"Truncheon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... overlapping scales. His cloak was of the newest and most brilliant Imperial crimson. The platform was so high that I could clearly see his shapely calves and the gold eagles embroidered on the sky-blue soft leather of his half- boots. In his hand, he held a short baton or truncheon, such as all field- commanders carry as an emblem of independent command, such as I had seen at Tegulata in the hand of Pescennius Niger. It was gilded or gold-plated and its ends were chased pine-cones. Manifestly every detail of his habiting ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... invented by lawyers and parsons for the purpose of obtaining fees and authority. These unpleasant people, the lawyers and the parsons, had contrived to make Love an impropriety and had reduced Holy Passion to the status of a schedule to an act of parliament. Cupid had been furnished with a truncheon and a helmet and had been robbed of his wings in order that he might more suitably serve as a policeman. He demanded Free Love, and pleaded for the chaste promiscuity of the birds!... After he had said a great deal in the same strain, ...
— The Foolish Lovers • St. John G. Ervine
... Far off on all hands other dead embers, other flaming suns, wheel and race in the apparent void; the nearest is out of call, the farthest so far that the heart sickens in the effort to conceive the distance. Shipwrecked seamen on the deep, though they bestride but the truncheon of a boom, are safe and near at home compared with mankind on its bullet. Even to us who have known no other, it seems a strange, if not an appalling, ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... town. In the midst of the other pavilions upon that plain was set the pavilion of Sir Tristram. It was of fine crimson cloth striped with silver and there was the figure of a gryphon carved upon the summit of the centre pole of the pavilion. The spear of Sir Tristram was emplanted by the point of the truncheon in the ground outside the pavilion, and thereunto his shield was hung so that those who passed that way might clearly behold what ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... on into the next day, and light loves are hired by the hour like cabs; and since Paris will always be the most adorable of all countries, the country of joy, liberty, wit, pretty women, mauvais sujets, and good wine; where the truncheon of authority never makes itself disagreeably felt, because one is so close to those who wield it,—we, therefore, sectaries of the god Mephistopheles, have engaged to whitewash the public mind, to give fresh costumes to the actors, to put a new plank or two in the government booth, to ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... Wamba. "Let me tell you that when you fill my cloak you are wrapped in a general's cassock. Five hundred men are there without, and I was this morning one of their chief leaders. My fool's cap was a [v]casque, and my [v]bauble a truncheon. Well, we shall see what good they will make by exchanging a fool for a wise man. Truly, I fear they will lose in valor what they may gain in discretion. And so farewell, master, and be kind to poor Gurth and his dog Fangs; and let my [v]coxcomb hang in the hall at Rotherwood in ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... a banner wore, Which Scotland's royal scutcheon bore: Heralds and pursuivants, by name Bute, Islay, Marchmount, Rothsay, came, In painted tabards, proudly showing Gules, argent, or, and azure glowing, Attendant on a king-at-arms, Whose hand the armorial truncheon held, That feudal strife had often quelled, When wildest ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... a hamlet where lived one of the two constables who preserved the peace in the parish of Alderworth, and Wildeve went straight to the constable's cottage. Almost the first thing that he saw on opening the door was the constable's truncheon hanging to a nail, as if to assure him that here were the means to his purpose. On inquiry, however, of the constable's wife he learnt that the constable was not at home. Wildeve said ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... Scourge. — N. scourge, rod, cane, stick; ratan[obs3], rattan; birch, birch rod; azote[obs3], blacksnake[obs3], bullwhack [obs3][U.S.], chicote[obs3], kurbash[obs3], quirt, rawhide, sjambok[obs3]; rod in pickle; switch, ferule, cudgel, truncheon. whip, bullwhip, lash, strap, thong, cowhide, knout; cat, cat o'nine tails; rope's end. pillory, stocks, whipping post; cucking stool[obs3], ducking stool; brank[obs3]; trebuchet[obs3], trebuket[obs3]. triangle[instruments of torture: list], wooden horse, iron maiden, thumbscrew, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... strode into the room. The Haunted Man rubbed his eyes,—no! there could be no mistake about it,—it was the Knocker's face, mounted on a misty, almost imperceptible body. The brazen rod was transferred from its mouth to its right hand, where it was held like a ghostly truncheon. ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... chivalry or the cavaliers of chivalry will be very unhandsome in applying to them the rules of the tourney. Amadis, it will be observed here, does not condescend to use his sword against a woman. And this is not from tenderness, but from contempt. For when the Queen saw that he only took the broken truncheon of his lance to her, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various
... the same story. The caretaker, fancying he heard a noise, armed himself with a truncheon, and came downstairs to the first-floor, where he found the door of one of the rooms open, and a light burning inside. He stepped on tiptoe to the open door, and was peering in, when he was seized from behind, half suffocated by a pad held over his mouth, ...
— John Thorndyke's Cases • R. Austin Freeman
... terriers, which waited with impatience the arrival of the supper; but, with the sagacious knowledge of physiognomy peculiar to their race, forbore to intrude upon the moody silence of their master, apprehensive probably of a small white truncheon which lay by Cedric's trencher, for the purpose of repelling the advances of his four-legged dependants. One grisly old wolf-dog alone, with the liberty of an indulged favourite, had planted himself close by the chair of state, and occasionally ventured to solicit notice by putting his ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... soldier in Europe, since Turenne and Conde were gone, the man whose genius and valour had saved the Portuguese monarchy on the field of Montes Claros, the man who had earned a still higher glory by resigning the truncheon of a Marshal of France for the sake of the true religion. It was not forgotten that the two heroes who, indissolubly united by their common Protestantism, were entering Exeter together, had twelve years before ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... thee, Ganymede," quoth Montanus, "as they which are stung with the scorpion, cannot be recovered but by the scorpion, nor he that was wounded with Achilles' lance be cured but with the same truncheon,[1] so Apollo was fain to cry out that love was only eased with love, and fancy healed by no medicine but favor. Phoebus had herbs to heal all hurts but this passion; Circes had charms for all chances but for affection, and Mercury subtle reasons to refel all griefs but love. Persuasions are bootless, ...
— Rosalynde - or, Euphues' Golden Legacy • Thomas Lodge
... breath of air with all our troubles before us. The very first day, I was called on to arrest one of a gang of men in Whitechapel. His friends had knives, and they threatened to 'lay me out' if I touched him. I didn't know whether I was justified, but I drew my truncheon and swore I'd brain the first man who came near me. But I was in a cold sweat all the time. They didn't ...
— Scotland Yard - The methods and organisation of the Metropolitan Police • George Dilnot |
