"Onset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... then seeking cover while they reloaded their muskets. The conflict that ensued was desperate beyond description. Every bit of cover—bush, tree, or boulder—held its man. With dogged valour the savages stood their ground, till driven back by the very impetus of the onset. The enemy were massed deep in front and but little impression could be made on their compact ranks. More distressing still, the Americans had brought their heavy artillery into play, and it began to thunder against the defences. On ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... and with all those powers exalted and invigorated by just confidence in his cause. Thus qualified and thus incited, he walked out to battle, and assailed at once most of the living writers, from Dryden to Durfey. His onset was violent; those passages, which, while they stood single, had passed with little notice, when they were accumulated and exposed together, excited horror. The wise and the pious caught the alarm, and the nation wondered why it had so ...
— Lives of the English Poets: Prior, Congreve, Blackmore, Pope • Samuel Johnson
... losses, once more betook themselves to the woods. Several times during the day they returned to the attack, pushing it home each time with more determination, and towards evening with a rage and frenzy that could only be due to the stimulation of strong liquor. At this last onset the defenders were almost overwhelmed, repeated volleys seeming only to inflame the fierce warriors. For some minutes there was a hand-to-hand fight as they made desperate endeavours to scale the barricade, and only when a score of their number lay dead ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... Wonder used to fill his mind as he stared out toward the southeast at the stupendous field of roofs, chimneys, and towers; at the sparkling powder of street-lamps; at the astounding yellow haze that extended across the horizon, illuminating the sky nearly to the zenith, and seemingly like the onset of a terrific conflagration which only he of all the thousands who were threatened had as yet observed. Even this bit of London, the comparatively small part of the overwhelming whole now visible to his eyes, must be as big as Manninglea ...
— The Devil's Garden • W. B. Maxwell
... while burning with the wildest fanaticism of Crusaders. From the time when the army was remodelled to the time when it was disbanded, it never found, either in the British islands or on the Continent, an enemy who could stand its onset. In England, Scotland, Ireland, Flanders, the Puritan warriors, often surrounded by difficulties, sometimes contending against threefold odds, not only never failed to conquer, but never failed to destroy and break in pieces whatever force was opposed to them. They at length ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... one that cannot be described in outline—it must be told in detail to become intelligible. Never before in this country, at least, was there a disaster so stupendous, so overwhelming, so terrible in its fierce and unheralded onset and so sorrowful in its death-dealing work. I traversed the Mill River Valley the day after the bursting of the Mill River dam. I went over Wallingford, in Connecticut, a few hours after that terrible cyclone had swept through the beautiful ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... the onset. Earth lies in a sunny swoon; Stiller splendor of noon, Softer glory of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... been happy truly, though sometimes, It may be, I have missed the clear, brisk air Of the free plains; the trumpet-notes of war, When far against the sky the glint of spears Lit by the rising sun revealed the ranks Of the opposing host, the thundering onset Of fierce conflicting squadrons, and the advance Of the victorious hosts. Oh for the vigour And freshness of such life! But I have chosen To sleep on beds of down, as Caesar might, And live a ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... effect; for he induced them to make a charge, which was gallantly performed, and in such a brave manner that the Indians fled, scarcely making an effort to defend themselves. Five of their number were killed at the furious onset of the Mexicans, but unfortunately, as he anticipated, only the murdered corpses of the women and children were the result ...
— The Old Santa Fe Trail - The Story of a Great Highway • Henry Inman
... spent his forenoon in bed with his reading and his letters, came to the green table of skill and chance eager for the onset; if the fates were kindly, he approved of them openly. If not—well, the fates were old enough to know better, and, as heretofore, had to take the consequences. Sometimes, when the weather was fine and there were no games ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... Hector was not able to stop the flight of the panic-stricken Trojans, who seemed for the moment to have lost all their courage, so great was their fear at the name of Achilles. The hero Sarpedon at the head of his brave Lycians attempted to turn back the onset of the Myrmidons, and he sought out their leader to engage him in single combat. Both warriors sprang from their chariots at the same moment, and rushed at each other, hurling their spears. Twice Sarpedon missed his foe, but one of the weapons killed Pedasus, the horse ...
— The Story of Troy • Michael Clarke
... the other hand, cases of typhoid treated by the fast, and the other hygienic measures necessary, recover in a short time, there are no evil sequels and the body is in better condition than it was before the onset of the disease. I have never seen a fatality in a properly treated case, and the mortality is conspicuous by its absence. It is the same in curable chronic diseases. Where feeding and medicating add to the ills, fasting with proper ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... those of the Norwegians, and this gave them an advantage, for, when the grapplings were thrown out and the ships were lashed together, the Jomsburgers could fire their arrows and spears down upon the heads of their foes. The onset and attack were faultlessly made, and for a long while it seemed uncertain which side was getting the better hand. But at length Earl Hakon, who was supporting his son Sweyn against Sigvaldi, saw that his northern wing ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... although they were starving, they were afraid and unwilling to go. However, he made some of the men go out with him, and upon the open plain they met with North Wind, who at once challenged the champion to do battle. The two rushed upon one another with great fury, and in the first onset Star Boy broke the bow of North Wind; but in the second, Star Boy was overthrown ...
— Wigwam Evenings - Sioux Folk Tales Retold • Charles Alexander Eastman and Elaine Goodale Eastman
... their onset. Nash pinioned his arms behind while Boland seized a long cabbage stump which was lying in the gutter. Struggling and kicking under the cuts of the cane and the blows of the knotty stump Stephen was borne back against a ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... placed themselves at the onset face to face, at the distance of modern fencers from each other; but the extreme caution which both evinced at first had prevented any warmth of engagement, and allowed the spectators full leisure to interest themselves ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various
... combined forces of ignorance, vice and prejudice have blocked the wheels of advancing civilization, and Michigan, once the proudest of the sisterhood of States, has lost the opportunity of inaugurating a reform; now let the women organize for a final onset." However, no active suffrage work was done until December 3, 1879, when Susan B. Anthony was induced to stop over on her way from Frankfort to Ludington and give her lecture, "Woman Wants Bread; Not the Ballot." She was our guest, ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... Sir James rushed upon them at the head of his horsemen; and the archers, suddenly discovering themselves, poured in a flight of arrows on the confused soldiers, and put the whole army to flight. In the heat of the onset, Douglas killed Sir Thomas de Richmont with ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... forward, yet it was observable among the soldiery, with whom it was my misfortune to be now placed, that the Colonel's retiring damped their spirits....Thus proceeding, enfiladed by an animated but lessened fire, we came to the first barrier, where Arnold had been wounded at the onset. This contest had lasted but a few minutes, and had been somewhat severe, but the energy of our men prevailed. The embrasures were entered when the enemy were discharging their guns. The guard, consisting of thirty ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... subject seas of yore, Acre even now, and ancient Carmel, hears The cry of conquest. 'Mid the fire and smoke Of the war-shaken citadel, with eye Of temper'd flame, yet resolute command, His brave sword beaming, and his cheering voice 350 Heard 'mid the onset's cries, his dark-brown hair Spread on his fearless forehead, and his hand Pointing to Gallia's baffled chief, behold The British Hero stand! Why beats my heart With kindred animation? The warm tear Of patriot triumph fills mine eye. I strike A louder strain unconscious, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... and wood and ripening field; A brave, stout arm, each man could boast— A soul, unused to yield! They met: a shout, prolonged and loud, Went hovering upward with the cloud That closed around them dun; Blade upon blade unceasing clashed, Spears in the onset shivering crashed, And the red glare of cannon flashed ...
— Views a-foot • J. Bayard Taylor
... into which he might at any moment be compelled to plunge; while both before and behind him his advance and retreat was alike cut off. He had noticed that whenever he stopped, the wolves stopped, as if the time for the rush had not yet come, and it puzzled him to understand why they delayed the onset. Seeing Westcott with his rifle, Mark determined to treat his assailants to a choice lot of profane epithets, and the way he opened on the cowardly rascals, he said, astonished even himself. But while he was thus swearing at his enemies, he discovered, as he thought, the reason why they had not attacked ...
— Wild Northern Scenes - Sporting Adventures with the Rifle and the Rod • S. H. Hammond
... man nor beast alive that was exposed to it?' And thereupon, behold, a knight on a black horse appeared, clothed in jet-black velvet, and with a tabard of black linen about him. We charged each other, and as the onset was furious, it was not long before I was overthrown. Then the knight passed the shaft of his lance through the bridle-rein of my horse, and rode off with the two horses, leaving me where I was. He did not ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... by the surrounding tribes, among whom were, along with those whose names have been already given, the brave Macaulays of Lochbroom, who were distantly related to him. By the aid of these reinforcements Kenneth was able to withstand a desperate and gallant onset by the Earl and his followers, who were defeated and driven back with great slaughter. This exasperated the enemy so much that he soon after returned to the charge with a largely increased force, at the same time threatening the young governor with the utmost vengeance and ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... come, and with them our veterans, and behind them all France!" And so we were full of heart again, and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the clash of steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in fancy see our prisoner free, her chains gone, her sword ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... but it does not seem that there is any justification for the entirely hypothetical view that at any point the Mahdi could have seized the unhappy town. Omdurman Fort itself fell, not to the desperate onset of his Ghazis, but from the want of food and ammunition, and with Gordon's expressed permission to the commandant to surrender. Unfortunately the details of the most tragic part of the siege are missing, but Gordon himself well summed up what he had ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume II • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... was gone. But in that moment I had swept my companion behind a rock and with sword advanced leapt straight for the tree; and there, in the half-light, came on a fantastic shape and closed with it in deadly grapple. My rusty sword had snapped short at the first onset, yet twice I smote with the broken blade, while arm locked with arm we writhed and twisted. To and fro we staggered and so out into the moonlight, and I saw my opponent for an Indian. His long hair was bound by a fillet that bore a feather, a feather cloak was about him, this much I saw ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... Wolf, and awaited their attack; and when the army of the beautiful Tsarevna was near, Lyubim, taking the right wing, ordered the Wolf to attack the left, and they made ready for the charge. Then on a sudden they fell upon the warriors of the Tsarevna with a fierce onset, mowing them down like grass, until only two persons remained on the field, the Wolf and Lyubim Tsarevich. And after this dreadful fight was ended the brave Wolf said to Lyubim: "See, yonder comes the beautiful ...
