"Herculean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... before he married. He is quite unconscious that he has departed from his favorite theories, in wedding a yeoman's daughter. On the contrary, he believes he has acted on a system, and crossed the breed so judiciously as to attain greater physical perfection by means of a herculean dam, yet retain that avitam fidem, or traditional loyalty, which (to use his own words) "is born both in Rabys and Dences, as surely as a high-bred setter comes into the world ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... to the Duke had not been difficult, but this letter seemed to be an Herculean task. It was made infinitely more difficult by the fact that Lady Cantrip had not seemed to think that this marriage was impossible. "Young people when they have set their minds upon it do so generally prevail at last!" These had been her words, and they discomforted ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... hope you will so far consult your own ease and advantage, as to commit, perfectly, the signs of the moods and tenses before you proceed farther than to the subjunctive mood. If you do, the supposed Herculean task of learning to conjugate verbs, will be transformed into a few hours of ...
— English Grammar in Familiar Lectures • Samuel Kirkham
... that disappointed Dink was the polite correctness of her letters. But then something, he said to himself, must be allowed for maiden modesty. His own letters were the product of afternoons and evenings. The herculean difficulty that he experienced in covering four sheets of paper—even when writing a flowing hand and allowing half a page for the signature—secretly worried him. It seemed as though something was lacking in his character or in the strength ...
— The Varmint • Owen Johnson
... carefully that in the following spring he delivered his oration on the barbarism of slavery, more than an hour in length, before the Senate; and in 1863 he made a speech three hours in length, a herculean effort that has never been equalled, except by Hamilton's address before the Constitutional ...
— Cambridge Sketches • Frank Preston Stearns
... again, was one of the herculean artists, working, in Emerson's phrase, "in a sad sincerity," with the patience of an ant and the energy of a volcano. Of his Les Miserables—perhaps the greatest novel ever written, as it is, I suppose, easily the longest—he ...
— Vanishing Roads and Other Essays • Richard Le Gallienne
... but the squatter who settles in the Canadian backwoods does not clear his land all at once. He lives on a small portion of it, and goes on digging and delving little by little, until, after many years of Herculean labour, he hews out for himself, and his children after him, a freehold estate. Freehold estates, I admit, are not to be had for the picking up on English soil, but if a man will but work in England as they work in Canada or ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... Grecian sea to the Atlantic, coasted along Africa and Guinea, doubled the Cape Bona Speranca, and arrived in India[19]; concerning which voyage many other particulars might be collected from the writings of the ancients. This Mediterranean Sea was sometimes called the Adriatic, the Aegean, and the Herculean Sea; and had other names, according to the lands, coasts, and islands, which it skirted, till, running through the Straits of Hercules, between Spain and Africa, it communicated with the great Atlantic ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... master. I propose to limit the survey strictly to those pictures which have found recognised champions among modern critics of repute, for to challenge every "Giorgione" in public and private collections would be a Herculean task, well calculated to provoke ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... imposing figure of the Centaur, serious-looking and frowning; embarrassed by his anxiety to salute the company politely; savagely handsome, but disfigured by the violence which he did himself in smiling civilly and treading softly and holding his herculean arms in ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... and it was so annoying because, as he must go to Castelvetrano in a few days, he might almost just as well come with us now. We hoped he would see his way to doing so and he hesitated and appeared to be on the point of yielding, but finally made the Herculean choice of duty before pleasure on the very sensible ground that, if it should be discovered he had deserted his post, he would be put into prison for two months. With the brigadier and all the guards in the secret, it seemed impossible that he should escape detection, ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... summit. But the fatigue which was thus imposed upon the tender limbs of women, upon the ancient frames of ecclesiastics, was not to be borne by the new King of Sicily. He was carried up the incline in a chair by two herculean Moorish slaves, so strong and surefooted that the stubborn ascent could be made with the least possible discomfort to his royal body. While the others had groaned and sweated as they scuffled up the hill—that they might reach the goal in time to receive their royal ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... practised, as being calculated to defeat its own object, he sought the gradual restoration of confidence by the only means which could restore it:—a punctual and faithful compliance with his engagements. Herculean as was this task in the existing derangement of American finances, he entered upon it courageously; and, if not completely successful, certainly did more than could have been supposed possible with the means placed in his hands. It is, in no inconsiderable degree, to be attributed to him, ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... of Congress echoed forth paeans to his praise. His course was as rapid and brilliant as that of the meteor that suddenly springs athwart the heavens, but he was human and accomplished his task, herculean as he was, at the price ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... immediate rescue. Though he was advised of the danger of such an attempt, his spirit and determination made him invincible. He proceeded to a place where some colored men were working. With a firm and determined look, and a herculean shout, he called out to them, "To arms, to arms! boys, we must rescue this man; I shall lead if you will follow." "We will," was the immediate response. And they went and overtook them, and dispersed ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... have said that he had a great deal of character in his make-up and would get on in the world. Then you would hear about his matrimonial delinquency and instantly you would take a second glance. The second and more searching look would have revealed him as a herculean light-weight,—a man of strength and beauty and stature spoiled in the making. And you would be sorry that you had made the discovery, for it would take you back to his school days, and then you would encounter ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... no successful denial of the assertion that real soul-absorbing earnestness in religion is dying out. We sometimes mock at the Herculean labors of men like Owen, and Baxter, and Calvin, and Edwards. But though these men were perhaps more or less legalistic and at times a little narrow, yet one thing is sure, they made religion the business of life, and went at it with zest, enthusiasm, and determination. ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... a wild beast in its cage, in an agony of pity, remorse, and burning impatience. His feelings became intolerable; he set his back to the boat, and with herculean strength forced it down a little way to meet the tide. He got logs and put them down for rollers. He strove, he strained, he struggled, till his face and hands were purple. And at last he met the flowing tide, and in a moment jumped into the boat, and ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... Dr. Johnson looked steadily at them for a little while; and then, as one would separate two little boys, who were foolishly hurting each other, he ran up to them, and cuffed their heads till he drove them asunder[884]. But few men have his intrepidity, Herculean strength, or presence of mind. Most thieves or robbers would be ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... Abellino sent his seconds to the carpenter. The first was named Livius. In all affairs of honour his opinion was a veritable canon to the jeunesse doree of the day. The other second, Conrad, was an herculean, athletic-looking fellow, whom, on that very account, every challenger tried to secure in those cases when a little judicious bullying might be necessary. This swash-buckler had, moreover, a most imposing countenance, and a voice capable of frightening ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... the sky to light the world of men by ... which latter, the old man maintained, was the truth, solemnly asserting that the Bible said so, and that all other belief was infidelity and blasphemy. So it was that, each evening, despite the herculean labour of the day, we drew together and debated on ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... ten paces, in the same manner as he had previously done; all of a sudden he turned, and taking the bridle of the burra gently in his hand, stopped her. I had now a full view of his face and figure, and those huge features and Herculean form still occasionally revisit me in my dreams. I see him standing in the moonshine, staring me in the face with his deep calm eyes. At last ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... brain that dares to think! Give me the mind that grasps with herculean power the rocks that crush the treasures of intellectual growth, and tears them from their foundation! Give me the mind that dares to step from the fallen stones, that leaps from rock to rock past the dark rift torn in the superstitions of ages past, and that, standing on the farthest ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... remembered her promise of good behavior, and by herculean effort managed to be on the "starred" list for the Saturday set aside for the ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... obey'd; nor these were all, But others from her hundred cities Crete 795 Sent forth, all whom Idomeneus the brave Commanded, with Meriones in arms Dread as the God of battles blood-imbrued. Nine ships Tlepolemus, Herculean-born, For courage famed and for superior size, 800 Fill'd with his haughty Rhodians. They, in tribes Divided, dwelt distinct. Jelyssus these, Those Lindus, and the rest the shining soil Of white Camirus occupied. Him bore To Hercules, (what time he led ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... side of the Colorado, more than 6,000 feet below our camp on the mountain side, which is 18 miles away; but the miles of horizontal distance represent but a small part of the day's labor before us. It is the mile of altitude we must gain that makes it a Herculean task. We are up early; a little bread and coffee, and we look about us. Our conclusion is that we can make this a depot of supplies, should it be necessary; that we can pack our rations to the point where we left ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... the admired of women—how Tommy had fought for it since first he drank of them in Pym's sparkling pages! To some it seems to be easy, but to him it was a labour of Sisyphus. Everything had been against him. But he concentrated. No labour was too Herculean; he was prepared, if necessary, to walk round the world to get to the other side of the wall across which some men can step. And he did take a roundabout way. It is my opinion, for instance, that he wrote his book in order to make a ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... or document of any kind is issued that does not go over his signature or under his direct supervision. To busy himself with the smallest details is a distinctive characteristic of the man. Systematic methods, combined with an extraordinary mind, enable him to accomplish his herculean task. In the eastern horizon Li-Hung-Chang shines as the brilliant star of morning that tells of the coming of ...
— Across Asia on a Bicycle • Thomas Gaskell Allen and William Lewis Sachtleben
... Below the merriment and herculean jollity, so little represented in his books, there was deep, gloomy force in the soul of the man who, gifted with an almost unparalleled imagination, would yet grip the realities of the pathetic and terrible situations he evolved with brutal strength and insistence. ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... weary war where fierce Numantia bled, Fell Hannibal, the swoln Sicilian main Purpled with Punic blood—not mine to wed These to the lyre's soft strain, Nor cruel Lapithae, nor, mad with wine, Centaurs, nor, by Herculean arm o'ercome, The earth-born youth, whose terrors dimm'd the shine Of the resplendent dome Of ancient Saturn. You, Maecenas, best In pictured prose of Caesar's warrior feats Will tell, and captive kings with haughty crest ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... once spotless white bed, now an ensanguined horror, to look at poor Luisa, who lay on a mat on the floor, gasping out her brief young life. Her head was pillowed on her mother's bosom, and down her side the blood ran from the jagged bullet-hole. On a chair sat the herculean figure of Black Tom with his face in his hands, through which splashed heavy tears. Slowly he rocked himself to and fro in the manner of his race when strongly moved; and when he tried to speak there only ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... countess, and see a general of cavalry eat peas with a knife (hollow ground, like a razor; a Bavarian trick!) and stand aghast while a great tone artist dusts his shoes with a napkin, and observe a Russian grand duke at the herculean labour of drinking himself ...
— Europe After 8:15 • H. L. Mencken, George Jean Nathan and Willard Huntington Wright
... elevated in a trice, and over them all bounds the volatile Signora like a panther, nor pauses until with airy somersets she has passed twice through the purgatory of the blazing hoop, and then, drooping and exhausted, sinks like a Sabine into the arms of the Herculean master, who—a second Romulus—bears away his lovely burden to the stables, amid such a whirlwind of applause as Kemble might have been ...
— The Bon Gaultier Ballads • William Edmonstoune Aytoun
... looked with contempt on the Herculean labors of his rival to civilize and enrich his country, and remarked "that the czar might amuse himself as he saw fit in building a city, but that he should soon take it from him, and set fire to his wooden house;" a bombastic boast, which, like ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... him to their notice. Captain de Haldimar was particularly struck by the air of bold daring and almost insolent recklessness pervading every movement of this man; and it was difficult to say whether the haughtiness of bearing peculiar to Ponteac himself, was not exceeded by that of this herculean warrior. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... seemed not quite to get the range. The flag and flagstaff were riddled with bullet holes, and the dead were being piled around. Still, dervish after dervish sprang to uphold the black banner of Mahdism. A herculean black grasped the staff in one hand, and leaned negligently against it for what appeared to be the space of five or ten minutes,—probably less than one minute,—ere the soldiers managed to give him his final quietus. Then it was that the remnant of the army of the Khalifa began to ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... loafer! We're here and we are pursued! Where are George and Amy?" cried Mr. Barnes, doing herculean duty as a ...
— The Daughter of Anderson Crow • George Barr McCutcheon
... interest an audience so much in favour of the vice of gambling, as to make them shut out its horrible deformity, must possess more than ordinary powers, and we question much whether, of the whole fraternity of gamblers, one could be found better adapted for the Herculean task which Mr. Freeman set himself. That which the mind is accustomed steadily to dwell upon, and upon which action is had repeatedly, will scarcely want for self-justification—and while the error of proceeding is reluctantly admitted, whatever may tend to justify, however slightly, ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... man or woman whose speech offends us. The apostle showed marvelous knowledge of the weakness of sinful mortals when he affirmed that the tongue was an unruly member, for it is easier to perform a herculean feat, to strain physical strength and muscle to the utmost, than to bite back the sharp retort, or repress the acrid reply. And there is such a hopelessness in the sentence once uttered! It is gone from us forever. We may regret it and show our repentance in speech and action, but we cannot blot ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... mutineer, a passionate lover of truth and power. And lately he had been feeling his way, questioning himself while all sorts of confused ideas throbbed in his brain. At first, smitten with the thought of undertaking something herculean, he had planned a genesis of the universe, in three phases or parts; the creation narrated according to science; mankind supervening at the appointed hour and playing its part in the chain of beings and events; then the future—beings constantly following one ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... the others, aiming their muskets at him. Three shots were fired. The brave Prussian still kept the saddle, but his hand dropped the bridle, and the horse stood still. The Dutch chasseurs surrounded and cut him. He lay helpless on the ground—that herculean man. He was still alive; his eyes, that had so beamed with courage, cast their last glance toward heaven, and his lips, that smiled so sweetly, murmured, "Tod du suesser fuer das Vaterland!" A powerful sabre-stroke ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... the most magnificent specimen of an Arab that I have ever seen. Although upwards of eighty years of age, he was as erect as a lance, and did not appear more than between fifty and sixty; he was of Herculean stature, about six feet three inches high, with immensely broad shoulders and chest; a remarkably arched nose; eyes like an eagle, beneath large, shaggy, but perfectly white eyebrows; a snow-white beard of great thickness descended below the middle of ...
— The Nile Tributaries of Abyssinia • Samuel W. Baker
... less astonished at what they saw: for, being already acquainted with this singular habit of the snow bear, they knew what he was about. They did not stay, therefore, to watch his herculean labours; but all three, levelling their guns, pulled trigger simultaneously. The bullets—some of them, at least—evidently struck the bear; but, although, he dropped the great boulder—which at once fell back into its place—he did not himself drop. On ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... father's sword, put on his helmet, and talked of the best method of killing all the rebel generals. The plans he laid for terminating the contest appeared so feasible to Constantia, that at length (though not without tears) she consented that he should enter on the Herculean labour of destroying the many-headed monster, Rebellion. Isabel thought that her father and uncle were likely to know what was best to be done, but as often as she ventured to hint that he might be too sanguine, Eustace reminded her, that girls knew nothing about war and politics, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... with herculean strength and unbelievable prowess, was fighting his assailants. A sword had pierced him through the left hand, another had scratched his cheek and a third had struck him in the right shoulder. But still, unmindful ...
— The Boy Allies with the Cossacks - Or, A Wild Dash over the Carpathians • Clair W. Hayes
... was a man of herculean strength and remarkable courage. But, on account of physical defects, instead of enlisting as a soldier, he was forced to remain a servant, although he felt as if every nerve in his right arm was tingling to strike ...
— Iola Leroy - Shadows Uplifted • Frances E.W. Harper
... close of the year 17-," several gentlemen in three-cocked hats were playing bowls. A friend of mine preferred the Malabar coast in a storm, with a ship beating to windward, and a scowling fellow of Herculean proportions striding along the beach; he, to be sure, was a pirate. This was further afield than my home-keeping fancy loved to travel, and designed altogether for a larger canvas than the tales that I affected. Give me a highwayman and I was full to the brim; a Jacobite would do, ...
— Memories and Portraits • Robert Louis Stevenson
... was President of the Parliament of Bordeaux. He was a voluminous writer, his most celebrated work being his "L'Esprit des Lois." Burke described him as "A genius not born in every country, or every time: with a Herculean robustness of mind; and nerves not to ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... of dwale As ulexite flare in the rocks Where implex aisles lead to gyte doom, Lure illaqueate Thought to flight, And at a Cyon, chained in stall, Whom mad Medeas shore of locks, Chase Fancy's wings where hazards bloom. Here herculean dwangs of gold, Clasped in talons of Circe's son, Pry portals of Teocalli as, When hyoids blaze like sea-linkt skies, Incondite imps seek grovels cold, Unfathomed haunts that scyle each sun, We see above the lees green grass Where pixies laugh with dancing eyes,— King Wonder's ...
— Betelguese - A Trip Through Hell • Jean Louis de Esque
... their supervision the campaign was rapidly begun. For a few days the stock must be fed on hay, and seven of the available fifteen men of the ranch force were detailed to keep full the great racks in the cattle stockade—a task in itself, with the myriad hungry mouths swarming on every hand, all but Herculean. The others, Rankin himself among the number, undertook the greater feat of in a measure opening the range ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... Eleven volunteers were selected for the expedition, and the young and fragile Kit Carson was entrusted with the command. In manners he was gentle as a girl, with a voice as soft as that of a woman. He had no herculean powers of muscle, but he had mind, mental powers which had been developed in a hundred emergencies. And these stout, hardy veterans of the wilderness seem with one accord to have decided that he was the fitting one to lead them into battle, where ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... his opponent firmly. For a long time, Milo exerted all his strength to shake him oft, but in vain, and the sand of the Stadium was freely moistened by the great drops of sweat, the result of this Herculean struggle. ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... of his warriors to return to their camp, near by, and bring buffalo meat for the starving white men. Notwithstanding the apparent kindness of this herculean chief, there was something about him that filled the white men with distrust. Gradually the number of his warriors increased until there were over a score of them in camp. They began to be inquisitive and troublesome, and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... majestic, irresistible America,"—this was the vision that nerved King to herculean labor, to a most real martyrdom. Condemned to the slow suicide of over-work, he gave his life a conscious offering to freedom. "What a year to live in," he writes, "worth all other times ever known in our history or any ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... and praying ones were Mrs Mooney—a brand plucked from the burning—and fragile Eve, with her weak, thin, helpless body and her robust heart, chosen to do herculean and gladiator service of sympathy and rescue in the Master's cause. And you may be sure that blooming Isa Martin was there, and her friend Martha Lockley; Manx Bradley, the Admiral, who, with other ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... Work Council of the Y. M. C. A. at New York, was asked to take part in the creation of the machinery necessary for the gigantic piece of work that the organization had been called upon by the President of the United States to do. It was a herculean task; practically impossible with any large degree of efficiency in view of the almost insurmountable obstacles to be contended with. But step by step the imperfect machinery was set up, and it began to function in the ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... to-day with ropes and axe, pick and shovel. But the task is vast, it is herculean, like unto the ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... although there were moments of intense passion when his frame actually expanded and belied the assertion. The light, almost slender symmetry of his figure, promised more of that ready activity which he evinced at the Bridge of Sighs, than of that Herculean strength which he has been known to wield without an effort, upon occasions of more dangerous emergency. With the mouth and chin of a deity—singular, wild, full, liquid eyes, whose shadows varied from pure hazel to intense and brilliant jet—and a profusion of curling, black hair, from which a ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 2 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... endowed with herculean strength who is compelled by circumstances to follow a sedentary occupation, some minute exquisite work of the hands, for example, or to engage in study and mental labor demanding quite other powers, and just those ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... such exertion. D'Artagnan remained, therefore, alone; and as he declared he was too ignorant of the game to play it regularly they only continued giving balls to one another without counting. But one of these balls, launched by Porthos' herculean hand, passed so close to d'Artagnan's face that he thought that if, instead of passing near, it had hit him, his audience would have been probably lost, as it would have been impossible for him to present himself before the king. Now, as upon this audience, in his Gascon imagination, depended ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of irony in such a result of the Herculean labours of Scott to found and endow a new branch of the clan of Scott. When fifteen years after his death the estate was at length freed from debt, all his own children and the eldest of his grandchildren were dead; and now forty-six years have elapsed, and there only ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... hardly further off than it had been when first this thunderclap of an intuition deafened her, and still reeling from the shock, she remembered that it was almost certainly Mrs. Poppit who was the cause of Mr. Wyse writing her that exquisitely delicate note with regard to Thursday. It was a herculean task, no doubt, to plug up all the fountains of talk in Tilling which were spouting so merrily at her expense, but a beginning must be made before she could arrive at the end. A short scurry of nimble steps brought her ...
— Miss Mapp • Edward Frederic Benson
... one can help admiring the ability and indomitable courage she has displayed in the gratification of her national antipathy. From the League of Augsburg, of 1687, to which she became a party, to the Treaty of Utrecht, in 1713, she put forth herculean efforts to compel the relinquishment of the family compact by Louis XIV. By that treaty, the darling project of that monarch to secure the crown of Spain for a Bourbon, was forever abandoned by France. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Volume V. Issue I • Various
... them. The Wanguana, instead of regarding these poor creatures as soldiers, treated them like children; and once, as a diminutive Tot—the common name they go by—was exerting himself to lift his pack and place it on his mule, a fine Herculean Mguana stepped up behind, grasped Tot, pack and all, in his muscular arms, lifted the whole over his head, paraded the Tot about, struggling for release, and put him down amidst the laughter of the camp, then saddled his mule and patted ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... away, almost herculean in figure, and every inch of him forceful. She had never seen such a man, one so virile and, at the same time, so wilful and so masterful. Before he was out of her sight, she got ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... with this compliment to make any resistance, while he buckled her close to his own herculean frame, and, driving a spur into his charger, they flew from the lawn with a rapidity that defied further denial. After proceeding for some time, at a rate that a good deal discomposed the spinster, ...
— The Spy • James Fenimore Cooper
... back to the very prison from which a few months before I had made my escape. With a bursting heart I entered those walls, compelled to feel that all my more than Herculean labours served for my own torture, and for no other end. Since my escape from prison I had acquired some knowledge of the world; I had learned by bitter experience, by how many links society had a hold ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... never seen a city, so flourishing in all rare beauty, so decorated with the virtue of her living citizens, so noble in the memories of her dead heroes—the sun has never shone upon a state, so solidly established; upon an empire so majestical and mighty; extending from the Herculean columns, the far limits of the west, beyond the blue Symplegades; from Hyperborean snows, to the parched sands of Ethiopia!—no! Conscript Fathers, for we have no foes unsubdued, from the wild azure-tinctured hordes of Gaul to the swart Eunuchs ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... materially increasing the extent of cleared land from year to year. The primeval jungles of Singapore are so thickly timbered and covered with underwood and large, tough creepers, that the man who undertakes to clear them has before him an Herculean task. According to the best information I could obtain, it requires a cash outlay of sixty dollars to clear a single acre; and even that large sum does not thoroughly stump it (i. e. clear off all the large roots and stumps of the larger trees) for the planting of coffee, nutmegs, or ...
— Trade and Travel in the Far East - or Recollections of twenty-one years passed in Java, - Singapore, Australia and China. • G. F. Davidson
... to the New Hampshire Grant's, at that time the Eldorado most in vogue among those seeking new countries. Here, having purchased one of the best tracts of land in the place, he commenced the slow and laborious process of clearing up a new farm. And this Herculean task, which may well be considered the work of a man's life, he had, after years of incessant toil and privation, nearly succeeded in accomplishing, and begun to catch glimpses of easier and brighter days; when he was taken away by disease, ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson
... is making herculean efforts for an "on to Washington," while the enemy think he merely designs a defense of Richmond. Troops are on the move, all the way ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... no further provocation. With almost supernatural force and quickness he sprung upon the forester, and seized him by the throat. But the active young man freed himself from the gripe, and closed with his assailant. But though of Herculean build, it soon became evident that Ashbead would have the worst of it; when Hal o' Nabs, who had watched the struggle with intense interest, could not help coming to his friend's assistance, and made a push at Demdike with ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... wandering patriot of the wilderness found the minds of his countrymen we cowed with fear, or so benumbed with indifference as to their fate, that there was scarcely a man among them all, outside his own near kindred, to lend him an ear, or join him in his self-imposed, herculean labor. But toward the end, when every hill and valley, plain and forest, river and lake of the great North-west had been made to resound full many a year with the echoes of that awakening voice, behold the result. Persuaded that their hour ...
— Burl • Morrison Heady
... the wide shirt sleeve from his herculean arm and Szilard was astonished to see the half healed and cross-like scar—it had ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... herculean work we had performed to perfect this play. It was time well spent. The reward came within seven minutes after the game began. The end running ability of that great player, Bosey Reiter showed. Every man was doing his part, and the play was ...
— Football Days - Memories of the Game and of the Men behind the Ball • William H. Edwards
... cast anchor in the port of Stockholm, when a number of Herculean women came and offered us their services as porters. They were Delekarliers, {52} who frequently come to Stockholm to earn a livelihood as porters, water-carriers, boatwomen, &c. They easily find employment, because they possess two excellent qualities: ...
— Visit to Iceland - and the Scandinavian North • Ida Pfeiffer
... were engaged in mortal combat, and our prisoner was all but my conqueror. Grappling with Cambaceres, whom I knocked from his horse, and was about to despatch, I felt a lunge behind, which luckily was parried by my sabretache; a herculean grasp was at the next instant at my throat—I was on the ground—my prisoner had escaped, and a gigantic warrior in the uniform of a colonel of the regiment of Artois glaring over me ...
— Burlesques • William Makepeace Thackeray
... western Louisiana was an experiment. No contracts between the planters and freedmen had then been entered into, and the difficulties to be met with and overcome by the contracting parties were new to each. The herculean task of removing the objections which the freedmen offered to signing a "contract," and of eradicating the prejudice existing among the planters against countenancing the employment upon their plantations as free men of those whom they had so long and firmly held in bondage, ...
— Report on the Condition of the South • Carl Schurz
... scholarly spectacles that bridged his nose. He really outdid the most fanciful cowboy of the far western ranches. Such an outfit he imagined just the thing for a trip among the wild characters on the Upper Mississippi. The other member of the party was a broad nosed, Herculean negro whom Paul hired to pull the row boat he had purchased for the ...
— The Story of Paul Boyton - Voyages on All the Great Rivers of the World • Paul Boyton
... he struck a medal with a Herculean figure on the reverse, confining the head of the English leopard between his knees, whilst preparing a cord to strangle him, inscribed En l'An XII. 2000 barques sont construites;—this was in condemnation of the invasion ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... look out for a wife, who, nothing discouraged by these reports of Katharine's temper, and hearing she was rich and handsome, resolved upon marrying this famous termagant, and taming her into a meek and manageable wife. And truly none was so fit to set about this herculean labour as Petruchio, whose spirit was as high as Katharine's, and he was a witty and most happy-tempered humourist, and withal so wise, and of such a true judgment, that he well knew how to feign a passionate ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles Lamb and Mary Lamb
... forward with a fluttering anxiety till she could see for herself. Yes! A stern-looking policeman coming slow and majestic through the crowd. Was he going to hale the girl off to Holloway? No; he came to a standstill near some rowdy boys, and he stared straight before him—herculean, impassive, the very image of conscious authority. Whenever Ernestine said anything particularly dreadful, the old lady craned her neck to see how the policeman was taking it. When Ernestine fell to drubbing the Government, ...
— The Convert • Elizabeth Robins
... world. His father in his desire to prevent this secludes him in the enjoyment of all luxury. At the ploughing festival he falls into a trance under a tree and the shadow stands still to protect him and does not change. Again his father does him homage. He is of herculean strength and surpasses all as an archer. He marries his cousin Yasodhara, when sixteen years old. Then come the four visions, which are among the scenes most frequently depicted in modern sacred art. As he is driving in the palace grounds the gods show him ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, Vol I. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... ample. The number of the sanitary corps was determined upon the experience in the Russo-Japanese war, in which the losses were by no means so heavy as they have been in this war, but where in a few cases numbers have been lacking the surgeons and their assistants have put forth herculean efforts. Many surgeons are now wearing the iron cross for bravery, winning the insignia by dragging out wounded from the rain of bullets. TREATMENT OF PRISONERS ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... beat two miles of perfect cover. Then we beat it back again and finally, after all our Herculean efforts, one lonely bird flew up and was knocked over. That was the astounding total of our slaughter and when the army marched back into camp with its one little grouse the effect was laughable in the extreme. I took a photograph of the entire group and by good luck the grouse is faintly ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... meeting-place of Mike Lambourne and Tressillian, and rebuilding in its neighbourhood the ruins of Cumnor Hall, on which the dews fell softly? Alas! the wizard would weave no more spells. A month before that princely "progress" Sir Walter Scott, after Herculean labours to pay his debts like an honest man had wrecked even his robust frame and healthful ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1. • Sarah Tytler
... Dixon felt his strength rapidly ebbing, both from his herculean exertions and from the paralyzing rays of the green moon beating down upon his unprotected head. As his speed of foot lessened the Centaurians began inexorably ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... Rojas stuck to our trail," said Thorne, his lined and haggard face expressive of dark passion. "He has followed us into this fearful desert. He'll lose men, horses, perhaps his life. He's only a bandit, and he stands to win no gold. If he ever gets out of here it 'll be by herculean labor and by terrible hardship. All for a poor little helpless woman—just a woman! My God, I can't ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... further remarks, however caustic or bitter, to a palate vitiated with the sweets of adulation, will be of service. Johnson has shown us that no poetry is perfect; but to correct mine would be an Herculean labour. In fact I never looked beyond the moment of composition, and published merely at the request of my friends. Notwithstanding so much has been said concerning the 'Genus irritabile vatum,' we shall never quarrel on the subject—poetic fame is by no means ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. I. (of VI.) - With his Letters and Journals. • Thomas Moore
... with an ardour that commands our wonder and respect; and it was at Vaucluse that he either meditated or wrote his most important compositions. Here he undertook a history of Rome, from Romulus down to Titus Vespasian. This Herculean task he never finished; but there remain two fragments of it, namely, four books, De Rebus Memorandis, and another tract entitled Vitarum Virorum Illustrium Epitome, being sketches of illustrious men from the founder of ...
— The Sonnets, Triumphs, and Other Poems of Petrarch • Petrarch
... met the Potato Famine with anything like complete success, would have been a Herculean task for any government. The total failure of the food of a nation was, as Mr. Monsell said, a fact new in history; such being the case, no machinery existed extensive enough to neutralize its effects, nor was there extant any plan upon which such machinery could be modelled. Great ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... of these Herculean Efforts to vaporize his Income, he found himself at the age of 40 afflicted with Social Gastritis. He had gorged himself with the Pleasures of this World until the sight of a Menu Card gave him the Willies and the mere mention ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... theatre in the Rue Pigalle. He was a big fellow of fifty with broad shoulders and a full, bearded face. His most disagreeable characteristic was the narrow dogmatic pedantry which he had acquired at the Ecole Normale, and had never since been able to shake off. All his herculean efforts to be sceptical and frivolous, and the twenty years he had spent in Paris mingling with every section of society, had failed to rid him of it. Magister he was, and magister he remained, even in his most strenuous flights of imagination and audacity. From the moment of his arrival he ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... automatic way I released the little gentleman in the purple jacket, who did not seem to regard any of the proceedings as particularly sensible or brilliant. The gigantic Burrows, on the other hand, was heaving with herculean laughter. ...
— The Club of Queer Trades • G. K. Chesterton
... was classified and filed, envelope and all. The thing to do, then, was manifestly to run over the files and find the letter, if indeed it was in or on a letter that the seal had first come to his attention. It was a herculean job, but that never feazed Sherlock Holmes, and he went at it tooth and nail. Finally his effort was rewarded. Under 'Applications for Autograph' he found a daintily-scented little missive from a young girl living at Goring-Streatley on the Thames, the daughter, ...
— R. Holmes & Co. • John Kendrick Bangs
... body which sank down. He entered very quickly; and Simon, who had gone to his bed, distinguished the sound of a kiss and some words that his mother said very softly. Then he suddenly found himself lifted up by the hands of his friend, who, holding him at the length of his herculean arms, exclaimed to him: ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... king. Louis XIII. was the feeblest of the Bourbons, but he made his throne the first in Europe. Richelieu was a great benefactor to the cause of law, order, and industry, despotic as was his policy and hateful his character. When he died, worn out by his herculean labors, the nobles tried to regain the privileges and powers they had lost, and a miserable warfare called the "Fronde" was the result, carried on without genius or system. But the Fronde produced some heroes who were destined to be famous in the great wars of Louis ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... herculean strength has nonetheless been terrorized into abject helplessness before the onslaught of a royal Bengal. Thus the tiger has converted the man, in his own mind, to a state as nerveless as the pussycat's. It is possible for a man, owning a fairly strong body and an immensely strong determination, ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... the first Herculean Labours Abbot Samson undertook, or the very first, was to institute a strenuous review and radical reform of his economics. It is the first labour of every governing man, from Paterfamilias to Dominus Rex. ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... L'Esperance to begin. The guide went a little apart from the rest, accompanied by the steersmen of the boats (seven or eight in number), and then, scanning the group of dark athletic men who stood smiling before him, called out, "Pierre!" A tall, Herculean man answered to the call, and, stepping out from among the rest, stood beside his friend the guide. After this one of the steersmen chose another man; and so on, till the crews of all the boats were completed. ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... in this place and at this time. This object is primarily to present the leading historical phases of the town's and city's life and developement, together with the traces of previous occupation, and the natural history of the locality. To accomplish this almost herculean task, the sections were assigned to writers well-known in their respective spheres,—many of them of national reputation,—who from study and associations were in a measure identified with their subjects. The entire work was critically edited by Mr. Justin Winsor, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 6 • Various
... colossal!" he exclaimed. "Think of it! a whole city wiped out." I lowered my eyes to the goat nibbling beside us. "The courage and energy that rebuilt it is herculean." His enthusiasm was cumulative. "And rebuilt it in practically three years! No wonder you date all things ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... great an end: First, find—the perfect educational method! The recipe is brief; the labor it imposes is more than Herculean. To measure it, we should have to find the ratio in which mind transcends matter, or that in which the broad generalizations of genius in the materials of science surpass the poor conceptions that the wild Australian ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... of dispatch increased with each succeeding train, until when it came to entraining reluctant horses and still more reluctant mules practically in the dark, for there was no other light but the dim glimmer of two candle-lamps, the task became herculean, and required an infinity of patience and tact. The General and his staff having gone by the first excursion, the task of bringing along the remainder of the column devolved on Colonel Hicks, with Captain Fetherstonhaugh as his staff officer. They did not complete the entraining until the early ...
— The Second Battalion Royal Dublin Fusiliers in the South African War - With a Description of the Operations in the Aden Hinterland • Cecil Francis Romer and Arthur Edward Mainwaring
... the truth—the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the tale of my wanderings and of the 'Herculean' labours, as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. After the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be instantly detected; now you will find out that you are more ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... dead, and only the most herculean efforts on the part of Dak Kova's females saved him from the fate he deserved. Three days later he walked without assistance to the body of Bar Comas which, by custom, had not been moved from where it fell, and placing his foot upon the neck of ...
— A Princess of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he fell into amazement when he thought of the Herculean labors those fifteen pairs of hands had performed: of the cows they had milked, the butter they had made, the gardens they had planted, the children and grandchildren they had tended, the brooms they had worn out, ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... curiosities, both of Nepaulese men and manners, in their native country, and we looked with no little interest upon the first specimens we had seen of the Newar race—the aborigines of Nepaul. Short and compact, the full development of their muscle bore evidence to their almost Herculean strength. Their flat noses, high cheek-bones, small eyes, and copper-coloured complexion are unequivocal signs of a Mongolian origin, whilst the calves of their legs, which I never saw equalled in size, indicate the mountainous character ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... beside Danton when those tidings were brought to him. He flung up his cap in the air, with a burst of laughter. "So much the better!" he exclaimed; "the closer the preserve, the thicker the game." I had now a complete view of this hero of democracy. His figure was herculean; his countenance, which possibly, in his younger days, had been handsome, was now marked with the lines of every passion and profligacy, but it was still commanding. His costume was one which he had chosen for himself, and which ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... crying aloud for decimal coinage and decimal weights and measures, and are not educated men constantly finding some objections, and will they not continue to do so, until some giant mind springs up able to grasp the herculean task, and force the boon upon the community? Were not steamboats and railways long opposed as being little better than insane visions? Did not Doctor Lardner prove to demonstration that railway carriages could never go more than twenty miles an hour, ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray |
