"Assailable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... large island of the Lewis. The districts of Lochalsh and Kintail, on the west coast, the scene of the Spanish invasion of 1719, were peculiarly difficult of access, there being no approach from the south, east, or north, except by narrow and difficult paths, while the western access was only assailable by a naval force. To all appearance this tract of ground, the seat of many comparatively opulent tacksmen and cattle farmers, was as much beyond the control of the six commissioners assembled at their office in Edinburgh, as if it had been amongst the mountains of Tibet ...
— History Of The Mackenzies • Alexander Mackenzie
... then 'twere well," and the rest of it. Thursday morning, between four and five o' clock, when it would be pitch dark, with neither star nor moon in the heavens, when Lord Hampstead would certainly be alone in a certain spot, unattended and easily assailable;—would Thursday morning be the fittest time for any such deed as that which he had now in ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... She was assailable only through her soul. And it was only her soul that Girard seemed to desire. That she should accept those lessons of passive faith which he had taught at Marseilles, this apparently was all his aim. Hoping that example would do more for him than ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... incredible to what lengths self-deception can go. Dr. Johnson said that he looked upon himself as a polite man! It is quite easy to get to believe yourself impeccable in certain points: and as one gets older, and less assailable, and less liable to be pulled up and told the hard truth, it is astonishing how serenely you can sail along. But that isn't pose exactly. It generally begins by a pose, and becomes simple imperviousness; and that is, ...
— Father Payne • Arthur Christopher Benson
... enigmatical cast, because she knows that he will instantly take the sense. Her instinctive knowledge of the human heart guides her directly to his secret springs of action. With a tact that seems like inspiration, she feels out his assailable points, and still surprises and holds him with new and startling appeals to his innermost feelings. At length, when, his wicked purpose being formed, he goes to talking to her in riddles, she quickly understands him, but thinks he is only testing her: her ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... the Americans have for the possession of the Canadas is, that they are the means of easy retaliation on the part of England in case of aggression. They render them weak and assailable in case of war. Had they possession of the Canadas, and our other provinces, the United States would be almost invulnerable. As it is, they become defenceless to the north, and are moreover exposed to the attack of all the tribes of Indians concentrated on the western frontier. ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... continent recollections of the island skill and the island courage. Then was a new spirit breathed into the British marine, by which it has ever since been animated, and which has seldom stopped to count odds. Then began that dashing course of enterprise which gave almost everything to England that was assailable, from Goree to Cuba, and from Cuba to the Philippines. Then was laid the foundation of that Oriental dominion of England which has been the object of so much wonder, and of not a little envy; for on the 23d of June, 1757, was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... elaborated by Holbach throughout his second volume. Here as elsewhere he writes with seriousness and conviction, although some of his logical positions are assailable. Never before in France had materialism, necessarianism and atheism been so clearly and forcibly expounded. The very Philosophers were alarmed. Voltaire hastened to write an article on God so unconvincing, that it can hardly have convinced himself. It amounts to little more than an argument ...
— The Eve of the French Revolution • Edward J. Lowell
... amply sufficient to discharge all the duties that devolved upon them. But it does not thence follow that that same number will now suffice. If it is proposed by Sir George Grey to establish the civic administration on the broadest, safest, and least assailable foundation, it is scarcely consistent to begin by narrowing that basis. It is generally believed that it is more difficult to corrupt or influence a large number of persons than a small one. In the multitude ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... like the Assyrian, and the Susianian, stood upon a lofty mound or platform. This arrangement provided at once for safety, for enjoyment, and for health. It secured a pure air, freedom from the molestation of insects, and a position only assailable at a few points. The ordinary shape of the palace mound appears to have been square; its elevation was probably not less than fifty or sixty feet. It was composed mainly of sun-dried bricks, which however were almost certainly enclosed externally by a facing of burnt brick, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 4. (of 7): Babylon • George Rawlinson
... said that Mavick had more chicane but not a tenth part of the ability of Rodney Henderson. Mr. Ault had made the fortune the object of keen scrutiny, when his antagonism was aroused, and none knew better than he its assailable points. Henderson had died suddenly in the midst of vast schemes which needed his genius to perfect. Apparently the Mavick estate was second to only a few fortunes in the country. Mr. Ault had set himself to find out whether this ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... effective passages to give zest to the article. It has been said in all seriousness that Lockhart failed to appreciate the beauty of most of Tennyson's lines, and that he confined his remarks to the most assailable passages. Surely, when a critic undertakes to write a mock-appreciation, he will not quote the best verses, to the detriment of his plan. The poet must see to it that his volume does not contain enough absurdities to form a sufficient basis for such an article. There is a striking contrast to the ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... for their drying-scaffolds, of which Mr. Cutler has introduced a number of the Minnetaree and Mandan model, and for gardens if they chose to use a part of the area for that purpose. They would also require room for a large accumulation of fuel for winter use. The only assailable points are the gateways, of which the embankments show seven. These undoubtedly were protected by rows of round timber set in the ground, and passing each other in such a manner as to leave a narrow opening, with a mound back of each, upon which archers could stand and shoot their arrows over ...
— Houses and House-Life of the American Aborigines • Lewis H. Morgan
... idea of following any such advice. He was fully aware of the strength of his position on the Peak, and felt no disposition to abandon it. His great apprehension was for the Reef, where his territories were much more assailable. It was not easy to see how the crater, and ship, and the schooner on the stocks, and all the other property that, in the shape of hogs, poultry, &c., was scattered far and wide in that group, could be protected against a hundred canoes, by any force at ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... naturally with the Bible, as giving us the earliest historical point at which Christianity is assailable. What then has modern criticism accomplished on the Bible? The Biblical account of the creation it has shown to be, in its literal sense, an impossible fable. To passages thought mystical and prophetic it has assigned the homeliest, and often retrospective meanings. Everywhere at its touch ...
— Is Life Worth Living? • William Hurrell Mallock
... employment and darkly tumultuous in the streets, of famine and famine-driven rioters. What modern population will stand a famine? For the first time in the history of warfare the rear of the victor, the rear of the fighting line becomes insecure, assailable by flying machines and subject to unprecedented and unimaginable panics. No man can tell what savagery of desperation these new conditions may not release in the soul of man. A conspiracy of adverse chances, I say, might contrive so great a cataclysm. There is no effectual ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... the modern walled fort is over and done with. I do not presume to speak regarding coast defenses maintained for the purposes of repelling attacks or invasions from the sea. I am speaking with regard to land defenses which are assailable by land forces. I believe in the future great wars—if indeed there are to be any more great wars following after this one—that the nations involved, instead of buttoning their frontiers down with great fortresses and ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... because it was petty, getting a miserable sour sustenance out of his consciousness of the position it explained. Great enemies, great undertakings, would have revived him as they had always revived and fortified. But here was a stolid small obstacle, scarce assailable on its own level; and he had chosen that it should be attacked through its own laws and forms. By shutting a door, by withholding an answer to his knocks, the thing reduced him to hesitation. And the thing had weapons to shoot at him; his history, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... assailable for the reason that in dealing with any problem regarding an author on the basis of internal evidence, we have no right to consider one of his statements worthy of weight, and another one unworthy, on the supposition that he expressed himself carelessly in the second instance. Rather must we ...
— Sextus Empiricus and Greek Scepticism • Mary Mills Patrick |