— The Russian Garland - being Russian Falk Tales • Various
... patient herself, when well, described the onset of her psychosis as follows: She knew of no cause except that her brother, some time before the onset (not clear how long), was run over by an automobile and had his foot hurt. She claimed that while still working she lost her ambition, lost her ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... surging round the feet of a great wooden tower filled with archers. Here the fight was desperate, for the soldiers of Titus rushed up by companies to defend their engine. But they could not drive back that onset, and presently the tower was on fire, and in a last mad effort to save their lives its defenders were casting themselves headlong from the lofty platform. With shouts of triumph the Jews rushed through the breaches in the second wall, and leaving what remained of the castle of Antonia on the ...
— Pearl-Maiden • H. Rider Haggard
... of defiance, the exasperated man sprang up and rushed at the natives, who, much too wise to await the onset, fled in three different directions. Instead of pursuing any of them, Jarwin went straight to his master's hut, where he found him seated on a couch of native cloth. Striding up to him he clenched his fist, and holding it up in a ...
— Jarwin and Cuffy • R.M. Ballantyne
... by their own friends, and became confused and panic-stricken. Cavalier pursued hotly, his men throwing off their coats to lighten themselves, and giving the enemy no time to rally. A reinforcement two hundred strong, coming up, tried to check Cavalier's charge; but so impetuous was the onset that those fresh troops gave way in their turn, and the chase ended only when the king's men had shut themselves up in the fortified towns. Cavalier had lost only five or six men, the enemy losing a hundred killed and many more wounded. Cavalier captured a large quantity of ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... from the book or other occupation which engaged him, regarded the furious woman with some surprise, and selected a good strong oath to fling at her, as it were, and check her onset. ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... broken and subdued, and is more easily repressed than one imagines at her first onset. Besides, she is very proud, and rather afraid, of him, and will not molest him much. Indeed, it is a good arrangement for him; he ought to have care above that of the ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to the Government Hospital for the Insane, on August 23d, three days after the onset of the disorder, he was in a semi-stupor; no replies could be gotten to questions, and his attention to the extent of looking at the examiner could be engaged only after vigorous shaking. General ...
— Studies in Forensic Psychiatry • Bernard Glueck
... Unsheathing his sword, and glancing scornfully round upon his courtiers, Pepin leapt into the arena, and drew the attention of the combatants upon himself. Raging with fury, they turned to attack him; but with cool and measured steps he evaded their onset, and by a succession of well-aimed blows struck off, one after the other, the heads of lion and bull. Then, throwing down his streaming sword, he accosted the astonished courtiers: "Am I worthy to be your king?" ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... with one stroke from his lance; a young cavalier named Juan de Salamanca hastily dismounted and slew him where he lay, and tearing away his banner presented it to the Spanish general. The cacique's guard, overpowered by this sudden onset, fled precipitately, and their panic spread to the other Indians, who, on hearing of the death of their chief, fought no more, but thought only of escape. In their blind terror they impeded and trampled down their own comrades, and the Spaniards, availing ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... sudden onset, the vigorous charge, the falling back, produces confusion in the Union ranks. Officers and men, generals and soldiers alike, are confounded. By a common impulse they begin to fall back across the turnpike. Unaccountably to themselves, and to the Rebel fugitives ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... Dove-cot is the direction of the north. Therefore he wings straight in that direction and does not stop until he nears those latitudes where the mean temperature is that of the zone which he inhabits. If he does not find his home at the first onset, it is because he has borne a little too much to the right or to the left. In any case, it takes him but a few hours' search in an easterly or westerly ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... better 'tis for you buy off this onset of the spear With tribute than that we should deal so sore a combat here; We need not spill each other's lives if ye make fast aright A peace with us; if thou agree, thou, here the most of might, Thy folk to ...
— Our Catholic Heritage in English Literature of Pre-Conquest Days • Emily Hickey
... mistresses,) began, in consequence, to press forward boldly, and to use their slings and bows. 31. The Greeks then sang the paean, and rushed upon them at full speed; and the Barbarians did not stand their charge; for though they were well enough equipped for a sudden onset and retreat upon the mountains, they were by no means sufficiently armed to receive an enemy hand to hand. At this juncture the trumpeter sounded, 32. when the enemy fled still faster, and the Greeks, turning in the opposite direction, made their way over the river with all possible speed. 33. ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... had dared to resist the onset of the brute, to fight against it, to wound it, was feeling the full fury of the monster's rage. The gleaming lights of the doomed ship were waving lines that swept to and fro in the grip of those monstrous arms. The boat beneath ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, June, 1930 • Various
... young mother sat it upright in her lap, and looking into the far distance, dandled it with a gloomy indifference that was almost dislike; then all of a sudden she fell to violently kissing it some dozens of times, as if she could never leave off, the child crying at the vehemence of an onset which strangely combined passionateness ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... it seems bent upon doing, and the same law of eastern aggressiveness which is at the bottom of the present war will push the yellow mass toward Europe. Russia, as comparatively western, will have to bear their first onset; for this she will require Occidental assistance, and in the turmoil of that direful conflict—or, let us hope, in order to avoid it—she will readily give up all designs against her western neighbors, and she may become really ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... haunts her still. And there shall be blood on your sword, and blood—twice—thrice—on your brow. Your captain shall die in your arms; and you shall lead charge after charge, and shall step up from rank to rank; and all at once, one day, just in the final onset, with the cheer on your lips, and your red sword waving high, with but one lightning stroke of agony, down, down you shall go in the death of ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... a warrior's encampment," he growled to Hurry; "and there's bounty enough sleeping round that fire to make a heavy division of head-money. Send the lad to the canoes, for there'll come no good of him in such an onset, and let us take the matter in hand at once, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... for dinner, and for the comfort of her family; and then, elated by her success, in good spirits, and with good courage, she entered her study precisely at eleven o'clock, and locked her door. Her books were opened, and the challenge given to a hard German lesson. Scarcely had she made the first onset, when the door-bell was heard to ring, and soon Bridget coming nearer and nearer—then tapping at ...
— The Angel Over the Right Shoulder - The Beginning of a New Year • Elizabeth Wooster Stuart Phelps
... Athens by Lysander, struck a fatal blow at the institutions of Lycurgus; and the quiet possession of Italy, happily perhaps for mankind, had almost put an end to the military progress of the Romans. After some years repose, Hannibal found Italy unprepared for his onset, and the Romans in a disposition likely to drop, on the banks of the Po, that martial ambition, which being roused by the sense of a new danger, afterwards, carried them to the Euphrates and ...
— An Essay on the History of Civil Society, Eighth Edition • Adam Ferguson, L.L.D.
... passed for one of the best swordsmen in the army, but he was pressed so closely in the onset that he missed his aim and fell. The witnesses thought he was dead, but his adversary, who knew he had not struck him, offered him the assistance of his hand to rise. The circumstance irritated instead of calming the general, and he rushed on his adversary. But his opponent ...
— The Count of Monte Cristo • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... by the terrible onset of the peasants, gave way; the squares dissolved; and the soldiers, as if paralyzed with terror, had neither courage nor strength left to avoid the furious butt-end blows ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... spinning, sylphidine, unseizable; and between perplexing and mollifying the slaves of facts, she saw them at their heels, a tearful fry, abjectly imitative of her melodramatic performances. The spectacle was presented of a band of legal gentlemen vociferating mightily for swords and the onset, like the Austrian empress's Magyars, to vindicate her just and holy cause. Our Law-courts failing, they threatened Parliament, and for a last resort, the country! We are not going to be the woman Warwick ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... scabbard, and with a fearful imprecation, such as no German tongue could echo, charged weaponless and at full speed their mimic caricatures whom fate had thrown in their way. The shock was so irresistible, that the poor Croats could make no use of their sabers against the furious onset of their unarmed foe: they were beaten down from their saddles with the fist, and dragged off their horses by their dolmanys; those who could save themselves fled. The Hussars disdained to pursue them; but they complained to their Colonel at having been ...
— The International Weekly Miscellany, Volume I. No. 9. - Of Literature, Art, and Science, August 26, 1850 • Various
... is no time now to have a sick soul. We shall have to fight. As soon as my brother-in-law Kolbein has made an onset at our fort and lost many men he will himself see fit to obtain ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... the last few days she had imposed upon herself now told upon her in the violence of the reaction which had set in. When once she had allowed the barriers to be broken down, all else gave way to the onset of passion; and the presence and remonstrances of the ayah and Hilda only made it worse. She forgot utterly her father's condition; she showed herself now as selfish in her passion as he had shown himself in his delirium. Nothing could be done to stop her. The others, familiar with these ...
— The Cryptogram - A Novel • James De Mille
... Verona, ready to relieve Mantua. Between that river and the lake rises the stately mass of Monte Baldo, abrupt on its eastern, more gentle on its western slope. This latter, as affording some space for manoeuvers, was really the key to the passage. Such was the first onset of the Austrians down this line that the French outposts at Lonato and Rivoli were driven in, and for a time it seemed as if there would be a general rout. But the French stood firm, and checked any further advance. For a day ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... four hours, received and repulsed the various charges of the Puritan horse. Then as the sun began to descend, pouring its rays upon the opposing force, O'Neil led his whole force—five thousand men against eight—to the attack. One terrible onset swept away every trace of resistance. There were counted on the field, 3,243 of the Covenanters, and of the Catholics, but 70 killed and 100 wounded. Lord Ardes, and 21 Scottish officers, 32 standards, 1,500 draught horses, and all the guns and ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... Republicans in practically dealing with the Rebel States as if they were at once in and out of the Union. Among the most striking figures in the House were Butler and Cox, whose contests were greatly relished. They were well matched, and alternately carried off the prize of victory. Butler, in the first onset, achieved a decided triumph in his reply to a very personal assault by Cox. "As to the vituperation of the member from New York," said he, "he will hear my answer to him by every boy that whistles it on the street, ...
— Political Recollections - 1840 to 1872 • George W. Julian
... will almost invariably get the better of his antagonist. The Rangers realized their advantage in this respect. It encouraged them to rush into close quarters, where the rapid discharge of their pistols soon told upon the enemy, no matter how bravely they had withstood the onset. I have seen the victory decided alone by the superiority of the pistol over the saber, where the opposing columns had crossed each other in the charge and, wheeling, had mingled in ...
— Famous Adventures And Prison Escapes of the Civil War • Various
... so many wrestling opponents, and letting him go in mid-air, he went head over heels, and struck ten feet away on the ground. Then I turned on McGill, and with the flat of my hand, I slapped him over against the shanty, with his ears ringing. They were coming at me in an undecided way: for my onset had been both sudden and unexpected; when I saw Rowena running from the rear with a shotgun in her hand, which she had picked up as it leaned against a wagon wheel where one of our crowd had ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... and foe, expected that Edmund would await the onset in his entrenched camp. Great, therefore, was the surprise, when he led his forces without the entrenchments, with the observation that the breasts of Englishmen were their ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... first onset the mulatto had the best of it; his lithe dark limbs coiled about his adversary with paralyzing force: but soon the greater weight of the English youth began to tell; his young, well-knit ...
— Margaret Tudor - A Romance of Old St. Augustine • Annie T. Colcock
... while she was with him to meet May ... to show her.... It would have given Sally fierce joy. For the rest, she was content. He was by her side. Their arms touched from time to time. When the wind blew extra strong, she clutched him, and they stood together to resist the onset. And at every touch Sally had fresh sense of ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... really and truly—I've nothing to wear." "Nothing to wear! Go just as you are; Wear the dress you have on, and you'll be by far, I engage, the most bright and particular star On the Stuckup horizon——" I stopped, for her eye, Notwithstanding this delicate onset of flattery, Opened on me at once a most terrible battery Of scorn and amazement. She made no reply, But gave a slight turn to the end of her nose (That pure Grecian feature), as much as to say, "How absurd that any sane man should suppose That a lady would ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... don't want to be," the Squire said in the attempt to brave her onset. "But I reckon you're right, mother. I should probably have thought of it myself—in time. I'll send Sally or Abel, if they go past—and they nearly always do—or some of the hands from the tobacco patches. Or, as you say, I may go myself, ...
— The Leatherwood God • William Dean Howells
... Included in this tremendous accumulation of artillery were 26 batteries of 12-inch guns and several of the German giants, the famous 42-centimetre pieces, which brought down the pride of Antwerp and Namur. By the middle of May everything was ready for the onset to begin, and this avalanche of soldiery came rolling down the Asiago plateau, between the Adige and the Brenta. Below them, basking in the sunshine, stretched the alluring plains of Venetia, with their wealth, their women, and their wine. Pounded ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... temperature during their prevalence to from eighty-eight to ninety-eight degrees, seldom last longer than a few hours; insomuch that "their disagreeable heat and dryness may be escaped by carefully closing the windows and doors of apartments at their onset."[58] Such sudden and short variations seem just what is wanted to accentuate the differences in question. Accordingly, the opportunity seems one not lightly to be lost, and the British Association or this Society itself might take the matter up and establish a series of observations, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... creature that walked upon its legs; indeed, less so, for he knew that, as a rule, there was less danger to be apprehended from them. A reptile is only too eager at all times to escape from man. Unless attacked or frightened, it will make no onset. Most people are content to acquire their knowledge of this fact from the natural history books. He had proved it for himself. His servant, an old sergeant of dragoons, has told me that he has seen him stop with his face six inches from the head of a hooded cobra, and stand watching it through his ...
— Novel Notes • Jerome K. Jerome
... soon over, but this time there were very few prisoners. Almost every man in the trench, with the exception of about a dozen who had bolted at the first onset, was killed. ...
— On Land And Sea At The Dardanelles • Thomas Charles Bridges
... Prince Eugene, which consisted chiefly of cavalry, was much weaker in point of numerical amount, and was intended for a subordinate attack, to distract the enemy's attention from the principal onset in front under Marlborough.[10] With ordinary officers, or even eminent generals of a second order, a dangerous rivalry for the supreme command would unquestionably have arisen, and added to the many seeds of division and causes of weakness which already existed in so multifarious an array. But ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol 58, No. 357, July 1845 • Various
... commerce of the world. His native kingdom, poor as it was, supplied him with the steadiest and the most daring soldiers that Europe had seen since the fall of the Roman Empire. The renown of the Spanish infantry had been growing from the day when it flung off the onset of the French chivalry on the field of Ravenna; and the Spanish generals stood without rivals in their military skill, as they stood without ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... The onset of the new phase was by imperceptible degrees. From a glowing, serene, and static realization of God, everything relapsed towards change and activity. He was in time again and things were happening, it was as if the quicksands of time poured by him, and ...
— Soul of a Bishop • H. G. Wells
... enemies to do him vital injury,—that he could be held here at the post like a suspected felon, a mark for every finger, a target for every tongue, while every other officer of his regiment was hurrying with his men to take his knightly share in the coming onset. It was intolerable, shameful. He paced the floor of his little parlor in nervous misery, ever and anon gazing from the window for sight of his captain. It was to him he had written, urging that he be permitted a few moments' talk. "This is no time for a personal misunderstanding," ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... like the slant of a roof, the horses keeping out of the way of the wagon; up the other side with the reeking animals straining every fiber; over bridges that bent fearfully beneath the shock of their onset; swaying around curves with the wheels sluing and sparks flying, and over the level as though the ...
— The Mascot of Sweet Briar Gulch • Henry Wallace Phillips
... or a fraction of a second; he was like a cat, like india rubber, like steel—like anything you like, but something that flew round and about his opponent and was within striking distance one second and a dozen yards away the next, and when an onset was looked for it never came where it was expected but from another side, and in two minutes his opponent became confused, and struck blindly at him, and his opportunity came, not to slash and cut but to drive his knife with all his power to the heart in the other's body and finish him for ever. ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... the flag, and valor in its defence; Bravery on the Battle-Field and Quarter-Deck; Examples of Youthful Courage in the storm of Combat; Infantry, Artillery and Cavalry in line of action—the tramp and onset; extraordinary fortitude under suffering; undaunted heroism in death; the roll of fame and story. Reminiscences of victory and disaster of Camp Picket, Spy, Scout, Bivouac and Siege, with feats of Daring, Bold and Brilliant Marches, Remarkable Cases of Sharp-Shooting, ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... Babylon. Cyaxares (624-585), the son of Phraortes, soon after his succession to his father—say between 624 and 620—led a second Median assault upon Assyria and besieged Nineveh, but had to retire because of the onset from the north of the Scythians, the Ashguzai of the Assyrian monuments, probably the Ashkenaz or Ashkunza (?) of the Old Testament. And then it was not for some years that Cyaxares felt himself strong enough by his alliance with Nabopolassar for a third ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... the "Alarm" and her attendant fleet of torpedo-tugs had the effect of stopping the bombardment and of concentrating the enemy's attention upon his own safety. The tugs advanced gallantly to the onset, six of them rushing almost simultaneously upon the "Vittoria." That vessel met them with a broadside which sank four at once, and the other two were riddled by shell from Hotchkiss revolving cannon ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 5 • Various
... like an animal for a fiercer onset. The room was lit up with a wild play of blue fire. The thunder ...
— Jane Field - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... fatally wounded. Suddenly, some of our Indians who had heard the shot, and started to return, came into view over the brow of a hill, and the buffalo, thinking himself surrounded, turned and rushed at my wife. She avoided the onset by a quick whirl of her horse. The buffalo gathered himself and returned to the charge with a roar of rage. Not having reloaded my rifle, I spurred forward, and leaped my steed full upon his massy form. We all fell together, and when, after several seconds, I extricated myself, ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... aware of emotion. The feel of his overcoat-collar upturned against the chin was friendly to him amid that onset of the pathos of the human world. He climbed back to the promenade. Always at the bottom of his mind, the foundation of all the shifting structures in his mind, was the consciousness of his exact geographical relation to Preston Street. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... tutelary, who also made an anachronistic onset, with his repartees and his retorts, before there was anything to fire at, takes what I give by way of subsequent provocation with a good humor which would make a convert of me if he could afford .01659265 ... of a grain of logic. ...
— A Budget of Paradoxes, Volume II (of II) • Augustus de Morgan
... and could ride through the water as quickly as on land, at once charged the invaders in front, and sent round a detachment to take them in the rear. The assault was accordingly soon changed into a disgraceful flight, in which those who had been the loudest in urging to this rash onset set the example. Barca Gana, who had boasted himself invulnerable, was deeply wounded through his coat of mail and four cotton tobes, and with difficulty rescued by his chiefs from five La Sala horsemen, who had ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... pistol threw himself, sabre in hand, upon the Federal front, and it shook, and gave back, and retreated. The weight of the onset seemed to sweep it, inch by inch, away. The blue squadron finally broke, and scattered in every direction. The grays pressed on with loud cheers, firing as they did so:—five minutes afterward, the storm-lashed wood had swallowed ...
— Mohun, or, The Last Days of Lee • John Esten Cooke
... and with it came a sound of heavy blows, the crashing of timber, and the shivering of glass. Then rose shouts and furious exclamations, and then a great tramping sounded through the late silent house. Doors and windows had all given way at the onset; and as Sir Richard Fulke with eight comrades rushed upstairs, Hugh and his ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... apparent. Like the veriest fools they had ridden into the snare, and Maharbal, the Carthaginian, with at least two thousand Spanish and African horsemen, was thundering on their front and flanks: their front—but in a moment, their rear; for now those who had not been ridden down at the first onset or become inextricably entangled with their fellows broke away over the plain, carrying their officers with them in a mad frenzy of flight; while other Numidians—fresh riders on fresh steeds—urged the pursuit ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... that bird alone!" The boys, terrified at this unexpected onset, started and ran in every direction. The boy who had the nest, dropped it upon the ground, and dodged back into the bushes. Jonas took it up carefully, put little Mosette, who had fallen out, back in the nest, and walked ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... confusion might ensue; and in place of a strongly established line, confidently awaiting the advance, isolated regiments, in all the haste and excitement of rapid movement, or hurriedly posted in unfavourable positions, would probably oppose the Confederate onset. Such are the advantages which accrue to the force which delivers an attack where it is not expected; and, to all appearance, Jackson's plan of battle promised to bring them into play to the very fullest extent. The ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... Reade, in his first onset, hit one of the tramps such a blow that the fellow went to earth, where, though conscious, he preferred to remain for a while. Then it was five against five. But Dan soon got in a belt-line blow that put another tramp out ...
— The High School Boys' Training Hike • H. Irving Hancock
... shrinking of horses. One of the animals turned and tried to bolt, and his rider, struggling to control him, added to the confusion. The fog shut them in with each other; and Armitage and Claiborne, having flung back their own horses at the onset, had an instant's glimpse of Chauvenet trying to swing his horse into the road; of Zmai half-turning, as his horse reared, to listen for the foe behind; and of Durand's impassive white face as he steadied his horse with his left hand and leveled a revolver at ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... in busy workers, who work hard, though not always wisely, hacking, burning, blasting their way deeper into the wilderness, beneath the sky, and beneath the ground. The wedges of development are being driven hard, and none of the obstacles or defenses of nature can long withstand the onset of this immeasurable industry. ...
— Steep Trails • John Muir
... that onset!" shrieked Mrs. Whately, beside herself with horror, yet compelled to look ...
— Miss Lou • E. P. Roe
... seldom presented themselves in large numbers, never gathered for a decisive action, but, dividing into innumerable prowling bands, attacked the lonely farm-house, the small and distant settlements, and often, in terrific midnight onset, plunged, with musket, torch, and tomahawk, into the large towns. These bands varied in their numbers from twenty to thirty to two or three thousand. The colonists were very much scattered in isolated farm-houses through the wilderness. In consequence of the gigantic growth of trees, which it ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... he was at times deliberate, and apparently very considerate, and again he was rapid and vehement. When he would demolish an adversary, he would commence slowly, as if to collect all his powers, preparatory to one great onset. He would turn and talk, as it were, to all about him, and seemingly incongruously. It was as if he was slinging and whirling his chain-shot about his head, and circling it more and more rapidly, to collect all his strength for the fatal blow. All knew it would fall, but ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... You know your son: have tasted of his temper; At his first onset threatening unprovoked The crime predicted for his last and worst. How whetted now with such a taste of ...
— Life Is A Dream • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... clipped trees, and trim gardens, and music, and rest? Nay, keep your sugared delights and your margents embroidered! My life is the best. In my ears is the sound of a bugle blown, and my pulses like kettle-drums beat For the hungry blind onset, the rally, the stubborn defeat. I, too, could have polished, and polished, and jeered at the wayfaring man who passed by. But I follow the fighting Apollo. And I stand unashamed; and I raise up my shard of a sword; ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... died on the eve of an engagement, and whose remains were bolstered up in warlike attitude in his chariot, and followed by his enthusiastic soldiers to battle and to victory, so this mighty leader, although falling in the very first onset, yet went on through every succeeding march and fight, and won posthumous victories for the regiment which may be said to have been born of his loins. Battalion and company, officer and private, arms and quarters, camp and drill, command and obedience, honor ...
— The County Regiment • Dudley Landon Vaill
... Torres Vedras. Men who can wait, and bear and forbear, and remain steadily at their post under every provocation to leave it, are invincible opponents. The cool determination which resisted the onset, and withstood the furious rush of the French Guards, was part and parcel of the same character which made heroes of the comrades of Nelson. To obey implicitly, and to feel that no quality is superior to that of obedience,—to wait for your commander's ...
— Narratives of Shipwrecks of the Royal Navy; between 1793 and 1849 • William O. S. Gilly
... and at length discomfited this impenetrable but unwieldy body of cavalry. The light infantry, in the mean time, when they had exhausted their quivers, remaining without protection against a closer onset, exposed their naked sides to the swords of the legions. Aurelian had chosen these veteran troops, who were usually stationed on the Upper Danube, and whose valor had been severely tried in the Alemannic ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... years on the western front was more sudden and surprising in its onset than that drive of the British against Neuve Chapelle. At seven o'clock on the morning of Wednesday, March 10, 1915, the British artillery was lazily engaged in lobbing over a desultory shell fire upon the German trenches. It was the usual breakfast appetizer, and nobody on ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... needs of her heart, and only this morning was gladdened by the charm of some new clothing which became her well, and which Waymark would see in a day or two. It lay there before her now that she returned home, and, in the first onset of trouble, she sat ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... posterity to a greater degree than are those of the sire's, especially that feature of paramount importance, a beautiful disposition, hence I speak of the maternal side of the house first. There are two inexorable laws that confront the breeder at the onset, more rigid than were those of the Medes and Persians, the non-observance of which will inevitably lead to shipwreck. Better by far turn one's energies in attempting to square the circle, or produce a strain of frogs covered with feathers, than attempt to raise Boston ...
— The Boston Terrier and All About It - A Practical, Scientific, and Up to Date Guide to the Breeding of the American Dog • Edward Axtell
... was the immediate sense of suffocation becoming, that Phil, whose eyes were already blinded, and who was only able to utter a low hoarse gurgle, which sounded like the death-rattle in his throat, was utterly unable either to think of or to use his fire-arms. The onset, too, was so quick, that neither Father Roche nor O'Regan had time to ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... prepared to suffer, further than he thinketh the enemy may be permitted to go. Hence Christ sets their bounds at the loss of life, and no nearer. So then, so far as they go beyond thee, so far they will find thee unprovided, and so not fortified for a reception of their onset with that Christian gallantry which becomes thee. Observe Paul; he died daily, he was always delivered unto death, he despaired of life; and this is the way to be prepared for any calamity. When a man thinks he has only to ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... lawyers, Jew-brokers, and parsons, that many an adventurous knight (who, in order to obtain the conquest of the Hesperian fruit, is obliged to fight his way through all these monsters), is either repulsed at the onset, or vanquished before the achievement of his enterprise: and such a quantity of unnatural talking is rendered inevitably necessary through all the stages of the progression, that the tender and volatile spirit of love often takes flight on the pinions ...
— Nightmare Abbey • Thomas Love Peacock
... hence do not prevent coitus when they occur in the genitals. After three years syphilis becomes less contagious, but there is no definite time limit and cases have been recorded in which contagious lesions occurred ten or fifteen years after the onset ...
— The Sexual Question - A Scientific, psychological, hygienic and sociological study • August Forel
... great disparity of numbers, the little crew of the schooner had for some time a considerable advantage over their enemies. At the first onset of these latter, their pistols had been discharged, but in so random a manner as to have done no injury—whereas the assailed, scrupulously obeying the order of their Commander, fired not a shot until they found themselves ...
— The Canadian Brothers - or The Prophecy Fulfilled • John Richardson
... floor, and only exclaiming, "My life or death are yours, and at your disposal!"—drew his sword, and broke through those who stood betwixt him and the door. The enthusiasm of his onset was too sudden and too lively to have been opposed by any thing short of the most decided opposition; and as he was both loved and feared by his father's vassals, none of them ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... fired. It had gone wide of its mark,—the ringleader of the Vigilantes,—and had left Red Pete, who had fired it, covered by their rifles and at their mercy. For his hand had been cramped by hard riding, and his eye distracted by their sudden onset, and so the inevitable end had come. He submitted sullenly to his captors; his companion fugitive and horse-thief gave up the protracted struggle with a feeling not unlike relief. Even the hot and revengeful victors were content. They had taken their men alive. At any time ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... for they already clearly comprehended the plan of their leader. It was his intention to entice the privateer alongside, and, well aware of his own superiority in numbers, to make a sudden onset upon her deck, and thus, contrary to all laws of honorable warfare, seize by foul means what could not be obtained in ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848 • Various
... but in what direction she knew not. In fact, the French leaders had begun, without her knowledge, an attack on St. Loup, whither she galloped and took the fort.* It is, of course, conceivable that the din of onset, which presently became audible, had vaguely reached the senses of the sleeping Maid. Her page confirms ...
— The Valet's Tragedy and Other Stories • Andrew Lang
... speeches that had been made by Mr. Balfour and by Mr. Bonar Law. But it was Mr. Chamberlain's policy that was in question. Years later, after the whole subject has been incessantly discussed, it is difficult to realize the effect produced by the sudden and unexpected onset of that redoubtable champion. Free Trade had been so long taken for granted that the case for it had become unfamiliar; what remained was an academic conviction, and against that Chamberlain arrayed an extraordinary personal prestige backed ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... different names. In the poem now examined, when the English are represented as gaining a fortified pass, by repetition of attack and perseverance of resolution; their obstinacy of courage, and vigour of onset, is well illustrated by the sea that breaks, with incessant battery, the dikes of Holland. This is a simile; but when Addison, having celebrated the beauty of Marlborough's person, tells us, that "Achilles thus was form'd with ev'ry grace," ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... disgrace—how many employers would be annoyed,—how many customers would be disappointed—and how many wives would get broken heads; when suddenly a crowd of filthy, dejected, and ruthless beings swept along in mass, heedless of whatever came in their way, and threatening life and limb in the onset. Then there came such a smashing of maids' bonnets, squeezing of milliners, and frightening of old maids, as never was seen before; indeed, this, added to the many well-jammed ribs and jostled beavers, ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... citizens on their way home after a long and terrible war. Their clothes were worn, and pierced with bullets, their banners had been torn with shot and shell, and lashed in the winds of many battles. The very drums and fifes had called out the troops to night alarms, and sounded the onset on historic fields. The whole country claimed these heroes as part of themselves. They were not soldiers by profession or from love of fighting; they had become soldiers only to save their country's life. Now, done ...
— The Boys' Life of Abraham Lincoln • Helen Nicolay
... every assailant being to fight by turnes eight several times fighting, two every time with push and pike of sword, twelve strokes at a time; after which, the barre for separation was to be let downe until a fresh onset." The summons ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson |
