Sanity • Hugo Muensterberg
... being, it is stated, to obtain a steep angle of descent for the shells at comparatively short ranges, in combination with a high remaining velocity so as to ensure the penetration of overhead cover. These howitzers are also employed in siege and fortress defence warfare. They have been used along the Aisne positions as auxiliaries to the ...
— The Illustrated War News, Number 15, Nov. 18, 1914 • Various
... feet. With the exception of the tower, the building was very irregular, and gave the impression of having been erected at different periods. It combined the characteristics of a feudal castle and a fortress. It was old and gray, but by no means a ruin, yet it had a gloomy and forbidding appearance. The ladies looked at each other and hesitated, they did not speak for a few moments; the same idea possessed the mind of each. They thought that good people would not live in such a place, amid such ...
— Peak's Island - A Romance of Buccaneer Days • Ford Paul
... playing a game of chess. It was in this war, too, that the Mikado's soldiers strung the costliest of all telephone lines, at 203 Metre Hill. When the wire had been basted up this hill to the summit, the fortress of Port Arthur lay at their mercy. But the climb had cost ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... meritorious officers which it forms and introduces to the public service furnishes the means of multiplying the undertakings of the public improvements to which their acquirements at that institution are peculiarly adapted. The school of artillery practice established at Fortress Monroe Hampton, Virginia is well suited to the same purpose, and may need the aid of further legislative provision to the same end. The reports of the various officers at the head of the administrative branches of the military service, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... officer equal to the task. Frontenac had the signal honor of being chosen by the first soldier of Europe for this most arduous and difficult position. He went accordingly. The result increased his reputation for ability and courage; but Candia was doomed, and its chief fortress fell into the hands of the infidels, after a protracted struggle, which is said to have cost them a hundred and eighty thousand men. [Footnote: Oraison funebre du Comte de Frontenac, par le Pere Olivier Goyer. A powerful French contingent, under another ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... light among the beams are excellently felt and rendered."[87] Simon Renard and Winwike on the Roof of the White Tower ["Tower of London"] is another admirable drawing. The scene is laid on the platform of one of the antique guns which frown from the embrasures of the river face of the fortress. The head of Renard is not well drawn. The character of the ambassador gives one the idea of a Spanish Iago, a clever, calculating knave, whom we should credit with the possession of a broad and ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... the Albanian tribes of the mountains—who had also their own Bishops —were but insubordinate tribes against whom they sent punitive expeditions when taxes were in arrears and raids became intolerable. The Montenegrins descended from their natural fortress and plundered the fat flocks of the plain lands. They existed mainly by brigandage as their sheep-stealing ballads tell, and the history of raid and punitive expedition is much like that ...
— Twenty Years Of Balkan Tangle • Durham M. Edith
... stars that hang so low in the black desert sky should have been brilliant. They were lost now in the white glare that streamed upward. The crater was a fortress. Around the circle of the entire rim, on the inner side of the rough crags, men of the 49th Field Artillery stood by their guns. Lookouts trailed their telephone wire to the higher peaks, where they perched as shapeless ...
— Two Thousand Miles Below • Charles Willard Diffin
... connected with its early history. Thus a row of houses, which a few years ago bore the not very euphonious name of Castle Ditch, from its having followed a portion of the line of the moat by which the fortress which once stood near it was surrounded, was changed into St George's Crescent, and many others underwent similar transmutations. But if the physical aspect of the place holds out few or no attractions to the antiquary, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 441 - Volume 17, New Series, June 12, 1852 • Various
... of the King. It lies near the southeastern point of the island, where an opening in the ironbound coast, at once easily accessible and easily defended, gives entrance to a deep and sheltered basin, where a fleet of war-ships may find good anchorage. The proposed fortress was to be placed on the tongue of land that lies between this basin and the sea. The place, well chosen from the point of view of the soldier or the fisherman, was unfit for an agricultural colony, its surroundings being barren hills studded with spruce and fir, and broad marshes ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... Reschia, Lieutenant Reschia. He was on General Radetsky's staff when I knew him first—an empty-headed fellow rather; but a man's glad to meet anybody in a place like Itzia; and when he asked me to dine with him at the fortress, I was jolly glad to go. 'We've got an old file here,' he told me, 'the Italians would give anything to get hold of if they only knew where he was. I believe they'd tear the place down with their nails to get at him.' It was after dinner, ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... community, I spent the first hour in their quarter, a block of substantial buildings each in its own compound, near the Temple. I saw the house from which two of our dearest children came, delivered by a miracle; it looked like a fortress with its wall all round, and upstairs balcony barred by a trellis. The street door was locked as the women were at the Festival. In another of less dignified appearance I saw a pretty woman of about twenty, dressed in pale blue and gold, ...
— Lotus Buds • Amy Carmichael
... 1877 members of the Land and Liberty Society s imprisoned for peaceful and educational propaganda, in the Schlusselburg Fortress for political prisoners, hunger struck against inhuman prison conditions and frightful brutalities ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... fragile like a jar, and making his thought firm like a fortress, one should attack Mara, the tempter, with the weapon of knowledge, one should watch him when conquered, and ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... the ire of a noble-minded Polish army officer, Valerian Lukasinski, a radical in politics, who subsequently landed in the dungeon of the Schlueselburg fortress. [1] In his "Reflections of an Army Officer Concerning the Need of Organizing the Jews," published in 1818, Lukasinski advances the thought that the oppression and disfranchisement of the Jews are alone responsible for their demoralized condition. ...
— History of the Jews in Russia and Poland. Volume II • S.M. Dubnow
... by the glaring reflection of the sea of fire, while the broad Danube madly stretched forth its blood-red tongue to the blood-red walls of the city. The clashing of weapons and rolling of drums resounded through the streets. Every house became in its turn a fortress, every window a porthole. During these days of horror there assembled in the evening at the dwelling of Friedrich Bodenstedt a circle of friends, who sought in conversation on literary topics some relief after the agitating ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... ubiquity, contrasted with its local presence; its aerial substance, yet clothed in palpable armor; the heart-shaking solemnity of its language, and the appropriate scenery of its haunt, viz., the ramparts of a capital fortress, with no witnesses but a few gentlemen mounting guard at the dead of night,—what a mist, what a mirage of vapor, is here accumulated, through which the dreadful being in the centre looms upon us in far larger proportions, than could ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... with Lola and Madame both smartly dressed, I went to the huge, old fifteenth-century palace, grim and prison-like because of its heavily barred windows of the days when every palazzo was a fortress, and within found it the acme of luxury and refinement, its great salons filled with priceless pictures and ancient statuary, and magnificent ...
— The Golden Face - A Great 'Crook' Romance • William Le Queux
... Governor of this fortress of Asan," he began coldly, "and have just been informed of your presence here. You would have been brought before me on your arrival, but it chanced to be the hour of my afternoon rest. Who and ...
— A Chinese Command - A Story of Adventure in Eastern Seas • Harry Collingwood
... autumnal night in his carriage, and advised with his generals about the battle. The morning dawned, and a thick fog covered the entire plain; the troops were drawn up in battle-array, and the Swedes sang, accompanied with trumpets and drums, Luther's hymn, Ein feste Burg ist unser Gott ('A mighty fortress is our God'), together with the hymn composed by the king himself, Verzage nicht, du Haeuflein klein ('Fear not the foe, thou little flock'). Just after eleven o'clock, when the sun was emerging from behind the clouds, and after a short prayer, the ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... of sulking before Master Lewie's pride could be sufficiently humbled to admit of his asking in a civil tone for the book; but hunger, which has reduced the defenders of many a strong fortress, at last brought even this obstinate young gentleman to terms. The book was handed him, on being properly asked for, and in a very few minutes the lesson was learned, and recited without a mistake. Lewie evidently expected a vast amount of commendation from his teacher, but he received nothing ...
— Lewie - Or, The Bended Twig • Cousin Cicely
... Sevier, and their little band of forty-two men were engaged in repelling an attack, begun at sunrise, upon the Watauga fort near the Sycamore Shoals. This attack, which was led by Old Abraham, proved abortive; but as the result of the loose investment of the log fortress, maintained by the Indians for several weeks, a few rash venturers from the fort were killed or captured, notably a young boy who was carried to one of the Indian towns and burned at the stake, and the wife of the pioneer settler, ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... of August, the bull boat emerged, with its adventurous crew, into the broad bosom of the mighty Missouri. Here, about six miles above the mouth of the Yellowstone, the voyagers landed at Fort Union, the distributing post of the American Fur Company in the western country. It was a stockaded fortress, about two hundred and twenty feet square, pleasantly situated on a high bank. Here they were hospitably entertained by Mr. M'Kenzie, the superintendent, and remained with him three days, enjoying the unusual luxuries of bread, ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... private ownership of capital, yet that was not done until after the whole system of private capitalism had broken down and fallen to pieces, and not as a means of throwing it down. To recur to the military illustration, the revolutionary army did not directly attack the fortress of capitalism at all, but so manoeuvred as to make it untenable, and to compel ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... the father of Babar. He was an ambitious man, bent on increasing his dominions. But the other members of his family were actuated by a like ambition, and when he died from the effects of an accident, in 1494, he was actually besieged in Akhsi, a fortress-castle which ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... his own great army to complete its equipment, and placing strong detachments in fortress and at strategetic points to oppose the Austrians should they advance, the Emperor, as has been said, with about one hundred and twenty-five thousand men took the field. Naturally, inevitably, Belgium, the immemorial battleground of ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... hope to succeed, while death was the certain consequence of failure. The band were divided into two companies. He himself with one was to attack the main guardhouse; the other, under Fervet, was to seize the arsenal of the fortress. Noiselessly they stole out from their hiding-place, and formed upon the wharf within the inclosure of the castle. Heraugiere moved straight upon the guard-house. The sentry was secured instantly; but the slight noise was heard, and the captain of the watch ran out ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... at Gaza, roughly along the main Gaza-Beersheba road to Beersheba. His force was on a wide front, the distance from Gaza to Beersheba being about 30 miles. Gaza itself had been made into a strong modern fortress, heavily entrenched and wired, offering every facility for protracted defence. The civilian population had been evacuated. The remainder of the enemy's line consisted originally of a series of strong localities, which were known as the Sihan group of works, ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... like the house we now live in, from a road as one passes, from the windows of a train. It seems to be set at the end of the world, with the earth's sunset distance behind it—it seems a fortress of quiet, a place of infinite peace; and then one lives in it, and behold, it is a centre of a little active life, with all sorts of cross-currents darting to and fro, over it, ...
— The Altar Fire • Arthur Christopher Benson
... mountain he organized a system of entrenchments and of infection against their enemies. Yang Chien released his celestial hound, which bit Lue Yueeh on the crown of his head. Then Yang Jen, armed with his magic fan, pursued Lue Yueeh and compelled him to retreat to his fortress. Lue Yueeh mounted the central raised part of the embattled wall and opened all his plague-disseminating umbrellas, with the object of infecting Yang Jen, but the latter, simply by waving his fan, reduced all the ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... indeed, covered with rich verdure, but starting out here and there in gray and worn walls, fixed at a regular slope, and breaking away into masses more and more rugged towards Vesuvius, till the eye gets thoroughly habituated to their fortress-like outlines. ...
— The Poetry of Architecture • John Ruskin
... providing suitable fortifications for Manila, and a body of paid troops in place of the irregular and unpaid soldiers who had hitherto been the only dependence of the Spanish colony. In October, 1593, he formed a naval expedition to recover the fortress at Ternate; but on the way thither he was treacherously slain, with nearly all the Spaniards in his galley, by the Chinese rowers thereon. See Morga's account of him in Sucesos, cap. v, or in Stanley's ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, V7, 1588-1591 • Emma Helen Blair
... solid and imposing, and must have proved itself a formidable fortress. Crowning a slight eminence, it overlooks most of the town. On the three sides are ramparts, varying from about twenty to sixty feet in height, while on a fourth it is now bounded by barbed wire and high railings, ...
— 'Brother Bosch', an Airman's Escape from Germany • Gerald Featherstone Knight
... he might and fared on all his night at hazard; and thus he did some days, till he came to an inhabited land and seeing folk there, accosted them and acquainted them with his case, giving them to know that he had been imprisoned in the fortress and that they had cast him down, but God the Most High had delivered him and ...
— Tales from the Arabic Volumes 1-3 • John Payne
... most disheartened at seeing that the fortress on the hill was so extensive, and that it was becoming stronger daily; that the mines and artillery had seemingly made no impression on it; that we had been repulsed four times; and that our men were falling sick very rapidly: in order that it might be very ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 28 of 55) • Various
... why he should not make a general. I return to one little word of the King of Prussia— shall I tell you? I fear all this time he is only fattening himself with glory for Marshal Daun, who will demolish him at last, and then, for such service, be shut up in some fortress or in the inquisition—for it is impossible but the house of Austria must indemnify themselves for so many mortifications ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... From Neocaesarea, a border fortress on the Euphrates, came its confessor bishop, Paul, who, like Paphnutius and Potammon, had suffered in the persecutions, but more recently under Licinius. His hands were paralyzed by the scorching of the muscles of ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... a magician in the fortress of Canossa: but he had no need of carnal weapons, for when the emperor reached the Alps he was almost alone. Then his imagination also took fire, the panic seized him, and ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... to enter the fortress of Gibraltar, without permission from the governor, or a passport. Soto and his companion, therefore, took up their quarters at a Posade on the neutral ground, and resided there in security for several days. The busy and daring mind of the former could not long remain ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... been carried up to the heights of heaven or down to the depths of hell; if she had been fenced about in a rock-girt fortress, or if wrathful archangels had guarded her with flaming swords, she would not have been so completely shielded from him as by ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... this occasion there was no difference of opinion) most unadvisable. So we fell back on Sveaborg, which place was bombarded by the combined fleets, I venture to think most successfully, and I believe, had we had a force to land, we could have taken possession of that large and important fortress. ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... crown'd with smiles, And One born in a manger Commands the beauteous files. He is thy gracious Friend, And—O my soul, awake!— Did in pure love descend To die here for thy sake. If thou canst get but thither, There grows the flower of Peace, The Rose that cannot wither, Thy fortress, and thy ease. Leave then thy foolish ranges; For none can thee secure But One who never changes— Thy God, thy ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... Higgins could hear his hammering. If he used hard coal on the forge the fire would last through the night, and being in continual terror of thieves, as Higgins says, barricading the castle every evening before dark as if it were a fortress, he was bound to place the treasure in the most unlikely spot for a thief to get at it. Now, the coal fire smouldered all night long, and if the gold was in the forge underneath the embers, it would be extremely difficult to get at. A robber ...
— The Triumphs of Eugene Valmont • Robert Barr
... own chalets, and for whom an excursion from their mountains to a fair in the nearest town is a journey. It was noon when we stopped at Traunstein, and from there to Salzburg is but five leagues. Before reaching the fortress, however, you must pass the great custom-house on the Bavarian frontier, and fearing we might be delayed there too long by the stupid Austrian officials, and thus be prevented from entering the city before the gates were closed, we resolved to wait till the next morning and ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... With all communications cut, and troops kept away, and our own people storming the works, you will yet fail, Gabriel, unless you know every building, every courtyard, wall and passage, every door and window, almost, I might say. For the place is more than a manufacturing plant. It's a fortress, a city in itself, a wonderful, gigantic center to the ...
— The Air Trust • George Allan England
... and remote age which had aimed at nothing more than availing itself of the local advantages and the materials furnished by nature on the spot for the purpose of constructing a secure and imposing fortress; without any further regard to the rules or pedantries of architecture. Attached to the main building, which ascended to the height of five stories—and yet did not seem disproportionately high ...
— Walladmor: - And Now Freely Translated from the German into English. - In Two Volumes. Vol. I. • Thomas De Quincey
... not pounce on us as we are eight good miles from the desert, i.e. the mountain, so we must have timely notice, and we have arranged that if they appear in the neighbourhood the women and children of the outlying huts should come into my house which is a regular fortress, and also any travellers in boats, and we muster little short of seven hundred men able to fight including Karnac, moreover Fodl Pasha and the troops are at ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Domingo last week," he explained. "And they're waiting for me now. I'm to lead the attack on the fortress. We land in shore boats under the guns of the ship and I take the fortress. First, we show the ship clearing for action and the men lowering the boats and pulling for shore. Then we cut back to show the gun-crews serving the guns. Then we jump to ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... bodies of his men, and the monster with his bloody jaws, he exclaimed, "O faithful friends, I will avenge you, or share your death." So saying he lifted a huge stone and threw it with all his force at the serpent. Such a block would have shaken the wall of a fortress, but it made no impression on the monster. Cadmus next threw his javelin, which met with better success, for it penetrated the serpent's scales, and pierced through to his entrails. Fierce with pain the monster turned back his head to view the wound, and attempted to draw out the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... chapter of 'Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings'. The next day brought us to the oolite limestones at Mont Bard, and we always spent the Sunday at the Bell in Dijon. Monday, the drive of drives, through the village of Genlis, the fortress of Auxonne, and up the hill to the vine-surrounded town of Dole; whence, behold at last the limitless ranges of Jura, south and north, beyond the woody plain, and above them the 'Derniers Kochers' and the white square-set ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... glimpse of the battlements of lower New York, but as the Bermudian came up the bay that rosy spring afternoon, the western sun gilding the upper half of the castellated towers which rose from a sea of moving shadows, it seemed a dream city, the fortress of a fairy tale. His fingers tingled to express this frozen music, to relieve it from its spell of enchantment, and phrases of Debussy's "Cathedrale Engloutie" came welling up within him from ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... diminish the forces of the enemy. I shall take him with me, and if it turns out as I trust in our Lord it will, and the king holds to his promises, so that all his vassals there remain quiet and peaceful, I shall leave him and his son in the fortress at Terrenate, with the greatest care and protection, until I have advised your Majesty of all, and you have given such orders as ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... the Indians." But it was not till the year 1608 that the first permanent French settlement was effected. With the coup d'oeil of a general or the foresight of a prophet, Champlain, the illustrious first founder of French empire in America, in 1608 fixed the starting-point of it at the natural fortress of Quebec. How early the great project had begun to take shape in the leading minds of the nation it may not be easy to determine. It was only after the adventurous explorations of the French pioneers, traders, and friars—men ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... question at issue. In the meantime, O'Sullivan Beare contrived to get possession of his own Castle of Dunboy, by breaking into the wall at the dead of night, while the Spanish garrison were asleep, and then declaring that he held the fortress for the King of Spain, to whom he transferred his allegiance. Don Juan offered to recover it for the English by force of arms; but the Deputy, whose only anxiety was to get him quietly out of the country, urged his immediate departure. He left Ireland on the 20th of February; and the suspicions of ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... Bethabara, had allied himself with the highwaymen, one of the justices summoned one hundred men; and seventy, who answered the call, set forth on December 26, 1755, to seek out the outlaws and to destroy their fortress. Emboldened by their success, the latter upon one occasion had carried off a young girl of the settlements. Daniel Boone placed himself at the head of one of the parties, which included the young girl's father, to go to her rescue; and they fortunately succeeded in ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... not drag me along with her." History does not record another such incident. To the credit of the Secessionists, they respected the age and valor of the old hero, and did not molest, but permitted him to hold his personal "fortress" until his death, which occurred July 26, 1863 (three weeks after Vicksburg fell), ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... the girls had been there before, but to others it was a fresh spot, and all looked with interest as the wagonettes turned a particular corner of the road where the first glimpse of the castle could be seen. It was a grey, turreted fortress, with half of its west wall battered down by Cromwell's cannon, and the rest in a crumbling state, chiefly held together by the great masses of ivy that clung round the worn stones. In former days it must have been ...
— The Leader of the Lower School - A Tale of School Life • Angela Brazil
... valley, stretching westward from the river Salado. In the centre of the town rises the fort of the Alamo, which at that time was armed with forty-eight pieces of artillery of various calibre. The garrison of the town and fortress was ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... was difficult of access, and artificially made incapable of supporting a host of invaders, but four great roads met near the city. The capital was surrounded with durable ramparts, having gates of defence, and near it was a mountain fortress, under the especial charge of ...
— Vikram and the Vampire • Sir Richard F. Burton
... annual matsuri, or festival, of Rakuzan-jinja, it was customary to carry the miya of Naomasa-San from the village temple to the castle of Matsue. In solemn procession it was borne to .those strange old family temples in the heart of the fortress-grounds—Go-jo- naiInari-Daimyojin, and Kusunoki-Matauhira-Inari-Daimyojin—whose mouldering courts, peopled with lions and foxes of stone, are shadowed by enormous trees. After certain Shinto rites had been performed at both temples, the miya was carried back in procession to Rakuzan. And this ...
— Glimpses of an Unfamiliar Japan • Lafcadio Hearn
... sense of oppression. It was on a sharp December morning, and the steam of the hurrying craft was dazzling white in the early sun. Above and beyond the city rose, overpowering, a very different city, somehow, than that her imagination had first drawn. Each of that multitude of vast towers seemed a fortress now, manned by Celt and Hun and, Israelite and Saxon, captained by Titans. And the strife between them was on a scale never known in the world before, a strife with modern arms and modern methods and modern brains, in ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... replied indirectly, refusing to recognize the Bolsheviki committee. Rioting then broke out and the Winter Palace, headquarters of the provisional government, was besieged by troops favorable to the rebels. The cruiser Aurora, firing from the Neva River, and the guns of the St. Peter and St. Paul fortress bombarded the palace and early next morning compelled the surrender of the government forces defending it. Women of the "Battalion of Death," armed with machine guns and rifles, were among the defenders, who held out for four hours. Soon the ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... branch of the subject, but to give in a condensed form some account of siege operations. According to the text books, the first thing to be done, if possible, in case of a regular siege, is to "invest" the fortress. This is done by surrounding it as quickly as possible with a continuous line of troops, who speedily intrench themselves and mount guns bearing outward on all lines of approach to the fortress, to prevent the enemy from sending in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... designs—he flew into a frenzy. "Senseless but malignant woman," he cried, snapping his bonds at one blow, "let me tell you, I shall arrest your worthless lover at once, I shall put him in fetters and send him to the fortress, or—I shall jump out of window before your eyes ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... skies as blue, thy crags as wild, Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva smiled, And still his honeyed wealth Hymettus yields; There the blithe bee his fragrant fortress builds, The free-born wanderer of thy mountain air; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare: Art, Glory, Freedom fail, but Nature ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... had scaled the cliff, while Faith kept the canoe close under the alder bushes, entered the door of the fort, and skilfully made his way about the fortifications, determining the right place for an attack and assuring himself that the fortress contained ...
— A Little Maid of Ticonderoga • Alice Turner Curtis
... Fort-William-Henry Hotel, and all night long through the sentient woods I hear the booming of Johnson's cannon, the rattle of Dieskau's guns, and that wild war-whoop, more terrible than all. Again old Monro watches from his fortress-walls the steadily approaching foe, and looks in vain for help, save to his own brave heart. I see the light of conquest shining in his foeman's eye, darkened by no shadow of the fate that waits his coming on a bleak Northern hill; but, generous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XII. July, 1863, No. LXIX. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that the missionaries, who had been sent thither from England for the purpose of propagating the Christian religion, were not on so comfortable a footing with the natives as could have been wished, being in a manner shut up within their little fortress. The natives had made use of threats, and had signified an intention of taking off their women (several of the missionaries having been accompanied by their wives and families). The arrival at Otaheite of this little vessel in some degree relieved them from the ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... M. de Launay, the governor of the Bastille, may be cited as a typical example. After the taking of the fortress the governor, surrounded by a very excited crowd, was dealt blows from every direction. It was proposed to hang him, to cut off his head, to tie him to a horse's tail. While struggling, he accidently kicked one of those ...
— The Crowd • Gustave le Bon
... too!" Rynason snapped. "Just remember, Manning, that city was built as a fortress. We'd have to come from ...
— Warlord of Kor • Terry Gene Carr
... thy skies as blue, thy crags as wild; Sweet are thy groves, and verdant are thy fields, Thine olive ripe as when Minerva[192] smiled, And still his honied wealth Hymettus[193] yields; There the blithe Bee his fragrant fortress builds, The free-born wanderer of thy mountain-air; Apollo still thy long, long summer gilds, Still in his beam Mendeli's marbles glare:[fv] Art, Glory, Freedom fail, ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... what she considered a far greater and more lasting glory—that of love!—the golden mirage of a fancied sun, which for a time had quenched the steadier shining of eternal stars. Since that ever memorable night when he had suddenly stormed the fortress of her soul, and by the mastery of a lover's kiss had taken full possession, Amadis de Jocelyn had pursued his "amour" with admirable tact, cleverness and secrecy. He found a new and stimulating charm in making love to a tender- hearted, ...
— Innocent - Her Fancy and His Fact • Marie Corelli
... shadows intervolved, A land of blazing sun and blackest night, A fortress armed, and guarded jealously, With every portal ...
— Bees in Amber - A Little Book Of Thoughtful Verse • John Oxenham
... rose on the morning of the 3d of June 171-, the report of a cannon was heard rolling along the waters of the Hudson. Smoke issued from an embrasure of a small fortress, that stood on the point of land where the river and the bay mingle their waters. The explosion was followed by the appearance of a flag, which, as it rose to the summit of its staff and unfolded itself heavily in the light current of air, showed the blue field and red cross of the English ensign. ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... that, and made them as useful as was possible. His headquarters were at the cave of Adullam, or what is now called Engedi. While here, the Philistines came on a foraging expedition as far as Bethlehem, and with so large a force that David and his few followers were shut up in their fortress—for how long we do not know—probably for some days. It was very dull and wearisome business, imprisoned in a rocky defile and unable to do anything, while the Philistines were stealing the harvests that grew on the very spot where he had spent ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... abandoned the position which they had taken up at Guanabacoa for the purpose of impeding the advance of the invaders, and fell back on the Havana. The women and children, with the monks and nuns, were all sent out of the town, and the suburbs destroyed. On the 11th, the Cabana fortress, which commands the Morro, was taken by Colonel Carleton. The Spaniards also abandoned the Chorrera fort, on the other side. Operations against the Morro were then begun. The English suffered much from the heat, and a little from the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 72, October, 1863 • Various
... old tower of the present mansion-house at Muncaster was built by the Romans, to guard the ford called St Michael's Ford, over the river Esk, when Agricola went to the north, and to watch also the great passes into the country over the fells, and over Hard Knot, where is the site of another fortress constructed by them, apparent from the traces existing to ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... nephew of Sir Gilbert Faversham, is a wholesomely mischievous lad who nevertheless has the beautiful faith and love for the Saviour so characteristic of the early sixteenth century Christians. How he saves the fortress of Rhodes from the besieging Turks, is later betrayed, captured and tortured by them in the hope that he may be made to turn traitor and apostate, and his triumphant escape from the hands of the Infidels—all these will delight the ...
— Blue Bonnet in Boston - or, Boarding-School Days at Miss North's • Caroline E. Jacobs
... and afflictions of the Great Reformer in his controversies with the Pope. While thus engaged the enemy likewise ceased firing. But they soon after rallied again to the fight, and made a desperate effort to carry the fortress by assault. Rushing up to the walls, five of them thrust the muzzles of their guns through the loopholes, but had no sooner done so, than Mrs. Shell, seizing an axe, by quick and well directed blows ruined every musket thus thrust through the walls, by bending the barrels. A few ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... a fortress which guarded the pass of Egypt; Baal-zephon, a sea idol, generally considered the guardian ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... destroyed and rebuilt with alacrity; the sentinel's challenge broke the stillness of midnight; the earth was honeycombed with riflepits; campfires glowed on the hills; thousands perished in the marshes; creeks were stained with human blood; here sank the trench; there rose a grave mound or a fortress; pickets challenged the wanderer; every ford and mountain pass witnessed the clash of arms and echoed with the roar of artillery; the raid, the skirmish, the bivouac, the march, and the battery successively spread desolation and death; Arlington House, full of peaceful ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various
... Louis began the advance march which has finally broken down the walls of the highest judicial fortress, the Supreme Court of the United States. Washington University, in response to my request, unhesitatingly opened its doors, and for the first time in the history of America, woman was accorded the right to a legal course of training with man, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Liber Studiorum; the boys scrambling after their kites in the woods of the Greta and Buckfastleigh; and the notable and most pathetic drawing of the Kirkby Lonsdale churchyard, with the schoolboys making a fortress of their larger books on the tombstone, to bombard with the more projectile volumes; and passing from these to the intense horror and pathos of the Rizpah, consider for yourself whether there was ever any ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... first involuntary movement Rowland did not stir; but at his side the woman had risen, and behind her, peering around the fortress of her skirts as when before she had argued with Frontiersman Brown, stood the little wide-eyed girl, type ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... dramatic series and connection. According to German custom, it was minute and diffuse, and dictated by an adventurous and lawless fancy. It was a chain of audacious acts and unheard-of disasters. The moated fortress and the thicket, the ambush and the battle, and the conflict of headlong passions, were portrayed in wild numbers and with terrific energy. An afternoon was set apart to rehearse this performance. The language ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... detective like a shadow at his elbow, was sailing out of her life forever. He had seen her for the last time: that morning for the last time had looked into her eyes, had held her hands in his. He saw the white beach, the white fortress-like walls, the hanging gardens, the courtesying palms, dimly. It was among those that he who had thought himself content, had found happiness, and had then seen it desert him and take out of his life pleasure in all other things. With a pain that seemed impossible to support, he ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... around him. It is wonderful how great is the annoyance which one such man may give, and how thoroughly he may destroy the comfort of the coverts in his neighbourhood. But, strong as such an one is in his fortress, there are still the means of fighting him. The farmers around him, if they be hunting men, make the place too hot to hold him. To them he is a thing accursed, a man to be spoken of with all evil language, as one who desires to get more out of his land than Providence, that is, than ...
— Hunting Sketches • Anthony Trollope
... although between the years 1852 and 1858 many plans were presented for building of piers, these were only carried into practice and built by the Government under the technical direction of Engineer E. Taylor; a new Custom House replacing the fortress, a timber pier for loading and unloading goods, and another pier for passenger traffic at the locality of the old mole. In the year 1878 the Riachuelo was first opened for traffic for sea-going ships, and in 1879, 197 vessels with 55,091 tonnage had entered ...
— Argentina From A British Point Of View • Various
... had struck the whole country as with a deadly panic, from which it seemed there was not one to rise to cast aside the heavy chains, whose weight it seemed had crushed the whole kingdom, and taken from it the last gleams of patriotism and of hope. Every fortress of strength and consequence was in possession of the English. English soldiers, English commissioners, English judges, laws, and regulations now filled and governed Scotland. The abrogation of all those ancient customs, which had descended from the Celts and Picts, and Scots, ...
— The Days of Bruce Vol 1 - A Story from Scottish History • Grace Aguilar
... the end of the line," said the Staff Officer, kindest and most patient of chaperons. It buttressed itself on a fortress among hills. Beyond that, the silence was more awful than the mixed noise of business to the westward. In mileage on the map the line must be between four and five hundred miles; in actual trench-work many times that distance. It is too much to see at full length; the mind ...
— France At War - On the Frontier of Civilization • Rudyard Kipling
... he was for Balmaceda, and after the war was done, And Balmaceda was beaten and his troops had been forced to run, The other man fetched his army and proceeded to do things brown, He marched 'em into the fortress and took command of the town. Cannon and guns and horses troopin' along the road, Rumblin' over the bridges, and never a foeman showed Till they came in sight of the harbour, and the very first thing they see Was this mite of a one-horse ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... though large enough to hold a great fleet. In the days when cannon had shorter range than now, a British fleet might have hidden in the harbor and been secure against all the fleets of the world, for the guns of the huge fortress could have sunk the combined navies of the world, had they attempted to enter the harbor. In these modern days Gibraltar is not so secure, for the heights of Algeciras, in Spain, are only about seven miles away. If Spain were at war with Great Britain, or if any other power took ...
— Dave Darrin on Mediterranean Service - or, With Dan Dalzell on European Duty • H. Irving Hancock
... like that of the French—like that of the American people after the fire of Chicago; and Athens rose from her ashes to be awhile, not only, as she had nobly earned by suffering and endurance, the leading state in Greece, but a mighty fortress, a rich commercial port, a living centre of art, poetry, philosophy, such as this earth has ...
— Literary and General Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... "Our fortress can withstand every assault—it cannot be stormed nor taken from us by siege—it can only fall when we ourselves open the doors to the enemy and take him into our ...
— Socialism As It Is - A Survey of The World-Wide Revolutionary Movement • William English Walling
... species of naval ordnance which probably did not belie its name. It also boasted, we are told, of two drums for training-days, and no fewer than fifteen hautboys and soft-voiced recorders—all which suggests a mediaeval castle, or a grim fortress in the time of Queen Elizabeth. To the younger members of the community glass or crockery ware was an unknown substance; to the elders it was a memory. An iron pot was the pot-of-all-work, and their table utensils were of beaten pewter. The diet was also ...
— An Old Town By The Sea • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... had reached the factory the stranger knew that there were three rows of cabins in the post, that the factory was a mighty fortress in its low solidity, and that the small log structure to the right of it with the barred window was the pot ...
— The Maid of the Whispering Hills • Vingie E. Roe
... he destroyeth self and folk!" Then Shaykh Iblis ceased not flying till he fell in with the tribes of the Jann, and they gathered together a world of people, none may tell the tale of them save the Lord of All-might. So they came to the Fortress of Copper and the Citadel of Lead,[FN236] and the people of the sconces saw the tribes of the Jann issuing from every deep mountain-pass[FN237] and said, "What be the news?" Then Iblis went in to King Al-Shisban and acquainted him with that which had befallen; ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... from this city of Manila as governor of the military posts in Maluco. He took with him two galleys and four or five pataches, loaded with a great quantity of supplies and more than two hundred infantry. When the galleys and the pataches had entered our fortress of Terrenate, one of them, called the "Sant Buena Ventura," remained behind as rearguard. A Dutch ship well supplied with artillery attacked it, and in sight of our own fortress overpowered it. Our galleys then sailed out and attacked the Dutch ship; but the wind arose, and thus the enemy had an ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... placed in the result of your observations. Your safe return is a pledge of our design being approved. And when we go in the strength of Heaven, who can doubt the issue? This night, when the Lord of battles puts that fortress into our hands, before the whole of our little army you shall receive that knighthood you have so richly deserved. Such, my truly dear brother, my noble Edwin, shall be the reward of ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... and Hugh Seymour, who commanded from the inside the Chateau of Huguemont. When the French had taken possession of the orchard, they made a rush at the principal door of the chateau, which had been turned into a fortress. MacDonell and the above officers placed themselves, accompanied by some of their men, behind the portal and prevented the French from entering. Amongst other officers of that brigade who were most conspicuous for bravery, I would record the names ...
— Reminiscences of Captain Gronow • Rees Howell Gronow
... By God! I touched them! Ha, ha, ha! [Grimly.] He will order me into the street! [With concentrated fury.] That is it! They shut you out! They build a wall about themselves! Aristocracy! [Clenching his fast.] Very well! So be it! You sit within your fortress of privilege! You are haughty and contemptuous, flaunting your power! But I'll breach your battlements, I'll lay them in the dust! I'll bring you ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... not failed, in the mean while, to follow with the main Army; and was now elaborately manoeuvring about; intent to have Lippstadt, or some Fortress in those Rhine-Weser Countries. On the tail of that second so-so Victory by Soubise, Contades thought, Now would be the chance. And did try hard, but without effect. Ferdinand was himself attending Contades; and mistakes were not likely. ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle
... knows that he can protect himself behind the fortress of words in the school attendance act: "A person shall not be deemed to have taken a child into his employment in contravention of this act if it is proved that the employment by reason of being during the hours when school is not in session ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... installation of Bethencourt were far from peaceful; skirmishes were of constant occurrence, the natives even destroying the fortress of Richeroque, after burning and pillaging a chapel. Bethencourt was determined to overcome them, and in the end succeeded. He sent for several of his men from Lancerota, and gave orders that the ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... Centrale', t. i., p. 239, 400; 'Examen Critique de l'Histoire de la Geogr.', th. ii., p. 320. A distinguished philologist, Professor Buschmann, calls attention to the circumstance that the poet Firdousi, in his half-mythical prefatory remarks in the 'Schahnameh', mentions "a fortress of the Alani" on the sea-shore, in which Selm took refuge, this prince being the eldest son of the King Feridun, who in all probability lived two hundred years before Cyrus. The Kirghis of the Scythian steppe were originally a Finnish tribe; their three hordes ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... owing to its situation in the lake, a decayed palace rising out of the plain of waters! I have called it a palace, for such feeling it gave me, though having been built as a place of defence, a castle or fortress. We turned again and reascended the hill, and sate a long time in the middle of it looking on the castle, and the huge mountain cove opposite, and William, addressing himself to the ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. II. • William Wordsworth
... pouring poison into a glass? Why, in such a case, he would have thrown his bomb outright, whether it blew him up along with the villa, or he was arrested on the spot, or had to submit to the martyrdom of the dungeons in the Fortress of SS. Peter and Paul, or be hung at Schlusselburg. Isn't that what always happens? That is the way he would have done, and not have acted like a hotel-rat! Now, there is someone in your home (or who comes ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... Reading, where there was a royal fortress, in which King Ethelred and his brother ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... at that time. On account of their superiority of numbers, the Allies were able to extend their front and thus threaten the Germans with envelopment at both ends of the long battle line, which reached from Meaux, twenty miles east of Paris, to the fortress of Verdun. ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... William the Conqueror there was no strong castle or palace for the King in London, but only an old fortress on one side of this wall, the east side, quite near to the river. This fortress had stood there for a long time. No one knew when it had been built. King William ordered it to be pulled down, and in its place he caused a strong castle to be built. Part of the city wall ...
— The Children's Book of London • Geraldine Edith Mitton
... by the imminent peril of Hungary and its neighbouring kingdoms, was successful. Not only from Germany, but even from France, the bravest knights, each a fortress in himself, or a man-of-war on land (as he may be called), came forward in answer to his call, and boasted that, even were the sky to fall, they would uphold its canopy upon the points of their lances. They formed the flower of the army of 100,000 men, who ...
— Historical Sketches, Volume I (of 3) • John Henry Newman
... world can bring; it is not arrived at but through complete surrender to the trial of fire, and as yet, in spite of their opposed patriotism, in spite of her sincerest sympathy with Michael's loss, the assault on the most intimate lines of the fortress had not yet been delivered. Before they could reach the peace that passed understanding, a fiercer attack had to be repulsed, they had to stand and look at each other unembittered across waves and billows of a salter ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... savour of old-time sea romance, as, for example, when the little Condor ran in under the guns of the fortress of Alexandria, or further back in our naval history, when sail and round shot took the place of ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... which he entered and left his home precisely as if it were a bottomless chair, he had filled it in solidly, weaving to and fro, by night as well as by day, till he felt, poor fool, as safely intrenched as if he were in the heart of a fortress. ...
— The Village Watch-Tower • (AKA Kate Douglas Riggs) Kate Douglas Wiggin
... bound to administer. London, where the greater part of the fugitives had gathered, could hardly have settled upon the next step to be taken when William began his advance, five days after the battle. His first objective point was the great fortress of Dover, which dominated that important landing-place upon the coast. On the way he stopped to give an example of what those might expect who made themselves his enemies, by punishing the town of Romney, which had ventured to beat off with some vigour a body of ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... "The fortress is ready to surrender," cried he; "advance and storm it, and you will enter the open door of the heart as conqueror. I have prepared the way for you to see the princess every day: make use of your opportunities like a brave, handsome, young, and loving cavalier. I predict you will soon ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... caused to be exposed in public, to show the extravagant superstitions of the idolaters. The heathens in tumults raised a sedition, killed many Christians in the streets, and then retired into the great temple of Serapis as their fortress. In sallies they seized many Christians, and upon their refusing to sacrifice to Serapis, put them to death by cruel torments, crucifying them, breaking their legs, and throwing them into the sinks and jakes of the temple with the blood ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... where men cannot dwell for the malaria, and where for hour after hour we rode in a silence unbroken save by the plash of fish in the lagoon, or the cry of a heron solitary among the reeds. This desolation lasted all the way to Biguglia, where we turned aside again among the foothills to avoid the fortress of Bastia and the traffic of the roads about it. Beyond Bastia we were safe in the fastnesses of Cape Corso, across which, from this eastern shore to the western, and to the camp at Olmeta, one only pass (so Marc'antonio ...
— Sir John Constantine • Prosper Paleologus Constantine
... manufacturers of phrases." Of medicine, too, he was fond of talking, and with those of its practitioners whom he most esteemed,-with Corvisart at Paris, and with Antonomarchi at St. Helena. "Believe me, "he said to the last, "we had better leave off all these remedies: life is a fortress which neither you nor I know anything about. Why throw obstacles in the way of its defense? Its own means are superior to all the apparatus of your laboratories. Corvisart candidly agreed with me, that all your filthy mixtures are good for nothing. Medicine ...
— Representative Men • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... citizens, except only what the parents of the stolen virgins had; these he suffered to possess their own. The rest of the Sabines, enraged hereat, choosing Tatius their captain, marched straight against Rome. The city was almost inaccessible, having for its fortress that which is now the Capitol, where a strong guard was placed, and Tarpeius their captain; not Tarpeia the virgin, as some say who would make Romulus a fool. But Tarpeia, daughter to the captain, coveting the golden bracelets she saw them wear, betrayed the fort into the Sabines' ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... journey to school, I hope he will not lay it down too contemptuously. The tale has, for its own purposes, so seriously confused the geography of Fort Amitie, that he may search the map and end by doubting if any such fortress ever existed and stood a siege: but I trust it will leave him in no doubt of what his elders understood ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... portraits, and the elaborately carved ceilings. The uninstructed public declines to trouble itself with criticism. It looks up at the towers and the loopholes, the battlements and the rusty old guns, which still bear witness to the perils of past times when the place was a fortress—it enters the gloomy hall, walks through the stone-paved rooms, stares at the faded pictures, and wonders at the lofty chimney-pieces hopelessly out of reach. Sometimes it sits on chairs which are as cold and as hard as iron, or timidly feels the legs of immovable tables which ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... On all sides of us we see public and private society broken up, as it were by an earthquake: the noblest and the meanest passions of the human bosom at contention, and the latter often so disguised, that the vile ambuscade is not even suspected till found within the heart of the fortress itself. We have, however, one veritable touchstone, that of the truest observation, "ye shall know a tree by its fruits." Let us look round, then, for those which bear "good fruits," wholesome to the taste as well as pleasant to the sight, whether they grow on high altitudes or in the humbler ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... honour from the field. You," he said, looking at Walter, "as the conqueror of yesterday, have the choice of either the attack or defence; but I should advise you to take the latter, seeing it is easier to defend a fortress than to assault it. Many of your opponents have already gained credit in real warfare, while you and your following are new to it. Therefore, in order to place the defence on fair terms with the assault, I have ordered that both sides shall be equal ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... palace of "Sans Souci" and the countryseats of "Queen's Delight" and "King's Beautiful View," about which cluster tales of barbaric pleasure that rival the grim legends clinging to the parapets and enshrouding the dungeons of his mountain fortress of "La Ferriere." None of these black or mulatto potentates, however, could expel French authority from the eastern part of Santo Domingo. That task was taken in hand by the inhabitants themselves, and in 1809 they succeeded in restoring the ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd
... number of men were soon under the young officer's orders, and they followed him softly down the rock-encumbered slope of the natural fortress—no easy task in the darkness; but the men were getting used to the gloom, and it was not long before the party was challenged by an outpost and received the word. They passed on, getting well round to the farther side of the kopje before ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... and his faithful attendants to some secure and distant station in the provinces of Gaul.... The recent danger to which the person of the emperor had been exposed in the defenceless palace of Milan urged him to seek a retreat in some inaccessible fortress of Italy, where he might securely remain while the open country was covered by a deluge ...
— Ravenna, A Study • Edward Hutton
... out of proportion to their numbers. The Germans claim, and claim quite rightly, that they frustrated our attempt to break through their line. On the other hand it can be little consolation for them to know that a nation of amateur soldiers[8] drove them out of the strongest fortress in the world; drove them out so completely that they were glad to take refuge, morally as well as physically, behind their famous ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... gentleman interested me hugely, and I led the way through the garden to the house, up the tower stairs to the roof, and then standing there, looking across the river at the Palisades looming up like a huge fortress before me, I put the ...
— The Water Ghost and Others • John Kendrick Bangs
... to arms to avenge their brethren who had fallen, and the fourth civil war began. The Duke of Anjou laid siege to their strongest fortress, La Rochelle, but failed to take it, and on his election as King of Poland (1573) a treaty was concluded according to which the Huguenots were allowed free exercise of their religion. A large number of French politicians were ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... fortifications in the kingdom. William found it necessary for his security to erect several. During the struggles of the English, the Norman nobility were permitted (as in reason it could not be refused) to fortify their own houses. It was, however, still understood that no new fortress could be erected without the king's special license. These private castles began very early to embarrass the government. The royal castles were scarcely less troublesome: for, as everything was then in tenure, the governor held his place by the tenure ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... and as Mr. J.A. FROUDE has already explained (quoting from my own letter to King PHILIP), "knowing nothing of navigation," I soon made a bad shot. Instead of going to Tilbury, I drifted towards Cronstadt, even then a fortress of some consideration. I could tell you a great deal more, were it not that I succumbed to sea-sickness and gave up my command. The expedition was now, of course, commanded by the steward, but the duties of his unpleasant ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101. October 3rd, 1891 • Various
... fortress, William resolved to besiege it. He was ill supplied with cannon, having left his heavy artillery at Dublin. He had only a field train with him, which was quite insufficient for his purpose. William's advance-guards drove the Irish ...
— The Huguenots in France • Samuel Smiles
... spoke Jean le Prince, the youngest man in the fortress, who was appointed to speak for the second squad when their turn came to sit down at the table, "we also think Edelwald is right in counseling you not to give up Fort St. John. We say nothing of D'Aulnay's hanging Klussman, for ...
— The Lady of Fort St. John • Mary Hartwell Catherwood |
