"Fortnight" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the hum of vain things. This latter effect was what he tried to justify—and with the success that, grave though the appearance, he at last lighted on a form that was happy. He arrived at it by the inevitable recognition of his having been a fortnight before one of the weariest of men. If ever a man had come off tired Lambert Strether was that man; and hadn't it been distinctly on the ground of his fatigue that his wonderful friend at home had so felt for him and so contrived? It seemed to him somehow at these ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... last six months, when he was landed from the roadstead, and brought to Wychecombe, to be cured of his wounds; nor ever heard of him before. When they told me his name was Wycherly Wychecombe, I could do no less than call and see him. The poor fellow lay at death's door for a fortnight; and it was while we had little or no hope of saving him, that I got the few family anecdotes from him. Now, that would be good evidence in law, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... also was really alarmed at the prospect, as he said, of so much fire being wasted upon poker-work. In the end what between Dorward's encouragement of Mark's ritualistic tendencies and the "spiking up" process to which he was himself being subjected, Ogilvie was glad when a fortnight later Dorward took himself off to his own living, and he expressed a hope that Mark would perceive Dorward in his true proportions as a dear good fellow, perfectly sincere, but just a little, well, not exactly mad, but so eccentric as sometimes to do more harm than good to the Movement. Mark was ...
— The Altar Steps • Compton MacKenzie
... a chair and threw another log upon the fire. "My daughter is tired," he said. "She will soon retire; but when a man has been from home for a fortnight, and in the desert!" he raised his brows expressively, "Pah! He wishes to hear of everything which has happened during his absence and particularly, Mr. Seagreave, do I wish to talk to you about that lower drift. Jose tells me that you have ...
— The Black Pearl • Mrs. Wilson Woodrow
... thus we lay facing each other for two weeks. Hood had suffered so terribly by his defeat under Schofield, at Franklin, that he was in no mood to assault us in our works, and Thomas needed more time to concentrate and reorganize his army, before he could safely take the offensive. That fortnight interval was memorable indeed. Hood's army was desperate. It had been thwarted by Sherman, and thus far baffled by Thomas, and Hood felt that he must strike a bold blow to compensate for the dreadful ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... and indigo plantations of its interior and to see its palaces and temples and monuments, I decided to traverse the island from end to end by train and motor car. Accordingly we left the Negros at Surabaya, directing Captain Galvez to pick us up a fortnight later at Batavia, at the other end of ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... who had proposed to join us. But we went on, and our company—limited—was formed. We subscribed, I think, (pounds)1250 each. I at least subscribed that amount, and—having agreed to bring out our publication every fortnight, after the manner of the well-known French publication,—we called it The Fortnightly. We secured the services of G. H. Lewes as our editor. We agreed to manage our finances by a Board, which was to meet once a fortnight, and of ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... Boone and Stoner. Retiring with his men to the Holston, he and they joined Col. Christian's regiment, but arrived at Point Pleasant a few hours after the battle of October 10. Returning to his abandoned Kentucky settlement March 18, 1775, a fortnight before Boonesborough was founded, he was chosen a delegate to the Transylvania convention, and became a man of great prominence in the Kentucky colony. In 1779 he commanded a company on Bowman's campaign, and the year following was ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... during the continuance of the war. Such an order was made by General Burnside, but it was subsequently modified by Mr. Lincoln, who commuted the sentence of Vallandigham, and directed that he be sent within the Confederate lines. This was done within a fortnight after the court-martial. Vallandigham was sent to Tennessee, and, on the 25th of May, was escorted by a small cavalry force to the Confederate lines near Murfreesboro, and ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... down, rendering the town almost uninhabitable by the horrible smells which arose, while the mud in many places was several feet deep. Such was the detestable spot in which the army was cooped up for nearly a fortnight. ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... a little and shook his head gently. "It's very well for you to talk, Ferris," he said, "since you have done more work than any man I know. And I find this neighborhood entirely placid; one bit of news will last us a fortnight. I dare say Marilla will let everybody know that you have come to town, and have explained why she was ten minutes late, ...
— A Country Doctor and Selected Stories and Sketches • Sarah Orne Jewett
... father and Fritz came over to the betrothal. They were to stay at an inn in Carlsruhe for a fortnight, at the end of which time the marriage was to take place. Monsieur de la Tourelle told me he had business at home, which would oblige him to be absent during the interval between the two events; and I was very glad of it, for I did not think that he valued my father and my brother as ...
— Curious, if True - Strange Tales • Elizabeth Gaskell
... In Seirat Ridge, a commanding view is obtained over the whole country from Gaza to Beersheba. From this point of vantage the Turks could be seen, throughout the first fortnight in April, busily digging themselves in and wiring their positions. We, on our side, were no less assiduous in preparations for another battle. Patrols were sent out to reconnoitre the country, and working parties went out into No Man's Land to ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... interference, these family arrangements were settled, Madame Napoleon recovered her health with her good-humour; and her husband, who had begun to forget the English blockade, only to think of the papal accolade (dubbing), was more tender than ever. I am assured that, during the fortnight he continued with his wife at Aix-la-Chapelle, he only shut her up or confined her twice, kicked her three times, and abused ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... empty just now, I take it. I think this book is the best thing he has done. What an account there is of the Emperor Nicholas in Kemble's last Review, {80a} the last sentence of it (which can be by no other man in Europe but Jack himself) has been meat and drink to me for a fortnight. The electric eel at the Adelaide Gallery is nothing to it. Then Edgeworth fires away about the Odes of Pindar, {80b} and Donne is very aesthetic about Mr. Hallam's Book. {80c} What is the ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... A fortnight or so later we were at Aden, leaving that barren rock about four o'clock, and entering the Red Sea the same evening. The Suez Canal passed through, and Port Said behind us, we were in the Mediterranean, and for the first time in my life I stood ...
— A Bid for Fortune - or Dr. Nikola's Vendetta • Guy Boothby
... she whispered, as she and Doran danced the tango together, taking graceful steps which she had taught him during the fortnight they had known each other. ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... you are going away, and as in a fortnight, I am going to Berry for two or three months, do try to find time to come tomorrow Thursday. You will dine with dear and interesting Marguerite Thuillier ...
— The George Sand-Gustave Flaubert Letters • George Sand, Gustave Flaubert
... think so! I sits me down and says it. Well!—Jeremiah then says to me, "As to banns, next Sunday being the third time of asking (for I've put 'em up a fortnight), is my reason for naming Monday. She'll speak to you about it herself, and now she'll find you prepared, Affery." That same day she spoke to me, and she said, "So, Affery, I understand that you and Jeremiah are going to be married. I am glad ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... and almost always the Esculapius of the household is chosen by the feminine power. Thus it happens that some fine morning the doctor, when he leaves the chamber of madame, who has been in bed for a fortnight, is induced by ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part III. • Honore de Balzac
... A fortnight later Sir Charles, returning from Toulon, was able to offer his congratulations to Gambetta, because France had declined to attend the Conference. But the matter was still ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... whom they call the Lady of Hope?' asked one of the soldiers, a mercenary, less interested than most of his comrades, as he had only a fortnight since transferred his services ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... next fortnight Francis spent most of his time at the Palazzo Polani. The merchant was evidently sincere in his invitation to him to make his house his home; and if a day passed without the lad paying a visit, ...
— The Lion of Saint Mark - A Story of Venice in the Fourteenth Century • G. A. Henty
... "In fact, I have been strangely idle for the last fortnight. The most exciting things that have appeared above my personal horizon have been a queer little edition of Albertus-Magnus, struck off in an obscure printing shop in Florence in the early part of the sixteenth century, and a splendid, large ...
— Ashton-Kirk, Investigator • John T. McIntyre
... our operations in the rear of Lee had disconcerted and alarmed that general so much as to aid materially in forcing his retrograde march, and both acknowledged that, by drawing off the enemy's cavalry during the past fortnight, we had enabled them to move the Army of the Potomac and its enormous trains without molestation in the manoeuvres that had carried it to the North Anna. Then, too, great quantities of provisions ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... Lady Mary Crewys, though I know all the Setouns that ever were born. Never mind who ought to call on me first! What do I care for such nonsense? The boy is a cub and a bear—that I know—since he stayed in my house for a fortnight, and never spoke to me if he could possibly help it. He is a nobody! Sir Peter Fiddlesticks! Who ever heard of him or his family, I should like to know, outside this ridiculous place? His name is ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... How that fortnight passed I can scarcely tell. To me it appeared an age. I was deeply, madly enamored of that strange, beautiful, and apparently conscientious being; and the mystery which involved her threw around her a halo of interest that fanned the flame of my passion. I was prepared to make ...
— Wagner, the Wehr-Wolf • George W. M. Reynolds
... picture he had made of the Princess Ziska, wherein the face of death seemed confronting him through a mask of life. And he welcomed with a strong sense of relief and expectation the long- looked-for evening of the Princess's "reception," to which many of the visitors in Cairo had been invited since a fortnight, and which those persons who always profess to be "in the know," even if they are wallowing in ignorance, declared would surpass any entertainment ever given ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... was now on its march towards Scotland, under the command of Cromwell, who had been appointed by the English parliament captain general of their forces. But the hopes of the people of Scotland had been revived by the arrival of Charles II. from Breda, about a fortnight before this, who, at the mouth of the river Spey, before he landed, had signed the national covenant, and also the solemn league and covenant, though the commission appointed to receive his subscription appear, on ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... "Enterprise," two weeks after he quitted her, fought her gallant battle. In a letter written in January, 1814, he says, "I shall ever view as one of the most unfortunate events of my life having quitted the 'Enterprise' at the moment I did. Had I remained in her a fortnight longer, my name might have been classed with those who stand so high. I cannot but consider it a mortifying circumstance that I left her but a few days before she fell in with the only enemy upon this station with which ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... to leave the hospital during his term of service, but his hurts were all superficial and healed rapidly, so that in a fortnight's time the Surgeon pronounced him fit to return to duty. He cursed inwardly tha officer's zeal in keeping the ranks as full as possible, and went back to his company to find it preparing to go ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... and stable-straw, with the dung, in the proportion of two double loads for a three-light frame. Turn it over four or five times during a fortnight, watering it if it is dry. Then mark out the bed, allowing 1 ft. or more each way than the size of the frame. Shake the compost well up, and afterwards beat it down equally with the fork. Place the frame on the bed, leaving the lights off for four or five days to allow the rank ...
— Gardening for the Million • Alfred Pink
... old servant up the great stairs, gulping down a sob that would rise, and clutching my mother's gown tight under my arm. Had my father left me alone in our cabin for a fortnight, I should not have minded. But here, in this strange house, amid such strange surroundings, I was heartbroken. The old negro was very kind. He led me into a little bedroom, and placing the candle on a polished dresser, he regarded me ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... game of hunting, we must put the ladies' game of dressing. It is not the cheapest of games. I saw a brooch at a jeweller's in Bond Street a fortnight ago, not an inch wide, and without any singular jewel in it, yet worth 3,000l. And I wish I could tell you what this 'play' costs, altogether, in England, France, and Russia annually. But it is a pretty game, and on certain terms, I like it; nay, I don't see it played ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... For a fortnight the doctor did not speak to me. He thought to mortify me; to make me feel that I had disgraced myself by receiving the honorable addresses of a respectable colored man, in preference to the base ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... Cartwright arrived here a fortnight ago—very pleasant it was to see him: he left for Florence, stayed a day or two and returned to Mrs. Cartwright (who remained at the Inn) and they all departed prosperously yesterday for Rome. Odo Russell spent two days here on his way thither—we liked him much. Prinsep ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr
... known, lately succeeded in transmitting as much as three horse power to a distance of 40 kilometers (25 miles) through a pair of ordinary telegraph wires of 4 millimeters in diameter. The results so obtained had been carefully noted by Mr. Tresca, and had been communicated a fortnight ago to the French Academy of Sciences. Taking the relative conductivity of iron wire employed by Deprez, and the 3 in. rod proposed by the lecturer, the amount of power that could be transmitted through the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... youth like Isaac Hecker. What impression he made upon the circle he entered, how cordially he was received and held in high esteem, our readers already know. And if he gave pleasure, he received it also. At first the new circumstances were a little strange and embarrassing to him. After a fortnight, or thereabouts, we find him noting that he is "not one of their spirits. They say 'Mr. Hecker' in a tone they do not use in speaking to each other." But the strangeness soon wore off and he yielded to the influence of the place with a wholeness which would have been entire but for the stronger ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... saw him depart for the west to attend a course of lectures at a theological college. Before many hours the tumbling, foaming Fall, the lonely river, the Bois Clair settlement and Poussette were almost forgotten. A camping trip with friendly Ontarians succeeded the lectures, then ensued a fortnight of hard reading and preparation for the essay or thesis which his Church demanded from him as token of his standing and progress, he being as yet a probationer, and thus the summer passed by until on the ...
— Ringfield - A Novel • Susie Frances Harrison
... brownish breeches, and when he requires a change of uniform, he pulls off the old one and swallows it. This fact has been doubted; but why should It be deemed incredible? Are there not parallel cases in the human family? GOLDSMITH tells us that he once lived for a fortnight on his coat and waistcoat; and every pawnbroker knows that a cast-off suit often furnishes the material for a family dinner. Why should not a frog sustain life with his Pants as ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 8, May 21, 1870 • Various
... failed to arrive at any conclusion as to their probable crimes. His knowledge of wickedness was really absurdly limited. For the first time he felt slightly ashamed of it, and began to wish he had gone into the militia. He comforted himself with the thought that in a fortnight he would probably be fit for the regular army. This thought cheered him slightly, and it was with a slight smile upon his face that he welcomed the first glimpse of the General Bertrand, which was lying against the quay ready to cast off at the stroke of noon. Most of the passengers ...
— The Mission Of Mr. Eustace Greyne - 1905 • Robert Hichens
... EXCHEQUER reports conclusions arrived at in conference of leading bankers and manufacturers met at the Treasury to consider best way of grappling with unprecedented financial situation created by events of past fortnight. Happy thought to include in invitation his predecessor at the Treasury. In accordance with patriotic spirit obliterating party animosity, SON AUSTEN promptly accepted invitation. Gives valuable assistance to LLOYD GEORGE in recommending ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 147, August 12, 1914 • Various
... see, whatever the question is that I am canvassing for, I always feel bound to explain it to the voters at every place I go to, for fear they should vote the wrong way: and sometimes that is very hard work. At the last General Election, for instance, I lunched off buns and tea for a fortnight." ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... giving a large party, when, upon hearing that Mr. A—— had made an unlucky speculation in the funds, the whole family were seized with influenza so violently, that they were compelled to postpone the reunion, and live upon the provided supper for a fortnight afterwards. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... stayed late; he could not pass a restaurant; he looked with a lecherous eye upon every wine shop. Suggestions to stop, excuses to eat and to drink, were forever on his lips. We tried all we could to fill him so full that he would have no room to spare for a fortnight, but it was a failure. He did not hold enough to smother the cravings of ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... said, "you know my holiday is a fortnight in the end of September. Could you possibly make an exception for me and let me have four days now, and give ...
— The Girls of St. Olave's • Mabel Mackintosh
... subject like a course of lectures. As long as you keep in the upper regions, with all the world bowing to you as you go, social arrangements have a very handsome air; but once get under the wheels, and you wish society were at the devil. I will give most respectable men a fortnight of such a life, and then I will offer them twopence for what remains of ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... glad to see him that he could scarcely have been human if he had not responded. And she gave him, in that fortnight, a glimpse of a life that was new and distracting: at times made him forget —and he was willing to forget—the lower forms of which it was the quintessence,—the factories that hummed, the forges that flung their fires into the night in order that it might ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... the quay. There was sorrow in his eyes like the submarine times when he came to tell me no boat docked this morning. Baby or no baby, I'll have to get work for myself, for he's not given me a farthing for a fortnight." ...
— What's the Matter with Ireland? • Ruth Russell
... harbour is very shallow. The distance from Pictou to Charlotte Town, Prince Edward Island, is sixty miles, and by this route, through Nova Scotia and across Northumberland Strait, the English mail is transmitted once a fortnight. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... that the young gentleman should enjoy every advantage which the town may afford towards helping him on in the path of genteel learning. It's a great pity that he should waste his time in idleness—doing nothing else than what he says he has been doing for the last fortnight—fishing in the river for trouts which he never catches; and wandering up the glen in the mountain, in search of the hips that grow there. Now, we have a school here, where he can learn the most elegant Latin, and get ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... 'em, but do you think he'd do it? Never! He will growl, and swear that Gordon stole the chairs. And Mr. Gordon is too angry with Mose Waterman to take the chairs back. So it'll give us fun for a fortnight strolling by in the day time and noticing whether Waterman has ...
— The Grammar School Boys of Gridley - or, Dick & Co. Start Things Moving • H. Irving Hancock
... precious stuff from the beginning of December; and from a fortnight before this time to the end of the second week in January, the little family worked at stoning raisins (there were no machines to make the task easy then), chopping almonds and suet and apples and orange peel, late into the night, and sometimes ...
— Mrs. Day's Daughters • Mary E. Mann
... and the place was as charming as anyone could wish. It was a great treat to the grizzled old warrior to find himself in the country, away from every responsibility of work, and he promised himself a fortnight of absolute rest, with the recreation of beholding his beloved Patsy as ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... General impression is everything possible been already said on subject. This conviction so deeply impressed that Members will not come back to resume Debate. Benches only half full whilst Mr. G. delivering what will rank as historic speech. Situation accepted to extent that ten days or fortnight must be given up to Second-Reading Debate. Wouldn't be respectful, or even decent, to dispose of stage of such a measure in less time. Well known that this Sahara of observation will not influence single vote. If arrangements ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 104, April 15, 1893 • Various
... later, he set off for home. His coach rolled quickly along the soft cross-road. There had been no rain for a fortnight; a fine milk mist was diffused in the air and hung over the distant woods; a smell of burning came from it. A multitude of darkish clouds with blurred edges were creeping across the pale blue sky; a fairly strong breeze blew a dry and steady gale, without dispelling the heat. Leaning ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... July) that, in the course of one of my letters to my school-friend, Mr. K. L. P. Martin, then—having been rejected for service in the Army as medically unfit—a student at Manchester University, I had remarked that I would probably get a "Blighty" in a fortnight; and I would, therefore, want something interesting to read in hospital: would he please send me England Since Waterloo, by J. A. R. Marriott, whom I had heard lecturing at the Oxford Union on "The Problem of the Near East," in February, 1916, when I was ...
— At Ypres with Best-Dunkley • Thomas Hope Floyd
... weeks at Malta, Byron embarked with his friend in a brig of war, appointed to convoy a fleet of small merchantmen to Prevesa. I had, about a fortnight before, passed over with the packet on her return from Messina to Girgenti, and did not fall in with them again till the following spring, when we met at Athens. In the meantime, besides his Platonic dalliance with Mrs Spencer Smith, Byron had involved himself ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... a fortnight. They have been gone that time already—rather more. And they expected to make a ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... at the period of his death, my resignation had been given in and accepted two months. Then, feeling myself free, I set off for Pierrefonds, to see my friend Porthos. I had heard talk of the happy division you had made of your time, and I wished, for a fortnight, to divide ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... have landed on the other side," I answered, "there'll still be a clear fortnight to do the first, and I think we may accomplish the latter ...
— The House by the Lock • C. N. Williamson
... the town for a fortnight on the pretext of having been called away. For a whole week Anna remained shut up in her room except for meal-times. She slipped back into consciousness of herself, into her old habits, the old life from which ...
— Jean-Christophe Journey's End • Romain Rolland
... people say that they have sent a man of their own out there to make inquiries, a well-known expert, and the report will be in within the next fortnight. They say they will publish it in their next number but one. What are you ...
— A Man of Means • P. G. Wodehouse and C. H. Bovill
... to Caermaen pretty often, don't you?" said the doctor. "I've seen you two or three times in the last fortnight." ...
— The Hill of Dreams • Arthur Machen
... those present were regretting a lost opportunity. It was obvious to the meanest intelligence—and the worn phrase took a new vitality when applied to some among the company—that any kindness shown to Helen during the preceding fortnight would be repaid a hundredfold when she became Mrs. Mark Bower. Again, not even the bitterest of her critics could allege that she was flirting with the quiet mannered American who had just carried her off like a new Paris. She had lived in the same hotel for a whole ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... as often as once a fortnight, and, inviting his guests by fifty or sixty at a time, his Worship probably assembles at his board most of the eminent citizens and distinguished personages of the town and neighborhood more than once during his year's incumbency, and very much, no doubt, to the promotion of good ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... day following, May 30th, the clerk of the House conveyed the bill to the Senate. It was there referred to the Committee on Military Affairs, as that committee already had before them seven bills relating to the same subject. Nearly a fortnight subsequently, the committee reported back to the Senate the House bill with certain amendments. The report of the committee, and the amendments proposed therein, could not be considered in the Senate until the lapse of another fortnight. ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... The hill is deeply grooved by a railway cutting; on it was held for many centuries a kind of open market or annual fair, which attracted the wealthy merchants of France, Flanders, and Italy. The fair generally lasted a fortnight, during which time all other local business was suspended, the shops closed, and the mayor handed over the keys of the city to the bishop, who claimed large fees from the stall holders. Thirty marks were paid ...
— Winchester • Sidney Heath
... we have passed, and are passing, here, are various. For a fortnight the world supposes we have been occupied with the ratification of a treaty of peace, and that within these walls, "the world shut out," notes of peace, and hopes of peace, nay, strong assurances of peace, and indications of peace, have been uttered to console and to cheer us. Sir, it has been over ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... 14th Count d'Orvilliers, the allied commander-in-chief, had made the Lizard, and for a fortnight had striven to bring Hardy to decisive action. Until he had done so he dared neither enter the Channel with his fleet nor detach a squadron to break the cruiser blockades at the invasion bases. His ineffectual efforts exhausted his fleet's ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... felt so hopeless that I did not even take stock of the biscuits, or rather the crumbs that were left. I guessed roughly by the size of the little heap that it might sustain life—keeping up the very small ration I had been hitherto using—for about ten days—not more. Ten days, then, or at most a fortnight, had I to live, with the prospect of certain death at the end of that time—and a death that experience told me must be slow and painful. I had already suffered the extreme of hunger, almost to death, and I dreaded to try it again; ...
— The Boy Tar • Mayne Reid
... of man is, however, a purely superficial emotion. What am I to think of a friend who anathematizes the family cat for devouring a nest of young robins, and then tells me exultingly that the same cat has killed twelve moles in a fortnight. To a pitiful heart, the life of a little mole is as sacred as the life of a little robin. To an artistic eye, the mole in his velvet coat is handsomer than the robin, which is at best a bouncing, bourgeois sort of bird, a true suburbanite, with all the defects of ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... A fortnight previously Professor McMurray had retired to his laboratory to carry out an important series of experiments. He informed his butler that Sir Jasper Chambers, his life-long friend, would visit him on the third day, and that dinner ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... her until now. The new infatuation took possession of him, body and soul. He made her acquaintance next morning, and found out she was, as his friend had said, a shop-girl. What did he care; if she had been a rag-picker, it would have been all one to this young madman. In a fortnight he proposed; in a month they were married, and the third step on the ...
— Kate Danton, or, Captain Danton's Daughters - A Novel • May Agnes Fleming
... Eckenstein and tell him of the bliss that awaited him two short miles away. Right hearty fellows were the officers of the second battalion—from the grizzled Oberst down to the smooth-faced junior lieutenant; and the men who had been marching and bivouacking for a fortnight looked as fresh as if they had not travelled five miles. Kuester soon found the young Feldwebel; and the Hauptmann of his company when he heard the state of the case, smiled a grim but kindly smile, ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... reluctantly as Wally Selfridge had done, though his reasons for not wanting to go were quite different. They centered about a dusky-eyed young woman whom he had seen for the first time a fortnight before. He would have denied even to himself that he was in love, but whenever he was alone his thoughts ...
— The Yukon Trail - A Tale of the North • William MacLeod Raine
... the water for six weeks. Regret that my log should be so "scrappy," but my time just now is very much occupied by other things. Tired, but confident of success. During the last fortnight have fed with great relish upon ——'s Puree de foies gras. It is not only cheap, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 99, August 30, 1890. • Various
... better out of the way for the next fortnight. The girls ought to go to bed early, and keep the roses in their cheeks for the wedding. Moya's head is full of her frocks and fripperies. She is trying to run a brace of sewing women; and all those boxes are coming from the East to be 'inspected, ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... we are not married. These sudden resolutions would throw my existence out of gear. My moral upheaval would be that of a hen in front of a motor-car. When I go abroad, I like at least a fortnight to think of it. One has to attune one's mind to new conditions, to map out the pleasant scheme of days, to savour in anticipation the delights that stand there, awaiting one's tasting, either in the mystery of the unknown or in the welcoming light of familiarity. ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... met last year at a fete given under the patronage of Lecureuil, the deputy; a benefit performance given in aid of poor actors of the ninth arrondissement. He had prowled around her, dumb, famishing, and with blazing eyes. For a whole fortnight he had pursued her incessantly. Cold and unmoved, she had appeared to ignore him. Then, suddenly, she surrendered; so suddenly that when he left her that day, still radiant and amazed, he had said a stupid thing. He had told her: "And I took you for ...
— A Mummer's Tale • Anatole France
... my children, as received a fortnight since from our old Wien, commands you to offer the other cheek to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... A fortnight after this memorable Ball the principal actors of both sexes had crossed the Channel back to England, and old Ireland was left to her rains from above and her undrained bogs below; her physical and her mental vapours; her ailments and her bog-bred doctors; as ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fortnight, then a month. Madame Simon did not leave her armchair. She ate from morning to night, grew fat, chatted gaily with the other patients and seemed to enjoy her immobility as if it were the rest to which she was entitled after fifty years of going up and down stairs, of turning mattresses, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... stores and munitions of war were a priceless boon to Montgomery, who now redoubled his efforts to take St Johns. But Preston held out bravely for the remainder of the month, while Carleton did his best to help him. A fortnight earlier Carleton had arrested that firebrand, Walker, who had previously refused to leave the country, though Carleton had given him the chance of doing so. Mrs Walker, as much a rebel as her husband, interviewed Carleton and noted in her diary that he 'said many severe Things in very ...
— The Father of British Canada: A Chronicle of Carleton • William Wood
... in the path of the Hohenzollerns is an island which two of my Army Corps could subdue in a fortnight. But in order to invade it with safety, I must have France ...
— The International Spy - Being the Secret History of the Russo-Japanese War • Allen Upward
... Italia in Genoa, no Princess Halm-Eberstein was there; but on the second day there was a letter for him, saying that her arrival might happen within a week, or might be deferred a fortnight and more; she was under circumstances which made it impossible for her to fix her journey more precisely, and she entreated him to wait as patiently as ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... with him, and pronounced the attack pleurisy. Phemy did not seem to care what became of her. She was ill a long time, and for a fortnight the doctor ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... following day they both began to make arrangements for a lengthened stay in the house. But here they found nothing, neither food, household furniture, nor aught else. Nor did they succeed at first in getting any game; and for more then a fortnight they sustained life by boiling and gnawing the flesh from the bones of the reindeer, the seal, and the bear, that lay under the snow, remains from the Russian hunting excursions of the preceding year. Finally, before Christmas they succeeded in killing a reindeer. Their ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... It's slow but glorious, I understand. When I'm starving in a garret, awaiting fame with the pious and cocksure confidence of genius, will you guarantee to invite me to a square meal once a fortnight? Think what it would give ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... So a fortnight passed over the busy, anxious household, and poor Eyebright—though her words were still courageous—was losing heart, and had begun to feel that a cold, dreadful wave of sorrow was poising itself a little way off, and might presently break all over her, when, ...
— Eyebright - A Story • Susan Coolidge
... passed into the house, carrying her fruit with her. Charlie was left to revolve her words in his mind. Dr. Krumm could shoot foxes when he chose; he was always here. He, Charlie, on the contrary, had to go away in little more than a fortnight. There was no Franziska in England; no pleasant driving through great pine woods in the gathering twilight; no shooting of yellow foxes, to be brought home in triumph and presented to a beautiful and grateful young woman. Charlie walked along the white road and overtook Tita, who had just ...
— Stories By English Authors: Germany • Various
... of the approaching dance at the ferry, we set the ranch in order. Fortunately, under seasonable conditions work on a cattle range is never pressing. A programme of work outlined for a certain week could easily be postponed a week or a fortnight for that matter; for this was the land of "la manana," and the white element on Las Palomas easily adopted the easy-going methods of their Mexican neighbors. So on the day everything was in readiness. ...
— A Texas Matchmaker • Andy Adams
... ere I ventured to make my beloved sister the confidante of my joy, and then only after she had promised not to tell any one of my soul secret. When our dear mother came home a fortnight later, I was the first to meet her at the door, and to tell her I had such glad news to give. I can almost feel that dear mother's arms around my neck, as she pressed me to her bosom and said, "I know, my boy; I have ...
— A Retrospect • James Hudson Taylor
... of his den. Human faces had grown so distasteful to him, that the very sight of the servant whose business it was to clean the rooms produced a feeling of exasperation. To such a condition may monomaniacs come by continually brooding over one idea. For the last fortnight, the landlady had ceased to supply her lodger with provisions, and he had not yet thought of demanding an explanation. Nastasia, who had to cook and clean for the whole house, was not sorry to see the lodger in this state of mind, as it diminished her labors: ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... have thought of taking the part away from Mrs. Stewart," she resumed, glancing at Milly, not without meaning, "but Mr. Morrison asked me to take it quite a fortnight ago. I've learned most of it and rehearsed two scenes already with him. He says they go capitally, and we both think it seems rather a pity to waste all that labor and ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... reach terra firma, just in time to see the water sweeping with an awful roar over the spot that he had been traversing not a second previously. This is not frequent: a fresh generally takes four or five hours to come down, and from two days to a week, ten days, or a fortnight, to ...
— A First Year in Canterbury Settlement • Samuel Butler
... been wanting: last winter they were scanty; this cold season they were nil. In truth, the land was suffering terribly from drought. Our afternoon was hot and unpleasant: about later March the Haw el'-Uwwah, a violent sand-raising norther, sets in and lasts through a fortnight. It is succeeded, in early April, by the calms of El-Ni'm ("the Blessings"), which, divided into the Greater and the Less, last forty days. After that ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 2 • Richard Burton
... with violence before dawn. At times during the night, the wind had howled about the little building in a way which recalled to Nora one of the best-remembered holidays of her childhood. She and her mother had gone to Eastborne for a fortnight with some money Eddie had sent them shortly after his arrival in Canada. The autumnal equinox had caught them during the last days of their stay, and the strong impression which the wind had made upon her childish mind had remained with ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... as to the theological verdict upon two of his fundamental views—the infinitude of the universe, and the earth's rotation round the sun.[16] But towards the end of year 1633 we find him writing as follows:—"I had intended sending you my World as a New Year's gift, and a fortnight ago I was still minded to send you a fragment of the work, if the whole of it could not be transcribed in time. But I have just been at Leyden and Amsterdam to ask after Galileo's cosmical system as I imagined I had heard of its ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... to reconcile Mr. Sloane to his absence. This I found an easy matter. I read to him for a couple of hours, wrote four letters—one in French—and then talked for a while—a good while. I have done more talking, by the way, in the last fortnight, than in any previous twelve months—much of it, too, none of the wisest, nor, I may add, of the most superstitiously veracious. In a little discussion, two or three days ago, with Theodore, I came ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... that the extraordinary chapter of history we have just narrated should have marched to its appointed end in just as extraordinary a manner as it had commenced. Yuan Shih-kai, the uncrowned king, actually enjoyed in peace his empty title only for a bare fortnight, the curious air of unreality becoming more and more noticeable after the first burst of excitement occasioned by his acceptance of the Throne had subsided. Though the year 1915 ended with Peking brightly illuminated ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... the beautiful ideal world about him, and savoring already in advance the good onion-flavored grillade awaiting him at home, locks up everything fast and tight; the tighter and faster for the good fortnight's vacation ...
— Balcony Stories • Grace E. King
... a week called upon Johnson in his chambers. This time the doctor urged him to tarry. Three weeks later he said to him, "Come to me as often as you can." Within a fortnight thereafter Boswell was giving the great man a sketch of his own life and Johnson was exclaiming, "Give me your hand; I have taken ...
— All About Coffee • William H. Ukers
... ammunition, but not before." The Indians saw by his determined tone that all further entreaty would be unavailing, so they desisted, with a good-humoured laugh, and went off exceedingly well freighted, both within and without, promising to be back again in the course of a fortnight. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... dinner, he seemed very much amused at something, and then, as though he could not keep the joke to himself, he told his companions that he had received a telegram from his father, in answer to one of his own, informing him that he had made a mistake of a whole fortnight in the date, and must amuse himself as he pleased in ...
— Adam Johnstone's Son • F. Marion Crawford
... Human Physiology, p. 561. The story, incredible if it appear, is indorsed by Carpenter as vouched for by Mr. Richard Smith, late Senior Surgeon of the Bristol Infirmary, under whose care the sufferer had been. The case resulted, after a fortnight, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... pension was allotted to the widow; and as her husband's house had been made by her one of the pleasantest in London, she was popular enough to be invited by numerous friends to their country seats; among others, by Mr. Travers. She came intending to stay a fortnight. At the end of that time she had grown so attached to Cecilia, and Cecilia to her, and her presence had become so pleasant and so useful to her host, that the Squire entreated her to stay and undertake the education ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton |
