"Subaltern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... He could not bear the pain and terror in the eyes of the slender English youth, who, though he wore the uniform of a subaltern, seemed so much out of place there in the deep woods. Yet the forester meant ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... servant, n. dependent, subaltern, subordinate, helper, servitor, attendant, retainer; domestic, maid, menial, drudge, valet, flunky, groom, coistril, lackey, underling, fag, coolie, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... served with him in the ranks, and he could not withstand their pleadings. When all was settled, Dawson went to the Commandant's quarters to be introduced to his second-in-command, and surprised there that officer endeavouring to squeeze his rather middle-aged figure within the buttoned limits of a subaltern's tunic. Since the senior officers of Marines never go to sea, the Commandant's own official uniform was the field-service khaki of a Staff officer. "It is all right," explained he, laughing. "I ...
— The Lost Naval Papers • Bennet Copplestone
... monotony broken, and that unwittingly, by the humour of one of the officers. In the course of the evening, the train stopped at a small station, and the compartment in which the officers were settled drew up in front of the Buffet. Some one asked where we were, and a subaltern, anxious to display his newly-acquired knowledge of French, replied, "Bouvette," which called forth no response. Shortly afterwards the train proceeded on its way, and the occupants of the carriage settled themselves down to sleep. All passed quietly for the ...
— Three years in France with the Guns: - Being Episodes in the life of a Field Battery • C. A. Rose
... I intended to have done both in rhyme, else I had done both long ere now). Well, then, here's to your good health! for you must know, I have set a nipperkin of toddy by me, just by way of spell, to keep away the meikle horned deil, or any of his subaltern imps who may be on their ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... put Onomastus, one of his freedmen, in charge of the 25 projected crime, and Onomastus took into his confidence Barbius Proculus, an aide-de-camp, and a subaltern named Veturius, both in the Body Guard.[54] Having assured himself by many interviews that they were both bold and cunning, Otho proceeded to load them with bribes and promises, providing them with funds to enable ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... relations of the two sexes have remained at bottom the same. Professor L. von Stein published a book,[68]—a work, be it said in passing, that corresponds ill with its title—in which he gives a poetically colored picture of modern marriage, as it supposedly is. Even in this picture the subaltern position of woman towards the "lion" man is made manifest. Stein says among other things: "Man deserves a being that not only loves, but also understands him. He deserves a person with whom not only the heart beats for him, but whose hand may ...
— Woman under socialism • August Bebel
... the ranks were in order. To the holder of the flag Hilary pointed out Anna, lingered for a word with his subaltern, and then followed the standard to the ...
— Kincaid's Battery • George W. Cable
... from a subaltern, the guards wheeled about and retreated perhaps twenty yards down the passage. There they halted, glittering eyes peering through the slots in their helmets to fix themselves upon the rigid prisoners who stood numbly ...
— Astounding Stories, February, 1931 • Various
... were summoned to surrender their posts, while the fraternal shout, "Vive la Ligne!" elicited from the lips of many of the soldiers the answering cry of "Vive la Reforme!" In vain was it that Marshal Bugeaud, the veteran of a hundred battles, menaced and blasphemed. In vain did his old protege and subaltern, but now bitter foe, General Lamoriciere, dashing from one end of the line to the other on his white horse, entreat and persuade with his eloquent tongue. The people insisted—the National Guard fraternized—the Line wavered. And yet most imminent at that moment was their ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... Sir Robert Peel's famous system was introduced in 1861, when hosts of inspectors, sub-inspectors and head constables were let loose on Bengal. The new force was highly unpopular, and failed to attract the educated classes. Subaltern officers, therefore, used power for private ends, while the masses were so inured to oppression that they offered no resistance. There has been a marked improvement in the personnel of late years; and Mr. Banerjea's lurid pictures of corruption and petty tyranny apply to a past generation ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... "Colonel!" cried the subaltern, as his senior smoothed the gloves and placed them carefully in his left hand, closing ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... same instant and point out the women he had to arrest. In England all judicial proceedings are conducted with the utmost punctuality, and everything went off as I had arranged. The bailiff and his subaltern stepped into the parlour and I followed in their footsteps. I pointed out the mother and the two sisters and then made haste to escape, for the sight of the Charpillon, dressed in black, standing by the hearth, made me shudder. I felt cured, certainly; but the wounds she had given me ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the King. The King folded her in his arms, and could never be satisfied with listening to her. He sent for her continually to his presence—he delighted in her conversation, so new, so natural, so spirited—he settled a pension upon her at that time, of unprecedented amount, in the case of a subaltern officer; and by his desire, because the year 1625 was a year of jubilee, she departed in a few months from Madrid to Rome. She went through Barcelona; there and everywhere welcomed as the lady whom the King delighted to honor. She travelled to Rome, ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... correct, for the young Gorman was wasteful and extravagant from disposition, and his quarter's allowance disappeared almost when it came. His money out, he fell back at once to the penurious habits of the poorest subaltern about him, and lived on his florin-and-half per diem till his resources came round again. He hoped—of course he hoped—that this momentary fit of temper would not extend ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... fashion—any of my aristocratic prejudices as your father calls them—and I might, perhaps, be a little peremptory. But John Clay is a man just risen from the ranks, lately promoted from being a manufacturer's son, to be a subaltern in good company, looking to rise another step by purchase: no, no—a Percy could not accept such an offer—no loss of fortune could justify such a mesalliance. Such was my first feeling, and I am sure yours, when you read ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... do my best," the Doctor said grimly; "but the British subaltern is pretty well impervious to snubs; he belongs to the pachydermatous family of animals; his armor of self conceit renders him invulnerable against the milder forms of raillery. However, I think ...
— Rujub, the Juggler • G. A. Henty
... a subaltern was lucky who could mount one step of the promotion ladder in his first ten years; that a major at fifty, a colonel at sixty, and a general at seventy were quite the usual thing. And they realized that ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... correspondence between Malin and Louis XVIII., which was always kept up, even during the Terror. But in this cruel affair there was a private element, a passion of revenge in the mind of the leader of the party, a man named Corentin, who is still living, and who is one of those subaltern agents whom nothing can replace and who makes himself felt by his amazing ability. It appears that Madame, then Mademoiselle de Cinq-Cygne, had ill-treated him on a former occasion when he attempted to arrest the Simeuse brothers. What happened afterwards in connection with the senator's abduction ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... other in the world, was ended at last, however, and they puffed past Lake Nakuro to the village station. Here their trip was ended, their baggage was rolled off, and they were taken in charge by a young subaltern, Lieutenant Smithers, together with the Boer merchant, Piet Andrus. The latter offered them the hospitality of his trading store, which ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... strained like bloodhounds on the leash. "Out with them!" said their irate colonel, pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to the carriages in which these blood-thirsty British officers sat. The colonel, however, did not wait to see his behest carried out, and a very gentlemanly German subaltern quietly urged his men to get back to their train and leave us alone. The only daggers that pierced us were the eyes of a couple of priests, a few women and boys, who appeared to be shocked beyond words that even a clergyman was amongst ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... and really hardly anything else, except extremely correct, and always good form, without being too noticeably so, no one would have dreamed that this quiet young man, who looked like a shy subaltern, was simply dying to disport himself on the stage, and that it was the dream of his life to make an utter ass of himself as Hamlet, or a hopeless fool of himself as (say) the hero in Still Waters Run Deep—a ...
— The Limit • Ada Leverson
... affairs; and still more, to find his reasonable request, after a long course of severe duty, for a temporary leave of absence to attend to his private concerns peremptorily refused, and that with as little courtesy as though he were a mere subaltern seeking to absent himself on ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... from strangers, and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight. Brandis was having tea at the Colonel's, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens round the compound. He regarded Brandis with gravity ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... a care," said the officer, laughing, as he and his subaltern rose, bade their charge good-night, and ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... The grenadier company of the 1st West India Regiment lost 1 rank and file, killed; 1 drummer, 18 rank and file, wounded; 1 subaltern, missing.] ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... force amounting to two hundred thousand men. They showed the same skill and respect for order in their military organization, as in other things. The troops were divided into bodies corresponding with our battalions and companies, led by officers, that rose, in regular gradation, from the lowest subaltern to the Inca noble, who was ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... this moment a new man; he adored the true God, and would no longer serve his enemies. He gave both his horse and his lance to a subaltern of the name of Longinus, who, having addressed a few words to the soldiers, mounted his horse, and took the command upon himself. Abenadar then left Calvary, and went through the Valley of Gihon to the caves in the Valley of Hinnom, where the disciples were hidden, announced ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... of what is taken from them is applied to any uses of local public utility, as roads, irrigation, encouragement of commerce and industry and the like; what is not sent home to the Sultan goes into the private pouches of the pasha and his many subaltern officials. This is like taking the milk and omitting to feed the cow. The consequence is, the people lose their interest in work of any kind, leave off striving for an increase of property which they will not be permitted to enjoy, and resign themselves ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... of these untrained soldiers, that they fled before the main body of the British had come into the fight. That the sailors and marines fought bravely, we have the testimony of the British themselves. Mr. Gleig, a subaltern in the attacking army, writes, "Of the sailors, however, it would be injustice not to speak in the terms which their conduct merits. They were employed as gunners; and not only did they serve their guns with a quickness and precision which astonished their ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... came the move to the Somme and the July of 1916, when the average life of the infantry subaltern in France was only worth three weeks. Many, indeed, were killed within a week of their crossing the Channel, on the very first day of entering the trenches and taking part in the British advance. The 23rd Royal Fusiliers were engaged in ...
— The 23rd (Service) Battalion Royal Fusiliers (First Sportsman's) - A Record of its Services in the Great War, 1914-1919 • Fred W. Ward
... asked for a word of mature judgment of the expedition of a kind that was impossible when we were all close up to it, and when I was a subaltern of 24, not incapable of judging my elders, but too young to have found out whether my judgment was worth anything. I now see very plainly that though we achieved a first-rate tragedy, which will never ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Shelby gave the signal for attack. The Whig riflemen, with sure and steady aim, opened a destructive fire which was kept up for an hour, during which time Col. Innis was wounded; all the British officers except a subaltern were killed or wounded. The Tory Captain, Hawsey, and Major Fraser, of the British regulars, with sixty-three privates were killed, and one hundred and sixty made prisoners. The American loss was only four killed and nine wounded. In the pursuit Captain Inman ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... as the Bellum Alexandrinum, was written by him or by another officer of Caesar's, Gaius Oppius. The books on the campaigns of Africa and Spain which follow are by different hands: the former evidently by some subaltern officer who took part in the war, and very interesting as showing the average level of intelligence and culture among Roman officers of the period; the latter by another author and in very inferior Latin, full of grammatical solecisms and popular idioms ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... have blown, and the troops fall into their places. Each tribal "taxis" lines up its "lochoi." The Greeks have no flags nor standards. There is a great deal of shouting by the subaltern officers, and running up and down the ranks. Presently everything is in formal array. The hoplites stand in close order, each man about two feet from the next,[*] leaving no gaps between each division from end to end of the lines. The men are set in eight long ranks. This is the normal "phalanx"[] ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... rank whenever they should be declared insolvent by the tribunals. It appears to me that money would then be lent with more confidence, and borrowed with greater circumspection. Another advantage which would accrue from such a regulation, would be, that the subaltern orders of men, who imitate the customs and the prejudices of the higher class of citizens, would soon be apprehensive of incurring the same disgrace; and that fidelity in engagements would become one of the characteristic ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... in swarms, ranging from the spider-wheel gig of a British subaltern to the four-in-hand of Rajput nobility—kept pretty carefully apart, though. The conquerors of India don't mix with the conquered, as a rule, except officially. And there were half a dozen shuttered carriages that might have contained ladies, and ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... concluded with Austria is executed by His Imperial Majesty with the most perfect good faith, and as we have no diplomatic agent at his Court he personally inquired into and corrected a proceeding of some of his subaltern officers to the injury of our consul ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... I'm obeying instructions. [FARNCOMBE sits on the ottoman, nursing his hat and overcoat. Then JEYES sits in the arm-chair by the centre table, first turning the chair so that it faces FARNCOMBE.] Farncombe, I was under thirty, and still a subaltern, when I made Miss Parradell's acquaintance. Like most of my pals, I was spending my nights, whenever I could get away from Aldershot, in the stalls at the Pandora— much the same as you've been doing recently, and as a certain class of ...
— The 'Mind the Paint' Girl - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur Pinero
... the various fireworks of the evening. Birds and beasts of all descriptions were there, waiting to be let off. Meantime, extraordinary equipages came driving up in rapid succession; the magnificent coach-and-six of the King was followed by the unpretending buggy of the bold subaltern, while natives of high degree descended from gorgeously attired elephants, or sprang lightly off their prancing Arabs: the varied costumes of the different guests as they passed under a blaze of lamps added not a little ...
— A Journey to Katmandu • Laurence Oliphant
... not uncommon name of Smith. Our tailor, of course, and a rattling fine soldier too. Having discovered this latter fact and also formed a remarkably cordial relationship apparently in a single day, the enthusiastic cub subaltern (distemper and snobbishness over and done with) motors up his C.O., who is visiting his brother and partner, and brings him in to Grange Court on the way. Sir Dennys, now a brassarded private and otherwise a converted man, is still confoundedly embarrassed, and ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 152, March 21, 1917 • Various
... Dadastana, where we have mentioned that Jovian died, he suddenly saw in his front, Hyperechius, who had previously been only a subaltern, but who now, as a trusty friend, had received from Procopius the command of the auxiliary forces. And thinking it no credit to defeat in battle a man of no renown, relying on his authority and on his lofty personal ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... about the tendency, which is observable in good society now-a-days, to prefer personal courage to the possession of any other quality. The fact is that personal courage is really a very subordinate virtue,—merely the distinguishing mark of a subaltern,—a virtue, indeed, in which we are surpassed by the lower animals; or else you would not hear people say, as brave as a lion. Far from being the pillar of society, knightly honor affords a sure asylum, in general for dishonesty ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... a high nose. He looked at one over the collar, so to speak. His regard was very assured, and his speech was that short bundle of monosyllables which the subaltern throws at the orderly. He had never been questioned, and, the precedent being absent, he had never questioned himself. Why should he? We live by question and answer, but we do not know the reply to anything until ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... French in one of his despatches records that during the action at Le Cateau on August 26th the whole of the officers and men of one of the British batteries had been killed or wounded with the exception of one subaltern and two gunners. These continued to serve one gun, kept up a sound rate of fire, and came unhurt ...
— Tommy Atkins at War - As Told in His Own Letters • James Alexander Kilpatrick
... the conclusion that he had had enough of military life in the West. He applied for his discharge, as the compulsory term of service was at an end. When his papers came he was able to get about with the aid of a crutch. One morning his colonel entered his subaltern's bachelor quarters. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... of a friend. Many young men in the army, I believe, adopt this system, from motives both of moral and of economical prudence. A pint, or even half a pint, of wine per day, makes a considerable hole in the pay of a subaltern, or in the stipend of a country curate, or in the allowance of a briefless barrister. Avoid acquiring factitious wants. Do not by habit make wine necessary to your comfort. It is wise, when young, not to indulge in luxuries which in any ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... should have told us of this. We've been trapped,' said a subaltern. 'Aren't the camel guns ever going to begin? ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... warriors in a semicircle, on the west and south sides of the fort, and at no great distance from it. Five of the chiefs, under pretence of treating with the officers of the garrison, were to pass into the fort, and when in council were to assassinate the subaltern officers with pistols and knives, concealed under their blankets; and then to seize captain Rhea, who, in his trepidation, and under a promise of personal safety, would, they anticipated, order the gates of the fort to be thrown open for the admission of the besiegers. The ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... was in the Punjaub, and a peremptory message from the brigadier required him to rejoin as soon as possible. It was at Kurnaul (as it was then spelled) that Lola began her experience of garrison life. Among the other officers she met there was a young subaltern of the Bengal Artillery, who, in the years to come, was to make a name for himself ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... by one in whom they have always very justly placed great Confidence. I could transcribe more Passages which mention Dr Lee as "a worthy Character," the unwarrantable Lengths to which the Animosities of interrested Men have been carried against him, & the Inveteracy of many Subaltern & collateral Characters but I think I have given enough to ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... of the 100th were placed so and so, I perfectly remember." So with this memorial of poor Hood, it may have, no doubt, a greater interest for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak, in a different part of the field, and engaged, a young subaltern, in the Battle of Life, in which Hood fell, young still, and covered with glory. "The Bridge of Sighs" was his Corunna, his Heights of Abraham—sickly, weak, wounded, he fell in the full blaze and ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... its very last page. The subtle distinction of religious worship into latria, dulia, and hyperdulia, the refined classification of prayer under the two heads of direct, absolute, final, sovereign, on the one hand, and of oblique, relative, transitory, subaltern, on the other, swell indeed many elaborate works of casuistry, but are not discoverable in the remains of primitive Christians, nor in the writings of God's word have they any place. I cannot find in the inspired Apostles any reference ...
— Primitive Christian Worship • James Endell Tyler
... an absolute Sovereign are not such as are demanded from or likely to be developed in the subordinate ruler of a dominion however important, and that functions like those of a Regent, at least as important as those of the Viceroy of India, ought not to be entrusted to men trained in subaltern administrative duties. Among the youths of greatest promise, in their eighth year, a certain small number are selected by the chiefs of the University, who visit for this purpose all the Nurseries of the kingdom. With what purpose these youths are separated from their fellows is not explained ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... hearers, he was patiently awaiting its effects on the mind of his superior, when the latter, by his earnest and unsuspecting countenance, no less than by the question just given, showed that he was still in the dark as to the expedient the subaltern wished to suggest. ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... son, we glean the following facts from the American Biographical Dictionary. In the year 1776, whilst he was a student of law in the office of the eminent Judge Wilson of Philadelphia, he left his pursuit and joined the army as a subaltern. He soon obtained the command of a company, in which he continued to the close of the revolutionary war. He was in almost every action fought in the Middle States during the war. At the battle of Brandywine he received ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... of his superior. Then he escorted them up the side to the deck, which was marvelously neat and attractive. Some half a dozen sailors lounged here and there and these stared as wonderingly at the invasion of strangers as the subaltern had done. But their guide did not pause longer than to see that they had all reached the deck safely, when he led them into ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... good deal of misunderstanding, for he felt it incumbent on him to try his codes in every possible dialect. Instead of the usual cheery "Good morning," a major of a famous Highland regiment was scandalised by an elderly subaltern blethering out, "Cannibal—Custard—Claymore—Caramel," in an abominable Scotch accent. Another day (on receipt of written orders) he was compelled to visit the line to see if things had been built as reported, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Nov. 28, 1917 • Various
... strangled, commanded him to provide him another the next night. Whatever reluctance the vizier might feel to put such orders in execution, as he owed blind obedience to the sultan his master, he was forced to submit. He brought him then the daughter of a subaltern, whom he also put to death the next day. After her he brought a citizen's daughter; and, in a word, there was every day a maid married, and a ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... persons; but if their company is unavoidable, I have at least learnt to hold my tongue. The other day I was at a country-house where an old and extremely tiresome General laid down the law on the subject of the Mutiny, where he had fought as a youthful subaltern. I was pretty sure that he was making the most grotesque misstatements, but I was not in a position to contradict them. Next the General was a courteous, weary old gentleman, who sate with his finger-tips ...
— From a College Window • Arthur Christopher Benson
... many persons who should set better examples to the humbler classes of the community; for the unfortunate results of this too fatal propensity to parents and society have been severely felt. Among many instances on record, a very interesting one is related of a young Subaltern in a regiment of cavalry, who, by successive losses, was reduced to such a state of distress, as to form the desperate resolution of trying the road. In a moment of agony, he accidentally met with an opportunity which seemed to favour ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... Maurice and Jean found themselves once more behind the hedge, with the remnant of their company. Some forty men at the outside were all that remained, with Lieutenant Rochas as their commander, and the regimental standard was with them; the subaltern who carried it had furled the silk about the staff in order to try to save it. They made their way along the hedge, as far as it extended, to a cluster of small trees upon a hillside, where Rochas made them halt and reopen fire. The men, dispersed in skirmishing order and sufficiently ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... their existence, joined those who wished to preserve the raft, and armed themselves: of this number were some subaltern officers and many passengers. The mutineers drew their sabres, and those who had none, armed themselves with knives: they advanced resolutely against us; we put ourselves on our defence: the attack was going to begin. Animated ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... chair behind Mr. Wrenn's. He listened to her soft explanations with the desperate respect and affection which a green subaltern would give ...
— Our Mr. Wrenn - The Romantic Adventures of a Gentle Man • Sinclair Lewis
... the "boarding party" gallantly rowing out in the tub were harangued by a weeping Greek skipper in six different languages without a pause until the arrival of an official of the Water Transport Department, disguised as a very immaculate subaltern of Yeomanry. No one ever quite discovered what it was all about; but the skipper having at last become comparatively coherent in French, we put on board a prize crew in the person of the Yeoman, and ...
— The Fifth Battalion Highland Light Infantry in the War 1914-1918 • F.L. Morrison
... usual course of study at Chatham was quartered for a short time at Pembroke Dock. In December, 1854, he received his orders for the Crimea, and reached Balaklava on January 1, 1855. As a young engineer subaltern serving in the trenches, his daring was conspicuous, while his special aptitude for obtaining a personal knowledge of the movements of the enemy was a matter of common observation among his brother officers. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... adroitness, nor was it to be expected that the duty would seem a disgrace, when the Prior of the Knights of Saint John was superintendent of the operations, when the Captain-General of the Netherlands had arranged the whole plan, and when all, from subaltern to viceroy, had received minute instructions as to the contemplated treachery from the great chief of the Spanish police, who sat on the throne of Castile ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... quarters, very much disgusted with the world in general, and the wilfulness of French young ladies in particular. Of course he knew perfectly well it was not to end here. He sent for Grape, then a brother subaltern, and placed his honour ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... impecunious Subaltern was not a catch, But the Boffkins knew that Minnie mightn't make ...
— Departmental Ditties and Barrack Room Ballads • Rudyard Kipling
... with no point of passion in his regard: the Eskdales, Villebecques, Ormsbys, Bessos, Marneys, Meltons, and Mirabels, the Bohuns and St. Aldegondes and Grandisons, the Tadpoles and the Tapers, the dominant and subaltern humanity of the world. All these are drawn with peculiar boldness of line, precision of touch, and clearness of intention. And as with his men so is it with his women: the finest are not those he likes best but those who interested ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... Prussian subaltern advancing within cry of the Schweidnitz Gate, requests of the Town-guard there, To send him out a Town-Officer. Town-Officer appears; is informed, 'That Colonels Posadowsky and Borck, Commissioners or plenipotentiary Messengers from his Prussian Majesty, desire admittance ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... skill in making a week's C.B. a veritable holiday are the talk of the regiment. All the officers know him, and many of them who have been victims of his smart repartee fear him more than they care to acknowledge. The subaltern with the eyeglass is a bad route-marcher, and Wankin once remarked in an audible whisper that the officer had learned his company drill with a drove of haltered pack-horses, and the officer bears the ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... the fight you must read in Napier's 'Peninsular War,' and in Mr. Gleig's 'Subaltern.' They are not to be described by one who never saw ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... to his room and started in on his report. It had stuck in Crowley's crop—seemed humiliating—to be made a subaltern in the case of women operatives. He believed that at last he was in right and proper on the grand opportunity of his career; he would come down from the bush with the bacon; Elsham had fallen down and Kennard was double-crossing—and ...
— Joan of Arc of the North Woods • Holman Day
... welcome his sister and gladden his mother's eyes. But until then, the boy had said to himself, he'd stick to the field, and the troop that had the roughest work to do was the one that best suited him, and so it had happened that by the second spring of his service in the regiment no subaltern was held in higher esteem by senior officers or regarded with more envy by the lazy ones among the juniors than the young graduate, for those, too, were days in which graduates were few and far between, ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... amount for each successive grade." They called him "Crank Cranston" in the Eleventh for quite a while, but without affecting in the faintest degree his sturdy stand. Margaret's gowns continued simple and inexpensive, and their mode of living modest as any subaltern's, and many women spoke of them as "close" and "mean," but many men wished openly they had Cranston's moral courage. At home, too, better times had come. There was the old homestead, and Mr. Cranston as counsel of certain big corporations ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... one liked or cared for, and I know nothing of him, except that I once saw him in court, on trial for some alleged petty tyranny towards his men,— still a subaltern officer. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... man in the House of Lords; but, I would just ask, is it exactly prudent to introduce into your family on terms of such perfect intimacy, a young, fascinating, well-looking fellow, of four-and-twenty, albeit only a subaltern, with two such daughters as you have? Peut etre! One thing is certain—I have no cause of complaint; and so, good night, Lady Jane"—and with those words I fell asleep, to dream of the deepest ...
— The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer, Vol. 1 • Charles James Lever
... high horse; and he had orders, too, such a number that no one would have believed it; but that was not his fault. As a young man he had taken part in the great autumn reviews which were held in those days. He had an anecdote that he told about those days, the only one he knew. A subaltern under his orders had cut off one of the princes, and taken him prisoner, and the Prince had been obliged to ride through the town with a little band of captured soldiers, himself a prisoner behind the General. This was an ever-memorable event, and was always told over and over again every ...
— Fairy Tales of Hans Christian Andersen • Hans Christian Andersen
... march, which rendered the fire of many of our muskets useless, and by obscuring the sun, led to several unlucky mistakes. As an instance of this, a body of 50 prisoners who had surrendered, were ordered to the fort in charge of a subaltern and 14 volunteers; the officer mistaking the direction, conducted them towards the British camp in the route by which we had advanced, and they were re-taken with the whole of the guard, excepting the officer and one man, who fought their way back. Several of our stragglers were made ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the enemy, turning to account the difficult terrain, was able to secure the maximum of profit from the advantages which the superiority of his subaltern complements gave him. ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... celebrated Town Majors, of whom so much has been heard, a Y.M.C.A. hut, and a new form of entertainment in the shape of a Cinema, which our Division had recently added to its institutions. The Divisional "Whizz-bangs" were still showing, but were rather under a cloud, although that great actor subaltern from the Battalion, Moffat Johnston, gave them a helping hand for a short time. Being "out to soldier," however, he preferred the front line, and very ...
— The Sherwood Foresters in the Great War 1914 - 1919 - History of the 1/8th Battalion • W.C.C. Weetman
... that perhaps more than any other influenced his future years. He became completely saturated with the river its terms, its memories, its influence remained a definite factor in his personality to the end of his days. Moreover, it was his first period of great triumph. Where before he had been a subaltern not always even a wage-earner—now all in a moment he had been transformed into a high chief. The fullest ambition of his childhood had been realized—more than realized, for in that day he had never dreamed of a boat or of an income ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... of an ancient squire for his paladin, or of an old subaltern for a superior officer, bound him to Ferragut. The books that filled the captain's stateroom recalled his agonies upon being examined in Cartagena for his license as a pilot. The grave gentlemen of the tribunal had made him turn pale and stutter like a child before ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... letter. He read it with scant attention, and returned it to his breast-pocket. The second envelope bore the handwriting of his senior subaltern, now in England on short leave. The two men were close friends; but Eldred's last letter had been written four months ago; and the envelope in his hand contained Richardson's tardy response. He broke the seal with a smile at thought of his subaltern's astonishment when he should learn the ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... commissioned officer who carries the colours belonging to a cavalry troop, equivalent to an ensign in the infantry; the junior subaltern ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... (May) we had a trying experience. Our company commander went out with myself and another subaltern and about forty men. We crossed the Mungo River in canoes, and then did a long and very difficult march all through the night in absolute dense forest. However the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... powerful jaws. It is doubtful, however, whether they form a real army. Bates observed that on a foraging expedition the large-headed individuals did not walk in the regular ranks, nor on the return did they carry any of the booty, but marched along at the side, and at tolerably regular intervals, "like subaltern officers in a marching regiment." He is disposed, however, to ascribe to them a much humbler function, namely, to serve merely "as indigestible morsels to the ant thrushes." This, I ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... leaves the politician cold. But however much each section of society abuses the ambitions or the morals of the other, all worship equally at the same shrine. No man really wants to spend his whole life as a reporter, a clerk, a subaltern, a private Member, or a curate. Downing Street is as attractive as the oak-leaves of the field-marshal; York and Canterbury as pleasant as a dominance in ...
— Success (Second Edition) • Max Aitken Beaverbrook
... like the remainder of the officers, had drunk his fair share of wine. He never liked his royal subaltern, and took no pains to conceal his sentiments. The arrogance of the prince's utterances, as well as his assumption of superiority, exasperated him beyond measure, and, breaking into the conversation, he exclaimed in tones that were heard ...
— The Secret Memoirs of the Courts of Europe: William II, Germany; Francis Joseph, Austria-Hungary, Volume I. (of 2) • Mme. La Marquise de Fontenoy
... keenly alive to the dangers that lay in the mere discussion of the case, commanded Fra Domenico to withdraw his acceptance of the challenge and secede from the affair. The Franciscan declared himself content: he had not directed his challenge to any subaltern, but ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... barbarous ages, they received from the hand of Gregory VII. a new character of force and unity. That pontiff stamped them with the sanction of his own genius. Such authority had never before been created: it made every other power useless and subaltern" ("Life of Gregory VII.," by Villemain, trans. by Brockley, vol. ii., pp. 53-55). Thus the struggle became inevitable between the temporal and the spiritual powers. "In every country there was a dual government:—1. That of a local kind, represented by a temporal sovereign. ...
— The Freethinker's Text Book, Part II. - Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History • Annie Besant
... it; the thing which they had known in their hearts was coming, ever since a kindly senior subaltern had first taken it upon himself to shape their destinies, had actually come. And bitterest thought of ...
— No Man's Land • H. C. McNeile
... visited the quartermaster-general of his division, received the report of his chief of staff, and gave necessary orders. It was at this place, and never at the General's own dwelling, that the captains or subaltern officers presented themselves when they had occasion to speak ...
— Zibeline, Complete • Phillipe de Massa
... "seeing a cavalry subaltern and the members of an escort sitting, half starved, on a number of bags piled up in the Suakin desert. And what do you think ...
— The Wings of the Morning • Louis Tracy
... of a military engineer. The person who held that position had been sent from France. He was a master mason, and had no knowledge of engineering. It had been the same story in Calcutta. Drake's two engineers had been a subaltern in the military and a young covenanted servant. Renault had to supervise ...
— Three Frenchmen in Bengal - The Commercial Ruin of the French Settlements in 1757 • S.C. Hill
... where his restless nullity had lost itself in a maze of intrigues. Authorised in a manner to form her ministry, she nominated the President Amelot as Ambassador for Spain, a diplomatist although very high minded, yet of somewhat subaltern ability, one of the lights of that magistracy from which Louis XIV. loved to recruit the staff of his government, and whence Madame des Ursins herself sprung on her mother's side. The Marshal de Tesse was appointed to the command of the army, and Orry, a pupil of Colbert and a distinguished ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... the ancient Persians. To him every evil is attributed. If a horse tire, he has been ridden by Guecubu. In an earthquake, Guecubu has given the world a shock; and the like in all things. The Ulmens, or subaltern deities of their celestial hierarchy, resemble the genii, and are supposed to have the charge of earthly things, and to form, in concert with the benevolent Meulen, a counterpoise to the prodigious power of the malignant Guecuba. These ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... glittering circle met to welcome him, in the State apartments of the Tuileries, he kept repeating, "Gentlemen, it is to the poor and disinterested mass of the people that I owe everything; it is they who have brought me back to the capita. It is the poor subaltern officers and common soldiers that have done all this. I owe everything to the common people and the ranks of the army. Remember that! I owe everything to the army and the people!" Some time after he took occasional rides through the ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... tradition from the lives of the statesmen, generals, jurists, diplomates who have lived and wrought here for three-quarters of a century. The visions that passed before the eyes of Washington as he stood on the Observatory Hill there, a subaltern under Braddock, contemplating the wilderness about him and imagining the future; the pictures that filled the fancy of the intractable L'Enfant as he defined the great mall and thought of the gardens between the Tuileries and the Chamber ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 11, No. 24, March, 1873 • Various
... allowed to remain unbroken. You know how these affairs develop in interest and excitement as the correspondence passes down and down, from one formation to another, and what an air of urgency and bitterness they wear when they reach the last man. In this case the young German subaltern, who had no one else below him on whom to put the burden of explaining in writing, took advantage of his position, and wrote upon a slip, which he attached to the top of the others: "To Officer Commanding British Troops. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, April 11, 1917 • Various
... the garrison were killed, including two officers. The prisoners amounted to five hundred and forty-three, among whom were one lieutenant colonel, four captains, and twenty subaltern officers. The military stores taken in the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... a lad with a sneaking regard for the pen, even when I buckled on the sword, I need not be too analytical. No doubt about her kindly interest, in the first instance, in so morbid a curiosity as a subaltern who cared for books and was prepared to extend his gracious patronage to pictures. This subaltern had only too much money, and if the truth be known, only too little honest interest in the career into which he had allowed himself to drift. An early stage of that career brought him up to London, ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... of those provided with the regulation overcoat, were lost to sight. Only among the regulars and one or two regiments made up from the National Guard were uniforms so complete that in their foul-weather garb it was possible to distinguish colonel from subaltern, staff sergeant from private. ...
— Ray's Daughter - A Story of Manila • Charles King
... had scarce two miles to run; but the navigation was delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot, for we went about and about and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that were a ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... a job like fighting the battle of Waterloo, or Sedan, or Bull Run, I knew all about that, as I had crammed it up and been examined in it, too. I also knew how to take up a position for a division, or even an army corps, but the stupid little subaltern's game of the defence of a drift with a small detachment was, curiously enough, most perplexing. I had never really considered such a thing. However, in the light of my habitual dealings with army corps, it would, no doubt, be child's-play ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... the affair was hushed up,—he comes of a good family,—and ever since then he has been irreproachable. How Rivarez found out about it I can't conceive; but the first thing he did at interrogation was to bring up this old scandal—before the subaltern, too! And with as innocent a face as if he were saying his prayers! Of course the story's all over the Legation by now. If Your Eminence would only be present at one of the interrogations, I am sure you would realize—— He needn't know ...
— The Gadfly • E. L. Voynich
... figure appeared of a Turkish subaltern officer, who has come into this wild desert to ask the people for tribute to the Porte. A Turkish kawwas in attendance on him, I observed to shrug up his shoulders when he heard nothing but Arabic being spoken among us. They arrived ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... exclusively of l'Opera Buffa introduced in 1788. These were l'Opera les Francais, and les Italiens, which, with six inferior ones, called petits spectacles, brought the whole of the theatres to ten in number. The subaltern houses were incessantly checked in their career by the privileges granted to the Comedie Francaise, which company alone enjoyed the right to play first-rate productions: it also possessed that of censorship, and sometimes exercised it in the most despotic manner. Authors, ever in dispute with ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... workmen their tasks, as the best possible way of keeping them out of mischief. As he drew near, he heard firing, and the first sight which greeted him was a negro shot down. The village was in possession of a small company of soldiers, without even a subaltern to control them. Without pretence of a trial, they were shooting the people one by one, as they were pointed out to them by a petty constable. On their march, these very soldiers had been ordered to fire upon every one who ran away, and they fired at every bush at random, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 102, April, 1866 • Various
... two daughters; Matilda and Fanny were as well known in the army as Lord Fitzroy Somerset, or Picton, from the Isle of Wight to Halifax, from Cape Coast to Chatham, from Belfast to the Bermudas. Where was the subaltern who had not knelt at the shrine of one or the other, if not of both, and vowed eternal love until a change of quarters? In plain words, the major's solicitude for the service was such, that, not content with providing the young officer with all the necessary outfit of his ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... paid no heed. He employed himself in watching the prostrate Boer attentively, and noticed that his eyes were being blinked violently, as if the man were in a great state of excitement. But he seemed to calm down rapidly as the young subaltern walked to and fro, holding the light up, then down, and always ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... feats of arms. At the station itself the "Tommys" buzzed about like bees, and the officers were having tea or dinner, or both combined, in the refreshment-room. One overheard scraps of conversation, from a subaltern to his superior officer: "A capital bag to-day, sir. Forty Mausers and ten thousand rounds of ammunition." Then someone else remarked that a railway-train from the South passed yesterday, riddled with bullets, and recounted the marvellous escape ...
— South African Memories - Social, Warlike & Sporting From Diaries Written At The Time • Lady Sarah Wilson
... he had raised himself upon his elbow and was listening eagerly to something else. His attention had been caught by the conversation of a couple of officers who were coming up from the water-side. One was a young army subaltern, fresh from home, very innocent and well-meaning, but belonging to that class of youth who, because of a serene consciousness of vast inward resources, is certain to fall a prey to circumstances. His companion ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... scarf, her fan, her parasol, her cushion. His last chapter would probably be in a ball-room, husband and lover standing by the door watching the Marchioness swinging round the room on the arm of a young subaltern. 'Other women are younger than she, Kilcarney, but who is as graceful? Have you ever seen a woman hold herself like Violet?' One of the daughters (for there have been children by this second, or shall we say by this third, marriage) comes up breathless after the dance. 'Darling Uncle ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... has been previously stated, he could not foresee everything. He did not know, for instance, that his cheroot-smoking subaltern—a youth as guileless as he was indiscreet, for the two usually go together—possessed a memory like a dry-plate. He did not foresee that a passing conversation in an Indian bungalow might perchance photograph itself ...
— From One Generation to Another • Henry Seton Merriman
... an officer," said the German suddenly to the British subaltern? "I surrender myself to you, and demand to be treated as an honorable prisoner of war. I do not wish to be left ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... pressed down as low as he could on his forehead, and I could not discern his face ; but I was instantly certain he was not Bonaparte, on finding the whole commotion produced by the rifling crew above mentioned, which, though it might be guided, probably, by some subaltern officer, who might have the captive in charge, had left the field of battle at a moment when none other could be spared, as all the attendant throng were evidently amongst the refuse of ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay |
