"Impregnable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Wallenstein followed suit and for eleven weeks the enemies eyed one another from their "lagers," neither willing to risk an attack. In the end Gustav Adolf tried, but even his Finns could not take the impregnable heights the enemy held. At last he went away with colors flying and bands playing, right under the enemy's walls, in the hope of tempting him out. But he ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... himself has recorded his estimate of the results of the first year's campaign. "Germany," he stated in a speech delivered at Lemberg, "is an impregnable fortress. In her forward march she is irresistible. She will prove to the world that she can overcome all her enemies and will dictate to them the peace terms that please herself." And in a discourse pronounced at Beuthen ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... between the piles up to their tops, which were more than five feet out of the earth, and after drove another row of piles looking within side against them, between two or three feet high, which made me conclude it a little impregnable castle against men and beasts. And for my better security I would have no door, but entered in and came out by the help of a ladder, ...
— The Life and Most Surprising Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, of - York, Mariner (1801) • Daniel Defoe
... related. A few days afterwards another of the Pirate's fortresses, the island of Bancoote, six miles north of Suwarndrug, surrendered. The Maratha rajah, Ramaji Punt, delighted with these successes against fortified places which had for nearly fifty years been deemed impregnable, offered the English commodore an immense sum of money to proceed against others of Angria's forts; but the monsoon approaching, the commodore was ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... middle of many a lady's heart—red coat, sword, epaulette-belt, cocked hat, feathers, and all. But he was not destined to leap into Emily's. She had enclosed it within too strong a line of circumvallation. After a three months' siege, it was impregnable. So Henry, who really loved his cousin, thinking it folly to endanger his peace and waste his time any longer, called for his horse one morning, shook Emily warmly by the hand, mounted, "and ...
— Fifty-Two Stories For Girls • Various
... Divell," as our fathers called him, could not crawl into the crack of a rock to escape from his pursuers. But the venomous population of Rattlesnake Ledge had a Gibraltar for their fortress that might have defied the siege-train dragged to the walls of Sebastopol. In its deep embrasures and its impregnable easemates they reared their families, they met in love or wrath, they twined together in family knots, they hissed defiance in hostile clans, they fed, slept, hibernated, and in due time died in peace. Many a foray had the towns-people ...
— Elsie Venner • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... policy impregnated Russia with a strong anti-British feeling, and it was said that her activity in running up earthworks and apparently impregnable fortifications was in anticipation of Disraeli declaring war and ordering the fleet to bombard the Crimean ports; hence, too, in addition to the strong fortifications, torpedo mines were laid for miles ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman
... of the city at that time, apparently entrenched, with an organization that seemed impregnable. I knew him as a big, bullnecked fellow, taciturn to the point of surliness, owing his influence to his ability to "deliver the goods" in the shape of graft of all sorts, the archenemy of Carton, a type of politician ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... which we get the praise, that we have not regretted them, and are not ashamed at them, and would not rather have said and done differently. For our own inward judgement, testifying the contrary and not admitting the praise, is above passion, and impregnable and proof against the flatterer. But I know not how it is that most people in misfortune cannot bear exhortation, but are captivated more by condolence and sympathy, and when they have done something wrong and acted ...
— Plutarch's Morals • Plutarch
... men, who by this time were out in search of the Indians. Black Hawk, too maddened to think of the difference of numbers, attacked the whites. To his surprise the enemy turned, and fled in a wild riot. Nor did they stop at their camp, which from its position was almost impregnable; they fled in complete panic, sauve qui peut, through their camp, across prairie and rivers and swamps, to Dixon, twelve miles away, where by midnight they began to arrive. The first arrival reported that two thousand savages ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... the almost impossibility of drawing the real truth, and the almost necessary tendency to exaggerate one thing and diminish another. But if the Italian mind, with a head to be chopped off by a despot for a joke, discovered the colourless and impregnable word 'load,' the French gamin, on his own responsibility, hit upon the identical word in French, namely, 'charge'—une charge meaning both a pictorial or verbal goak or caricature, and a load. When did the word ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... Nimbhalkar from their ancestral village Nimbalik. The Ghorpade family are an offshoot of the Bhonslas, and obtained their present name from the exploit of one of their ancestors, who scaled a fort in the Konkan, previously deemed impregnable, by passing a cord round the body of a ghorpad or iguana. [214] A noticeable trait of these Maratha houses is the fondness with which they clung to the small estates or villages in the Deccan in which they had originally held the office of a patel or village headman as a watan ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... Spanish-American Iron Company, and who is familiar with the topography of the whole region, writes me: "I have always thought that the great mistake of the Santiago campaign was that they assaulted the city at its most impregnable point, instead of taking possession of the heights at Aguadores, which would have been tantamount to the fall of Morro, the possession of the harbor entrance and of the harbor itself. The forces of the Spaniards were not sufficient to maintain any considerable number of men there, and ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... stone walls of El-Kerak at about midafternoon, and rode up to the place through a savage gorge that must have been impregnable in the old days of bows and arrows. It would take a determined army today to force itself through the wadys and winding water-courses that guard that old citadel of Romans ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... baffled and repulsed, retired at the end of twenty-four days. Saint Louis and Philip the Bold, in the thirteenth century, multiplied the defenses of Carcassonne, which was one of the bulwarks of their kingdom on the Spanish quarter; and from this time forth, being regarded as impregnable, the place had nothing to fear. It was not even attacked; and when, in 1355, Edward the Black Prince marched into it, the inhabitants had opened the gates to the conqueror before whom all Languedoc was prostrate. I am not one of those ...
— Seeing Europe with Famous Authors, Volume 4 (of 10) • Various
... on every side, with no outlet apparent, save to one blessed with wings. Saint Andrew! 'twas an awesome place, yet oddly beautiful, so soft and green below, with those massive walls completely shutting out all the rest of the world, and shadowing the little valley with impregnable grandeur. ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... men from this vantage could have rendered either street or barricade untenable, or as support to a barricade in the Place du Pantheon have made such a barricade impregnable to ...
— Mlle. Fouchette - A Novel of French Life • Charles Theodore Murray
... seedling of the true democratic and social Republic, wherein neither caste, color, sex, nor age stands prescribed. It is a moral-suasion temperance society on the teetotal basis. It is a moral-power Anti-slavery society, radical and without compromise. It is a peace society on the only impregnable foundation, that of Christian non-resistance. It is a sound theoretical and practical Woman's Rights Association." Among other Suffragists, Abby Kelly Foster was resident at Hopedale. Another community, at Northampton, was sometimes ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... this strong post forty years after the capital had fallen. It is a single hill, and very high; and the top of it appears like a large mount formed by art, being defended by a double line of fortifications and several towers, which in a rude state of warfare might be pronounced almost impregnable. At the foot of an eminence towards the north there are the remains of a magnificent church as well as of other buildings. On a slope a little farther west there is a cistern connected with a pond, which appears to have had an island in it, and probably some structure suited ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... became apparent to her. Was it a mistake, then? Could not a woman be strong? Was her strength grafted upon elemental weakness—not her individual weakness, but the weakness of her sex, the intended natural weakness of the woman? Had she built her fancied impregnable fortress ...
— A Man's Woman • Frank Norris
... reference to "our age," left her, and next attacked Celeste Fishblate, having long ago discovered Nattie to be impregnable to the process known as "pumping," a fact that had augmented her ever-increasing dislike ...
— Wired Love - A Romance of Dots and Dashes • Ella Cheever Thayer
... ancient and impregnable theory that all brides are beautiful, was there ever a woman who looked her best in the uniform of approaching servitude? In any case, Ellaphine's best was not good, and she was at her worst in her ill-fitting ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... render it very difficult of access. Having arrived within three gun-shots of Lussan, Cavalier sent Ravanel to demand provisions from the inhabitants; but they, proud of their natural ramparts, and believing their town impregnable, not only refused to comply with the requisition, but fired several shots on the envoy, one of which wounded in the arm a Camisard of the name of La Grandeur, who had accompanied Ravanel. Ravanel withdrew, supporting his wounded comrade, followed by ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... and the villagers have come to regard it as quite a natural occurrence. At daylight I am again on the move, and sunrise finds me busy making an outline sketch of the ruins of an ancient castle, that occupies, I should imagine, one of the most impregnable positions in all Asia Minor; a regular Gibraltar. It occupies the summit of a precipitous detached mountain peak, which is accessible only from one point, all the other sides presenting a sheer precipice ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... she wanted an opportunity to heal some wounds, which her late conduct had, she feared, given her reputation; and, as she had a wonderful presence of mind, she conceived the person of the unfortunate beau to be luckily thrown in her way to restore her lady's opinion of her impregnable chastity. At that instant, therefore, when he offered to leap from the bed, she caught fast hold of his shirt, at the same time roaring out, "O thou villain! who hast attacked my chastity, and, I believe, ruined me in my sleep; I will swear a rape against thee, I will prosecute thee with the ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... all means Of Service, Courtship, Presents, that might win her To be at his devotion: but in vain; Her Maiden Fort, impregnable held out, Until he promis'd Marriage; and before These Witnesses a solemn Contract pass'd To take ...
— The Spanish Curate - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... resolved to descend and give battle [Footnote: The traditions concerning the King and the old Earl of Angus on this occasion have been very untenderly handled by Mr. Andrew Lang, Hist. Scot., 1., p. 390.] on the plain, instead of remaining in his almost impregnable position. So on the afternoon of September 9th was fought the bloody and decisive battle of Flodden. Of the two armies, the Scottish was probably the larger; but the English captains had their troops better in hand than the border lords on the Scottish left, or the highland chiefs ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... died on Undine's lips. She found herself grappling with a new social riddle, and such surprises were always stimulating. The name of the untidy-looking young woman she had been about to repel was one of the most eminent in the impregnable quarter beyond the Seine. No one figured more largely in the Parisian chronicle than the Princess Estradina, and no name more impressively headed the list at every marriage, funeral and philanthropic entertainment of the Faubourg Saint Germain than ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... as it disappeared the shielding wall began to give way. It did not cave in abruptly, but softened locally, sagging into a peculiar grouping of valleys and ridges—contesting stubbornly every inch of position lost. And gray Roger knew that the planetoid was doomed. His supposedly impregnable screen was failing in spite of its utmost measure of energy, and, that defense down, the citadel would not last a minute. Therefore he summoned a chosen few of his motley crew of renegade scientists and issued brief instructions. ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... robbery. It was a charitable explanation, and had many flaws, but he clung to it persistently, nurturing it with his hopes and his hunger for her, building it up until it became a structure of logic firmly fixed and impregnable. Women were easily influenced—that had been his experience with them—he was forced to accept it as a trait of the sex. So he absolved her, his hunger for her in no way ...
— 'Firebrand' Trevison • Charles Alden Seltzer
... man of middle height, hard and wiry, with those lines in his face that time neither obliterates nor deepens; the parallels of hunger. He had been through the first Carlist war nearly thirty years earlier. He had starved in Pampeluna, the hungry, the impregnable. ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... was joined en route by about one hundred citizens from the town and surrounding country. At the mouth of the canyon he halted and built a temporary barricade by felling trees across it and up the north wall to a considerable distance, the south wall being deemed impregnable without fortifying. The slope to the right was gradual and cut up with gulches and ravines, some of which extended clear to the top of ...
— The Battle of the Big Hole • G. O. Shields
... was unusual, his position as Arbuthnot's superior officer, locally present, was impregnable. He nevertheless kept his temper under provocation, and the dignified restraint of his reply is notable; indeed, the only significant feature of this incident, from the biographical point of view. "No offence ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... to that battle-field—the gate of man's Free-will. Through that portal the powers of darkness must enter if they gained admittance at all. Elsewhere the walls were high as heaven, deeper than hell, for, except at this point, the fortress was impregnable. ...
— The Young Trawler • R.M. Ballantyne
... slightly. Behind the staring, manlike visitor there was a glimpse of enormous, crocodile jaws and huge, amethyst eyes. Instantly the head and arms receded, leaving an empty-seeming, lifeless shell. An impregnable fortress of spines, the thing drifted slowly away through the twisted ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science September 1930 • Various
... a mighty king and his great minister of state consulting and planning against one poor girl; and, as angry as I felt toward Mary, I could not help pitying her, and admired, beyond the power of pen to write, the valiant and so far impregnable defense she had put up against an array of strength that would have made a king ...
— When Knighthood Was in Flower • Charles Major
... You cannot change horses when you are crossing a stream. Prince Eugene was in Mantua with a fine army, practically intact, though it had suffered some slight reverses; the fortress was believed to be impregnable; by merely waiting, Eugene might, if nothing else, have exacted favourable terms. But the news of Prina's murder, and the blow dealt at his own authority in Milan, caused him to give over the fortress and the army to the Austrians without more ado; an act which looked like revenge, but it was most ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... exception of the permission, and even after the decision of the Council persisted in retaining the custom. A few priests had attempted resistance, but numberless apostasies and half an insurrection had followed on their action, and now the position had come to be regarded as impregnable. ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... which overhangs Tumbling Run on the south side, a heavy line of earthworks had been constructed when Early retreated to this point in August, and these were now being strengthened so as to make them almost impregnable; in fact, so secure did Early consider himself that, for convenience, his ammunition chests were taken from the caissons and placed behind the breastworks. Wharton, now in command of Breckenridge's division—its ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... the tops, making a fence as strong as a wall, for the root which is more then halfe cut in sunder, putting forth new branches which runne and entangle themselves amongst the old stockes, doe so thicken and fortifie the Hedge that it is against the force of beasts impregnable" (ed. ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. III • Various
... reach the chief Mandan village. It was in some sense imposing, for the Indian lodges were arranged neatly in streets and squares and the surrounding palisade was strong and well built. Around the fort was a ditch fifteen feet deep and of equal width, which made the village impregnable in Indian warfare. After saluting the village with three volleys of musket fire, La Verendrye marched in with great ceremony, under the French flag, only to discover that the Mandans were not greatly unlike the Assiniboines and other Indians of the ...
— The Conquest of New France - A Chronicle of the Colonial Wars, Volume 10 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • George M. Wrong
... panic had seized my men. Before the English had even got near enough to shell our positions to any purpose, the wild flight began. Soon every position was evacuated. There was not even an attempt to hold them, though some of them would have been almost impregnable. It was a flight such as I had never seen before, and shall ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... his Majesty, after receiving the homage of the Venetian authorities, repaired to the arsenal. This is an immense building, fortified so carefully that it was practically impregnable. The appearance of the interior is singular on account of several small islands which it incloses, joined together by bridges. The magazines and numerous buildings of the fortress thus appear to be floating on the surface of the water. The entrance on the land side, by which we were introduced, ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... disastrously, issued orders for a general retreat. The Austrians had planned to fall back on the positions which had been prepared in advance in the mountains and to establish themselves, with greatly reduced numbers, on this practically impregnable line, while the transfer of the divisions intended for the Carpathians was effected. But General Cadorna had no intention of letting the Austrians escape so easily. In less than a week he had collected from the garrisons and training ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... earlier times, sure of speedy succor. The teaching of the later days had destroyed the simple fetichism of childhood; and now—afraid of God, by whom she was unforgiven; the saints swept out of her spiritual life like those mist-wreaths of morning which were once taken for solid towers and impregnable fortresses; the Holy Mother vanished with the rest; all spiritual help a myth, all spiritual consolation gone—how could she pray? Lonely as her life had been since mamma died, it had never been so lonely as now, when she felt that God had abandoned her, and that she had sacrificed her lover to her ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... of the war, we could have rendered this position impregnable in one night, but at this time we did not do it, and it may be it is well we did not. From about the 1st of April we were conscious that the rebel cavalry in our front was getting bolder and more saucy; ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... who found him guilty without waiting for the summing-up, and hanged him without benefit of clergy. Thus Baby Charles, and the Twelfth-night Queen of Hearts, and the overgrown schoolboy Cottington, and that little urchin Laud—who would reduce a verdict of 'guilty, death,' by famine, if it were impregnable by composition—all impannelled against poor Archy for presenting them bitter physic the last day of the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... by the ordering of society. Her reason had been warped in her youth by an instructor of the devil's stamp;[41] finding her attached to her husband and to her duties, always cold, argumentative, and impregnable on the side of the senses, he attacked her by sophisms, and at last persuaded her that the union of the sexes is in itself a matter of the most perfect indifference, provided only that decorum of appearance be preserved, and the peace of mind ...
— Rousseau - Volumes I. and II. • John Morley
... great a quantity as may neither be told or imagined. They laboured at the work three hundred years; and when they had wrought it to end, they went to King Sheddad and acquainted him therewith. Then said he, 'Depart and make thereto an impregnable citadel, rising high into the air, and round it a thousand pavilions, each builded on a thousand columns of chrysolite and ruby and vaulted with gold, that in each pavilion may dwell a Vizier.' So they returned and did this in other twenty years; after ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... defenses, vetoed most of his suggestions. The vast sums of money which the Russian central government appropriated for the fortification of Port Arthur, honestly used, would have made the place completely impregnable. It is not too much to say—and this will be borne out by any trained observer and student of the conditions then existing in and around Port Arthur—that sixty per cent. of the money for defense ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... amphitheatre, wherein there was ample room for the formation of a great laager, the wagons being arranged in an irregular ellipse, thoroughly hidden from the veldt outside, while the rocks of the kopje roughly formed a rampart of vast strength, and apparently quite impregnable. ...
— A Dash from Diamond City • George Manville Fenn
... unhappily right," Nigel groaned, "yet one perseveres, and after all there is an element of mystery about the whole affair. The French, as you know, have not imitated our blind credulity. Their frontier would seem to be impregnable, and the difficulties of invading England, even from the air, are very much as they were during the last war. It was these considerations which made my uncle persevere in his attempt at secret-service work on the Continent. Everything depends upon our knowing exactly ...
— The Great Prince Shan • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... The warehouse—impregnable lair of the Smell, from which it leered smug defiance at the sea-sweet atmosphere of the lower city—occupied a walled-in arch of the Brooklyn Bridge, fronting on Frankfort Street, in that part of Town still known to elder inhabitants ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... again breaks in; but Tristan has already found his refuge in death, and Isolda, obedient to her promise, follows him, and they are joined, safe from the annoyances of the "phantoms of the day," in "the impregnable fortress," the grave. The action, as in the preceding portions of the drama, is of the simplest. On his bed of pain and sorrow Tristan lies wounded and unconscious. Kurvenal has got him away from Mark's court in Cornwall to his ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman
... to the College after the Revolution was not more cordial and not more adequate than the meagre succors of Colonial legislation. The first Governor of independent Massachusetts, from the height of his impregnable popularity, for more than twelve years defied the repeated attempts of the Corporation, backed by the Overseers, to obtain the balance of his account as former Treasurer of the College, and died its debtor in a sum exceeding a thousand pounds. The debt was finally paid ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 107, September, 1866 • Various
... impregnable. Their men-of-war were ranged close together in two lines, and the frigates and guard-boats they considered would be sufficient to divert any fire-ships that might make their way round the boom. Half a gale was blowing on shore. Cochrane ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... works, the "Army of Northern Virginia" fought behind, in this campaign. All the Federal writers who have written about these battles, speak of our works as "formidable earthworks," "powerful fortifications," "impregnable lines;" such works as no troops could be expected to take, and any troops could ...
— From the Rapidan to Richmond and the Spottsylvania Campaign - A Sketch in Personal Narration of the Scenes a Soldier Saw • William Meade Dame
... by composition. For it is said there bred such innumerable quantities of small worms in the waters of the fort, that the people swelled and burst, by which mortality the king was forced to submit and surrender, the place being impregnable by any human force. The 3d we came to Candah, eleven c. a small aldea, the road being stony and very troublesome. The 4th to Magergom, four c. a large aldea, and by a very bad road. The 5th ten c. to Kergom, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... habitual and harrowing experiences that, constant companions of my days and nights as they have been, have acquired all the peculiarities of those chronic and incurable ailments, to which the grave alone can bring release. For, if to the Jews themselves the "Pale," the "norm," etc., were a fatal and impregnable fact, which deformed their entire life, they were also for me, a Russian, something in the nature of a hump on my back, a stationary and ugly growth, arising no one knows when or under what circumstances. Wherever I went and whatever I did, the hump was ...
— The Shield • Various
... burned into Job's mind. How can man, who understands not the visible things of daily recurrence, think to penetrate the meaning of the moral universe, whose ways are hidden, like the caverns of the seas? Not Job, nor any one of those who have spoken, has found the clew to this maze. But Job is impregnable now in his trust in God, as if he were in a fortress whose approaches were guarded by ...
— A Hero and Some Other Folks • William A. Quayle
... Grand Battery may be called the decisive event of the siege. There seems no doubt that the French could have averted the disaster long enough to make it of little help to the invaders. The water-front of the battery was impregnable. The rear defences consisted of a loopholed wall of masonry, with a ditch ten feet deep and twelve feet wide, and also a covered way and glacis, which General Wolcott describes as unfinished. In this he mistook. ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... young cavalry chieftains moved forward to the night's fray. Bayard was to attack on the main road in front, but not until Kilpatrick had commenced operations on their right flank by a detour through a neglected and narrow wood-path. As the Heights were considered well nigh impregnable, it was necessary to resort to some stratagem, for which Kilpatrick ...
— Three Years in the Federal Cavalry • Willard Glazier
... the eastern border of the campus and glanced up at St. George's Hall, it no longer appeared the impregnable fortress of privilege he had once thought it. Yet, in reality, the towers of the college had never looked more formidable. Rising magnificently at the crest of a bleak expanse of snow, the embrasured battlements, silhouetted against the sunset sky, might well have suggested to a beholder grim ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... be setting in, and the infant cause of it here setting up a cry, Susan escaped under pretext of putting Humfrey to bed in the next room, and carried off both the little ones. The conversation then fell upon the voyage, and the captain described the impregnable aspect of the castle of Dumbarton, which was held for Queen Mary by her faithful partisan, Lord Flemyng. On this, Cuthbert Langston asked whether he had heard any tidings of the imprisoned Queen, and he answered that it was reported at Leith ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... it the chief general depot of these States. The government appears quite sensible of the policy of rendering this noble station perfectly secure in good season: a series of defences, of first-rate importance, are in a course of erection which, when completed, it is supposed will render the harbour impregnable to any attempt from the sea. To Fort Adams, the rough-work of which is completed, I paid more than one visit; and nothing can ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... of the world, amid a thousand doubts? It seemed to have found, and filled to overflowing, the soul of one amiable little child who had a kind of genius for tranquillity, and on his first coming hither had led Gaston to what he held to be the [43] choicest, pleasantest places, as being impregnable by noise. In his small stock of knowledge, he knew, like all around him, that he was going to die, and took kindly to the thought of a small grave in the little green close, as to a natural sleeping-place, in which he would be at home beforehand. Descending from the tower, Gaston knew he should ...
— Gaston de Latour: an unfinished romance • Walter Horatio Pater
... from Paul's stories of the old Romans, and now he was applying it with gusto to the wild scene lost in the vast green wilderness. But he was sure that the Indians would not return to a headlong charge. The little fortress in stone was practically impregnable to frontal attack and they would resort instead to cunning ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in Nineveh, reorganising his troops, the Assyrian inaugurated a campaign which ended in the subjugation of Northern Syria and its incorporation in the empire. Only one difficulty foiled Tiglath-pileser. He failed to capture the impregnable fortress of Dhuspas, in which Sharduris had taken refuge. This capital of Urartu held out against a long siege, and at length the Assyrian army withdrew. Sharduris remained king as before, but he was utterly spent, and his power had received a blow from which it never ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... Brooklyn, swiftest of American cruisers, together with half a dozen more—cruisers, gunboats, yachts, and torpedo-boats—all in war-paint, all ready for instant action, and all flying the banner of stars and stripes. At the wonderful sight Ridge's heart glowed with patriotism and a new courage. How impregnable looked the huge battle-ships!—how terrible! Nothing could withstand them! He felt ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... of the best-preserved specimens of Roman work, rises seemingly from amongst the houses. Pola is full of Roman remains. All is so green and peaceful, in spite of the countless fortifications which render the harbour well-nigh, if not quite, impregnable, that Nature and War seem for once to ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon
... night, yet some suspicion of these Spanish visits had got abroad. The Dean men were proud of their magnificent sweep of forest-clad hills and dales, and prouder still of the oaks that gave their beloved England her impregnable "wooden walls." They were wild with anger and indignation when the first rumours of King Philip's plot came to their ears. Now they were inclined to treat the daring project with quiet contempt, but Windybank knew that scant mercy ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... Spaniards springing a mine, which killed two lieutenants and about forty men. The Marquis de Salines, the governor, was then summoned, and capitulated. So you see, we made only a day's work of taking a place which the Spaniards thought that they had made impregnable. The professor made a strong point of it that the garrison consisted only of a hundred and fifty men; which certainly accounts for our success, for it is no use having guns and walls, if you haven't got soldiers ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... not, to quote the words of his report, an extremely "defensible theory" that he can not justly deprive the least of those women of any protection of those rights which he claims for himself? No, sir, the natural, or what we call civil right, and its political defense, go together. This was the impregnable logic of the Revolution. Lord Gower sneered in Parliament at the American Colonists a century ago, as Mr. Robert Lowe sneers at the English Reformers to-day: "Let the Americans talk about their natural and divine rights.... I am ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... of art all medicines tried, And every noble remedy applied; With emulation each essay'd His utmost skill, nay more, they pray'd: Never was losing game with better conduct play'd. Death never won a stake with greater toil, Nor e'er was fate so near a foil: But like a fortress on a rock, The impregnable disease their vain attempts did mock; They mined it near, they batter'd from afar With, all the cannon of the medicinal war; No gentle means could be essay'd, 'Twas beyond parley when the siege was laid: The extremest ways they first ordain, Prescribing such intolerable pain, As none but Caesar ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... of flying. At Haverstraw we were by the river, and even the brick-fields contrived to take on a gorgeous, glittering colour in the afternoon sun. Stony Point, a high rocky promontory just above, is the place where "Mad Anthony Wayne" stormed the fortress thought to be impregnable. The British called it "Little Gibraltar." Jack had been looking out for that and the ruins of the old fort, because daredevil Wayne is quite one of his heroes. The whole peninsula here is a public park, so no wonder everything ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... her first lover, was also her instructor in this philosophy, and the principles he instilled into her mind were such as tended to seduce her. Finding her cold and impregnable on the side of her passions, and firmly attached to her husband and her duty, he attacked her by sophisms, endeavoring to prove that the list of duties she thought so sacred, was but a sort of catechism, fit only for children. That the kind of infidelity she thought so terrible, was, in itself, ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... lentils around itself; so the contrary feeling of hatred, when permitted to enter the sanctuary of the heart, assumes at once a tyrannical sway, whose wicked demands of gratification become more and more imperious and exacting day by day, and rears a throne that becomes impregnable in proportion as the sun is allowed to set on its possessions. Even filial love has withered under the shadow of ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... forced to retrace its steps to recover Chattanooga. It was not until November 24 that the South was compelled to release its grip upon that city. Meanwhile in the East, Lee, fallen back to his old lines before Richmond, presented a still impregnable front to Northern advance. No sudden collapse, such as had been expected, followed the Southern defeats at Vicksburg and Gettysburg. Again the contest presented the appearance of a drawn battle. Small ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... in fact, though we venture to question if even the strongest supporters of the special creation hypothesis had not, now and then, an uneasy consciousness that all was not right, their position seemed more impregnable than ever, if not by its own inherent strength, at any rate by the obvious failure of all the attempts which had been made to carry it. On the other hand, however much the few, who thought deeply on the question ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... forward; and long before the German Revolution and the conclusion of the Peace, England was secure in the possession of that permanent organization of home defence which, humanly speaking, has made these shores positively impregnable, by converting Great Britain, the metropolis and centre of the Empire, into a nation in arms. There is no need for me to enlarge now upon the other benefits, the mental, moral, and physical advancement which this legislation has given us. Our doctors and ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... contempt of the Academy is not denied. From Glasgow to Cornwall, wherever a group of artists collects, there hangs a gathering and a darkening sky of hate. True, the position of the Academy seems to be impregnable; and even if these clouds should break into storm the Academy would be as little affected as the rock of Gibraltar by squall or tempest. The Academy has successfully resisted a Royal Commission, and a crusade led by Mr. Holman Hunt in the columns of the ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... both of themselves and their powers, the Normans set themselves to build impregnable military walls, and sublime religious ones, in the best possible practical ways; but they no more made books of their church fronts than of their bastion flanks; and cared, in the religion they accepted, neither for its sentiments nor ...
— The Pleasures of England - Lectures given in Oxford • John Ruskin
... tower Isfendiyar met with as many terrible foes as Rustem had encountered on his way to the White Deev, and as successfully overcame them. Wolves, lions, enchantresses, and dragons barred the way to the impregnable fortress, which rose three farsangs high and forty wide, and was constructed entirely of brass and iron. But Isfendiyar, assuming the guise of a merchant and concealing his warriors in chests, won his way into the castle, gained the favor of its inmates, and made them drunk ...
— National Epics • Kate Milner Rabb
... argument, honest objection with proof of error. In fifty years it never failed to send its representatives to plead our cause before every national political convention, although they went knowing that the prejudice they would meet was impregnable and the response would be ridicule and condemnation. It went to the rescue of every State campaign for half a century with such forces as it could command, even when realizing that there was no hope. In every corner it sowed the seeds of justice ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... motored on to Castrogiovanni, a wonderful old town set, like an eagle's nest, on the very crest of a high hill, and full of relics of Greeks, Carthaginians, Romans, Saracens, and Normans, who had held its fortress in turns. It looked the real brigand stronghold of old stories, as impregnable as some of our Scottish castles and ...
— The Princess of the School • Angela Brazil
... the town, may, from its lofty position, surmounted by a lighthouse, be discovered at a considerable distance out at sea. Its southern side is completely inaccessible, and art has rendered the other sides equally difficult to ascend; so that it is almost, if not entirely, impregnable. The island is connected to the mainland by a bridge, at the end of which is the fine open place called the Esplanade, extending from the west side of the bay, to the palace of the Lord High Commissioner on the east. Most of the streets ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... River. The capture of West Point by the British would have accomplished for their cause what Burgoyne had failed to achieve—the cutting off of the Northern from the Middle and Southern States, and the establishment of the British in an almost impregnable position on the Hudson. Arnold entered into negotiations with Sir Henry Clinton, the British commander at New York, for the surrender of West Point. For this service Arnold was to be made a brigadier-general in the British ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... drew to a close, the building was far advanced, and the bulwarks were sufficiently high and massive to render the place impregnable. In short, when it wanted but three days to summer the only part that remained to be finished was the gateway. Then sat the gods on their seats of justice and entered into consultation, inquiring of one another who among them could have ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... shall inform them that their property or the country's freedom are endangered, and they will be found a rampart behind which all true patriots, the lovers of order and country, may rally, and which they may hold impregnable against the furious assault of the leveller, or the insidious ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... engaged with other nobles in a conspiracy to dethrone William, the monarch brought his army into Northumbria, besieged and took the fortress at Newcastle, went on to Tynemouth, and then to Bamborough Castle, to which the Earl had escaped. This castle was impregnable, but the Earl was decoyed from it, and after going again to Tynemouth, he was wounded and taken prisoner. But William coveted the Castle of Bamborough, which was still held by the wife of the Earl. He, Mowbray, was taken to an eminence in front of the castle, while the Normans demanded ...
— Grace Darling - Heroine of the Farne Islands • Eva Hope
... of the ablest officers in the French service, with fifteen thousand choice troops, and every requisite for a vigorous defence. On the other hand, Vendome, at the head of an hundred thousand men, lay in an impregnable camp between Ghent and Bruges, ready to interrupt or raise the siege; and his position there extremely hampered Marlborough in bringing forward the requisite equipage for so great an undertaking, as it interrupted the whole water navigation of the country, by which it could ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... possesses any means of saving us, and we are tempted to provide for our own affairs as if nothing more were to be expected from Him. On the contrary, His providence, as He unfolds it, ought to be regarded by us as an impregnable fortress. Let us labor, then, to learn the full import of the expression, that our bodies are in the hands of Him who created them. For this reason He has sometimes delivered His people in a miraculous manner, and beyond all human ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Volume I - Basil to Calvin • Various
... mental force exerted by others, it is equally true that no one can be adversely affected in this way providing he realizes the "I" within himself, which is the only Real part of him, and which is an impregnable tower of strength against the assaults of others. There is no cause for all of this fear that is being manifested by many Western students of thought-power, who are in constant dread of being "treated" adversely by other people. The man or woman who realizes ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... themselves. The first object with him, therefore, in accordance with his reputation, was to devise some plot, by which not only to destroy the inequality of chances between the party assailing and that defending a post now almost impregnable, but to draw the latter entirely out of their defences. Still, it was deemed but courteous, or prudent at least, to see what could be done in the way of negotiation; and their leader, with a white handkerchief attached to a young sapling, hewn down for the purpose, by way of apology for ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... defend the positions they had won with all the stubbornness possible. In the black recesses of Belleau Wood the Germans had established nest after nest of machine guns. There in the jungle of matted underbrush, of vines, of heavy foliage, they had placed themselves in positions they believed impregnable. And this meant that unless they could be routed, unless they could be thrown back, the breaking of the attack of June 2 would mean nothing. There would come another drive and another. The battle of Chateau-Thierry was therefore not won and ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... felt yourself at home. Rome built with a magic that startled as surely as the glint of her sword. Time and again the nations whom Caesar encountered planned to eliminate his camp. When they reached it the camp had vanished; in its place was a walled, impregnable town. ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... with the crimped fringe drawn down to the eyebrows, resembled that of a Madonna—with her children round her, Lord Newhaven as usual somewhat out of focus in the background; and Hugh, young, handsome, devoted, heartbroken, and ennobled for life by the contemplation of such impregnable virtue. ...
— Red Pottage • Mary Cholmondeley
... addressed his men in a pithy sentence: "I have brought you to the ring, let me see how you can dance." The battle opened with a charge of the English cavalry on the dense ranks of the Scottish infantry, who were armed with long spears which they held so closely together that their line seemed impregnable. The English horsemen found it so. They attempted again and again to break through that "wood of spears," as it has been called, but were every time beaten off with loss. But the Scotch horse failed to support their brave footmen. On the contrary, they fled from the field, through ill-will ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... composed of solid masonry, hewn square, so that each stone fitted exactly, and was further strengthened on the outside by cramps of iron. The walls were never carried above half the height originally proposed. But the whole was so arranged as to form a fortress against assault, too fondly deemed impregnable, and to be adequately manned by the smallest possible number of citizens; so that the main force might, in time of danger, be ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... colestaff. When they had seen the country and considered by the space of forty days they returned and told the commodities of the land, but some said that the people were strong, and many kings and giants, in such wise that they said it was impregnable and that the people were much stronger than they were. Wherefore the people anon were afeard, and murmured against Moses and would return again into Egypt. Then Joshua and Caleb, which were two of them that had considered the land, said to the people: Why ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... monarchy at home, and the development of the various industries of the nation, since in these industries are both power and wealth. Commerce was encouraged, and she girt her island around with those "wooden walls" which have proved England's impregnable defence against every subsequent combination of tyrants and conquerors. The East India Company was formed, and the fisheries of Newfoundland established. It was under Elizabeth's auspices that Frobisher penetrated ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... exchanged the crumbling island of Heligoland for some millions of square miles of undeveloped territory hitherto held by Germany. While Heligoland was being protected by massive concrete walls and armed by huge guns to form a practically impregnable bulwark to the North Sea coast of Germany, England was by peaceful methods developing her new African acquisition. Germany could then afford to wait until the favourable opportunity and by force of arms seize and hold the territory that was once hers and which in the meantime had enormously ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... cults were but mortal men and the writers of every sacred book but scheming priests. You may make it gross to sense that the Creator has never held direct communication with the creature, and you have but stripped religion of its tattered vestments—have not laid the weight of your hand upon the impregnable citadel, the universal Fatherhood of God and Brotherhood of Man. You have never yet talked to the real question. You reject religion because Moses and Mahomet, Luther and Calvin entertained crude ideas of the plans and attributes of the Creator. ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... or sand after all. But this was permitted that we might learn that our noblest natural qualities as much need to be dealt with by the grace of God as our vices and defects. Many a fortress has been taken from a side which was deemed impregnable. No one expected that Wolfe would assail Quebec from the ...
— Love to the Uttermost - Expositions of John XIII.-XXI. • F. B. Meyer
... it and certain economic laws, subject to many exceptions, which we may consider to be established, but nevertheless it is as far from being an exact science as one can conceive. The exact science notion is the misconception of cloistered learning which can build impregnable systems where there are none to attack them, but which has no idea of the practical difficulties of an unsympathetic world where the precious system must meet every possible objection and not merely those devised by its framers. ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 24, November, 1891 • Various
... have been made upon the Comick Poets in Fashion, and many Batteries have been rais'd against the Theatre, yet hitherto they have prov'd unsuccessful; the Stage is become Impregnable, where loose Poets, supported by Numbers, Power, and Interest, in Defiance of all Rules of Decency and Vertue, still provide new Snares and Temptations to seduce the People, and corrupt their Manners. Notwithstanding the earnest Cries ...
— Essay upon Wit • Sir Richard Blackmore
... could not take the fort by means of their cannon was evident; on the sea side it was for them impregnable: their efforts must now be directed to the land. Krantz, after the native chiefs had done speaking, advised that they should wait until dark, and then proceed to the attack in the following way. When the breeze set along shore, which it would do in the evening, he proposed that the men ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... ignobly featured countenance and a small, vague eye must needs be a god of wisdom to persuade his disciples that high nobleness can dwell in a temple so mean and poor. The physical body of the young Marquess of Roxholm was a fortress well-nigh impregnable. 'Tis not well to take liberties with a creature who takes none himself, and can strike a blow which would fell an ox, if need be. Besides this, there was in this young man's look and temper a something ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... regard to which the love of friends corroborates the malice of enemies it is in ascribing to the English an individualism, hard-shelled beyond all human parallel. The Englishman's country is an impregnable island, his house is a castle, his temperament is a suit of armour. The function common to all three is to keep things out, and most admirably has he used them to that end. At first, indeed, he let everybody in; he had a perfect ...
— The Open Secret of Ireland • T. M. Kettle
... not, at all events as yet, sufficient distinction between the classes to make the struggle for position the life and death affair it is in England. Beyond the landed aristocracy, whose boundaries are impregnable, grade hardly counts. Frau Professor and Frau Candlestickmaker meet at the Weekly Kaffee-Klatsch and exchange scandal on terms of mutual equality. The livery-stable keeper and the doctor hobnob together at their favourite beer hall. The wealthy master ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... it—something that was in league with it, and kept telling her that things were not all right with her; that she ought not to be afraid, yet had good reason for being afraid; that she knew of no essential safety. There must be some refuge, some impregnable hiding-place, for the thing was a necessity, and she ought to know of it! There must be a human condition of never being afraid, of knowing nothing to be afraid of! She wondered whether, if she were quite good, went to church twice every Sunday, and read her bible every morning, she would ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... many of the advocates of each party, but that did not give cogency to their arguments; and I thought on the other hand that the apostolical form of doctrine was essential and imperative, and its grounds of evidence impregnable. Owing to this confidence, it came to pass at that time, that there was a double aspect in my bearing towards others, which it is necessary for me to enlarge upon. My behaviour had a mixture in it both of fierceness and of sport; and on this account, I dare say, it ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... Zoar, in western New York, is so surrounded by hills that its discoverers—a religious people, who gave it a name from Scripture said, "This is Zoar; it is impregnable. From her we will never go." And truly, for lack of roads, they found it so hard to get out, having got in, that they did not leave it. Among the early settlers here were people of a family named Wright, whose house became a sort of inn for the infrequent ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... lady of Don Gasper Calderon, the commandant of Payta, who had fled to the town of St Michael, thirty miles from Payta; who, in commiseration of the captives, sent many citrons and other provisions to the Dutch ships. Towards the sea the town of Payta is strongly fortified, and almost impregnable. It is a place of some importance, having two churches, a monastery, and many good buildings; and has an excellent harbour, to which many ships resort from Panama, whence their cargoes are transmitted by land to Lima, to avoid the dangers of the wind and ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume X • Robert Kerr
... visit to the monuments of Burns and Allan Ramsay, and the renowned old Edinburgh Castle. The Castle is now used as a barrack for Infantry. It is accessible only from the High Street, and must have been impregnable before the discovery of gunpowder. In the wars with the English, it was twice taken by stratagem; once in a very daring manner, by climbing up the most inaccessible part of the rock upon which it stands, and where a foe was least expected, and putting the guard to death; and another ...
— Three Years in Europe - Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met • William Wells Brown
... Percival Ford's answer. "That is what makes my position impregnable. I have no personal spite against him. He is bad, that is all. His life ...
— The House of Pride • Jack London
... while the British were active in Flanders and by August 23 had broken through the whole Austrian line, capturing the town of Selo, which was the pivot of the Austrian defense, and considered impregnable, and inflicting upon the enemy, in this eleventh battle of the Isonzo, the greatest losses he had sustained since the capture of Goritz. More than 13,000 Austro-Hungarian prisoners were captured during the battle, with thirty guns, and all counter-attacks ...
— America's War for Humanity • Thomas Herbert Russell
... The air was slightly hazy, and the clouds seemed laboring among the distant mountains to raise a storm. As we came opposite the mouth of the Moselle and under the shadow of the mighty fortress, I gazed up with awe at its massive walls. Apart from its magnitude and almost impregnable situation on a perpendicular rock, it is filled with the recollections of history and hallowed by the voice of poetry. The scene went past like a panorama, the bridge of boats opened, the city glided behind us and we entered ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... flight remained him; and that very night he left Urbino hurriedly, taking with him the boy Francesco Maria, and intending at first to seek shelter in his Castle of S. Leo—a fortress that was practically impregnable. But already it was too late. The passes leading thither were by now in the hands of the enemy, as Guidobaldo discovered at dawn. Thereupon, changing his plans, he sent the boy and his few attendants to Bagno, and, himself, disguised ...
— The Life of Cesare Borgia • Raphael Sabatini
... from whom I first learned that, in the supreme work of salvation, no human being and no created thing can interpose between the soul and the Creator. Happy is the man whose religious life has been built on the impregnable rock ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... shame upon any forehead but his, that when he was testifying before an investigating committee of Congress, who were inquiring into the cause of his great and shameful failure to take the fort, and just after he had testified that Fort Fisher was impregnable and that it was impossible for any Union force to take it, a dispatch was received in the Committee ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... faithful ministers the defence of innocence is even more imperative than the conviction of guilt. The law is a Gibraltar, fortified and armed by the consummate wisdom of successive civilizations, as an impregnable refuge for innocence; and here, within its protecting bulwarks, as in the house of a friend, you are called on to plead your defence. You have heard the charges of the prosecution; listened to the testimony of the witnesses; and having taken your cause into your own hands, ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... of valour and patience in humanity which makes real and redeems the revelation of its secret vileness in The Ring and the Book. It almost looks at first sight as if Browning had for a moment surrendered the whole of his impregnable philosophical position and admitted the strange heresy that a human story can be sordid. But this view of the poem is, of course, a mistake. It was written in something which, for want of a more exact word, we must call one of the bitter ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... such universal service will come a new unity of spirit and purpose, a new confidence and consecration, which would make our defense impregnable, our triumph assured. Then we should have little or no disorganization of our economic, industrial, and commercial systems at home, no staggering war debts, no swollen fortunes to flout the sacrifices of our soldiers, no excuse for sedition, no pitiable slackerism, no outrage of treason. Envy ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... on the frontiers, to throw in provisions for ten weeks into that fort, and warn the commanding officer of his danger. At the same time a messenger was sent to Attakullakulla desiring him to inform the Cherokees that Fort George was impregnable, having vast quantities of powder buried under ground every where around it, to blow up all enemies that should attempt to come near it. Presents of considerable value were sent to redeem the prisoners at Fort Loudon, a few of whom had by this time made ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... have no sense of the fact that my position was impregnable, but dashed blindly at me. The crevice in which I stood and which was the only way through to the ledge where Harry had taken Desiree, was not more than two feet wide. With unarmed savages for foes, one man could have held it ...
— Under the Andes • Rex Stout
... in me still, making me fear The man was mad, some word of lonely seas, A desert island and a mutineer And dead Magellan's gallows. Sirs, my life Was hardly safe with him. Why, he resolved To storm the Castle of St. Vincent, sirs, A castle on a cliff, grinning with guns, Well known impregnable! The Spaniards fear Drake; but to see him land below it and bid Surrender, sirs, the strongest fort of Spain Without a blow, they laughed! And straightway he, With all the fury of Satan, turned that cliff To hell itself. ...
— Collected Poems - Volume One (of 2) • Alfred Noyes
... has, he has perfect, for he reads it so long to understand it, till he gets it without book. He may with much industry make a breach into logic, and arrive at some ability in an argument; but for politer studies he dare not skirmish with them, and for poetry accounts it impregnable. His invention is no more than the finding out of his papers, and his few gleanings there; and his disposition of them is as just as the book-binder's, a setting or gluing of them together. He is ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... have said that he was a usually taciturn man, glad to unlock himself to audience sympathetic and intelligent, when such offered itself. His face bore marks of much, not always peaceful, meditation; the look of it not bland or benevolent so much as close, impregnable, and hard; a man multa tacere loquive paratus, in a world where he had experienced no lack of contradictions as he strode along. The eyes were not very brilliant, but they had a quiet clearness; there was enough of ...
— Selections from Wordsworth and Tennyson • William Wordsworth and Alfred Lord Tennyson
... ascent. That historic accident happened long before she was born. To hear a man speak of Croz as a friend sounded almost unbelievable, though a moment's thought told her that Whymper, who led the attack on the hitherto impregnable Cervin on that July day in 1865, was ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... of merchandise. At last Governor Shirley of Massachusetts resolved to attack it, and we may judge of the esteem in which Pepperell was held, by the fact that he was appointed to lead an expedition against a fortress deemed impregnable by the French, and known as the Dunkirk of America. His selection was a tribute not merely to his courage but to his tact. No man of his time was better fitted to control the conflicting tempers of the colonial militia, and he set forth at the head of his 4000 men under ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... about your singing." And the two burst into a flare of talk. To hear such words as cognition, attention, retention, entity, and identity, freely mingled with such other words as silver-fizz and false hair, brought John, the egg-and-coffee man, as near surprise as his impregnable nature permitted. Thus they finished their large breakfast, and hastened to their notes for a last good bout at memorizing Epicharmos of Kos and his various brethren. The appointed hour found them crossing the college yard toward a door inside which Philosophy ...
— Philosophy 4 - A Story of Harvard University • Owen Wister
... Gilles de Bretagne, by his marriage with the heiress Francoise de Dinan. The castle is approached by a steep winding path, leading to the plateau upon which it stands. Before the use of firearms, its position rendered it impregnable. Of its seven towers, two ...
— Brittany & Its Byways • Fanny Bury Palliser
... obliterated Pope at the second battle of Manassas. Eleven thousand prisoners had been taken at Harper's Ferry and Lee had gone on into Maryland on the flank of Washington. Recruits were coming into the Confederacy by the thousands. Bragg had fifty-five thousand men and an impregnable stronghold in front of Buell, who had but few men more—not enough to count a minute, ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox
... and sage legislator made one clean sweep of all the festering superstitions that fascinate the silly and the sentimental to-day as much as they did three thousand years ago. Mr. Stead is a Puritan, and the Old Testament should be his impregnable rock. Yet Deuteronomy is most definite about "Julia." "There shall not be found with thee ... a consulter with a familiar spirit. For whosoever doeth these things is an abomination unto the Lord." His organisation of research is a delusion; science is not to be thus syndicated. The ordinary observer ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... was established in well-chosen positions in France, which might be impregnable against even forces as superior as three to one; the Austrian army was safely established in front of the Russians. Both the French and the Russians were short of munitions, and particularly of guns of heavier caliber, and of high-explosive shells, which had become ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... who drew him into crime, to leave his master's service, and to commit with him a robbery on their private account before he left. The house fixed on was the one above alluded to in Mark Lane. The premises had before been surveyed, and deemed impregnable; that is to say, was considered too well guarded to be robbed without detection. They, however, got possession of the plate in the following manner:—The boy was a favourite with the cook of the house, and she would have no other ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 576 - Vol. 20 No. 576., Saturday, November 17, 1832 • Various
... nobleman, regarding the site as impregnable and therefore highly desirable, resolved to raise a castle upon the lofty eminence, But the more he considered the plan the more numerous appeared the difficulties in the way ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... re-embarked, after burning some vessels at St. Maloes. This is the history, neither more nor less, of this mighty expedition. They found the causeway broken up, stayed from Tuesday night till Monday morning in sight of the town; agreed it was impregnable; heard ten thousand French (which the next day here were erected into thirty thousand) were coming against them; took to their transports, and are gone to play at hide and seek somewhere else. This campaign being rather naked, is coloured over with the great damage we ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 2 • Horace Walpole
... than one mile off the shore of Vera Cruz, stands the grim old fortress of San Juan d'Ulloa, a most conspicuous object with its blackened and crumbling walls. It has often been declared to be impregnable, and yet, curious to say, it has never been attacked by a foe without being compelled to surrender. Here Cortez landed on Mexican soil, April 21, 1519. He disembarked on a Friday, a day which the Romish church has set apart for the adoration of the ...
— Aztec Land • Maturin M. Ballou |
