"Vulnerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... day to day the reports of the convention debate. Reasons urged for the enfranchisement of paupers, of idiots, of the ignorant, the degraded, the infamous—none for women! The exquisite care with which men guard their own rights in the most vulnerable of their sex—the silence, the scorn, the ridicule with which they pass by or allude to our claims—great God! it is too much for endurance and patience. Daily I pray for a tongue of flame and inspired lips to awaken the sleeping, arouse the careless, shake to trembling and overthrow ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... can feel the crawling of my skin as I looked upon the methodical obliteration of men's work. I can see the tendrils splaying out over the sidewalks, choking the roadways, climbing walls, finding vulnerable chinks in masonry, bunching themselves inside apertures and bursting out, carrying with them fragments of their momentary prison as they pursued their ...
— Greener Than You Think • Ward Moore
... the torrent was replaced by a smooth arm of water, for which a cutting had been made to complete the isolation of the crag of Roccaleone. But here, where the castle might more easily have become vulnerable, a blank wall greeted him, broken by no more than a narrow slit or two midway below the battlements. He rode on towards the northern side, crossing a footbridge that spanned the river, and at last coming to a halt before the entrance tower. Here again the moat was formed by the torrential ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... moments they would be vulnerable if Carrots Kelso happened to walk to the bank and look across. It had to be chanced. Scotty started out and Rick drew abreast of him. They swam cautiously, making no noise or splash, reached the opposite bank safely and crawled up the beach until they were sure the fence hid them ...
— Smugglers' Reef • John Blaine
... of his discovery would be plucked by other hands. There was to be no division of the profits. Nate Griggs had coveted the whole. His craft had secured it for himself alone. He had the legal title to the land, the mine—all! There seemed absolutely no vulnerable point in his scheme. With suddenly sharpened perceptions, Birt realized that if he should now claim the discovery and the consequent right of thirty days' notice of Nate's intention, by virtue of ...
— Down the Ravine • Charles Egbert Craddock (real name: Murfree, Mary Noailles)
... have continued. But the larger the tract of country which an empire covers—especially when different tribes and nations are included in it—the weaker and less organised it becomes. Within little more than a century of the death of Cyrus the Great the Greeks discovered the vulnerable point in the Persian Empire, owing to an expedition of ten thousand Greek mercenaries under Xenophon, who had been engaged by Cyrus the younger in an attempt to capture the Persian Empire from his brother. Cyrus was slain, 401 B.C., but the ten thousand, under the leadership of Xenophon, were enabled, ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... domicil,' banished in Williams I [by the overruling of Haddock v. Haddock], has returned renamed ['domicil of origin'] in Williams II, every decree becomes vulnerable in every State. Every divorce, wherever granted, * * *, may now be reexamined by every other State, upon the same or different evidence, to redetermine the 'jurisdictional fact,' always the ultimate conclusion of 'domicil.' ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... are vulnerable, as well as we," Carolyn remarked in a sorry imitation of her original cocksureness, as she opened the play by leading the ...
— Murder at Bridge • Anne Austin
... conscience was always, they say, to the very end of his long life, the conscience of a child, vulnerable by physical punishment, but ...
— Gallantry - Dizain des Fetes Galantes • James Branch Cabell
... stone; the giant did not know for many a day where he had been hit; yet it had struck him in the one vulnerable point in his armor—his daughter's trust in him. How the wound widened does not belong to ...
— The Awakening of Helena Richie • Margaret Deland
... peculiarly interesting for two reasons,—it gives us an insight into his wide range of reading and study, and it exhibits his penetration and sanity as a critic. In the long list of great names he never fails to put his finger on the vulnerable spot. Frequently he is exceedingly felicitous, as when he speaks of "rapt Behmen, rapt too far," or of "Emerson, Most wise, that yet, in finding Wisdom, ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter
... a winged monster; 2. it was not unusual to represent dragons as having been killed by being pierced under the shoulder,[117] since a dragon had to be pierced where its scales did not prevent the entrance of a weapon into its body; 3. since there is no special reason why a bear, which is vulnerable in all parts of the body, should be represented as being pierced through the shoulder, the manner in which Hjalti is said to have killed the bear is evidently another unmotivated incident in the rmur that is imitated from a ...
— The Relation of the Hrolfs Saga Kraka and the Bjarkarimur to Beowulf • Oscar Ludvig Olson
... by a justly famous designer. There was a slip, with as much lace as could be put upon one garment; such white satin slippers as she had never hoped to wear; and the texture of the silk stockings almost made her shout for joy. Achilles was vulnerable in the heel: fly, O man, from the woman who is indifferent to the ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... strongly guarded; so, leaving Stagg's brigade and Miller's battery about three miles southwest of Deatonsville—where the road forks, with a branch leading north toward the Appomattox—to harass the retreating column and find a vulnerable point, I again shifted the rest of the cavalry toward the left, across-country, but still keeping parallel to the enemy's line ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... miles north of the city, and broadening into the East River, about a mile wide where it separates New York from Brooklyn Heights, on Long Island. Encamped on Staten Island, on the south, General Howe could, with the aid of the fleet, land at any of half a dozen vulnerable points. Howe had the further advantage of a much larger force. Washington had in all some twenty thousand men, numbers of them serving for short terms and therefore for the most part badly drilled. Howe had ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... intolerant of those unfortunates who were not similarly blessed. But, impressive as Mrs. Pennypoker was in most respects, there was yet one undignified peculiarity which marred the otherwise perfect majesty of her appearance. Like Samson, her vulnerable point lay in her hair; or, more properly speaking, in her lack of it. The ravages of time had removed a part of her dark brown locks, and left an oval bald spot, closely resembling the tonsure of a Romish ...
— In Blue Creek Canon • Anna Chapin Ray
... come the question. Who was going to get this book and bring it back—or protect it? Pete was too valuable and too vulnerable. He was known, and if any of the police agencies got their hands on him ... well, that would be all. ...
— The Best Made Plans • Everett B. Cole
... and the bull leader of the herd fell on his haunches. The bullet had found the vulnerable spot under the fore shoulder, where one should always shoot a musk-ox. To aim at the head is ...
— The North Pole - Its Discovery in 1909 under the auspices of the Peary Arctic Club • Robert E. Peary
... struggle the Netherlanders were ill prepared. The Dutch Republic was a federation of seven sovereign states, lacking a strong executive and torn by rival factions. Moreover, her geographical position was most vulnerable. Pressed by enemies on her land frontiers, she was compelled to maintain an army of 57,000 men in addition to her navy. As the resources of the country were wholly inadequate to support the population, her very life depended on the sea. For the Holland of the 17th ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... visits to the poor, and attendance on the charity-schools, and regular loud devotions at church, Mr. Dacre remained obdurate and wedded to celibacy. It might be that he disapproved of the marriage of the clergy, but I think he was at one time vulnerable on ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... Spanish sovereigns, especially to Ferdinand, by whose grandfather Zahara had been recovered from the Moors. Measures were accordingly taken for strengthening the whole line of frontier, and the utmost vigilance was exerted to detect some vulnerable point of the enemy, on which retaliation might be successfully inflicted. Neither were the tidings of their own successes welcomed, with the joy that might have been expected, by the people of Granada. The prognostics, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... in her chin with a mock display of bravery. "I believe it was in an English novel that I read that any woman without a hump can get any man she sets out for. It is a matter of determination and concentration and a wise choice of vulnerable objects." ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... had taken up the planks at both ends, and organized a plan of relieving the men who stood guard, he became homesick and exceedingly anxious to return to Pittsburgh. He had determined to take the night train and I was at a loss to know how to keep him with me until I thought of his one vulnerable point. I told him, during the day, how anxious I was to obtain a pair of horses for my sister. I wished to make her a present of a span, and I had heard that St. Louis was a noted place for them. Had he seen ...
— Autobiography of Andrew Carnegie • Andrew Carnegie
... of Luxemburg and demanded free passage for its troops across Belgium to attack France at that country's most vulnerable point. King Albert of Belgium refused his consent on the ground that the neutrality of his country had been guaranteed by the powers of Europe, including Germany itself, and appealed for diplomatic help from Great ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney
... about the joking of intimates being frequently unkind. This is just an instance to the contrary. Ellesmere, who is not a bad fellow—at least not so bad as he seems—knows that he can say anything he pleases about my style of writing without much annoying me. I am not very vulnerable on these points; but all the while there is a titillating pleasure to him in being all but impertinent and vexatious to a friend. And he enjoys ...
— Chambers' Edinburgh Journal - Volume XVII., No 423, New Series. February 7th, 1852 • Various
... Jimmy seemed the most vulnerable, and upon him Paul hurled himself with the exalted frenzy of a single idea: an idea of boring his way out of an insupportable position. That Jimmy's blows hurt him so little astonished him, and under the spur of fear he fought with ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... other. The archduke and the czar opposed the Turk; the Muscovite could not endure that Sweden should be aggrandised by this new crown; and Denmark was still more uneasy. Montluc had discovered how every party had its vulnerable point, by which it could be managed. The cards had now got fairly shuffled, and he depended on his usual ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. To me they have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for a man must battle for his fortress at every door ...
— Legends That Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... story in detail, as showing the origin and character of the destructive raids, of which New England annalists show only the results. The borders of New England were peculiarly vulnerable. In Canada, the settlers built their houses in lines, within supporting distance of each other, along the margin of a river which supplied easy transportation for troops; and, in time of danger, they all took refuge in forts under command of the local seigniors, ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... the quality of Giovanni's head-piece of a truth there had been an end to the warring of a Fool. I smote him back, a mighty blow upon his epauliere that shore the steel plate from his shoulder, and left him a vulnerable spot. At that he swore ferociously, and his bloodshot eyes grew wicked as the fiend's. A second time he essayed that side-long blow upon my helm, and with such force and ready address that he burst the fastening of my visor on the left, so that it ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... finding that sewing the tears in one's tunic is a far different and more difficult matter than sowing one's wild oats at home. Owing to having baked the back of one of my boots in drying it at a fire, after my fourth immersion in a bog, I have had rather a bad heel, but am easier in that vulnerable part now, having cut out the ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... is another matter. So far as style is concerned its merits have not yet been questioned. As a matter of style and diction, Milton is as safe as Virgil. The handling of the story is more vulnerable. The long speeches put in the mouth of the Almighty are never pleasing, and seldom effective. The weak point about argument is that it usually admits of being answered. For Milton to essay to justify the ways of God to man was well and ...
— Obiter Dicta - Second Series • Augustine Birrell
... being unwilling to lose him, not only on account of their past friendship, but also because of his vital role in the conduct of her affair, she sent a message to him to say that she wished to speak to him one more time and that afterwards she would leave him free to do as he pleased. One is very vulnerable when one is in love. The Comte came back, and in less than an hour the beauty of the Princess, her charm and a few kind words made him more submissive than ever, and he even gave her some letters from the Duc de Guise ...
— The Princess of Montpensier • Madame de La Fayette
... culture were, however, peculiarly vulnerable to invading hosts of later comers. There were no natural protecting barriers like the narrow Nile valley or the Kong mountains or the forests below Lake Chad. Once the pathways to the valley were open and for hundreds of years the newcomers kept arriving, ...
— The Negro • W.E.B. Du Bois
... accusing his companion. But the mind of the procureur was made up; he felt assured that Benedetto was guilty, and he hoped by his skill in conducting this aggravated case to flatter his self-love, which was about the only vulnerable point left ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... you, is a wonderful moral force; the white suit, put on fresh every morning, heavily starched, buttoned up to the chin, is like an armor, ironcladding you against the germ of decay buzzing about you, ceaselessly vigilant for the little vulnerable spot. Miller wore camisas, and then he began to go without shoes. I saw that myself. I was riding through his pueblo on my way to Dent's, and I passed his school. I looked into the open door as my head bobbed by at the height of the stilt-raised floor. He was in his camisa and barefooted; his ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... of the world, and the honorable manner in which I treat my pupils. Sir Robert Somerset and your lady mother were amply satisfied with the account which his lordship gave of my character; but with all this, in one point every man is vulnerable. No scholar can forget ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... living under the same sky, a heavy trial of fortitude, a matter of tears and anguish and blood. Mrs. Haldin had felt the pangs of her own generation. There was that enthusiast brother of hers—the officer they shot under Nicholas. A faintly ironic resignation is no armour for a vulnerable heart. Mrs. Haldin, struck at through her children, was bound to suffer afresh from the past, and to feel the anguish of the future. She was of those who do not know how to heal themselves, of those who are too much aware of their heart, who, neither cowardly nor selfish, look passionately at ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... of his situation, without the most flagrant errors on the part of his opponent. The Spanish general, who understood the character of the French commander perfectly well, lay patiently awaiting his opportunity, like a skilful fencer, ready to make a decisive thrust at the first vulnerable point that should be presented. Such an occasion at length offered itself early in the following ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... aspects, and even unnatural and inhuman, drew a cordon around the Christians, and separated them from the sensualities of ordinary life. It was a reproof as well as a protest. It attacked Epicureanism in its most vulnerable point. "How hardly shall they who have riches enter into the kingdom of God?" Hence the voluntary poverty, the giving away of inherited wealth to the poor, the extreme simplicity of living, and even retirement from the habitations of men, which marked the more earnest of the new believers. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IV • John Lord
... it was not wisdom. Few people are so constituted as to be able to stand praise and adulation without the character suffering thereby. Censure would have been much better for him. When the individual is attacked, when he is made to assume the defensive, he first discovers the vulnerable points in his armor, and as opportunity offers strengthens them. Beethoven's ungovernable temper and apparent ingratitude are frequently commented on, but the ingratitude was only apparent. When he came to a knowledge of himself and discovered ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer
... silence, in which Grassette's head was thrust forward, his eyes staring into space. The old Seigneur had touched a vulnerable corner in ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... the reason why Mrs. Strait holds to the moralistic concept of the Christian life. Separated from her husband and feared by her children, she feels acutely vulnerable and guilty. As a defense, she has built for herself a fortress made up of precepts, ideals, and rules, all based on a foundation of righteousness, and this has made her a formidable and rigid person. Like all ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... which, had they ever been real for past generations, would long since have faded away, were it not through the labours of mercenary traders in treason— Ireland is of necessity, and at any rate, the vulnerable part of our empire. Wars will soon gather again in Christendom. Whilst it is yet daylight and fair weather in which we can work, this open wound of the empire must be healed. We cannot afford to stand another era of collusion from abroad ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... men's minds, "come like shadows, so depart," were by him fixed and embodied as they presented themselves, and, at once, taking a shape cognizable by public opinion, either in his actions or his words, either in the hasty letter of the moment, or the poem for all time, laid open such a range of vulnerable points before his judges, as no one individual perhaps ever before, of ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... him. Mr. Fox had won but little in this first attempt. He seemed to realise this, and shifted his attack to a point more vulnerable. ...
— The House of the Whispering Pines • Anna Katharine Green
... of an inch square, where the horny integuments are lacking, and the fine skin is exposed uncovered. It is there, always there, in that tiny defect in the bee's armour, that the sting is inserted. Why is this point attacked rather than another? Is it the only point that is vulnerable? Stretch open the articulation of the corselet to the rear of the first pair of legs. There you will see an area of defenceless skin, fully as delicate as that of the throat, but much more extensive. The horny armour of the bee has no larger breach. If the Philanthus ...
— Social Life in the Insect World • J. H. Fabre
... and distress must come to this task. The stern, uncompromising militarist will not be moved from his determinations by our horror and hostility. These things will but "brace" him. He has a more vulnerable side. The ultimate lethal weapon for every form of stupidity is ridicule, and against the high silliness of the militarist it is particularly effective. It is the laughter of wholesome men that will finally end war. The stern, strong, silent man will cease to trouble us only when we have stripped ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... formidable to her, than she sets to work against him in all the relationships of life. In his profession, his trade, his family; amongst his friends, the companions of his sports, his neighbours, and his servants. She eyes him all round, she feels him all over, and, if he has a vulnerable point, if he has a speck, however small, she is ready with her stab. How many hundreds of men have been ruined by her without being hardly able to perceive, much less name, the cause; and how many thousands, seeing the fate of ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 3 • Henry Hunt
... the proposed King's Proctor in operation to-morrow; and what will be the result? The managers will find that instead of insuring them as the Lord Chamberlain does, he will warn them that every play they submit to him is vulnerable to the law, and that they must produce it not only on the ordinary risk of acting on their own responsibility, but at the very grave additional risk of doing so in the teeth of an official warning. Under such circumstances, what ...
— The Shewing-up of Blanco Posnet • George Bernard Shaw
... bread-fruit tree, dips water up and pours it over himself after he has first examined it carefully. The indigenous Indians, living in the remote parts of the forest, do not use this mode of protection, but cover the vulnerable portions of the body carefully with strips of bark, which render ...
— In The Amazon Jungle - Adventures In Remote Parts Of The Upper Amazon River, Including A - Sojourn Among Cannibal Indians • Algot Lange
... The shoe was on the other foot, or, to be precise, the foot was on the underside. That is, the owl had got the foe where he lived, below water-line, if I may so put it, where, like a battleship, his armor did not run, and he was soft and vulnerable as any other beast. Moreover, he had not trained himself in the art of throwing himself upon his back, as the owl, who was like a cat in this particular also, had apparently done, and since he could not prance on his hindlegs, ...
— The Way of the Wild • F. St. Mars
... accommodating them in some other way, until he had won the confidence of all those in command of the steamer, as well as those in charge of Johnston's Island. After a time, he found out those who were most vulnerable on the money question, and those whom he did not dare to approach upon the subject. Of the latter class, there is one mentioned in particular by the rebels, whose suspicions they did not care to arouse, and which they ...
— The Great North-Western Conspiracy In All Its Startling Details • I. Windslow Ayer
... stoutly: "Foreigners had been scoffing them too long and too truly with waging these Irish wars as if they meant to keep them alive, rather than end them. Mercy and faith to every Irishman who would show mercy and faith, was his motto; but to invaders, no mercy. Ireland was England's vulnerable point; it might be some day her ruin; a terrible example must be made of those who dare to touch the sore. Rather pardon the Spaniards for landing in the Thames than in Ireland!"—till Lord Grey became much ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... "But he went further than that. What did he mean by the Keeper of the Cones—and that the Things—were vulnerable under the same law that orders us? And why did he command us to go back to the city? How could he know—how ...
— The Metal Monster • A. Merritt
... immortal Duke of Wellington, he was never wounded. But, at length, when Achilles was in the Temple, treating about his marriage with Philoxena, daughter of Priam, the brother of Hector let fly an arrow at his vulnerable heel, and did ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... body and mind in every taste that could be elegantly enjoyed; and again proud of the elegance of every enjoyment. The change of circumstances which touched his pride, wounded him at every point where he was vulnerable at all. ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... exaggerated gallantry suggests the vulnerable side of the Hotel de Rambouillet, and the side which its enemies have been disposed to make very prominent. Among those who tried to imitate this salon, Spanish chivalry doubtless degenerated into a thousand absurdities, and it must be admitted that the salon itself was not free from reproach ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... "papa" jarred on American ears, and often corrected himself; but when Signor Salvini himself once told me a story of his father, he referred to him constantly as "my papa," just as he does in this book of his that makes him seem so egotistical and so determined to find at all costs the vulnerable spot, the weak joint in the ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... entered the Piraeus again, even at the risk of exposing the Karteria to the Turkish shells; as he saw that by his powerful fire of grape he could prevent the Turks from forming in any force to attack the most vulnerable part of the camp. The fire of the Karteria soon produced its effect; but it drew all the attention of the Pasha to the vessel, as he perceived it was vain to persist in attacking the troops until he compelled the steamer ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 360, October 1845 • Various
... danger. In Paris the methods of violence he might have been tempted to try in New York were out of the question. What remained? He must realize that threats to expose her would be futile; also, he must feel vulnerable, himself, to that kind of attack—a feeling that would act as a restraint, even though he might appreciate that she was the sort of person who could not in any circumstances resort to it. He had not upon her a single one of the ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... shot from behind walls, about three hundred and fifty took effect, that is, one shot out of six. Three tons of iron were hurled at Fort Sumter, and probably six tons at the fleet. Fighting inside of iron towers, the Union men had no one killed, and but one mortally wounded. The Keokuk, the most vulnerable of all the ships engaged, sank under the northwest wind in the heavy sea of ...
— Charles Carleton Coffin - War Correspondent, Traveller, Author, and Statesman • William Elliot Griffis
... had been returned at the preceding election. It is also a presidential election year and neither of the great parties is willing to take one unnecessary step which in its judgment may tend to add to the number of its adversaries or to its vulnerable points in some particular section of the country. All of the 435 members of the House and one-third of the Senators come up for re-election in November of this year—they, too, are shy and sensitive. Some legislation, notably child labor after it ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... vision is extremely limited, and, on account of the low speed of his boat while submerged, he can operate over only a very limited area of water while the other vessels are moving many miles. Then, too, he is extremely vulnerable to the effect of enemy shells and to the ramming of enemy ships. Under these conditions the submersible commander is more or less forced to a policy of lying ambushed to surprise his enemy. It is said that the "Lusitania" was decoyed ...
— The Journal of Submarine Commander von Forstner • Georg-Guenther von Forstner
... but from other indications it is only reasonable to admit that there is an added ingredient, of which we probably have no knowledge, whereby the effect is enhanced in every degree, and the outer surface of the victim rendered more vulnerable. There is also another and milder form of torture, known as the "task", consisting either of sharp-edged stones being broken upon the body, or else the body broken upon sharp-edged stones, but precisely which is the official ...
— The Mirror of Kong Ho • Ernest Bramah
... under Major Robert Anderson. The fortifications of Charleston Harbor consisted of Fort Moultrie on the main land (in which Anderson's command was stationed), Fort Pinckney, and Fort Sumter standing massive and alone in the centre of the harbor. Anderson, with his handful of troops in the most vulnerable of the three forts, saw day by day the secession sentiment growing stronger. Almost daily some of the privileges of the soldiery were cut off; such as the right of passing through the city, and the right to buy supplies in the public markets. Daily could be heard the drum and the tread of ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... scales from one eye, the travellers sent in a bullet that exploded in the brain and ended its career. "This has been by all odds the most exciting hunt we have had," said Ayrault, "both on account of the determined nature and great speed of the attack, and the almost impossibility of finding a vulnerable spot." "Anything short of explosive bullets," added Bearwarden, "would have been powerless against this beast, for the armour in many places is nearly a foot thick." "This is also the most extraordinary as well as most dangerous creature with which we have, ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... varying moods, but there was an unchanging love for his kind under it all. However, like all such men, he hated to be surprised into a betrayal of these innermost feelings, and this is what had happened. Somers had found the vulnerable point in his armor of reserve, but, like the sensible man he was, he kept ...
— The Watchers of the Plains - A Tale of the Western Prairies • Ridgewell Cullum
... time to take leave of my dusky companion. I could have slaughtered him as I leaned over his back. My knife rested upon the most vulnerable part of his huge body. No! I could not have slain that buffalo ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Margaret lay still and gently assented; Ethel was silent at first, and only when the fabric became extremely airy and magnificent, put in her word with a vehement dash at the present abuses, which grieved her spirit above all, and, whether vulnerable or not, Norman was to dispose of, like so many giants before ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... knowing that the more he took, the better for their purpose. And thus while the blundering cheat—gull that he was, for all his cunning—thought himself rolled up hedgehog fashion, with his sharpest points towards them, he was, in fact, betraying all his vulnerable parts ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... outside feature of the exposition may serve as an admonition to put our own surroundings in order. They are not apt to expose us to such comments as naturally occur to those who have never seen dogs and damsels in harness together; but other vulnerable points may peradventure be descried. We must demonstrate our civilization to be complete at all points, and not simply a coddled exotic under glass. What if our Viennese guests, physically a stouter race than we, should pronounce our women too obviously not ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... across the road, with stooping mothers in their train; the whole air and scene seemed to be suffused with suggestions of the pathetic expansiveness and helplessness of human existence, which, generation after generation, is still so vulnerable, so confiding, so eager. Life after life flowers out from the darkness and sinks back into it again. And in the interval what agony, what disillusion! All the apparatus of a universe that men may know ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ball, but our porcupine does not. I have tried all sorts of tricks with him, and made all sorts of assaults upon him, at different times, and I have never yet seen him assume the globular form. It would not be the best form for him to assume, because it would partly expose his vulnerable under side. The one thing the porcupine seems bent upon doing at all times is to keep right side up with care. His attitude of defense is crouching close to the ground, head drawn in and pressed down, the circular shield of large quills upon his back opened ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... to get her to talk to him, but some cloud of timid aloofness on her part seemed to hang between them, and very soon below the copse they came to the one vulnerable part in all the haw-haw's length. She showed him how to take the bricks out and where to place his feet, and pointed out how secluded from any eye the place was. Then, as he climbed down and then up again, ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... French might launch a powerful flank attack from either Verdun or Paris. To attack the center was, in effect, something like thrusting a dagger into a lion's mouth in the effort to cut his throat. It was necessary to hold back the jaws Verdun and Paris, whilst attacking the vulnerable throat at Fere Champenoise. ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... him no known enchantments could prevail. These facts were sure; regarding them there was no doubt, no reason for doubt. There was but one question: might there be still other enchantments, unknown to Merlin, which could render Sir Sagramor's veil transparent to me, and make his enchanted mail vulnerable to my weapons? This was the one thing to be decided in the lists. Until then the ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... name given to the tendon of the leg above the heel, so called as being the tendon by which Thetis held Achilles when she dipped him in the Styx, and where alone he was in consequence vulnerable. ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... tingling to his finger-tips. True, he had nothing as yet in the oil-field conspiracy that the newspapers or the public would accept as evidence of fraud and corruption. But on the other hand, Bucks was only a man, after all; a man with a bucaneer's record, and by consequence vulnerable beneath the brazen armor of assurance. If the attack were ...
— The Grafters • Francis Lynde
... vulnerable heel, and there are times in the lives of each of us when the arrow of accident, harmless at all other periods, can enter and ruin. Colonel Bancker had kept his secret, or believed that he had kept it, inviolate; but his fatal moment had come. ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... your private character should be used against you in a political question by a man you call a public corruptionist. But I'm in a position where I can't take any chances against an antagonist that won't play the game my way. I had to find your vulnerable point to defend myself, and, in finding it, I find that there's no need to defend myself any longer, because it makes all your weapons ineffective. I believe the trouble with you, Mr. Knowles, is that ...
— In the Arena - Stories of Political Life • Booth Tarkington
... iron-clad, we manoeuvred about the bay here, and went at each other with mutual fairness. I consider that both ships were well fought. We were struck twenty-two times—pilot-house twice, turret nine times, deck three times, sides eight times. The only vulnerable point was the pilot-house. One of your great logs (nine by twelve inches thick) is broken in two. The shot struck just outside of where the captain had his eye, and disabled him by destroying his left eye and temporarily blinding the other. She tried to ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... indication, and after some research discovered that the fortification had one vulnerable part, a small low door on its flank. As for the main entrance, that was used to keep out thieves and customers, except once or twice in a year, when they entered together, i.e., when some duke or count arrived in pomp with his train of ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... great disadvantage in attacking France. The blow could not be delivered against the front from St. Mihiel to the Swiss frontiers. This front is vulnerable only where the Vosges Mountains are broken by the great gaps at Belfort, Epinal, and Nancy; and these gaps are easy to defend and well backed up in rear by great bases of supply excellently served by many radiating railroad lines. It could not be delivered at Verdun, because France ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... divided on the manner of Achilles' death; some relate that he was slain by Apollo, or that this god enabled Paris to kill him, by directing the arrow to his heel, the only part in which he was vulnerable. Others again say, that Paris murdered him treacherously, in the temple of Apollo, whilst treating about his marriage with Polyx{)e}na, daughter ...
— Roman Antiquities, and Ancient Mythology - For Classical Schools (2nd ed) • Charles K. Dillaway
... vulnerable point, Hagen persuades Kriemhild to embroider a cross on her husband's garment over the fatal spot. Then, sure now of triumphing over this dreaded foe, he feigns the kings have sent word they will submit, and ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... while observing their agonies he enjoyed "that contented mind which is a perpetual feast." Now that he was a man, he delighted in torturing human beings after the same methods applied mentally, whenever he could find a vulnerable part through which to thrust a sharp spear ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... condition, with a mixture of confidence in her own power of rousing emotion, if she willed, and of scorn for the creature who could be appealed to through his passions, but not through his sense of justice. That she might herself be in that vulnerable condition, had not appeared to strike her as possible. It was a challenge that he could not but accept. She attracted him irresistibly. From the first moment of meeting, he had felt her power, and recognized, at the same time, the ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... find my vulnerable spot! She detests me, and she'd just enjoy prodding me up with pins. No, we must have something less ...
— The Madcap of the School • Angela Brazil
... that followed, a voice cried, "Are you mad?" and there was the grating of chairs thrust hastily back. But, after a great wrench, her heart stood still within her as through the madness she perceived the purpose. As well as Edric of Mercia she knew that the young Viking's vulnerable point was his longing for his own self-esteem, a craving so unreckoning in its fervor that—should he have the guilty consciousness the traitor counted on—rather than endure his own reproach for cowardice he would be equal to the wild brazenness of flinging the avowal in the teeth ...
— The Ward of King Canute • Ottilie A. Liljencrantz
... as it was, was fatal to the calculations of the monarch of the jungle. From his rear came two shots in rapid succession, each hitting him in a vulnerable portion of his body. He leaped up into the air, rolled over on the edge of the hollow, and then came down, head first, just grazing Dick's arm, and landing at ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield
... commercial centers. But that form, so derided by the pioneer spirit, has proved its worth during the present European war. The United States and the Central Powers are now at war and military guards have been stationed at vulnerable points. Only to-day we saw one of Uncle Sam's soldiers, one of three, patrolling the front of a big armory,—standing in an absolutely relaxed position, his gun held loosely in his hand, and its bayonet propped against the iron fence. One could not help thinking; no form, ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... little way through the forest but when they saw that they had to face a broadside instead of one stern gun and perceived that a ship afloat is less vulnerable to cavalry even than when on shore, they abandoned ideas of revenge, and comforted themselves with a text out of their sacred book which tells how in other days and other places our enemies shall suffer even ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... the sort of thing he had expected. If it had been a combination lock he had intended to tear away the woodwork covering it, pad the floor with the bed mattress, and then pry it over on its face, to chisel away the cement that he knew would lie under its vulnerable sheet-iron bottom. But it was an ordinary, old-fashioned lock and key "Mennlicher," Durkin at the first glance had seen—the sort of strong box which a Third avenue cigar seller, at home, would scarcely care to keep on his premises. Yet this was the deposit vault for which ...
— Phantom Wires - A Novel • Arthur Stringer
... rapidity, enabling him to repel any sudden attack by confusing or stunning his foe, till he can turn on his back, which he is obliged to do ere he can use his mouth. This wily and experienced shark, not daring to turn and expose his more vulnerable parts to the formidable sword of his enemy, lashed at him with his heavy tail, as a man uses a flail, working the water into a syllabub. Meanwhile, in honour, I suppose, or in the love of fair play, his seven compatriot sharks stood aloof, lying to with their ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19. No. 538 - 17 Mar 1832 • Various
... to whom memories were an incumbrance, and anticipations a superfluity. Simply feeling, considering, and caring for what was before his eyes, he was vulnerable only in the present. His outlook upon time was as a transient flash of the eye now and then: that projection of consciousness into days gone by and to come, which makes the past a synonym for the pathetic and the future a word for circumspection, was foreign to Troy. ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... accordingly, within ten days' march of Cracow, the Russians stopped. The German offensive in Poland had begun. The news of the German advance came about the fifth of October. Von Hindenburg, who had been fighting in East Prussia, had at last perceived that nothing could be gained there. The vulnerable part of Russia was the city of Warsaw. This was the capital of Poland, with a population of about three-quarters of a million. If he could take Warsaw, he would not only have pleasant quarters for the winter but Russia would be so badly injured that no further offensive ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... Armada for despatch to the Indies; and efforts were made to resuscitate the defunct Armada de Barlovento, a small fleet which had formerly been used to catch interlopers and protect the coasts of Terra-Firma. In one way the capture of Campeache had touched Spain in her most vulnerable spot. The Mexican Flota, which was scheduled to sail from Havana in June 1663, refused to stir from its retreat at Vera Cruz until the galleons from Porto Bello came to convoy it. The arrival of the American treasure in Spain was thus delayed for two months, and the bankrupt government ...
— The Buccaneers in the West Indies in the XVII Century • Clarence Henry Haring
... constituent corporations surrendered the control of their affairs to trustees. But the current merely shifted to a different channel, the trust proper giving way to the giant corporation having the same aims, methods, and efficiency, while, as more legal, it was less vulnerable. ...
— History of the United States, Volume 6 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... his occupation to observe as closely as possible the habits of the monster. Having satisfied himself on certain points, he then returned to his chateau of Gozon in the province of Languedoc. The point which Gozon had wished to determine was in what portion of its body was the serpent vulnerable; and he had convinced himself that the belly of the creature was unprotected by scales. He accordingly modelled in wood as exact a representation of the serpent as he could accomplish, colouring it the same as the original; the ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... From this point of view the general ticklishness of the skin is a kind of body modesty. It is so even apart from any sexual significance of tickling, and Louis Robinson has pointed out that in young apes, puppies, and other like animals the most ticklish regions correspond to the most vulnerable spots in a fight, and that consequently in the mock fights of early life skill in ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... mandibles, which are capable of cutting her body in two with a single bite. Moreover, the Cetonia-grub, perceiving that the enemy is approaching, assumes its defensive posture, rolls itself up and makes a shield for its only vulnerable part, the ventral surface, with its convex back. No, it cannot be an easy operation to subdue the powerful larva in its underground retreat and to stab with the precision which ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... vulnerable as when one he really loved called him by his Christian name. He drew an arm across the shoulders of McGuffey and Scraggs, while Neils Halvorsen stood by, his yellow fangs flashing with pleasure under his ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... which is a gateway defended by a moat, beyond which is the western gate and court of the castle, so that this last enclosure forms a kind of barbican. Chepstow was elaborately defended, and its only vulnerable points were from the meadows on the east and the higher ground to the west; but before the days of artillery it was regarded as impregnable, and excellently performed its duty as a check upon the Welsh. Fitzosbern, Earl of Hereford, built the ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... he had been struck, and quickly put his arms across his eyes. In a moment his shoulders were heaving. At last I had found a vulnerable spot in the stoic, ...
— Our Next-Door Neighbors • Belle Kanaris Maniates
... adroitness. If he failed now, it would be final. He thought he knew where she might be really vulnerable. ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... province will be decided."[413] "The Montreal frontier," said the officer selected by the Duke of Wellington to report on the defences of Canada, "is the most important, and at present [1826] confessedly most vulnerable and accessible part of Canada."[414] There, then, was the direction for offensive operations by the United States; preferably against Montreal, for, if successful, a much larger region would be isolated and reduced. Montreal gone, Kingston could receive no help ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... at his sister under his eyebrows. Hannah scanned her niece all over with a slow, observant scrutiny, as though she were a dangerous animal that must be watched. Otherwise Louie might have spoken to the wall for all the effect she produced. Reuben, however, was more vulnerable. ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... castles of Touraine and requires as much imagination to make it whole and habitable as some of the ruins along the Rhine. Of the Chateau of St. George, built by the Plantagenet Kings to protect the one vulnerable point in a position almost impregnable in its day, nothing is left but parts of the lower wall. So ruinous, indeed, is this chateau, that one is almost ready to accept Pantagruel's derivation of the name of Chinon, or Caino, from Cain, the son of ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... proceedings of the foreign teachers, avoided stringent measures, and perhaps rejoiced in secret that they gave us so much to do. Let me alone; on this occasion, I will give utterance to that which weighs upon my heart; I will not shoot my arrow in vain. I know where he is vulnerable. For he ...
— Egmont - A Tragedy In Five Acts • Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
... voyagers but for Medea. Talos, like all the invulnerable men of legend, had his one weak point. This her magic art enabled her to discover, and, as Paris had wounded Achilles in the heel, Medea killed this vigilant sentinel by striking him in his vulnerable spot. ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... lean for support against a tree, I proceeded to brew some coffee. Having refreshed myself, taking observations of the elephant's spasms and writhings between the sips, I resolved to make experiments on vulnerable points, and, approaching very near, I fired several bullets at different parts of his enormous skull. He only acknowledged the shots by a salaam-like movement of his trunk, with the point of which he gently touched the wounds with a striking and peculiar ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... the ardour of the fight the king found himself surrounded by the enemy's footmen, was unhorsed, and while they were vainly seeking for a vulnerable spot in his armour some French knights had time ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... we have no armed vessel in the Navy which can penetrate the rivers of China. We have but few which can enter any of the harbors south of Norfolk, although many millions of foreign and domestic commerce annually pass in and out of these harbors. Some of our most valuable interests and most vulnerable points are thus left exposed. This class of vessels of light draft, great speed, and heavy guns would be formidable in coast defense. The cost of their construction will not be great and they will require but a comparatively small expenditure to keep them in commission. In time ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... and vulnerable part of Deism. The Deist, as a Deist, believes, 'implicite' at least, so many and stupendous miracles as to render his disbelief of lesser miracles, simply because they are miraculous, gross inconsistencies. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... forgetful hand Held, as by Thetis erst her warrior son: 10 And with those recreant unbaptizd heels Thou'rt flying from thy bounden ministeries— So sore it seems and burthensome a task To weave unwithering flowers! But take thou heed: For thou art vulnerable, wild-eyed boy, 15 And I have arrows[159:1] mystically dipped Such as may stop thy speed. Is thy Burns dead? And shall he die unwept, and sink to earth 'Without the meed of one melodious tear'? Thy Burns, and Nature's own beloved bard, 20 Who to the 'Illustrious[159:2] of his native Land So properly ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... attack on the log. His perique went far toward helping him fight the gnawing of hunger. He could afford, having to endure little pain, to let the hours bring Dallas to the point where she would ask the life of the bull. He knew where she was most vulnerable. When Marylyn turned from the tea that now partially eased her hunger, and began a demand for food, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... justice. A very naughty little girl, if she managed to be funny, might hope to escape; whereas an equally naughty little girl, who was not funny, paid the full penalty of her crime. Fortunately, however, the school at large had not discovered this vulnerable spot ...
— Just Patty • Jean Webster
... Glow-worm. When the Snail is on the ground, creeping, or even shrunk into his shell, the attack never presents any difficulty. The shell possesses no lid and leaves the hermit's fore-part to a great extent exposed. Here, on the edges of the mantle, contracted by the fear of danger, the Mollusc is vulnerable and incapable of defence. But it also frequently happens that the Snail occupies a raised position, clinging to the tip of a grass-stalk or perhaps to the smooth surface of a stone. This support serves him as a temporary ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... illustrative of the King's Bishop's opening is correctly begun. Each party plays his King's Bishop thus, because it attacks the most vulnerable point of the adverse position, ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... insulted religion, and fling themselves into the open arms of France, sure of dying in the embrace. And now, what means have you of guarding against this coming evil, upon which the future happiness or misery of every Englishman depends? Have you a single ally in the whole world? Is there a vulnerable point in the French empire where the astonishing resources of that people can be attracted and employed? Have you a ministry wise enough to comprehend the danger, manly enough to believe unpleasant intelligence, honest enough to state their apprehensions at the peril of their places? Is there ...
— Peter Plymley's Letters and Selected Essays • Sydney Smith
... could observe, from the number of men placed for the defence of this post, that the besieged entertained apprehensions for its safety; and from the mustering of the assailants in a direction nearly opposite to the outwork, it seemed no less plain that it had been selected as a vulnerable ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... Parliament, by the aid of sundry members, who were supposed to be on the look out for such work; but as nothing further was ever heard of them, it may be presumed that the members in question did not regard the case as one on which the Government of the day was sufficiently vulnerable to make it worth their while to trouble themselves. Of the younger clerks, two or three, including the unhappy one, were drafted into other offices; some others received one or more years' pay, and then tore themselves away from the fascinations of London life; among those ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... determined—irrevocably determined (but consider!) upon the disunion with Messrs. Longman, I will just observe that when persons have been intimate, they have discovered each other's vulnerable points; it therefore shows no great talent to direct at them shafts of resentment. It is easy both to write and to say ill-natured, harsh, and cutting things of each other. But remember that this power is mutual, and in proportion to the poignancy ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... opponents. In both it is probable that their unmeasured and unsparing criticism recoiled on the cause which they had at heart. But in the case of both of them it was not the temper of the satirist, it was no mere love of attacking what was vulnerable, and indulgence in the cruel pleasure of stinging and putting to shame, which inspired them. Their souls were moved by the dishonour done to religion, by public evils and public dangers. Both of them died young, before their work was done. They placed before themselves the loftiest and ...
— The Oxford Movement - Twelve Years, 1833-1845 • R.W. Church
... Sa,—don't believe in we lyin' in camp eatin' up de perwisions." Such were the quaint complaints, which I heard with joy. Looking over my note-books of that period, I find them filled with topographical memoranda, jotted down by a flickering candle, from the evening talk of the men,—notes of vulnerable points along the coast, charts of rivers, locations of pickets. I prized these conversations not more for what I thus learned of the country than for what I learned of the men. One could thus measure their various degrees of accuracy and their average military instinct; ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... good health, that you still love me, and that a certain number of my friends entertain the same feelings towards me, I can become a perfect philosopher with respect to all the rest,—whatever it may be, or whatever land it may concern. But if my heart be attacked in its most vulnerable part, if you were to love me less, I should feel, in truth, too miserable. But I need not fear this—need I, my dearest love? I was very ill during the first part of my voyage, and I might have enjoyed the pleasure of an ill-natured person, that of knowing that I had many ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... Split's, and it was against all the ethics of Madigan warfare to aid and comfort the enemy. When Sissy, chastened, returned to Bep's ministrations, the blonde one of the twins was so hurt and offended by the implication of awkwardness—a point upon which she was as vulnerable as she was sensitive—that Sissy slapped them both before she went at last ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... characterized by the coarseness of its fibre and the acrid nature of its intellectual secretions. It is to a certain extent penetrative, as all creatures are which are provided with stings. It has an instinct which guides it to the vulnerable parts of the victim on which it fastens. These two qualities give it a certain degree of power which is not to be despised. It might perhaps be less mischievous, but for the fact that the wound where it leaves ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) |
