"Single-handed" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... that on land to-day the French are relatively far stronger than they were in 1870, that the evolution of military expedients has been all in favour of the French character and intelligence, and that even a single-handed war between France and Germany to-day might have a very different issue from that former struggle. In such a conflict it will be Germany, and not France, that will have pawned her strength to the English-speaking peoples on the high ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... mess, for once in my life. That gossipping, old Mother Wynn made up her mind to let 'em have their fling for once, but they've gone and dragged me into it after all, and I mean to let the whole lot see that I'm enough for them, single-handed. ...
— Clemence - The Schoolmistress of Waveland • Retta Babcock
... and the flight from the world-church began. They could not tolerate this union of the church with a pagan state and an effete civilization. In some respects, as a few writers maintain, many of these hermits were like the old Jewish prophets, fighting single-handed against corruption in church and state, refusing to yield themselves as slaves to the authority of institutions that had forsaken the ideals ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... there that has not heard of Major-General WHACKLEY, V.C., the hero who captured the ferocious Ameer of Mudwallah single-handed, and carried him on his back to the English camp—the man to whose dauntless courage, above all others, the marvellous victory of Pilferabad was due? Speak to him on military matters, and you will find the old warrior as shy as a school-girl; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, November 28, 1891 • Various
... his people. In archery, in wrestling, in joust and in tourney, as well as in the tennis court or on the hunting field, Henry was a match for the best in his kingdom. None could draw a bow, tame a steed, or shiver a lance more deftly than he, and his single-handed tournaments on horse and foot with his brother-in-law, the Duke of Suffolk, are likened by one who watched them to the combats of Achilles and Hector. These are no mere trifles below the dignity of history; they help to explain the extraordinary ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... had stood and fallen; when the priests and the people of Israel compassed it about with trumpets of victory. There, or over against it, the Jordan had been divided to let the people pass over. In later days Elijah and Elisha had gone over single-handed. Down on that plain had stood Herod's Jericho, which Christ had gone through time and again; where Zaccheus climbed the tree to see Him, and Bartimeus sitting by the wayside had cried out for his mercy and got it. What was ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... Diderot did much, and in many directions, single-handed, flinging out his thoughts with ardent haste, and often leaving what he had written to the mercies of chance; a prodigal sower of good and evil seed. Several of his most remarkable pieces came to light, as it were, by accident, and long after his death. ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... understand how any man could refuse to fight, or could think of running away. When he beheld rout and cowardly panic before his very eyes, his temper broke loose and ran uncontrolled. His one thought then was to fight to the last, and he would have thrown himself single-handed on the enemy, with all his wisdom and prudence flung to the winds. The day when the commander held his place merely by virtue of personal prowess lay far back in the centuries, and no one knew it better than ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... cast them off in the course of his travels as incumbrances; and whoever sets out in life, I believe, with a crowd of relations round him, will, on the same principle, feel disposed to drop one or two of them at every turn, as they hang about and impede his progress, and make his own game single-handed. I speak of Englishmen, whose religion and government inspire rather a spirit of public benevolence, than contract the social affections to a point; and co-operate, besides, to prompt that genius for adventure, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... he had said and done since coming to the place. His wrestling powers were freely commented upon, as well as his ability to play the violin. They remembered, too, how he had faced Ben Stubbles at the dance, and had defeated single-handed the men sent to waylay him along the road at night. In short, he became such a mystery to all, that they began to look upon him as a hero, and ascribed to him wonderful powers, somewhat akin to those bestowed upon heroes of ancient legends. ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... from only the eighteenth century back—was when I sailed round in a half-decked 16-footer, designed by Watson. She was a great little boat, with a ton of lead on her keel. As I was nearing the harbour just such a breeze sprang up, and, being single-handed, I could not take in a reef, so had to carry on; right outside the harbour my foresail carried away, but I got in all right under the mainsail, and anchored alongside the Baroness Burdett-Coutts's yacht that was there ...
— Impressions of a War Correspondent • George Lynch
... work single-handed, and on this occasion I was accompanied by my brother, and this made it easier for us to go about as a pair of tourists interested in the country generally. A man travelling alone is much more liable to draw attention upon himself, and therefore ...
— My Adventures as a Spy • Robert Baden-Powell
... the face of a cliff. It was the Boers' causeway towards the north, their highway to safety. Retief's Nek lay to the westward, and formed a grinning death trap for any general who might try the foolish hazard of a single-handed attack Naauwpoort Nek, ugly and uninviting, faced south-east towards Harrismith. Golden Gate, named by a satirist—or a satyr—was merely a narrow chasm worn by wind and weather through the girdle of mountains. It looked ...
— Campaign Pictures of the War in South Africa (1899-1900) - Letters from the Front • A. G. Hales
... in the Excise. He cannot have paid more than a pound a week, if so much, for two rooms on the first floor. There was no servant, and the hardworking landlady, Mrs. Martha Bardell, performed all the duties of her household single-handed. As her Counsel later described it,—and see all she did for him!—"She waited on him, attended to his comforts, cooked his meals, looked out his linen for the washer-woman when it went abroad, darned, aired, and prepared it for his ...
— Bardell v. Pickwick • Percy Fitzgerald
... whose? Mary was far too matter-of-fact a person. Food, plates, knives and forks, glasses, and a cruet-stand were all she ever thought necessary; and even for a centre vase of flowers I had to ask, and often to insist, during the time she was single-handed. ...
— J. Cole • Emma Gellibrand
... single-handed feat of the war seems only to have been reported in one paper, The Express. We refer to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, September 9, 1914 • Various
... cries of alarm inside the door. The little man felt that he had sounded his warning and lived up to his duty. Had he completed that sniffing of the "koke," he would doubtless have been stimulated to enough pseudo-courage to face the entire Police Department single-handed—as long as the thrill of the drug lasted. A majority of the desperate deeds performed by the criminals in New York, so medical examinations have proved, are carried on under the stimulus of this fearful poison, which can be obtained with ...
— Traffic in Souls - A Novel of Crime and Its Cure • Eustace Hale Ball
... that by some strange freak of fate a miracle had saved him, but when he realized the ease with which the girl had, single-handed, beaten off twenty gorilla-like males, and an instant later, as he saw them again take up their dance about him while she addressed them in a singsong monotone, which bore every evidence of rote, he came to the conclusion that it was all but a part of the ...
— The Return of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... profession without the power of initiating anything. It is enough for him to handle other men's ideas, to combine them and balance them, to study and conciliate other men, and to suggest a compromise. But the artist, like the scientific discoverer, must act on his own ideas, and do battle, single-handed, with the ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... have won your heart. As friend, when one is at his side, none can be so winning, or so sincere as he; but with all his brilliant gifts, he says truly of himself that he is a mere reckless huntsman. To-day, while I am with him, he would give me half Austria, or fight single-handed in my cause or Thekla's. Next month, when I am out of sight, comes Trautbach, just when his head is full of keeping the French out of Italy, or reforming the Church, or beating the Turk, or parcelling ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in a communication to the Legislative Body on the state of France and on her foreign relations; had said, "England, single-handed, cannot cope with France." This sufficed to irritate the susceptibility of English pride, and the British Cabinet affected to regard it as a threat. However, it was no such thing. When Bonaparte threatened, his words were infinitely more energetic. The passage above ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... a loss, for the banner had not been displayed in battle in his time. "In truth," replied he, after a pause, "I have been considering that standard for some time, but I confess I do not know it. It cannot be the ensign of any single commander or community, for none would venture single-handed to attack you. It appears to be a dog, which device is borne by the towns of Baeza and Ubeda. If it be so, all Andalusia is in movement against you, and I would ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... ambassadors, and each one breathed the same spirit. From every court in Europe camp disapprobation and blame. Every one of the great powers counselled peace—speedy peace, lest all should be drawn into the strife, and Austria left to the humiliation of struggling single-handed against every other ...
— Joseph II. and His Court • L. Muhlbach
... odium which would necessarily devolve upon the Academy by its neglect of an artist of his eminence. His name has gone to swell the list of painters of mark who have ventured to defy the influence and opposition of the Academy, and have single-handed fought their way to ...
— Art in England - Notes and Studies • Dutton Cook
... few hundred yards in that direction brought him suddenly in contact with a party of Indians who were returning to their camp from a marauding excursion to Mason's Bottom, on the eastern side of the hill. This party being too formidable in numbers to encounter single-handed, the major turned his horse about and rode over his own track, in the hope of discovering some other avenue to escape. A few paces only of his countermarch had been made, when he found himself confronted by his original pursuers, who had, by this time, ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... never told of it, and no one ever knew since I was alone, and it would have been boasting—but once—I—fought single-handed with that great Christopher Little, whom I met by chance when I was out in the woods, and 'twas two years since, and I, with scarce my full growth, and he pleading for mercy at the second round, with ...
— The Heart's Highway - A Romance of Virginia in the Seventeeth Century • Mary E. Wilkins
... rates, taxes, and repairs, all off her mind! Wilmet felt as if prosperity were setting in; and she was the first to make the audacious statement that they need not part with Martha, and indeed, that the house could not be kept in order, nor dinners cooked fit for Mr. Froggatt, by Sibby single-handed. And Cherry made up her mind that they were like a family of caterpillars moving their cobweb tent; Angela, seeing such an establishment of young tortoise-shells, in their polished black, under their ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... holdin' a grudge, exactly, Gib, my boy. I admit I had a good run for my money an' it was a smart piece o' work, an' I got to admire the idea, same as I got to admire the seamanship you displayed sailin' the Chesapeake single-handed. It ain't what you done to me as makes my blood boil. It's what you ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... ran them single-handed till their sides were white with foam. He followed like a bloodhound on their track, Till they halted cowed and beaten, then he turned their heads for home, And alone and unassisted brought them back. But his hardy mountain pony he could scarcely raise a trot, He was blood from hip to ...
— The Man from Snowy River • Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson
... all, but a creature as matter of fact as any cheesemonger or any cheese, and a realist bemired up to the ears in actuality; so that, by that account, the whole of my published fiction should be the single-handed product of some Brownie, some Familiar, some unseen collaborator, whom I keep locked in a back garret, while I get all the praise and he but a share (which I cannot prevent him getting) of the pudding. I am an excellent adviser, something like Moliere's ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 'Timothy' and 'son in the faith.' The same Spirit was on him, though the form of his character and gifts was in strong contrast to the stormier genius of his mightier predecessor. Elisha had no such work as Elijah—no foot-to-foot and hand-to-hand duels with murderous kings or queens; no single-handed efforts to stop a nation from rushing down a steep place into the sea; no fiery energy; no bursts of despair. He moved among kings and courts as an honoured guest and trusted counsellor. He did not dwell apart, like Elijah, the strong son of the desert; but, born ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... companion of Wade's, and the other a noted desperado and highwayman, still masked, as at the moment of the attack. Wade and his companion had probably sold their lives dearly, and against odds, for another mask was found on the ground, indicating that the attack was not single-handed, and as Wade's body had not yet been rifled, it was evident that the remaining highwayman had fled in haste. The hue and cry had been given by apparently the only one of the travelers who escaped, but as he was hastening to take the overland coach to the East at the time, ...
— Under the Redwoods • Bret Harte
... because it holds firmly, is a great flattener, and is especially adapted to the securing of square boxes. It is celebrated because it is pretty and rather difficult to learn. Also it possesses the advantage for single-handed packing that it can be thrown slack throughout and then tightened, and that the last pull tightens the whole hitch. However, for ordinary purposes, with a quiet horse and a comparatively soft pack, the common Square Hitch holds well enough and is quickly made. For ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White
... makes it hard for any one to care a rap for him. Could I have had my own way, I would long ere this have packed him out of the place. But since she (T'au Ch'un) has now got this idea into her mind, we must cooperate with her. For if we can afford each other a helping hand, I too won't be single-handed and alone. And as far as every right principle, eternal principle, and honesty of purpose go, we shall with such a person as a helpmate, be able to save ourselves considerable anxiety, and Madame Wang's interests will, on the other hand, derive every advantage. But, as far as unfairness ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin
... pleasantly spent at Alexandria, I perceived the approach of the enemy, and as nothing hampered my incomings and outgoings, I surrendered. The world was "all before me," and there was pleasant excitement in plunging single-handed into its chilling depths. My Alexandrian Shaykh, whose heart fell victim to a new "jubbeh" which I had given in exchange for his tattered zaabut, offered me in consideration of a certain monthly stipend ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... comfort, but here in my hands were twenty pages of Gladys Todd's faith in me and her pride in me. She was sure that I should have the opportunity which I sought, and, having it, would mount to the dizziest heights. She likened me to a crusader who wore her colors and was charging single-handed against the gates of the Holy City and shouting his defiance of the infidels who held it. It was an exalted idea, but I remembered my tilt that afternoon with the ancient office-boy of The Record, and his refusal to take ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... the enemy in the cove of a hill in the Forest of Argonne, he did not run; but sank into the bushes and single-handed fought a battalion of German machine gunners until he made them come down that hill to him with their hands in air. There were one hundred and thirty-two of them left, and he marched them, prisoners, into ...
— Sergeant York And His People • Sam Cowan
... teeming Midland manufacturing town, it was Norman's influence which obtained the rectorship for his friend. It was not often that they could meet, for An Wolf's work, which, though not very exacting, had to be done single-handed, kept him to his post. Besides, he was a good scholar and eked out a small income by preparing a few pupils for public school. An occasional mid-week visit to Normanstand in the slack time of school work on the Doctor's part, and now and again a drive ...
— The Man • Bram Stoker
... the world better fitted for his mission than Abraham Lincoln. His birth, his training, and his natural endowments, both mental and physical, were strongly in his favor. Born and reared among the lowly, a stranger to wealth and luxury, compelled to grapple single-handed with the flintiest hardships of life, from tender youth to sturdy manhood, he grew strong in the manly and heroic qualities demanded by the great mission to which he was called by the votes of his countrymen. The hard condition of his early life, which would ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... then if you like, everybody talking and laughing at once; and Mrs. Prendergast said that such a thing as one single-handed cap'n staying behind to go down with his ship, and then putting the fire out all by himself after his men had fled, had never been heard of before, an' she believed it never would be again. She said he must be terribly burnt, and he'd have to be put to bed and wrapped ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... uses for placing a colt or horse completely in his power are not absolutely new, although it is possible that he has re-invented and has certainly much improved them. The Russian (i. e. Courland) Circus Riders have long known how, single-handed, to make a horse lie down by fastening up one fore-leg, and then with a rope suddenly pulling the other leg from under him. The trick was practised in England more than forty years ago, and forgotten. That no importance was attached to this method ...
— A New Illustrated Edition of J. S. Rarey's Art of Taming Horses • J. S. Rarey
... he looked hard at it for several minutes. It dawned on him gradually that his fifty dollars would about pay for one plate. As he confided to us afterward, that little slip of paper frightened him more than could the prospect of a combat single-handed with a ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... hero who had struggled single-handed against whole troops, the man of iron whom neither the sword nor the lance could kill, in ten minutes perished from the prick of ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... cutting the dikes, laid the country to a great distance round under water. They likewise passed a resolution that, though all the rest of Holland should make terms with the conqueror, they would sustain the siege single-handed till some friendly power ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... causing bitter jealousy to arise betwixt the parochial clergy and the monks, sowing seeds of strife which played a considerable part in the struggle this same century was to see. But it was useless to try to stem the current single-handed, and the rule of obedience was as strong within him as that ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... same reason a minister, however able, however great the services he has rendered to his country, can very rarely overthrow his Sovereign. Bismarck himself could not have done so. This great minister had single-handed created the unity of Germany, yet his master had only to touch him with his finger and he vanished. A man is as nothing before a principle supported ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... maize and potatoes, and a great pumpkin climbing up a stump. My horse and myself were done up, so I halted, and was amazed at the greeting I received from the youth, who was hard at work on his hay, single-handed, except for the two children tumbling in it. The lady in her rocking-chair was contrast enough to make me heartily glad to find that she was his stepmother, not his wife. Since that, I have seen a good deal of him; he comes to Lakeville, five miles across the bush and seven across the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... morning Colonel Craven arrived, and found, to his amazement, that Garfield, single-handed, had forced his formidable enemy from his strong position, and was in triumphant possession of ...
— From Canal Boy to President - Or The Boyhood and Manhood of James A. Garfield • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... trigger, to advance one step and meet the death that should enable him to give their ill-favoured bodies one by one to the pariahs and the hawks, before he proceeded to sack Ain al Baidah and overcome single-handed the whole of its fighting men. And, absurd though his rodomontade may sound to Europeans, who read it in cold print, it was a vastly different matter there in the dark of the Plain, when Salam stood, believing he held a loaded gun ...
— Morocco • S.L. Bensusan
... Single-handed Langdon might have been outwitted by the power and astuteness of his foes. But another mind, a keener one was soon to add its force to Langdon's. Francis J. Heney, special investigator of the Roosevelt government, who had unmasked and overthrown corruption ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... deferred to him," and until his death, save times, when laid up with wounds, he was constantly battling for his King and country. Twice was he captured; but so great was his fame both for prowess and goodness that both times his enemies released him without ransom. Once he defended a bridge single-handed against the enemy, and enabled the French army to retreat. So great was his valor at the battle of Marignano that Francis I. of France, after the field was won, craved the accolade at his hand. But never, either ...
— Harper's Young People, August 24, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... their stupendous loss, when the news came that Gavin had died a very glorious death, that he would have been given the Victoria Cross had he lived, and that they were sending it to Auntie Elspie. He had held back a rush of the enemy, alone and single-handed, until his comrades got to a place of safety. He had stayed on in a desperate position, working his machine gun, while the world rocked beneath him and the mad heavens raged with shot and shell above him, had held on though he was wounded again and ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... here. Then we'll go aft together; if there is any specie hidden aboard this hooker, it will be either in the cabin, or lazaret. And, whether there is, or not, my man, the Santa Marie turns north tomorrow, if I have to fight every sea wolf on board single-handed." ...
— Wolves of the Sea • Randall Parrish
... Lord Leven at its head, it crossed the Border in January "in a great frost and snow"; and Newcastle, who was hoping to be reinforced by detachments from Ormond's army, was forced to hurry northward single-handed to arrest its march. He succeeded in checking Leven at Sunderland, but his departure freed the hands of Fairfax, who in spite of defeat still clung to the West-Riding. With the activity of a true soldier, Fairfax threw himself on ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... (he has sometimes the extreme condescension to address me as an abbreviation), "I'll trot you up to him at once—and I say, A 1 idea! tell him you mean to be your own counsel, and do all the speechifying yourself. Native prince, in brand-new wig and gown, defending himself single-handed from wiles of artful adventuress—why, you'll knock the jury ...
— Baboo Jabberjee, B.A. • F. Anstey
... consideration, to promote Mr Richard Chichester to that position, in recognition of the extraordinary valour which he had displayed on the previous day by boarding the Spanish ship and attacking her crew, single-handed, in the rear, thereby distracting the attention of the enemy and contributing in no small measure to their subsequent speedy defeat. This decision on the part of the Captain, strange to say, met with universal and unqualified approval; for Dick's ...
— Two Gallant Sons of Devon - A Tale of the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... her husband as he had expected. The mildness of her parting words made it very apparent that she did not mean to take offence; and he perceived suddenly, at a glance, that he would have to tell her all he was going to do, and encounter her criticism single-handed, which was rather an appalling prospect to the Rector. Mrs Morgan, for her part, went up-stairs not without a little vexation, certainly, but with a comforting sense of the opportunity which awaited her. She felt that, in his unprotected position, as soon as she left him, the Rector would conduct ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... do not bid thee do them service. That lieth with thee, to render or not, as thou seest fit. But how canst thou hope to fight single-handed against the commands of a dozen lads all older and mightier ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... above, the outstanding feature of this correspondence is an engaging frankness. For instance, Private Cosh, who under an undemonstrative, not to say wooden, exterior evidently conceals a heart as inflammable as flannelette, is conducting single-handed no less than four parallel love affairs. One lady resides in his native Coatbridge, the second is in service in South Kensington, the third serves in a shop in Kelvinside, and the fourth moth appears to have been attracted ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay
... name was known only to his colonel, and on quitting the service, the colonel placed in his hands a letter of warm eulogy on his conduct, and identifying him as Victor de Mauleon. Secondly, that in California he had saved a wealthy family from midnight murder, fighting single-handed against and overmastering three ruffians, and declining all other reward from those he had preserved than a written attestation of their gratitude. In all countries, valour ranks high in the list of virtues; in ...
— The Parisians, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... and rose pacifically. "I kinda believe you myself, Andy. But you can't blame the boys none; you've fooled 'em till they're dead shy of anything they can't see through. And, besides, it sure does look like a plant. I'd back you single-handed against a dozen sheepherders like then two we've been chasing around. If I hadn't felt that way I wouldn't have sent yuh ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... the stupid fools who were scraping up the gold, while his fellows chased them into the wood, so that the alarmed band left all this booty, and ran in every direction to hide themselves in the forest. In vain Johann roared, and shouted, and swore, and opposed himself single-handed to the knight's followers. He received a blow that sent him flying, too, after his band, and Sidonia along with him, so that none but the dead ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V1 • William Mienhold
... a difficulty, but simply because I want to send you back to the Kiaja with a sensible answer which I am quite sure you are incapable of hitting upon yourself. Well, I freely admit that I did kill Ali Kermesh, killed him single-handed. Nobody helped me to do the deed. And now I have thrown in my lot with the Janissaries, and here I stand where it has pleased Allah to place me, that I may pay with my own life for the life I have taken if it seem ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... "die rather than own to a black fellow that you were frightened of anything," I refused their offer of protection, and declared so emphatically that there was nothing in heaven or earth that I was afraid to tackle single-handed, that ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... morning by surprised keepers. It struck him that there was something absurd in this part of the plan. How was this guard to explain his position with absolutely no sign of a struggle to bear him out? It was hardly plausible that a big, strong fellow could be so easily overpowered single-handed; there was something wretchedly incongruous about the—but there came a startling and effective end to ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... was treacherous and that he might have to fight to regain possession of his wife. He wished that Mugambi, Sheeta, Akut, and the balance of the pack were with him, for he realized that single-handed it would be no child's play to bring Jane safely from the clutches of two such scoundrels as Rokoff ...
— The Beasts of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... escaped from the building, or was he detained in the room he had surreptitiously entered? If he had indeed escaped, would he have the good sense to hasten to the camp instead of trying to assist his chum single-handed? ...
— Boy Scouts on Motorcycles - With the Flying Squadron • G. Harvey Ralphson
... o'clock!' And so it was. Directly I saw an Indian coming down a hill near by, and then more Indians and more Indians—till it seemed like they wa'n't ever going to get through coming. We had struck a bigger outfit than the first one. That first Indian he bantered my men to come out single-handed and fight him. One after another, he wounded five of my Indians. I ordered my Indians to engage them, and kind of get them down in the flat, where I could charge. After some running and shooting they did this, and I turned the Rangers loose. ...
— Crooked Trails • Frederic Remington
... Irish question is a type, it imposed upon men and upon nations, but above all on the leaders of nations, swift and momentous decisions. Because that critical hour presented to Redmond's vision a great opportunity which he must either seize single-handed or let it for ever pass by; because he rose to the height of the occasion with the courage which counts upon and commands success; because he sought by his own motion to swing the whole mass and weight of a nation's feeling into a new ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... that evening had dealt so largely with Fenn—the whole school, indeed, was talking of nothing but his great attempt to win the cricket cup single-handed—that Kennedy, going out into the road for a breather before the rest of the boarders returned from preparation, made his way to Kay's to see if Fenn was imitating his example, and taking the ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... impossible to fight single-handed against these adverse influences, and could only endeavor to divert the mind of my patient into more healthy channels of thought. In this I succeeded perfectly. She became an enthusiastic botanist, and our rambles in search of the rare and lovely specimens which were to be found among ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... of those ancient Irish monuments that I have written these few lines. The Irish themselves are, unfortunately, so engrossed with political and religious controversies, that it can scarcely be hoped that single-handed they will be roused to the rescue even of these evidences of their former national greatness. Besides, a great obstacle exists against any interference with the religious antiquities of the country, from the strong feelings entertained by ...
— Thomas Davis, Selections from his Prose and Poetry • Thomas Davis
... charge with dangerous dexterity. Meanwhile the master, himself, either hurled his javelins on the enemy from a short distance, or jumping from the chariot—from the body or yoke indifferently—descended on the ground, and fought single-handed. When pressed by the cavalry they retreated to the woods; which, in many cases, were artificially strengthened ...
— The Ethnology of the British Islands • Robert Gordon Latham
... hunted every beast, I think, shootable and huntable, from a humming-bird to an elephant; and I had some splendid fishing in Canada; but, after all, give me a Whitbury trout, on a single-handed Chevalier. We'll at ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... design, as though he had a difficulty in commencing - a difficulty, let us say, in choosing a subject out of a world which seemed all equally living and significant to him; but once he had the subject chosen, he could cope with nature single-handed, and make every stroke a triumph. Again, his absolute mastery in his art enabled him to express each and all of his different humours, and to pass smoothly and congruously from one to another. Many men ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... uncle thought it good discipline to turn a young fellow like me adrift for a whole day in London to shift for myself, and wrestle single-handed with the crisis that was to decide ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... assailants of the Ceres, and drove them off; then, hauling his wind, he awaited the attack of the others. The three leeward grabs were towed up within range, and for the next two or three hours the Harrington engaged all six, almost single-handed. The wind had fallen; the Ceres and Halifax were out of gunshot; the Pulteney alone was able to give assistance at long range. So well served were the Harrington's guns that she inflicted more damage than she received, and, by ten o'clock, four of the grabs ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... Katie. She knew every turn, every light and shade in her nature—her faults, her pride and hastiness, her deep, tender heart. A sob rose in her throat at the idea of Katherine being left alone to engage single-handed in the struggle for existence. No! She would live!—she would battle on with poverty and difficulty till Katherine was a few years older; till she was stronger and ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... Mr. Pitt, in thus taking upon himself, almost single-handed, the government of the country at such an awful crisis, was, he soon perceived, not shared by the public. A general expectation had prevailed that the three great Parties, which had lately been encamped together on the field of opposition, would have each sent its Chiefs into the public ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... the hounds better than I do!" he would say to a brother M.F.H. at the Puppy Show. "Her mother can't keep her out of the kennels. And the hounds are mad about her. I believe she could take 'em walking-out single-handed!" ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... It is unfortunate that they see me here; do thou therefore, noble Petronius, enjoin silence on Eunice; and thou too, noble Vinicius, spread a report that I sell thee an ointment which insures victory in the Circus to horses rubbed with it. I alone will search for her, and single-handed I will find the fugitives; and do ye trust in me, and know that whatever I receive in advance will be for me simply an encouragement, for I shall hope always for more, and shall feel the greater certainty that the promised reward will not ...
— Quo Vadis - A Narrative of the Time of Nero • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... truisms in the next. Mr. Webster stands between the two classes. He viewed the present with a strong perception of the future, and shaped his policy not merely for the daily exigency, but with a keen eye to subsequent effects. At the same time he never put forward and defended single-handed a great principle or idea which, neglected then, was gradually to win its way and reign supreme ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... and England also lost two battleflags. As she is not often careless in that respect, it is a surprise to find, in this tiny tucked-away little island, what you will not see in any of the show places of the world. They tell in Santa Cruz that one night an English middy, single-handed, recaptured the captured flags and carried them triumphantly to his battleship. He expected at the least a K.C.B., and when the flags, with a squad of British marines as a guard of honor, were solemnly replaced in the church, and the middy himself was sent ...
— The Congo and Coasts of Africa • Richard Harding Davis
... were the open window and the litter on the floor to remind me of what had happened earlier in the night. Yet I was less disconcerted than you might suppose. A common housebreaker can have few terrors for one who has braved those of mid-ocean single-handed; my would-be visitor had no longer any for me; for it had not yet occurred to me to connect him with the voices and the footsteps to which, indeed, I had been unable to swear before the doctor. On the other hand, these ...
— Dead Men Tell No Tales • E. W. Hornung
... rowers had apparently somewhat abated their speed in order to allow the other two boats to draw up to them, for the result of the encounter between their comrades and the fugitives had not been of a nature to encourage them to undertake a single-handed contest with them. ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... middies of her Majesty's navy I have met with as fine little chaps as one would wish to see—regular bricks, afraid of nothing (except of doing anything that would be thought sneaking or shabby), ready to dare anything—to attack a seventy-four single-handed in a punt or a bumboat if need be; nevertheless, I've met boys, and a good many of them too, who would beat all the monkeys in Africa at sneaking and deceiving. I remember one rascal, who went to the same school ...
— The Gorilla Hunters • R.M. Ballantyne
... time to unite England firmly together before the Danes set foot on the island. It is our divisions which have rendered their task so far easy. Northumbria, Mercia, and East Anglia have one by one been invaded, and their kings have had to fight single-handed against them, whereas had one strong king reigned over the whole country, so that all our force could have been exerted against the invader wherever he might land, the Danes would never have won ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... Single-handed like Jack the Giant Killer to deliver, not a beautiful damsel from the fangs of a winged monster, but a tough old backwoodsman from the dark paws ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... Manchester had been clearly proved; but the engineering evidence in support of the proposed railway having been thrown almost entirely upon Stephenson, who fought this, the most important part of the battle, single-handed, was not brought out so clearly as it would have been, had he secured more efficient engineering assistance—which he was not able to do, as the principal engineers of that day were against the locomotive railway. The obstacles thrown in the way ...
— Lives of the Engineers - The Locomotive. George and Robert Stephenson • Samuel Smiles
... regarded himself still as a man who was struggling for his rights. But something of his old, self-reliant courage was gone. He recognized the fact that there was one thing in the world more powerful than himself. The law was against him. Single-handed, he could meet men; but the great power which embodied the justice and strength of the State awed him, and compelled him into a ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland
... "There is a girl writing on the paper now—she's going to do the literary notices while I'm gone—who came to Chicago from Ann Arbor, with no more chance than I had, and who's made her way single-handed from interviewing up." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... an excellent base of operations. Finding that its British proclivities had not produced the Chambly canal for its trade with the St Lawrence, it had become more violently anti-British than ever before and even proposed taking Canada single-handed. This time its new policy remained at fever heat for over three years and only cooled down when a British man-of-war captured the incongruously named Olive Branch, in which Ira Allen was trying to run the blockade from Ostend with twenty thousand muskets and other arms which he ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... flageolet. Then sneakingly off to farmering and pioneering. Four gangs at work on our place; a lively scene; axes crashing and smoke blowing; all the knives are out. But I rob the garden party of one without a stock, and you should see my hand - cut to ribbons. Now I want to do my path up the Vaituliga single-handed, and I want it to burst on the public complete. Hence, with devilish ingenuity, I begin it at different places; so that if you stumble on one section, you may not even then suspect the fulness of my labours. Accordingly, I started in a new place, below the ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson
... just reward for my folly in trying to tackle a family of lions single-handed. The odds were too long. I have been lame ever since, and shall be to my dying day; in the month of March the wound always troubles me a great deal, and every three years it ...
— Long Odds • H. Rider Haggard
... abilities and accomplishments without recalling exciting recollections. He was a member of the Roxburghe, and though he did not live to see the improvement in the issues of that institution, or the others which kept pace with it, he, alone and single-handed, set the example of printing the kind of books which it was afterwards the merit of the book clubs to promulgate. He gave them, in fact, their tone. He had at his paternal home of Auchinleck a remarkable ...
— The Book-Hunter - A New Edition, with a Memoir of the Author • John Hill Burton
... But Drake would have been the first to divide the honour with the comrades who were his arm and hand. Great admirals and generals do not win their battles single-handed like the heroes of romance. Orders avail only when there are men to execute them. Not a captain, not an officer who served under Drake, ever flinched or blundered. Never was such a school for seamen as that twenty ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... the great mass of stay-at-homes who read the story in the Tocsin) found each moment of it enthralling enough. The State's attorney, fearful of losing so notorious a case, and not underestimating his opponent, had modestly summoned others to his aid; and the attorney for the defence, single-handed, faced "an array of legal talent such as seldom indeed had hollered at this bar"; faced it good-naturedly, an eyebrow crooked up and his head on one side, most of the time, yet faced it indomitably. He had a certain careless and disarming smile when he lost a point, which ...
— The Conquest of Canaan • Booth Tarkington
... bourgeois; the other aristocratic, plus an abundant output of book-learning, in either case. Syndicalism, on the contrary, is indubitably laborist in origin and aim, owing next to nothing to the "Classes,'' and, indeed,, resolute to uproot them. The Times (Oct. 13, 1910), which almost single-handed in the British Press has kept creditably abreast of Continental Syndicalism, thus clearly set forth the significance of the ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... Thorndyke took me there with your aunt and Miss Gibson; the work there is done by the laboratory assistant, and his knowledge of the case, I should say, is about as great as a type-founder's knowledge of the books that he is helping to produce. No; Thorndyke is a man who plays a single-handed game and no one knows what cards he holds until he lays them ...
— The Red Thumb Mark • R. Austin Freeman
... plunged again into a stress of work with his old swing and intensity, as if single-handed at one spurt he was to make his way to the close of his labors. He ate his hurried meals at a little restaurant near the laboratory, and came back to his rooms late at night, unexhausted, nervously eager to ...
— The Man Who Wins • Robert Herrick
... and—Oh, I say, Val, you did it splendidly! I had a good tuck-out of mealie-porridge this morning, and three big slices of prime beef frizzled. I feel quite a new man with all that under my jacket, and ready to take two Boers single-handed." ...
— Charge! - A Story of Briton and Boer • George Manville Fenn
... husband and complaining wife would have had their querulousness and ingratitude taken out of them once for all if they could have had a year or two of single-handed conflict with real hardship. Independence and self-reliance are the ...
— Practical Ethics • William DeWitt Hyde
... fact, and false in loyalty. The Senator from Kentucky is mistaken in them all. Five hundred million dollars! What then? Great Britain gave more than two thousand million in the great battle for constitutional liberty which she led at one time almost single-handed against the world. Five hundred thousand men! What then? We have them; they are ours; they are the children of the country. They belong to the whole country; they are our sons; our kinsmen; and there are many of us who will give them all up before we will abate ...
— American Eloquence, Volume IV. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various
... the field in which he was so earnest a laborer. For eight years he worked in New Mexico, more than 280 years ago. In 1618 he was parish priest at Jemez, mastered the Indian language and baptized 6566 Indians, not counting those of Cia and Santa Ana. "He also, single-handed and alone, pacified and converted the lofty pueblo of Acoma, then hostile to the Spanish. He built churches and monasteries, bore the fearful hardships and dangers of a missionary's life then in that wilderness, and has left us a most valuable chronicle." ...
— The Old Franciscan Missions Of California • George Wharton James
... that in the next fight the regiment was not gratified by any thrilling episodes of sanguinary, single-handed combats, between the indomitable ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... my good fellow, that I would do more single-handed by the means of gold than you and all your troop could effect with stilettos, pistols, carbines, and blunderbusses included. Leave me, then, to act, and have no ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Carlyle must in justice be reckoned as the pioneer. For many years he stood almost single-handed as the champion of German thought and German art against the scorn or neglect of his countrymen. But he knew that he was right, and was fully conscious whither the path he had chosen was to lead. Aware that much in the work of Goethe would seem "faulty" ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... and five, besides being the great year of Trafalgar, was a year of hard fighting in India. That year saw such wonders done by a Sergeant-Major, who cut his way single-handed through a solid mass of men, recovered the colors of his regiment, which had been seized from the hand of a poor boy shot through the heart, and rescued his wounded Captain, who was down, and in a very jungle of horses' hoofs and sabres,—saw such wonders done, I say, by this brave ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... "After all the bugs, and worms, and caterpillars, and other monsters we have faced—alone and single-handed—here in the woods, I don't believe I'll ever squeal if I put my hand upon a mouse ...
— Wyn's Camping Days - or, The Outing of the Go-Ahead Club • Amy Bell Marlowe
... symptoms he was amazed to find the outbreak as virulent and as fatal as the Asiatic cholera he had seen in India. In 1866, when another wave of cholera swept over Britain, he was asked to go to Slateford, where he coped with its ravages almost single-handed, saving life in every case after he went, except those already too far gone before his arrival. In late autumn of the same year the scourge broke out seriously in the small towns on the coast of Fife, and Dr Balfour went to Leven, where the doctor had just died of it, and a state of panic prevailed, ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson • Margaret Moyes Black
... traveller is likely to want can be effected by means of a small axe with a hammer-head, a very small single-handed adze, a mortise-chisel, a strong gouge, a couple of medium-sized gimlets, a few awls, a small Turkey-hone, and a whetstone. If a saw be taken, it should be of a sort intended for green wood. In addition to ...
— The Art of Travel - Shifts and Contrivances Available in Wild Countries • Francis Galton
... forget that he was unable to cope single-handed with the well-armed and disciplined troops of his foes; he remembered too well his signal failure at Kedaref, and therefore sought to gain his long-desired object by diplomacy. He had heard from Bell, Plowden, and others, that England and France were proud of ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... on which he claimed a right to consider himself free, and would bear the consequences. Such was the resolve which he made on his journey up from Liverpool, and that trouble was also on his mind when he rose up to attack Mr Melmotte single-handed at ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... help. As it was, there was little amiss, beyond the wreck of the main-sail. Another anchor was got ready, and dropped in a fathom and a half of water. We all pulled round again to Rum Cove, the nearest point for Ben Gunn's treasure-house; and then Gray, single-handed, returned with the gig to the Hispaniola, where he was to pass the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... you know, that Kut-le escaped from Porter, though I think if he had he would have been upon us long before this. I've been mighty careless. But my brain is so tired it seems to have been off duty. I could hold that trail single-handed from the ...
— The Heart of the Desert - Kut-Le of the Desert • Honore Willsie Morrow
... inciting the poverty-stricken populace to trouble, with the revolutionists waiting for opportunities to rise, should an insurrection actually occur while no outside assistance can be rendered to quell it we are certain it will be impossible for Yuan Shi-kai, single-handed, to restore order and consolidate the country. The result will be that the nation will be cut up into many parts beyond all hope of remedy. That this state of affairs will come is not difficult to foresee. When this occurs, shall we uphold Yuan's Government ...
— The Fight For The Republic In China • B.L. Putnam Weale
... that amused the people was the remark of a young soldier who had single-handed taken some German prisoners, and who, when asked whether he had done it by the revolver or the bayonet, answered that he had only held out a slice of bread and butter and ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol 1, Issue 4, January 23, 1915 • Various
... Francesco, who, single-handed, and armed with no more than a whip, was scattering them from about his maltreated servant, as the hawk scatters a flight of noisy sparrows. And now between him and Lanciotto there stood no more than the broad bulk of Ercole Fortemani, ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... gone, the dear, the wonderful one, and she was left single-handed to carry on his work. What this work was loomed largely, though vaguely, for her. The three slender volumes, literary and ethical, were the only permanent testament that her father had given to the world; and dealing, as in the main they did, with ultimate ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... From this place there was little danger in their proceeding singly, and it was agreed, in consequence of the low state of their finances, that they should separate, in order to try what each might be able to accomplish single-handed and without ostentation, till new supplies ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... iron club in his hand; grinding his teeth, and with eyes darting fire, he seemed capable of meeting single-handed the whole troop. ...
— The Continental Classics, Volume XVIII., Mystery Tales • Various
... been for five centuries (until now) the capital of a kingdom, and a quarter of a million people call the city their home; no carriages or buggies, no sewerage, and but few horses. There are miserable little overloaded ponies that the average farmer would feel that he could pitch single-handed into his barn-loft, but the burden-carriers are mostly bulls that are really magnificent in appearance, both oxen and ponies carrying loads on their backs that an American would expect to ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... rose again. Finding himself no longer pursued by his unseen foes, his waning self-confidence returned, and it was only a week or two after Alan's departure that wonderful stories began to go about the village concerning his prowess in ridding the woods of thieves and marauders single-handed. ...
— The Scotch Twins • Lucy Fitch Perkins
... transubstantiation, and keeps up the holidays of the Church, and allows recreation on the Sabbath. But what he thinks the most of is the circulation of the Scriptures among plain people. So he translates them into German,—a gigantic task; and this work, almost single-handed, is done so well that it becomes the standard of the German language, as the Bible of Tindale helped to form the English tongue; and not only so, but it has remained the common version in use throughout Germany, even as the authorized King James version, made nearly a century later by the labor ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... these ladies of the danger. The wind is blowing right into the bay; we cannot tack out against it. It will take me two hours to row out single-handed with some one baling out the ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman
... manhood had cried out to him then to fight the multitude single-handed, to shake the power of Rome and defy the will of the people, and to rush up to that one Cross, towering above the others, to pick out with firm fingers every cruel nail, to wrap the sacred body in soft, soothing cloths, and to kiss every wound until ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... took hold of him and made him tremble, and, of a sudden, his mind became dark. Most of us have undergone this sensation at one time or another, with less cause then had poor James. There he was, put up almost for the first time in his life to conduct, single-handed, a most important case, upon which it was scarcely too much to say the interest of the entire country was concentrated. Nor was this all. Opposed to him were about twenty counsel, all of them men of experience, and including in their ranks some of the most famous leaders in England: and, what was ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... months of utter loneliness, and Joyce abandoned his selection to the bush, selling his few head of cattle and horses to his nearest neighbour for a small sum, keeping only one horse for himself. Then for two or three years he worked as a "hatter" (i.e., single-handed) in various tin-mining districts ...
— The Call Of The South - 1908 • Louis Becke
... and his pockets full of letters and orders, at the head of quite a procession of huge white cart-horses with pack-saddles, and big brown native men with nothing on but gaudy kilts. Mighty well he managed all his commissions; and those who saw him ordering and eating his single-handed luncheon in the queer little Chinese restaurant on the beach declare he looked as if the place, and the town, and the whole archipelago belonged to him. But I am not going to let you suppose that this great gentleman at the head of all his ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson |
