"Herculean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... branches off a poplar-tree which he had felled; and, when it was trimmed, he took up the large trunk on one of his shoulders and carried it off, seemingly with ease. He did not look like a particularly robust man; but I have never seen such an herculean feat attempted by an Englishman or American. It has frequently struck me that the Italians are able to put forth a great deal of strength in such insulated efforts as this; but I have been told that they are less ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the same species of excellence. But let us not ungratefully undervalue that beautiful style, which has pleasingly conveyed to us much instruction and entertainment. Though comparatively weak, opposed to Johnson's Herculean vigour, let us not call it positively feeble. Let us remember the character of his style, as given by Johnson himself[662]: 'What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetick; he is never rapid, and he never stagnates. His sentences have neither ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... black eyes, although the slightest movement, the faintest play of expression would cause them to dance with vitality and fun; the petulant expression, round lips, curved and cut with the delicacy of a cameo, was very manifest. The lad was built in almost Herculean mould, so broad were his shoulders, so upright and tall his young figure. With his head thrown back, the listening attitude on his face, his black hair swept from his forehead, he looked almost like a young god—all was verve, expectancy, ...
— Wild Kitty • L. T. Meade
... they looked! those two horsemen; the ease, lightness, spirit of the one, with the fine-limbed and fiery steed that literally "bounded beneath him as a barb"—seemingly as gay, as ardent, and as haughty as the boyrider. And the manly, and almost herculean form of the elder Beaufort, which, from the buoyancy of its movements, and the supple grace that belongs to the perfect mastership of any athletic art, possessed an elegance and dignity, especially on horseback, which rarely accompanies proportions equally sturdy ...
— Night and Morning, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... are still being made to preserve the stability of the structure. A few years ago the east end showed signs of subsidence, and ominous cracks appeared in the north transept, a part of the old Norman church. An examination of the fabric proved that herculean tasks were essential to save this portion of the edifice. It was agreed that only by extensive underpinning could the work be accomplished. It has been very costly, and funds are most urgently needed to complete the preservation, not only of the eastern end, but of the whole ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... city fathers have allowed it to remain uncovered. Seeing their victim plunged into a watery grave, as they thought, the thugs took to their heels. The Colonel extricated himself from his perilous plight, by dint of herculean strength, and started to pursue them, but they had disappeared from sight in the vicinity of Crowder & Fancett's lumber yard. Things have come to a pretty pass, we must say, if such a dastardly outrage as this should be allowed to go unpunished. Now that Colonel Potts has brought suit against ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... Aven was fraught with all the dangers of the sea. We had secured another crew in Archangel but their seamanship was bad. When a sudden storm would strike us it required herculean efforts on the part of the captain and Donovan to prevent the ship from being ...
— Where Strongest Tide Winds Blew • Robert McReynolds
... methods adopted by those who formerly had charge of the Union Pacific Railroad, declares that since its present management was inaugurated, in 1884, its affairs have been fairly and prudently conducted, and that the present administration "has devoted itself honestly and intelligently to the herculean task of rescuing the Union Pacific Railway from the insolvency which seriously threatened it at the inception of its work;" that it "has devoted itself, by rigid economy, by intelligent management, and by an application ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... this place and at this time. This object is primarily to present the leading historical phases of the town's and city's life and developement, together with the traces of previous occupation, and the natural history of the locality. To accomplish this almost herculean task, the sections were assigned to writers well-known in their respective spheres,—many of them of national reputation,—who from study and associations were in a measure identified with their subjects. The entire work was critically edited by Mr. Justin Winsor, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... performance of Charles VI. with most unseemly cries. After the customary medical and legal proceedings, he was ordered to be sent to the Charenton Hospital. But opposite the porte Saint-Martin, taking advantage of a lock among the vehicles, and of the Herculean strength with which he is endowed, he wrested his hands from his keeper, threw him down, beat him, leaped at a bound into the street, and disappeared in the crowd. The most active search was immediately set on foot, and we have it from the best authority that ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... task requiring no little strength and address, but he managed, after a few herculean efforts, to shift them aside and I saw with delight my way opened to that mysterious little door. But I did not approach it then; some instinct deterred me. But when the opportunity came for me to venture there alone, ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... row beyond the anvil, had at their back an obscure, mechanical stir, accompanied by the audible suction of squat, drum bellows. The labour was halted at a fire; half naked anatomies, herculean shoulders and incredible arms, gathered about its mouth with hooked bars. An incandescent mass was lifted, born, rayed in an intolerable white heat, into the air. A hammer was swung upon it; and, as if the metal were sentient, a violet ...
— The Three Black Pennys - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... adieu. The Cam will not be much increased by my tears on the occasion. Your further remarks, however caustic or bitter, to a palate vitiated with the sweets of adulation, will be of service. Johnson has shown us that no poetry is perfect; but to correct mine would be an Herculean labour. In fact I never looked beyond the moment of composition, and published merely at the request of my friends. Notwithstanding so much has been said concerning the "Genus irritabile vatum," we shall never quarrel on the subject—poetic fame is by no means the "acme" ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... to that Herculean argument, which if strictly and duly weighed, is to make it evident, that there is no such thing as what they All pretend. 'Tis impossible, he says, for one Stage to present two Rooms or Houses. I answer, ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... room of the commanding officer, and thither presently came Captain Lyon himself. Virginia tingled with antagonism when she saw this man who had made the city tremble, who had set an iron heel on the flaming brand of her Cause. He, too, showed the marks of his Herculean labors, but only on his clothes and person. His long red hair was unbrushed, his boots covered with black mud, and his coat unbuttoned. His face was ruddy, and his eye as clear as though he had arisen from twelve hours' sleep. He bowed ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the smirch'd scullion to the embroider'd peer. The ambitious drudge preferr'd, postilion rides, Advanced again, the chair benighted guides; Here doom'd, if Nature strung his sinewy frame, The slave, perhaps, of some insatiate dame; But if, exempted from the Herculean toil, A fairer field awaits him, rich with spoil, There shall he shine, with mingling honours bright, His master's pathic, pimp, and parasite; 80 Then strut a captain, if his wish be war, And grasp, in hope, a truncheon ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... mutineer, a passionate lover of truth and power. And lately he had been feeling his way, questioning himself while all sorts of confused ideas throbbed in his brain. At first, smitten with the thought of undertaking something herculean, he had planned a genesis of the universe, in three phases or parts; the creation narrated according to science; mankind supervening at the appointed hour and playing its part in the chain of beings and events; then the future—beings constantly following ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... portrait, which seemed to live, as one might say, in the cool freshness of its flesh, and in its warmth of color. He gazed upon it long and fixedly, estimated the prodigious labor that had been bestowed upon it, and, not being able to find any recompense sufficiently great for this Herculean effort, he passed his arm round the painter's neck and embraced him. The surintendant, by this action, had utterly ruined a suit of clothes worth a thousand pistoles, but he had satisfied, more than satisfied, Lebrun. It was a happy moment for the artist; it was an unhappy moment for M. ...
— The Man in the Iron Mask • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... for many miles along the banks of the river were erected by the systematic herculean toil of generations ...
— Tales of Aztlan • George Hartmann
... points of possible disagreement. Of the latter the principal ones upon which Hooker's formal apologists rely, are the destruction of the Eleventh Corps through Howard's alleged carelessness, and the failure of Sedgwick to perform the herculean task assigned to him in coming to Hooker's support. Allowing, for the moment, that Howard and Sedgwick were entirely at fault, and eliminating these two questions entirely from the issue, let us see what Hooker himself did, bearing in mind that he has officially ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... a narrow defile when Washington came upon the field, and his Herculean efforts, brilliantly seconded by Wayne, stayed the rout. A stout stand was made, and the British were held at bay till evening, when they retired and continued their march to New York. Washington followed and took up his station at ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... all rare beauty, so decorated with the virtue of her living citizens, so noble in the memories of her dead heroes—the sun has never shone upon a state, so solidly established; upon an empire so majestical and mighty; extending from the Herculean columns, the far limits of the west, beyond the blue Symplegades; from Hyperborean snows, to the parched sands of Ethiopia!—no! Conscript Fathers, for we have no foes unsubdued, from the wild azure-tinctured hordes of Gaul to the swart Eunuchs of the ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... Lord!" roared the boatswain, as he fractured the skull of a third with the mast of the boat, which, with herculean force, he now ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Rock, as if they had returned from a victory. The garrison beheld with admiration the wonderful efforts which were made to meet a still more formidable foe. Every day marked the progress of the Herculean labours in preparation for that event; the exertions, zeal, and intrepidity of Sir James's officers and crews increased in proportion to the multiplied force of the enemy, which, to men of any other cast, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... at her feet by way of illustrating to one adamantine heart that he was a dullard to have passed over her charms. And this young lady of the rose and lily complexion, and knight of the bright-hued locks and herculean muscles, being young—sufficiently young to be downcast by imaginary stumbling-blocks—had reached it. Goosey-gander ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... constitution and herculean frame of Agassiz showed the effects of his extraordinary and multifarious labors, for it must be confessed that he was not careful of his bodily welfare. In the year 1869 he suffered a temporary breakdown of a very threatening sort, and for months was in seclusion, forbidden by his medical ...
— Louis Agassiz as a Teacher • Lane Cooper
... sixteenth century they ranked, as they still rank, among the proudest nobles of the Eternal City. Lelio, the head of the house, had six stalwart sons by his first wife, Girolama Savelli. They were conspicuous for their gigantic stature and herculean strength. After their mother's death in 1571, their father became enamoured of a woman inferior at all points, in birth, breeding, and antecedents, to a person of his quality. She was a certain Eufrosina, who had been married to a ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... "send him back with a mustache and a walking-stick." Ah! how little did they comprehend him, how hard to understand that this young and indefatigable scholar was only going abroad to cut himself a club for the Herculean labors of his ripe manhood. He went, saw, and conquered. He saw the promised land of international fellowship and peace, and conquered in his own breast the evil genius of war. He came back proud that he was an American, prouder still that he ...
— Charles Sumner Centenary - The American Negro Academy. Occasional Papers No. 14 • Archibald H. Grimke
... of the available fifteen men of the ranch force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle stockade—a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... a story to begin with an old wayside inn where, "towards the close of the year 17-," several gentlemen in three-cocked hats were playing bowls. A friend of mine preferred the Malabar coast in a storm, with a ship beating to windward, and a scowling fellow of Herculean proportions striding along the beach; he, to be sure, was a pirate. This was further afield than my home-keeping fancy loved to travel, and designed altogether for a larger canvas than the tales that I affected. Give me a highwayman and I was full ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... been, but this defect had increased; his herculean back was rounded, and he stooped a little. His forehead, always of the broadest—no one else's hat would fit him- -was now one of the highest, that is to say, he had lost all his hair, except a ragged lock over each ...
— Absalom's Hair • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... but go to prove the fact that apart from all creed and all forms of creed, Crime carries Punishment as surely as the seed is born with the flower,—thinkers who are fully aware that not all the forces of all mankind, working with herculean insistence to support a Lie, can drive back the storm-cloud of the wrath of that "Unknown Quantity" called God, whose thunders do most terribly declare the truth "with power and great glory." "How long O Lord, how long!" Not long, ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... place to indications of a disturbance in the financial atmosphere. He had to buy more stock to keep the control he was gaining on the market, and things were not shaping favorably for its rise. He was already carrying a tremendous load, and even his herculean shoulders began to feel the burden. In the press and rush of business he forgot about Fox's social ambition in venturing to call where such men as Van Dam and Gus Elliot ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... were usually too anxious to get back to work—always with the exception of Hornby, who according to his own highly colored account, had been assigned the herculean task of splitting all the wood required by the Province of Manitoba for the ensuing winter—to linger longer than the time required for smoking a hurried pipe, so that it was only during the long evenings that hostilities were resumed. And then, ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... the discharged pistol, felled him to the ground,—and snatching a knife from the rock close at hand, stabbed the foremost officer to the heart,—he fell with a heavy groan, and the next moment the remaining officer, a man of herculean strength had closed upon him. Terrible was now the struggle—the officer had dexterously struck the knife from his hand as he closed with him, but he could not draw his pistols. Locked in each other's grasp they wrestled together for life: each one well knew ...
— Edward Barnett; a Neglected Child of South Carolina, Who Rose to Be a Peer of Great Britain,—and the Stormy Life of His Grandfather, Captain Williams • Tobias Aconite
... inhabitants. Mrs. Gordon received her in a motherly way, trying hard not to feel that a new mistress had come into the house; she was anxious to see whether the girl exhibited any signs of her father's fiery temper and imperious disposition. The two servant-girls at the homestead—great herculean, good-natured bush-girls, daughters of a boundary-rider, whose highest ideal of style and refinement was Kuryong drawing-room—breathed hard and stared round-eyed, like wild fillies, at the unconscious intruder. The station-hands—Joe, ...
— An Outback Marriage • Andrew Barton Paterson
... projectiles, which burst with a deafening explosion about a hundred yards beyond the improvised hospital, having absolutely whizzed over the approaching ambulance vehicles. The patients took it most calmly, and were in no way disconcerted. By Herculean efforts the four ladies and myself got the place shipshape, and all was finished when the daylight failed. As I ran back to my quarters, the bugle-call of the "Last Post," several times repeated, sounded clear in the still atmosphere of a calm and beautiful evening, and I knew the last farewells ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... was endeavouring to shove past a herculean fellow, rather ragged and very saucy, who did not seem inclined to give place to the savage elbowing of ...
— Handy Andy, Volume One - A Tale of Irish Life, in Two Volumes • Samuel Lover
... as the year advanced towards the sere and yellow leaf, that in opposing her wayward will in single combat against a simple little association in the public mind she was undertaking a somewhat herculean task. ...
— With Edged Tools • Henry Seton Merriman
... he struck a medal with a Herculean figure on the reverse, confining the head of the English leopard between his knees, whilst preparing a cord to strangle him, inscribed En l'An XII. 2000 barques sont construites;—this was in condemnation of the invasion and conquest ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... thou greatest of all anomalies! Friend yet foe, "preserver and yet destroyer!" Whence art thou, great immemorial? When shall thy wondrous mechanism be dissolved? When shall the "pall of obscurity" descend on thy Herculean net-work? Voices of the past echo through thy deserted temples, and shriek ...
— Inez - A Tale of the Alamo • Augusta J. Evans
... Java, where as a rule the sole luxuries are out-of-doors, and of Nature's providing. That the Dutchman flourishes on his diet of tinned meat, his appalling rice-table, and the extraordinary sequence of dishes which probably belonged to the early days of colonisation, either proves herculean strength or the triumph of mind over matter, but to those of less heroic mould the unwonted amenities of a more familiar civilisation are welcome as a green oasis in a sandy desert. A cool and healthy mountain climate gives unwonted zest for the lovely excursions of ...
— Through the Malay Archipelago • Emily Richings
... charge of the education of the blind, whether in residential schools or public school classes, have a herculean task before them, but if their hearts are in the work, if they are alive to their wonderful opportunity for service, and if they have faith in the ability of their pupils, the future success of these handicapped young people is practically assured. As with the nation today, so with those interested ...
— Five Lectures on Blindness • Kate M. Foley
... naturally and even honestly created, was deplorable both on social and political grounds. The causes which had led to the change from one form of tenure and cultivation to another of a widely different kind required to be carefully probed, if the Herculean task of a reversion to the earlier system was to be attempted. The men who essayed the task had unquestionably a more perfect knowledge of the causes of the change than can ever be possessed by the student of to-day; ...
— A History of Rome, Vol 1 - During the late Republic and early Principate • A H.J. Greenidge
... soon as he discovered Capt. Gibson, he raised the war whoop and fired [61] his rifle—the ball passed through Gibson's hunting shirt and wounded a soldier just behind him. Gibson sprang forward, and swinging his sword with herculean force, severed the head of the Little Eagle from his body—two other Indians were shot down, and the remainder escaped to their towns ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... But it is a Herculean task to cope with the handicap of wealth. Mediocre men can endure failure; for, as Robert Louis the beloved has pointed out, failure is natural, but worldly success is an abnormal condition. In order to stand success ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... and go. Conditions remain and work. From this on revolutionary socialism will be working, night and day, with might and main, here and there, everywhen and everywhere, and its three herculean tasks are: (1) to dethrone the great imperialist, competitive capitalism; (2) to enthrone the great democrat, co-operative industrialism; and (3) to make the world safe ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... exclaimed. "Think of it! a whole city wiped out." I lowered my eyes to the goat nibbling beside us. "The courage and energy that rebuilt it is herculean." His enthusiasm was cumulative. "And rebuilt it in practically three years! No wonder you date ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... seemed to show through, ribs projecting, clawlike hands resting on bony knees, his whole frame motionless as that of a man long dead, the head man of the bone-dyeing tribe was the antithesis of both the piggish Suba and the herculean Monitaya. Only his eyes lived; and those eyes were cold and merciless as those of a snake or a vulture. A man who ruled by ruthless cunning, who would gaze unmoved on the most ghastly tortures, who would devour human flesh with ghoulish relish—such was the creature who sat in a red-dyed ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... afternoon Abellino sent his seconds to the carpenter. The first was named Livius. In all affairs of honour his opinion was a veritable canon to the jeunesse doree of the day. The other second, Conrad, was an herculean, athletic-looking fellow, whom, on that very account, every challenger tried to secure in those cases when a little judicious bullying might be necessary. This swash-buckler had, moreover, a most imposing ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... veile Had shadow'd them from knowing ill, was gon, Just confidence, and native righteousness, And honour from about them, naked left To guiltie shame hee cover'd, but his Robe Uncover'd more. So rose the Danite strong Herculean Samson from the Harlot-lap 1060 Of Philistean Dalilah, and wak'd Shorn of his strength, They destitute and bare Of all thir vertue: silent, and in face Confounded long they sate, as struck'n mute, Till Adam, though not less then ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... storming of Tyre has always been considered one of the greatest of Alexander's exploits. The boldness, the perseverance, the indomitable energy which he himself and all his army manifested, during the seven months of their Herculean toil, attracted the admiration of the world. And yet we find our feelings of sympathy for his character, and interest in his fate, somewhat alienated by the indications of pride, imperiousness, and cruelty which begin to appear. While he rises in our estimation as a military ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... skilful Uncle Balthazard strained every nerve in a herculean effort to keep his temper and serve thirty persons ...
— With Those Who Wait • Frances Wilson Huard
... prisoner stood erect, Carpenter saw that he was a man of herculean proportions and over six feet three or four inches in height. His arms and naked chest were cut, bleeding and bruised, and a bamboo gag was in his mouth; but what at once attracted the captain's attention and ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... magnificent specimen of an Arab that I have ever seen. Although upwards of eighty years of age, he was as erect as a lance, and did not appear more than between fifty and sixty; he was of Herculean stature, about six feet three inches high, with immensely broad shoulders and chest; a remarkably arched nose; eyes like an eagle, beneath large, shaggy, but perfectly white eyebrows; a snow-white beard of great thickness descended below the middle of his breast. He wore a large ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... recommend him to their notice. Captain de Haldimar was particularly struck by the air of bold daring and almost insolent recklessness pervading every movement of this man; and it was difficult to say whether the haughtiness of bearing peculiar to Ponteac himself, was not exceeded by that of this herculean warrior. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... lifted it one inch off his head, and replaced it, desiring the marine officer to dismiss the guard. I had now an opportunity, as he paced to and fro with the first lieutenant, to examine his appearance. He was a tall, very large-boned, gaunt man, with an enormous breadth of shoulders, displaying Herculean strength (and this we found he eminently possessed). His face was of a size corresponding to his large frame; his features were harsh, his eye piercing, but his nose, although bold, was handsome, and his capacious mouth was furnished with the most splendid row of large teeth that I ever beheld. ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... his eyes and his right leg while with the Gallipoli Expeditionary Force. I have stated that there are eighty-two signs in Grade II Braille; but Braille shorthand contains six hundred and eighty word and letter signs that have to be committed to memory. A herculean task was before me, but by dogged effort on my part and patience on the part of my instructor, I succeeded so well that in a few weeks I was able to take shorthand notes as speedily as the average ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... wanting with an evasion, alleging that if the Spartans were really apprehensive of the oracle, they must have a care of Leotychides; for it was not the limping foot of a king that the gods cared about, but the purity of the Herculean family, into whose sights if a spurious issue were admitted, it would make the kingdom to halt indeed. Agesilaus likewise alleged, that the bastardy of Leotychides was witnessed to by Neptune, who threw Agis out of bed by a violent earthquake, after which ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... volunteers were selected for the expedition, and the young and fragile Kit Carson was entrusted with the command. In manners he was gentle as a girl, with a voice as soft as that of a woman. He had no herculean powers of muscle, but he had mind, mental powers which had been developed in a hundred emergencies. And these stout, hardy veterans of the wilderness seem with one accord to have decided that he was the fitting one to lead them into battle, ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... ground had been sufficient to show him that he was "up against it." A herculean task awaited him. The material he had to work with was none too good. The line was lacking in "beef" and the backs in speed. There were exceptions, notably at center and full and quarter; and here his falcon eye detected the stuff of which stars are made. ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... critique was applied to a problem which had but just now been revealed in all its length and breadth. The establishing of the principles of this historical criticism—the so-called Higher Criticism—was the herculean task of the generation following Strauss. To the development of that science another Tuebingen professor, Baur, made permanent contribution. With Strauss himself, sadder than the ruin of his career, was the tragedy ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... animal would explode, and said animal had not been paid for. No time was given for reflection. Off ran the mule again, and made a pedal attack on a small Hebrew with a huge nasal organ, seated on top of a decayed coach, drawn by a horse, a cow, and three negroes. The quadruped made a herculean effort to kick the diminutive Shylock from his seat, but all in vain. The altitude was too great, and, in the midst of his exertions, he kicked himself off his feet, and fell over into a gulley, in which he alighted and ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... his back to the blaze, his feet spread apart, and his hands deep in his pockets, stood the owner of the ranche—Swanson. Cast in a Herculean mold, he stood over six feet tall, his broad shoulders surmounted by a neck like a bull, and his red, cunning face, almost hid from sight by the thick, bushy whiskers which ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... Roland, with his gigantic stature, and shaggy hair, and voice of thunder, and crouched at the feet of this mistress of hearts, whom his sagacity perceived was soon again to be the dispenser of power. She comprehended at a glance his herculean abilities, and the important aid he could render the Republican cause. She wished to win his co-operation, and at first tried to conciliate him, "as a woman would pat a lion;" but soon, convinced of his heartlessness and utter want of principle, she spurned him with abhorrence. He subsequently ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... father's never to destroy papers of any sort. Every letter that he ever received was classified and filed, envelope and all. The thing to do, then, was manifestly to run over the files and find the letter, if indeed it was in or on a letter that the seal had first come to his attention. It was a herculean job, but that never feazed Sherlock Holmes, and he went at it tooth and nail. Finally his effort was rewarded. Under 'Applications for Autograph' he found a daintily-scented little missive from a young girl living at Goring-Streatley on the Thames, ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... shores earth's farthest treasure flings! Land of my heart and birth! at sight of thee My spirit boundeth, like a bird set free From long captivity! Thy very air Is fragrant with remembrance! Thou dost bear, On thy Herculean cliffs, the rugged seal Of godlike Liberty! The slave might kneel Upon thy shore, bending the willing knee, To kiss the sacred earth that sets him free! Even I feel freer as I reach thy shore, And my soul mingles with the ocean's roar That hymns around thee! Birthplace ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... of Lycastus chalky-white, Of Phaestus, of Miletus, with the youth Of Rhytius him obey'd; nor these were all, But others from her hundred cities Crete 795 Sent forth, all whom Idomeneus the brave Commanded, with Meriones in arms Dread as the God of battles blood-imbrued. Nine ships Tlepolemus, Herculean-born, For courage famed and for superior size, 800 Fill'd with his haughty Rhodians. They, in tribes Divided, dwelt distinct. Jelyssus these, Those Lindus, and the rest the shining soil Of white Camirus occupied. Him bore To Hercules, (what time ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... and clearness looked out from his dreamy eyes, and a smile of infinite kindness played about his mouth, but so full of sorrow and resignation that it filled one's heart with sadness and his eyes with tears. His tall herculean form was bent and shrunken; age had broken it, but could not take away that noble and dignified expression which distinguished that old man and involuntarily impelled every one to reverence and a sort of adoration. To his friends ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... flogging, I ran towards him, my sabre in my hand, and threatened to kill the first man to strike a blow! ... Marshal Duroc's coach was guarded by one of Napoleon's couriers, known in every post house in Europe as "Moustache." This man, of herculean strength and the courage to face anything, had accompanied the Emperor on twenty fields of battle. When he saw me in the middle of the Prussians he hurried to me, and on my instructions, he fetched four loaded ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... me," replied the man, addressing him with dry, parched lips, whilst his Herculean breast heaved up and down with agitation; "I didn't intend to do it, or to break in upon it, but now I must, for it's life or death with the three that's left me; and I durstn't go into the town to ask it there. I have lost four already. Maybe, sir, you could change this pound note for me? For the ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... up my mind that it was folly to try to get even with the insurance concern, and since a farming career was now closed against me, I determined to devote my spare time to watching the progress of affairs inside our new house and to cooeperate with Alice and Adah and our feminine neighbors in their herculean task of "having things as ...
— The House - An Episode in the Lives of Reuben Baker, Astronomer, and of His Wife, Alice • Eugene Field
... and over them all bounds the volatile Signora like a panther, nor pauses until with airy somersets she has passed twice through the purgatory of the blazing hoop, and then, drooping and exhausted, sinks like a Sabine into the arms of the Herculean master, who—a second Romulus—bears away his lovely burden to the stables, amid such a whirlwind of applause as Kemble might ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... grip, plunged heavily into the wide folds of the garment. Mannering's arms closed as a vice. The door swinging back had momentarily blocked my passage. I thrust it open, and had taken one step forward to Forrest's assistance, when Mannering with a herculean effort, swung the detective from his feet, and hurled him full at me. It was a magnificent effort, and I went down with a crash amongst the remains of the lunch with Forrest on the top of me. The whole incident had not lasted twenty seconds, and before either ...
— The Motor Pirate • George Sidney Paternoster
... republics whose wrecks lay along the pathway of history, and from the unwritten Constitution of the mother country, as their only guides, the leaders of the Convention were at once in the difficult role of constructive statesmen. The Herculean task to which with unwearied effort they now addressed themselves was that of "builders" of the Constitution; the establishers, for the ages, of the fundamental law for a ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... as one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than herculean force and precision, you shall be no more able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... And with a herculean energy he forced the monk backwards out of the reeling car on to the upper part of the stone ball. Michael, with as abrupt an agility, caught one of the beams of the cross and saved himself from falling. At the same instant Lucifer drove down ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... Chasteler. The advance of a still stronger force of the enemy under Baraguay d'Hilliers a second time against Botzen called Chasteler in person into the field, and the French, after a smart engagement near Volano, where the Herculean Passeyrers carried the artillery on their shoulders, were forced to retreat. It was on this occasion that Leiningen, who had hastily pushed too far forward, was rescued from captivity by Hofer.[5] The Vorarlberg had, meanwhile, also been raised by Teimer. A Dr. Schneider placed himself ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... cafe simultaneously uttered a cry of terror. Lazet's violence of character, his herculean strength and undaunted courage, were well known. He sprang across the table between them, and seized Gaston by the throat. Then arose a scene of excitement and confusion. Clameran's friend, attempting to assist him, was knocked down with ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... with herculean strength who is compelled by circumstances to follow a sedentary occupation, some minute exquisite work of the hands, for example, or to engage in study and mental labor demanding quite other powers, and just those which he has not got,—compelled, that is, ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... women, groans and the curses of men in combat! The investigators stood a moment, irresolute, frightened. Then Mr. Galbraith tried the door. It was fast. But the minister was a man of courage, a man, moreover, of Herculean strength. He retired a pace or two and rushed against the door, striking it with his right shoulder and bursting it from the frame with a loud crash. In a moment the three were inside. Darkness and silence! The only sound was the beating of ...
— Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories • Ambrose Bierce
... simplicity of Goldsmith: his opening eyes and unclosing lips; the "harsh thunder" of his articulation, and the horrisonous stamp of his ample foot, impress us with the same reverence which was felt by his literary visitants. It was here, doubtless, where the Herculean task of compiling his dictionary was achieved; the monotony of which was relieved by writing the periodical papers of his Guardian, and the more flowery composition of poetry and biography. But he is gone, and though the mist of years may obscure his personal history, and vicissitudes annihilate ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 366 - Vol. XIII, No. 366., Saturday, April 18, 1829 • Various
... was no sentimental reverie in his look. Already his mind was engaged in scrutiny of the circumstances in which he was set. He realised fully his situation. The idealism which had been born with him had met its reward in a labour herculean at the least, and the infinite drudgery of the practical issues came in a terrible pressure of conviction to his mind. The mind did not shrink from any thought of the dangers in which he would be placed, from any vision of the struggle he must have with intrigue, and ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... of the king, and thus was able to cloak his ambitious designs with the pretence of the royal authority, and deprived of a brother whom the army had appropriately surnamed "le chevalier sans peur,"[683] the task might well appear to demand herculean strength. ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... of the Colorado, more than 6,000 feet below our camp on the mountain side, which is 18 miles away; but the miles of horizontal distance represent but a small part of the day's labor before us. It is the mile of altitude we must gain that makes it a Herculean task. We are up early; a little bread and coffee, and we look about us. Our conclusion is that we can make this a depot of supplies, should it be necessary; that we can pack our rations to the point where we left our animals last night, and that we can employ Indians to bring them down to ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... this human load he would rise to the erect position. One of Lapiada's great feats was to get under a cart loaded with hay and, forming an arch with his body, raise it from the ground, then little by little he would mount to his haunches, still holding the cart and hay. Lapiada terminated his Herculean existence in attempting a mighty effort. Having charged himself alone with the task of placing a heavy tree-trunk in a cart, he seized it, his muscles stiffened, but the blood gushed from his mouth and nostrils, and he fell, overcome at last. The end of Lapiada presents ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... seemed an absolute confirmation of the prophecies of his opponents. He had, I believe, almost if not altogether, made up his mind that further assistance was impossible. But he looked once again, and appreciated the herculean efforts that his friends George Stephen and Donald Smith were making to avert the ruin of the great enterprise, apparently tottering to its fall. He realized what such a fall would mean to his country, to his party, and to himself; and, summoning all his courage, he called ...
— The Day of Sir John Macdonald - A Chronicle of the First Prime Minister of the Dominion • Joseph Pope
... much in favour of the vice of gambling, as to make them shut out its horrible deformity, must possess more than ordinary powers, and we question much whether, of the whole fraternity of gamblers, one could be found better adapted for the Herculean task which Mr. Freeman set himself. That which the mind is accustomed steadily to dwell upon, and upon which action is had repeatedly, will scarcely want for self-justification—and while the error of proceeding is reluctantly admitted, whatever may tend to justify, however slightly, is ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... signature or under his direct supervision. To busy himself with the smallest details is a distinctive characteristic of the man. Systematic methods, combined with an extraordinary mind, enable him to accomplish his herculean task. In the eastern horizon Li-Hung-Chang shines as the brilliant star of morning that tells of the coming of ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... priests and knights had to climb as best they could the stubborn slope to the summit. But the fatigue which was thus imposed upon the tender limbs of women, upon the ancient frames of ecclesiastics, was not to be borne by the new King of Sicily. He was carried up the incline in a chair by two herculean Moorish slaves, so strong and surefooted that the stubborn ascent could be made with the least possible discomfort to his royal body. While the others had groaned and sweated as they scuffled up the hill—that they might reach the goal in time to receive ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... leaning back in the barouche (with a feeling of easy importance lent by the consciousness of wondrous delights to come) and looking up with a species of admiring awe at the herculean form of the French coachman, who seemed to be concealing romantically brigandish recollections behind his fiery black eyes and wide-spreading, ferocious moustache. Along the dusty "South Road" we would go, under the green ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, September, 1885 • Various
... of the men who climbed over the gangway—just as the boats were being hoisted up—was a sailor of gigantic height, of colossal proportions, and Herculean vigour. He was a Canadian by birth. He carried in his arms a young child that was cold and motionless, as if dead. A slight trembling in its limbs, however, proclaimed that there was still life ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... wilderness found the minds of his countrymen we cowed with fear, or so benumbed with indifference as to their fate, that there was scarcely a man among them all, outside his own near kindred, to lend him an ear, or join him in his self-imposed, herculean labor. But toward the end, when every hill and valley, plain and forest, river and lake of the great North-west had been made to resound full many a year with the echoes of that awakening voice, behold the result. Persuaded that their hour of deliverance and vengeance was come ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... I believed there must be something wrong with a fellow who could conceive such a stupendous undertaking. Surely no one would think for a moment of putting it into execution! I also read with stolid indifference of the Herculean feats of labor performed by men known to history. For example, Demosthenes copied in his own handwriting Thucydides' History eight times, merely to make himself familiar with the style of that great man. An incident that appealed to me in a more ...
— Confessions of a Neurasthenic • William Taylor Marrs
... Brunner expired while the authors of her being were yet alive, Brunner senior was obliged to bear the loss of the sums of which his wife had drained his coffers, to say nothing of other ills, which had told upon a Herculean constitution, till at the age of sixty-seven the innkeeper had wizened and shrunk as if the famous Borgia's poison had undermined his system. For ten whole years he had supported his wife, and now he inherited nothing! The innkeeper was a second ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... doubt that Sir Rowland was a villain. It might be urged for him that he was a creature of circumstance, and that had circumstances been other it is possible he had been a credit to his name. But he was weak in character, and out of that weakness he had developed a Herculean strength in villainy. Failure had dogged him in everything he undertook. Broken at the gaming-tables, hounded out of town by creditors, he was in desperate straits to repair his fortunes and, as we have seen, he was not nice in his endeavours ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... A herculean struggle had begun. With one blow full in the chest, M. Leblanc had sent the old man tumbling, rolling in the middle of the room, then with two backward sweeps of his hand he had overthrown two more ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... an appearance at a little theatre in the Rue Pigalle. He was a big fellow of fifty with broad shoulders and a full, bearded face. His most disagreeable characteristic was the narrow dogmatic pedantry which he had acquired at the Ecole Normale, and had never since been able to shake off. All his herculean efforts to be sceptical and frivolous, and the twenty years he had spent in Paris mingling with every section of society, had failed to rid him of it. Magister he was, and magister he remained, even in his most ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... respective homes. They had certainly many faults, and had not behaved well to me; but I am given to weigh matters justly, and there was no doubt that those men had endured terrific hardships and, willingly or unwillingly, had carried through quite a herculean task. I therefore not only paid them the high wages upon which I had agreed, but I gave each a ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... stopped at his cabin door he rushed out, shouting hospitable welcome in a tremendous voice. If he ever spoke in anything less than a roar he would make his Herculean body and Jovian head ridiculous. As he never does, he ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... mortgaging the rest in the usual way. Edward Smith was a man of terrible energy. He worked "nights and Sundays," as the saying goes, to clear the farm of its brush and of its insatiate mortgage. In the midst of his Herculean struggle came the call for volunteers, and with the grirn and unselfish devotion to his country which made the Eagle Brigade able to "whip its weight in wildcats," he threw down his scythe and his grub ax, turned his cattle loose, and became a blue-coated ...
— Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... said Bailey, a herculean creature of 6 ft. 6 in., and stepping into "Wreck House" he brought out a chair, seated Lucy on it, and amidst applause and laughter, lifted it up on his mighty shoulders as if she was no more ...
— A Memory Of The Southern Seas - 1904 • Louis Becke
... your lordship,' said I, 'this shall be the first labour of my life; and, though I grant it is Herculean, I have little doubt of executing it effectually.' His lordship, though not quite so certain of my success as I was, in the name of the church, again gave his hearty assent; and we, with smiles, thanks, and bows in abundance, took our leave: Enoch with a fine pisgah prospect of the ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... and mystery, Scarce seen to smile, and seldom heard to sigh; Robust, but not Herculean, to the sight, No giant frame sets forth his common height; Yet in the whole, who paused to look again Saw more than marks the crowd of vulgar men: They gaze and marvel how, and still confess That thus it is, but why they cannot guess. ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... Romans under Arrius, the Senate had called Crassus to the chief command, resolving to make an herculean effort to destroy their terrible enemy. The accounts are somewhat confused, but, according to Plutarch, Crassus commenced operations against Spartacus before the latter marched for Sicily. He sent one of his lieutenants, Mummius, to follow and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... succeeded in getting the work started, but the task was a Herculean one. Duncan hurried to the scene of action as soon as he returned from New York to Cairo. He found that the space to be built over was very low-lying, and that the nearest source of supply for earth with which to build the high embankment required ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston
... wolf, plunged through and dropped into the stream. Cap. took a shot at it from the wobbling raft but of course failed. The fawn landed at the bottom of a mud wall ten feet high and for a moment seemed dazed, but by some herculean effort it gained the plain and sped away to freedom and we were not at all sorry to see it go. All the next day we kept on down White River on the raft and at seven o'clock were still five miles from camp in a direct course and no food left. As the stream meandered a great deal we parted ...
— A Canyon Voyage • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... mown down every blade of halfa-grass near. But Maxwell's men seemed not quite to get the range. The flag and flagstaff were riddled with bullet holes, and the dead were being piled around. Still, dervish after dervish sprang to uphold the black banner of Mahdism. A herculean black grasped the staff in one hand, and leaned negligently against it for what appeared to be the space of five or ten minutes,—probably less than one minute,—ere the soldiers managed to give him his final quietus. Then it was that the remnant of the army of ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... on about ten paces, in the same manner as he had previously done; all of a sudden he turned, and taking the bridle of the burra gently in his hand, stopped her. I had now a full view of his face and figure, and those huge features and Herculean form still occasionally revisit me in my dreams. I see him standing in the moonshine, staring me in the face with his deep calm eyes. At ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... the National War Work Council of the Y. M. C. A. at New York, was asked to take part in the creation of the machinery necessary for the gigantic piece of work that the organization had been called upon by the President of the United States to do. It was a herculean task; practically impossible with any large degree of efficiency in view of the almost insurmountable obstacles to be contended with. But step by step the imperfect machinery was set up, and it began to function in the home camps. Then ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... given by the prisoners, whether royalists or sans-culottes, to Age, to Learning, to Renown, to Beauty; and Strength, with its own inborn chivalry, raised into rank the helpless and the weak. The iron sinews and the Herculean shoulders made way for the woman and the child; and the graces of Humanity, lost elsewhere, sought their refuge in ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... she was lying face downwards on a rock and gazing into a little pool which the tide had forgotten about and left behind. I sat beside her and annoyed a limpet. Three minutes ago I had taken it suddenly by surprise and with an Herculean effort moved it an eighteenth of a millimetre westwards. My silence since then was lulling it into a false security, and in another two minutes I hoped to get a move on ...
— The Sunny Side • A. A. Milne
... the room, when the diamond broker, who was close behind, flung a long silk scarf round his neck, and, pushing his knee into his victim's back for a support, he attempted to give, with Herculean force, the famous stroke of Father Francis Vigozous; energetic, Thomery did not lose his presence of mind.... He knew that to resist such a pull by simple force was impossible.... Quickly he threw ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... I think, more rationalistic still, and decidedly inclined to treat it as an excellence pre-existing in the man and explanatory of the herculean performances ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... again, was one of the herculean artists, working, in Emerson's phrase, "in a sad sincerity," with the patience of an ant and the energy of a volcano. Of his Les Miserables—perhaps the greatest novel ever written, as it is, I suppose, easily the longest—he ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... the teeth of the gap, and as it proceeded to widen, we shot through it, with the surf leaping and tossing on either hand high above our heads. This stroke could have been possible only to a steersman possessed of herculean strength, combined with the rarest daring and coolness; and, as the result of these qualities, it was exceedingly effective. It lessened the danger of our being capsized almost entirely. Indeed, the sole mishap that was threatened by so doing, was the liability to being ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I., No. IV., April, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... months of this year I enjoyed another lecturing tour with him through Canada and the West. The lecture bureau that arranged his tours must have counted on his herculean strength, for frequently he had to travel twenty-four hours at a stretch to keep his engagements. Occasionally he was paid in cash at the end of the lecture an amount fixed by the lecture bureau. I have seen him with perhaps ...
— T. De Witt Talmage - As I Knew Him • T. De Witt Talmage
... University of Chicago. It is not strange that, in 1889, three years before he became a member of the university's first faculty, President Harper's attention was attracted to him, and he brought the early drafts of his plan for a herculean university to Professor Judson for criticism. When the inner history of that university is written, in my opinion, the world will be surprised to learn of the contribution of Professor Judson, who was Dr. Harper's Secretary of the Interior from the beginning. What Mr. Rockefeller was as ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park
... and behind them come scenes of more fierce emotion, full of surprise, of violence, of unrest; and with these the poet is not yet (if I dare say so) quite strong enough to deal. Apollo has not yet put on the sinews of Hercules. At a later date we may fancy or may find that when the Herculean muscle is full-grown the voice in him which was as the voice of Apollo is for a passing moment impaired. In Measure for Measure, where the adult and gigantic god has grappled with the greatest and most terrible of energies and of passions, ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... flashed field and hill and copse, and the dear "companionable hedgeways." Back flew iterative telegraph posts with Herculean swing, into the Past, looped together in rhythmic movement, marking the pulses of old Time. On, with rack and roar, into the mysterious Future. One could sit at the window and watch the machinery of Time's foundry at work; the hammers of his ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... himself for a last try with the Dewey's hardworked engines. Jack and Ted had spent the long evening in the wireless room with Sammy Smith, hearing not so much as a trace of a passing vessel. Eagerly they awaited the last herculean effort for freedom. At ten minutes to one the engines were set in motion again and the signal given to back away as before. Lieutenant McClure had resorted to the expedient of shifting everything ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... Prince launched assault after assault. The French met them bravely. But the Germans were not to be denied; and urged on by the Crown Prince, and often by the presence upon the firing line of the German emperor himself, they continued the herculean task without regard to loss ...
— The Boy Allies At Verdun • Clair W. Hayes
... amongst the rank-and-file of a dandy regiment like the Fourth. There was a great hulking fellow named Gardiner, who was boasting one day that he could carry twice his own weight He was told that he could not so much as lift his own, and was persuaded into a two-handled hamper, in which he made herculean efforts to lift himself. There was another man who received with perfect gravity the chaffing statement of a comrade, to the effect that he had shot a wood-pigeon at the North Pole, and that the bird had fallen on the needle on the top ...
— The Making Of A Novelist - An Experiment In Autobiography • David Christie Murray
... has been seen that on the expedition up the Metis a seasoned voyageur had been worn out by the severity of his labors; on the Tuladi half the men were sick at a time; and of Mr. Rally's party two Penobscot Indians of herculean frame were compelled to return by extreme fatigue. The engineers, while in the field, were even more exposed to fatigue than the laborers, for they carried their own baggage and instruments, and were engaged nightly ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Tyler - Section 2 (of 3) of Volume 4: John Tyler • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... "tip," is, you may be sure, a humbug. I never believed in such a one. Labor can always command its price, and what so laborious in this age as to be honest? What so difficult as to keep silence on other people's affairs? Such herculean tasks deserve payment! A valet who is generously bribed, in addition to his wages, can be relied on; if underpaid, all heaven and earth will not persuade him to hold his tongue. Left alone at last in my sleeping chamber, I remained for some time before actually going to bed. I took ...
— Vendetta - A Story of One Forgotten • Marie Corelli
... dejection. But heartened up by a crowded house, full even to the aisles, he bravely set in and proceeded to capture the house. His claquers hammered madly whenever the very feeblest joke showed its head. Sawyer supported their herculean efforts with bursts of stentorian laughter. As Mark explained, not without a touch of pride, inferior jokes never fared so royally before. But his hour of humiliation was at hand. On delivering a bit of serious matter with impressive unction, to which the audience listened with ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... the pursuit of knowledge. The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is an Herculean labor ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... promptness and energy. To feed twenty or thirty thousand people at once, with the limited facilities and the small working force at her command, and to do it systematically and economically, without wastefulness and without confusion, was a herculean task; but it was a task with which experience and training in many fields had made her familiar, and she set about it intelligently and met the difficulties of the situation with admirable tact and judgment. Her first step was to ask the ablest, most influential, and ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... at the idea which prevented her from wishing for the marriage, assailed her. Her mind, stimulated by these feelings, was much occupied by du Bousquier. Without being aware of it, she was influenced by the herculean form of the republican. Madame Granson and the Chevalier de Valois, although they could not explain to themselves Mademoiselle Cormon's inconsistencies, had detected her naive glances in that direction, ...
— The Jealousies of a Country Town • Honore de Balzac
... instant, even as we sped along, the ice opened again before us, and ere I could check my impetus, I was, with the lantern in my hand, plunged within the flood. My companion retained his hold of me, and with herculean strength he dragged me from the dark tide upon the frail floor over which we had been speeding. In the struggle, the lantern fell from my grasp, and sunk ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... brooms sweep clean; and official new brooms, I think, sweep cleaner than any other. Who has not watched at the commencement of a Ministry some Secretary, some Lord, or some Commissioner, who intends by fresh Herculean labours to cleanse the Augean stables just committed to his care? Who does not know the gentleman at the Home Office, who means to reform the police and put an end to malefactors; or the new Minister at the Board of Works, who is to make London beautiful as by a ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... would take up his cries, until they died away in the feeble sounds from the distant rocks that overhung the lake. His piles, or, to use the language of the country, his logging ended, with a dispatch that could only accompany his dexterity and herculean strength, the jobber would collect together his implements of labor, light the heaps of timber, and march away under the blaze of the prostrate forest, like the conqueror of some city who, having first prevailed over his adversary, applies the torch as the finishing blow ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... reasons were always assigned for them, but when ingenuity was fairly taxed with excuses, worn out, Mr. C. would candidly admit, that he had very little "finger industry," but then, he said, his mind was always on "full stretch."—The Herculean labour now appeared drawing to a close; as will be clear ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... of my Herculean labors at an end, I was enjoying my smoke aft in the cool of the evening, when Belle came back to me, her brow drawn up into what I had begun ...
— The Making of Mary • Jean Forsyth
... secret societies and the rallying-point of infidelity. He would reach it by a circuitous route. From Paris to the historic old capital of Switzerland, in the centre of mountains and the heart of Europe, was a herculean ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... see even with the assistance of art: I have gone from spectacles of the first sight to spectacles of the third; the Chevalier Taylor gives my eyes over, and my optician writes me word he can grind no higher for me.' It will soon be no such Herculean task to penetrate to the foundations of our national ecclesiastical history. From publications such as those of the Woodrow Club, and of the Letters and Journals, the student will be able to acquire in a few weeks what would have ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... fierce Numantia bled, Fell Hannibal, the swoln Sicilian main Purpled with Punic blood—not mine to wed These to the lyre's soft strain, Nor cruel Lapithae, nor, mad with wine, Centaurs, nor, by Herculean arm o'ercome, The earth-born youth, whose terrors dimm'd the shine Of the resplendent dome Of ancient Saturn. You, Maecenas, best In pictured prose of Caesar's warrior feats Will tell, and captive ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... The launch was a Herculean task, as I had built her too high above high water-mark, and it took me nearly a day to get her down and afloat. Finding I could not move her with my own bodily strength, I had to carry an anchor out and attach a block-tackle and thus, with the ...
— Jethou - or Crusoe Life in the Channel Isles • E. R. Suffling
... somebody, and there was silence for a space. The men had spent the best years of their life hewing the clearings that grew so slowly farther into the virgin forest, faring sparingly, and only quitting that herculean toil to earn sufficient dollars railroad building or working at the mines to feed them when they continued it again. They had sown the best that was in them of mind and body, giving all they had, courage that never faltered, as well as the ...
— Alton of Somasco • Harold Bindloss
... involved in liabilities amounting to L130,000. Never was adversity more manfully and gallantly met. Notwithstanding the crushing magnitude of the disaster and the concurrent sorrow of his wife's illness, which soon issued in her death, he deliberately set himself to the herculean task of working off his debts, asking only that time might be given him. The secret of his authorship was now, of course, revealed, and his efforts were crowned with a marvellous measure of success. Woodstock, his first publication after the crash, ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... commerce. He has at last been unmasked and arrested, thanks to the indefatigable zeal of the public prosecutor. He had for his concubine a woman of the town, who died of a shock at the moment of his arrest. This scoundrel, who is endowed with Herculean strength, found means to escape; but three or four days after his flight the police laid their hands on him once more, in Paris itself, at the very moment when he was entering one of those little vehicles which run between the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... which proved that we enjoyed the special protection of the authorities, had generally been of great service to us in our dealings with rascally station-keepers; but this station-keeper was not one of the ordinary type. He was a Cossack, of herculean proportions, with a bullet-shaped head, short-cropped bristly hair, shaggy eyebrows, an enormous pendent moustache, a defiant air, and a peculiar expression of countenance which plainly indicated "an ugly customer." Though it was still ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... Guert consented to fall back, though it was done surlily, and like a lion at bay. A party of Indians pressed us hard, in this retreat, and we ran an imminent risk of our scalps; all of which, I have ever believed, would have been lost, were it not for the resolution and Herculean strength of Jaap. It happened, as we were dodging from tree to tree, that all four of our rifles were discharged at the same time; a circumstance of which our assailants availed themselves to make a rush at us. Luckily the weight of ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper
... after labours herculean, I come to learn something of your Susan Meynell,—more, I come to learn of her marriage. But I will begin at the beginning of things. The labours, the time, the efforts, the courage, the patience, the—I will say it without to blush—the genius which this enterprise ...
— Charlotte's Inheritance • M. E. Braddon
... immediate attention. The poetic idealism of this decorative landscape, together with a fine joyousness, give it unusual character. Alongside of it a very intelligently painted little canvas by Albert Guillaume shows the interior of an art dealer's shop. The agent is making Herculean efforts to bamboozle an unsuspecting parvenu into buying an example of some very "advanced" painting. The canvas is fine persiflage in its clever psychological characterization of the sleek dealer and the stupid helplessness of the bloated customer and his wife, who seem hypnotized ...
— The Galleries of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... stereotyped formula concerning the supreme authority of general councils, and the imperative necessity of a reformation of the Church in its head and in its members, the fathers addressed themselves professedly to the herculean task thus indicated; but little or nothing was effected of any ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... Tahiti was a chief named Upaparu, a relative of Pomare, and hereditary ruler of the district of Taiarapu. He was a man of herculean proportions, and during the stay of Captain Bligh, of the Bounty, at Tahiti, was a constant visitor to the white men, with whom he delighted to engage in friendly wrestling matches and other feats of strength ...
— Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories - 1898 • Louis Becke
... struggle. It would have been futile to match even her fine strength against the herculean power of those arms—and suddenly the girl ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... wide diversity in human beings ranging from herculean physical strength to pitiable weakness; from the mental power of genius to the nonentity of imbecility; from outstanding and unquestionable talent in arts and letters to illiteracy and clumsy inefficiency. This ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... incapacity, but on account of his age, and because any one could perform the mere nominal duties that devolved on him. But why General Brown should have been removed at this critical moment, when he and the Police Commissioners were performing their herculean task so faithfully and well, is not so plain; unless it was the result of one of those freaks of passion or despotic impulse, for which the Secretary of War was so ignobly distinguished. But unlike ...
— The Great Riots of New York 1712 to 1873 • J.T. Headley
... amazement when he thought of the Herculean labors those fifteen pairs of hands had performed: of the cows they had milked, the butter they had made, the gardens they had planted, the children and grandchildren they had tended, the brooms they had worn out, the ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... full of vigour, and well worthy of his Herculean origin. His head was joined to his shoulders by a neck massive as a bull's, and almost without a curve; his hair, black and lustrous, twisted itself into rebellious little curls, here and there concealing the circlet of ...
— King Candaules • Theophile Gautier
... Among Herculean deeds the miracle That mass'd the labour of ten years in one Shall be thy monument. Thy work was done Ere we could thank thee; and the high sea swell Surgeth unheeding where thy proud ship fell By the lone Orkneys, at ...
— A Treasury of War Poetry - British and American Poems of the World War 1914-1917 • Edited, with Introduction and Notes, by George Herbert Clarke
... that wonderfully winning region, in the estimation of this people, the valley of the Mississippi. The emigrant was a stout, burly, bluff old fellow, with full round cheeks, a quick, twinkling eye, and limbs rather Herculean than human. He might have been fifty-five years or so; and his two sons, one of them a man grown, the other a tall and goodly youth of eighteen, promised well to be just such vigorous and healthy-looking personages as their father. The old woman, by whom ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... a month before he opened his lips; but when he did speak it became evident that he was determined to support to the utmost the power of the crown. He was plus royaliste que le roi. In the ordinary sense he was no orator. He hesitated, he coughed, he sought for words; his voice, in spite of his herculean frame, was feeble. But sturdy in his loyalty, although inexperienced in parliamentary usage, he offered a bold front to the liberalism which he saw to be dangerous to his sovereign's throne. Like Oliver ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume X • John Lord
... of rock shapes on the shores of Fatu-hiva appeared as if some Herculean sculptor with disordered brain and mighty hand had labored to reproduce the ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... you, really?" and the dazzling smile she gave me would have repaid a much greater Herculean task than I had undertaken. And, of course, I hadn't meant it, but when she thought I did, I couldn't go back on ...
— Vicky Van • Carolyn Wells
... a chaste soul, but it was lodged in a powerful Herculean body, and carnal images began to disturb his sleep and his vigils. He drove them away; they came back again; and he murmured from time to time, smiling ...
— The works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 5 (of 8) - Une Vie and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant 1850-1893
... be referred the subsequent labors of Ward, Colgan, Lynch, and others; herculean labors truly, which have enabled antiquarians of our days to resume the thread, so near being snapped, of that long and tangled web of history wherein is woven all that can interest the patriot and the ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud |
