"Break through" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... also shot down, fighting in his shirt. Lieutenants Pickering and Lechmere lay in bed dangerously ill, and were killed there. Lieutenant Jones, after, as the narrator says, "ridding himself of some of the enemy," tried to break through the rest and escape, but was run through the heart with a bayonet. Captain Howe was severely wounded ...
— A Half-Century of Conflict, Volume II • Francis Parkman
... of a person repulsive, not necessarily to our senses, but to our instincts,—which in this case are notes of warning from the remote depths of the soul,—as if our entire being intrenched itself behind a vitally repellent barrier, in absolute security that no power in the universe can break through it, in opposition to our will. For the will does not seem to create the barrier, but to guard it; and, thus defended, material contact with the individual affects us no more than the touch of a plaster statue. We are each, and must remain, mutually unknowing and unknown. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... motionless as a rock. The marmot in a few minutes ran out of his hole to a neighbor's doorway. The eagle calmly jumped down from the top and with one wing closed the entrance to the hole. The rodent heard the noise, turned back and rushed to the attack, trying to break through to his hole where he had evidently left his family. The struggle began. The eagle fought with one free wing, one leg and his beak but did not withdraw the bar to the entrance. The marmot jumped at the ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... feel that the ground is still too hard for me to break through," said the seed, "so I don't mind having a chat with you. You see, I was lying inside one of the flowers, when you others were squabbling with them in the summer, and I heard all that you said. I had a fine laugh at you, believe me; but I ...
— The Old Willow Tree and Other Stories • Carl Ewald
... from the invested Metz. The latter general especially kept the encircling armies of Prince Frederick Charles and Steinmetz on the constant alert by his continuous endeavours to search out the weakest spot in the German armour. The real attempt of the French Marshal to break through the investing lines was yet to come; that of the 31st of August, to which Fritz alluded in his letter to his mother, having been only made apparently to support Mcmahon as a diversion to the latter's attack on Montmedy, before the surrender ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... who assume an outward appearance of severity, being inwardly weak, may be likened to low common men; nay, are they not somewhat like thieves that break through walls and steal?" ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... was hard going. Thick, young evergreens, entangling willows and fallen logs impeded every step. I could make no headway and darkness was coming on. Disgusted, despairing, I took to the frozen stream, only to skid over icy bowlders and at last to break through the ice crust into the ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... chance, But your house ere dusk will be lost and won; They have got three pieces of ordnance." Then I cried, "Lord Guy, with four troops of horse, Even now is biding at Westbrooke town; If a rider could break through the rebel force, He would bring relief ere the sun goes down; Through the postern door could I make one dart, I could baffle them all ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... hand; let a ligature be thrown about the extremity and drawn as tightly as can be borne. It will first be perceived that beyond the ligature the arteries do not pulsate, while above it the artery begins to rise higher at each diastole and to swell with a kind of tide as it strove to break through and overcome the obstacle to ...
— The World's Greatest Books - Volume 15 - Science • Various
... management of the bodily mechanism is sufficient to prevent fine creative work as author, speaker, or inventor. Few men, perhaps, ever learn how to so manage their brain and stomach as to be capable of high-pressure brain action for days at a time—until the cumulative mental forces break through all obstacles and conquer success. A great leader represents a kind of essence of common sense, but rugged common sense is sanity of nerve and brain. He who rules and leads must have mind and will, but he must have ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... November 27, 1700, Bellomont wrote to the Lords of the Treasury: "I can supply the King and all his dominions with naval stores (except flax and hemp) from this province and New Hampshire, but then your Lordships and the rest of the Ministers must break through Coll. Fletcher's most corrupt grants of all the lands and woods of this province which I think is the most impudent villainy I ever heard or read ...
— History of the Great American Fortunes, Vol. I - Conditions in Settlement and Colonial Times • Myers Gustavus
... they would not be worth looking at. The author of the Orlando Innamorato could hardly write, even upon the driest matters of government, with the aridity of a common clerk. Some little lurking well-head of character or circumstance, interesting to readers of a later age, would probably break through the barren ground. Perhaps the letters went counter to some of the good ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... had been overlooked or forgotten, and we stumbled upon them only by the accident of losing our way. They had no knowledge as to how the battle was going or where their comrades were or where the enemy was. At any moment, for all they knew, the Spaniards might break through the bushes about them. It was a most lonely picture, the young lieutenant, half naked, and wet with his own blood, sitting upright beside the empty stream, and his three followers crouching at his feet like three faithful watch-dogs, ...
— Notes of a War Correspondent • Richard Harding Davis
... another gayly, and exchanged the day's adventures and news; young Germans rode by, slim, serious, and self-contained. Now the stream would stop as one line tried to break through the other, puzzled drivers would yank their horses back, then some determined section commander would come charging back, fling his horse into the tangle—wagon tongues jammed into the canopy in front, protestations in German, ...
— Antwerp to Gallipoli - A Year of the War on Many Fronts—and Behind Them • Arthur Ruhl
... spoke of him as "the old gentleman,' addressed him as "papa" in tones of infinite softness, and endeavored to coax him into a dressing-gown and slippers and other gentlemanly habits. Do what they might, there was no keeping down the butcher. His sturdy nature would break through all their glozings. He had a hearty vulgar good-humor that was irrepressible. His very jokes made his sensitive daughters shudder, and he persisted in wearing his blue cotton coat of a morning, dining at two o'clock, and having a "bit ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... but his inexperience as a writer, his lack of form and technique and deliberateness will hinder his progress, though now and then he will turn out a tolerable tale by sheer accident. The really great man will, of course, break through the double barrier, and then you have a Conrad: that is to say, you have a man who has lived abundantly and has been able to apply an abundance of art to his abundance of material. But that is, indeed, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... garment. The first covering is the coarse dark appearance of this earthly realm ... the second is the fast-binding [directed upon the mundane] reason ... the third is the baser natural senses.... Provided that thou thoroughly determine with the firm resolution to break through these three obstacles, thou wilt come to the golden mass.... While it is given to ye then to know where the treasure really lies [Seeking out of the grave. The three murderers, who have hidden the corpse, are these very 'three obstacles.'] and you have my spirit on this, ...
— Hidden Symbolism of Alchemy and the Occult Arts • Herbert Silberer
... 25th of November, the enemy set fire to a galley that was full of women whom they had brought to people Malacca, and made a fresh attempt to break through the Portuguese fleet, but without success, many of them being slain and taken, and great numbers leapt into the water, and fled to the woods, where they were devoured by wild beasts. Lacsamana then hung out a flag of truce, and sent a deputation to treat ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... Official Records.] and Olley's are the tributaries of the Sweetwater (before mentioned) which flows southward into the Chattahoochee. Sherman was on the lookout for weak places in his adversary's line where he might break through and change into a rout the war of positions which was too much like siege operations to suit him. He said to Halleck that Johnston had declined the assault which must have followed our so close contact, "and abandoned Lost Mountain ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... to hold its ground against the onsets of two French corps. Early in the fight Bazaine galloped up, but he did not bring forward the masses in his rear, probably because he feared to be cut off from Metz. Even so, all through the forenoon, it seemed that the gathering forces of the French must break through the thin lines audaciously thrust into that almost open plain on the flank of their line of march. But Alvensleben and his men held their ground with a dogged will that nothing could shatter. In one sense their audacity saved them. Bazaine for a long ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... since she had been in the country; I was unwilling, and she forbore, to touch on my long stay in London, or on my father's evident displeasure at my protracted absence. There was a little restraint between us, which neither had the courage to break through. Before long, however, an accident, trifling enough in itself, obliged me to be more candid; and enabled her to speak unreservedly on the subject ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... he said. "So that's the way of it. Three days, what! I'll break through that damned ring ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... that sound again?" he continued. "It wasn't Tommie, for I found him asleep, and I've been all around the house, but could discover nothing. The storm is beginning to abate, I think, and the moon is trying to break through the clouds," and, going again to the window, Hugh looked out into the yard, where the shrubbery and trees were just discernible in the grayish light of the December moon. "That's a big drift by the lower gate," he continued; ...
— Bad Hugh • Mary Jane Holmes
... (3) To break through a barrier (of men or materials). Contraction for to rush past or through; e.g. to rush a cordon of policemen; to rush a fence (i.e. to ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... does not come in twenty-four hours not one man will escape alive. Even Wetzel could not break through that line of Indians. But if we can hold the Indians off a day longer they will get tired and discouraged. Girty will not be able to hold them much longer. The British don't count. It's not their kind ...
— Betty Zane • Zane Grey
... doubts have been raised concerning the future usefulness of nets. Reports have been published that German submarines have been fitted up with a wire and cable cutting appliance which would make it possible for them to break through nets at will, supposing, of course, that they had been caught by the nets in such a way that no vital parts of the underwater craft had been seriously damaged. A sketch of this wire cutting device ...
— Aircraft and Submarines - The Story of the Invention, Development, and Present-Day - Uses of War's Newest Weapons • Willis J. Abbot
... Orde stated with conviction. "Everything's safe enough now; and probably will continue so; but I can't afford to take chances. If those logs ever break through they'll go on out to Lake Michigan and there they wouldn't be worth ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... the stocky bitter root penetrates where heat and drought affect it not, nor nibbling rabbits, moles, grubs of insects, and other burrowers break through and steal. Cut off the upper portion only with your knife, and not one, but several, plants will likely sprout from what remains; and, however late in the season, will economize stem and leaf to produce flowers and seeds, cuddled close within the tuft, that set all your pains at ...
— Wild Flowers Worth Knowing • Neltje Blanchan et al
... varying sorts—forgery cases, robberies, murders—I have felt the presence of this force, and I have deduced its action in many of those undiscovered crimes in which I have not been personally consulted. For years I have endeavored to break through the veil which shrouded it, and at last the time came when I seized my thread and followed it, until it led me, after a thousand cunning windings, to ex-Professor Moriarty of ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... diagrammatic; but there will still remain a residuum of visual, tactile, and muscular sensations, and consequently it is still nothing else than a subjective state, bound to the structure of our organs. We are, for the rest, so wrapped up in sensations that none of our boldest conceptions can break through ...
— The Mind and the Brain - Being the Authorised Translation of L'me et le Corps • Alfred Binet
... mistrust or indifference from allowing others to look into what passes within them; and to speak with any thing like emotion or agitation of that which is nearest our heart is considered unsuitable to the tone of polished society. The orator and the dramatist find means to break through these barriers of conventional reserve. While they transport their hearers into such lively emotions that the outward signs thereof break forth involuntarily, every man perceives those around him to be affected in the same manner and degree, and those who before were strangers ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art - and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel trans John Black
... under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before. It is said that Deucalion and Pyrrha created men by throwing stones over their ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... inside my sleeve, Good to be ready always; you, John, go And bid them set up many suits of arms, Bows, archgays, lances, in the base-court, and Yourself, from the south postern setting out, With twenty men, be ready to break through Their unguarded rear when ...
— The Defence of Guenevere and Other Poems • William Morris
... Dick was back at the powerhouse in the big dome. Every city was ready. In several places the hammering heads had broken through the outer layers, and were banging at the translucent inner ceiling. The creatures had learned how to break through. ...
— Wanted—7 Fearless Engineers! • Warner Van Lorne
... an effort to break through the barricade of falsehood; and a dozen times I drove her back, all but crying to her, "No, No! Don't ask me!" Until at last, late one night, she caught my hand and clung to it in a grip I could not break. "Mary! Mary! You must tell ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... Abbatt, a very worthy lady, who has often the afflatus upon her, and who can hold forth with a good deal of earnestness and perspicuity. Although Mr. Jesper and Mrs. Abbatt do the greatest portion of the talking and praying, others break through the ring fence of Quakerdom's silence periodically. One little gentleman has often small outbursts; but he is not very exhilerating. All the "members" attending the meeting house are very decorous, respectable, middle-class people—substantial ...
— Our Churches and Chapels • Atticus
... him at times to leave what he is doing and listen. And when in some depth of need he sends a message, then, because no other ear than his may catch the answer given, is there for that reason none? The soul is like science; it cannot break through its boundaries and burst in upon the unknowable that surrounds its little realm of knowledge, but wherever it presses against these barriers they recede without being destroyed, and the adventurer, still in his own domain, brings back new treasures to the old life. The source of ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... and a sound of scuffling; then the voice of the Heif-goat: "I've been examining things, and there are two barrels. I think I could put one on the top of the other. They might reach to the window, but it has two great wooden bars, I couldn't break through." ...
— Soap-Bubble Stories - For Children • Fanny Barry
... its fourth task of protecting the flank of the Battalion, and dug themselves in on a line just east of the captured slag-heap. A Company under Captain Challoner, in the centre, also ran into the wire of the same position rather further north, but were able to break through without much difficulty. Then, led by Captain Challoner with great dash and determination, they pushed on rapidly through the eastern outskirts of the village, seized the cemetery, and there divided. One platoon joined hands with the 7th Gloucesters, whose successful attack from the west had ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... anything less than elephants, rhinoceros, or buffaloes; and even for these I would not go out unless the king went with me;—a dodge I conceived would tend more than any other to bring us together, and so break through those ceremonial restraints of the court, which at present were stopping ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... that we should try to communicate with my uncle from the back of the house or the roof. He says he could climb the durian tree and break through quietly." ...
— The Rajah of Dah • George Manville Fenn
... to rescue; but soon after the executioner had done his duty, there was an attack made upon him, as usual on such occasions, by the boys and blackguards throwing stones and dirt in testimony of their abhorrence of the hangman. But there was no attempt to break through the guard and cut down the prisoner. It was generally said that there was very little, if any, more violence than had usually happened on such occasions. Porteous, however, inflamed with wine and jealousy, thought proper to order his Guard to fire, their ...
— The Jacobite Rebellions (1689-1746) - (Bell's Scottish History Source Books.) • James Pringle Thomson
... Vaarnsland a road of rock, contained between two lines a little way apart and very prolonged, between which is visible in the midst a level space, graven all over with characters made to be read. And though this lies so unevenly as sometimes to break through the tops of the hills, sometimes to pass along the valley bottoms, yet it can be discerned to preserve continuous traces of the characters. Now Waldemar, well-starred son of holy Canute, marvelled at these, and desired to know their purport, and sent men to go along the rock and gather with close ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... uninstructed person to travel; unless accompanied by a capable occultist as guide. Therefore, I caution all students against trying to force development in that direction. Nature surrounds you with safeguards, and interposes obstacles for your own protection and good. Do not try to break through these obstacles without knowledge of what you are doing. "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread," remember; and "a little learning is a dangerous thing." When you have reached the stage of development in which it will be safe for you ...
— Clairvoyance and Occult Powers • Swami Panchadasi
... in the heavens, eternal God! Thy goodness in full glory shines; Thy truth shall break through every cloud That ...
— Hymns for Christian Devotion - Especially Adapted to the Universalist Denomination • J.G. Adams
... and explain what a Nymph is, or why Liberty is the 'Mountain Nymph'! Go on reading: the Prince has always to break through briers to kiss the Sleeping Beauty awake. Go on with the incantation, calling him, persuading him, that he is the Prince and she is worth it. ...
— On The Art of Reading • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... infantry, was stationed at the village of Mulheim, on the Ruhr, and apparently out of convenient supporting distance from Spinola's main army. The stadholder determined to deliver a sudden blow upon this tender spot, break through the lines, and bring on a general action by surprise. Assembling his well-seasoned and veteran troopers in force, he divided them into two formidable bands, one under the charge of his young brother Frederic Henry, the other under that most brilliant of cavalry officers, Marcellus ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... give you a fine variety of savage prospects. The king has humoured the genius of the place, and only made use of so much art as is necessary to help and regulate nature, without reforming her too much. The cascades seem to break through the clefts and cracks of rocks that are covered over with moss, and look as if they were piled upon one another by accident. There is an artificial wildness in the meadows, walks, and canals; and the garden, instead of a wall, is fenced on the lower end by a ...
— On the Portraits of English Authors on Gardening, • Samuel Felton
... heavenly quietness and decency of life, of late breakfasts and later dinners, there is no need to tell, but even before the week was up unrest troubled us. The Division might go violently into action. The Germans might break through. The "old Div." would be wanting us, and we who felt towards the Division as others feel towards their Regiments were eager ...
— Adventures of a Despatch Rider • W. H. L. Watson
... trader bound to Leghorn, and from that to France. She had a little money, but it was less than little as they would take for all they done. I'm a'most glad on it, though they was so poor! What they done, is laid up wheer neither moth or rust doth corrupt, and wheer thieves do not break through nor steal. Mas'r Davy, it'll outlast all the treasure ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens
... declare, makes me ashamed! True one is bound to resist the Devil in all shapes; if a man come to steal from you, you will put on what locks and padlocks are at hand, and not on the whole say, "Steal, then!" But if the locks prove insufficient, and the thief do break through,—that side of the alternative also will suit you very well; and, with perhaps a faint prayer for gibbets when they are necessary, you will say to him, next time, ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... least; No prejudice to high thing, intellect Would do and will do, only give the means. Miranda, in my picture-gallery, Presents a Blake; be Clara—Meissonnier! Merely considered so, by artist, mind! For, break through Art and rise to poetry, Bring Art to tremble nearer, touch enough The verge of vastness to inform our soul What orb makes transit through the dark above, And there's the triumph!—there the incomplete, More than completion, matches ...
— An Introduction to the Study of Browning • Arthur Symons
... said Dorothy, "I want to hide a lot of monkeys about three inches high, and after the cake is placed on the banquet table, I want the monkeys to break through the frosting and dance around on the table-cloth. Then, I want each monkey to cut out a piece of cake and hand it to ...
— The Magic of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... will becomes free and controls its own environment—in short, we are out of prison. But even here, Mr. Henley, by practicing the self-control we were speaking of, the will becomes so powerful that it can sometimes break through the bondage of matter, which, after all, is no more real than the stuff a dream is made of, and mold its prison walls into any form it chooses; in which case, of course, it is no longer a prison, and the other world is achieved without the change ...
— The Ghost of Guir House • Charles Willing Beale
... sniffling. "Helena," I heard her say, "this is terrible." But meantime I was pulling off my sweater and fastening on a life belt. Nodding to Peterson, we both picked up the dingey, and when the next sea favored, made a swift run in the endeavor to break through the surf. ...
— The Lady and the Pirate - Being the Plain Tale of a Diligent Pirate and a Fair Captive • Emerson Hough
... constantly was with his guards, was no easy matter. Or if it had been, the presence of the queen, Hamlet's mother, who was generally with the king, was a restraint upon his purpose, which he could not break through. Besides, the very circumstance that the usurper was his mother's husband, filled him with some remorse and still blunted the edge of his purpose. The mere act of putting a fellow-creature to death was in itself odious and terrible to a disposition ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb
... when we finished our breakfast, "what are we going to do today, sis?" says he. "It's good tracking snow, but there ain't nothing to track. There ain't no need to see how the hay's holding out or to wonder if the cows can break through the ice to get at water. There ain't no horses in the barns. We ain't got a single thing to do—not even feed ...
— The Man Next Door • Emerson Hough
... Bid her, from me, break through the snares, and come. Then we can see what must be ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... looking at her young kinswoman's face, noting the granite under the velvet softness of its youth, and divining the flame underlying the granite. I longed to break through her wall and to put my arms about her, and on the impulse of the moment I cast aside the pretense ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... that boys and girls are likely to hit their fingers cracking walnuts, has developed a walnut with a very thin shell, so thin in fact that the birds can break through it and help themselves to the meat. Now he has to thicken ...
— Modern Americans - A Biographical School Reader for the Upper Grades • Chester Sanford
... that trouble you," replied von Schalckenberg. "He cannot break through; he is safely caged, and within the next three hours, please God, we shall all be with you again. Now, please listen, for there is something more that I wish you to do; but this time it is quite easy. You know ...
— With Airship and Submarine - A Tale of Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... give (A small time thence, and now prepared) beneath the violence Of great Pelides. In meantime, his present eminence Thought all things under it; and he, still where he saw the stands Of greatest strength and bravest arm'd, there he would prove his hands, Or no where; offering to break through, but that passed all his power Although his will were past all theirs, they stood him like a tower Conjoined so firm, that as a rock, exceeding high and great, And standing near the hoary sea, bears many a boisterous threat Of high-voiced winds and billows huge, ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... in attack and defense,—for all the world like two fighting dogs hunting for an opening in the fence. And all the time the grim, quiet man in blue kept contracting his lines around the wonderful tactician in gray until the whole world came to know that unless Lee could break through the gap to the southwest the end of the war was ...
— The Littlest Rebel • Edward Peple
... "Daybreak" the snow was disappearing from day to day. First it went away nearest the house, and gave place to a little forest of snowdrops and crocuses. The hyacinths in the grass began to break through the earth, coming up like a row of knuckles that first knocked ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... knowledge of our own consciousness is the absurdity. All we know is that our normal waking consciousness is only one special type. Around it lie potential forms of consciousness entirely different, and quite as real. Sometimes we, or it, or they, break through. I am paraphrasing James. Do ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... March 10—Germans attempt to break through Russian line in Northern Poland; General Eichorn's army, retreating from the Niemen, is being harried by Russian cavalry and has been pierced at one point; Austrians have successes in the ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... old turkey; come on!" said my Gouverneur Faulkner as he again began to break through the leafy barriers of ...
— The Daredevil • Maria Thompson Daviess
... hand, the Arpalones were madly, suicidally determined to break through that vortex wall, to get into the "eye," to wreak all possible damage there. Group after group after group of five jet-fighters each came driving in; and, occasionally, the combined blasts of all five made enough of opening in the wall so that the center fighter could ...
— The Galaxy Primes • Edward Elmer Smith
... too busy planning conversation. He knew Miss Sackville was "as common as the rest of 'em—and an old hand at the business, no doubt." But he simply could not abruptly break through the barrier; he must squirm through gradually. "That's a swell outfit you've got ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... come to an unhealthy spot; still it may be good for you. The blessed Huns thought they were going to break through here about last September when the battle of Wipers was fought. They had six hundred thousand men to our hundred and fifty thousand. Then that blooming Kaiser made up his mind that he would break through our lines, and get to Calais. Yes, it was a touch and go with us. Fancy four to one, and they ...
— Tommy • Joseph Hocking
... presently break through my master's house into the garden, and stand disappointed when they saw I had given them the slip. But I was beyond pursuit; and they trooped back angrily, I suppose to make fast the place against my ...
— Sir Ludar - A Story of the Days of the Great Queen Bess • Talbot Baines Reed
... the more credit in succeeding, if you have to break through a barrier of tradition and prejudice," said Madame d'Aragona, reverting rather abruptly ...
— Don Orsino • F. Marion Crawford
... man was brave and devoid of superstition. Yet, in spite of himself, these mysterious sounds, renewed night after night, irritated his nerves, and preyed upon his quiet. He thought to break through the spell by inviting a party of living guests. They came, to the number of thirty or forty; but not for their presence did the invisible revellers intermit their nocturnal visit. All heard the approach of the carriage, the steps ascending ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 97, November, 1865 • Various
... success. There were many sambur tracks in the clearings, but we realized at once that it was going to be difficult to get deer because of the dense cover; the open places were so few and small that a sambur had every chance to break through without giving a shot. ...
— Camps and Trails in China - A Narrative of Exploration, Adventure, and Sport in Little-Known China • Roy Chapman Andrews and Yvette Borup Andrews
... these broken swordsmen in every town of Italy between France and Rome. Such a net Pole shall not easily break through.' ...
— The Fifth Queen • Ford Madox Ford
... "The zebras must go! They break through our best wire fences, ruin our crops, despoil us of the fruits of long and toilsome efforts, and much expenditure. We simply can not live in a country inhabited by herds of wild zebras." And really, their contention is well founded. When it ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... undergone much modification by the incidents of this War. They remembered what had happened when they cruised outside Italian ports; they knew very probably that the British had on more than one occasion to break through the boom outside Taranto harbour, and they may have read[8] of the experience of some French ladies who came to the Albanian coast on the Citta di Bari towards the end of 1915 with 2000 kilos of milk, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 2 • Henry Baerlein
... China; and having learned the extraordinary friendship, tenderness, and devotedness of her Chinese friend, the Honourable Lady of Diong Ahok, mandarin of Foochow, who had at a few hours' notice decided to break through national customs and leave her home and family, rather than allow Miss Bradshaw to undertake the journey alone; hereby records its unbounded admiration of such Christian sympathy, and brave and generous conduct; and they trust that her own and her husband's ...
— Notable Women Of Modern China • Margaret E. Burton
... replied the captain, urbanely, "the more the partition wall is broken down in one sense, the better. Isn't it wiser for me to get money out of Mr. Houghton than to sulk and starve? I had to break through the wall to get bread. Of course," he added quietly, "we all understand one another. My military figures of speech must not be pressed too far. I do not propose to knock Mr. Houghton on the head, or even take the smallest possible advantage of him. On the contrary, because we are hostile, I shall ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... in desperation St. Clair ordered his men to break through the deadly cordon and save themselves as best they could. The Indians kept up a hot pursuit for a distance of four miles. Then, surfeited with slaughter, they turned to plunder the abandoned camp; otherwise there would have been escape for few. As it was, almost ...
— The Old Northwest - A Chronicle of the Ohio Valley and Beyond, Volume 19 In - The Chronicles Of America Series • Frederic Austin Ogg
... after another; they wearied me with questions, and all agreed in saying that I was threatened with spasm of the heart. The fainting fits, incident to the disease, had begun to show themselves. I required, it was said, to break through the usual routine of my life, to relinquish for some time my sedentary habits, and seek a complete change of air and scene, in order to give me that stimulus and energy that my tropical nature required, ...
— Raphael - Pages Of The Book Of Life At Twenty • Alphonse de Lamartine
... peak to peak they scared the feathered flocks, And far below lay weltering in their gore. The sane men wondered, trembled, and they strove To stay the furies; but they could not do it. Whate'er they did, however fenced the drove, The men would spring the bounds or else break through it, And o'er the frightful precipice they leaped, Till rock and tree seemed in their red blood steeped. One of the sane men was a great distiller And one sold liquors in a famous city; And, by the way, one was an honest miller, Who looked on both ...
— Town and Country, or, Life at Home and Abroad • John S. Adams
... lot," said Mr. Blake. "If the ice is too thin you will break through, and go into the cold water. We must be very careful, I will see if ...
— Daddy Takes Us Skating • Howard R. Garis
... brought me so close that instead of having my head split by his blade I had the hilt on my forehead here. It struck in a nasty place, but being, as my old Latin coach said, awfully thick-skulled, the pommel of the tulwar didn't break through. I say, though—never mind that— have either of you fellows a spare pair of boots? I can swap a lot of loot with you—fancy swords and guns and a chief's helmet—for them. Look; I've come down ...
— Fix Bay'nets - The Regiment in the Hills • George Manville Fenn
... leaving them dry; the courses of the streams were changed by the elevation of their beds and the falling of their banks; for one whole hour the current of the Mississippi was turned backwards towards its source, until its accumulated waters were able to break through the barrier which had dammed them up; boats were dashed on the banks, or suddenly left dry in the deserted channel, or hurried backwards and forwards with the surging eddies; while in the midst of these awful changes, electric fires, accompanied by loud rumblings, ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... in New York, via the Delaware and Raritan. Although on Sunday it was feared that these rivers would be closed with ice, we had only a little coating of Jack Frost to break through, suffering no detention, and found the bay perfectly free; ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... I honestly tried to "pole," to find whether, after all, I couldn't break through the hard dry crust of books and lectures down into what I called "the real stuff." But the deeper I dug the drier it grew. Vaguely I felt that here was crust and only crust, and that for some reason or other it was ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole
... fatal Falkirk? The army of Scotland was protected, as Wallace's army at Falkirk had been, by difficult ground. But the English archers might again rain their blinding showers of shafts into the broad mark offered by the clumps of spears, and again the English knights might break through the shaken ranks. Bruce had but a few squadrons of horse—could they be trusted to scatter the bowmen of the English forests, and to escape a flank charge from the far heavier cavalry of Edward? On the whole, was not the old strategy best, the strategy of retreat? So Bruce may have pondered. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... come from this waiting; for every hour more and more water is running to its aid, and, as its forces increase, we begin to feel sure, that, although it can neither pass over nor under, it will some day be strong enough to break through the Frost Giants' dam. And the day comes at last, when, summoning all its waters to the attack, it makes a breach in the great earth wall, and in a strong, grand column, as high as this room, marches away towards ...
— The Stories Mother Nature Told Her Children • Jane Andrews
... all the men with you.—Charge yonder fellows roundly, and break through if you can—with me it is over. I am man enough, now that I am brought to bay, to send some of these vagabond ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... States I do not think that I was ever addressed first by an American sitting next to me at table. Indeed, I never held any conversation at a public table in the West. I have sat in the same room with men for hours, and have not had a word spoken to me. I have done my very best to break through this ice, and have always failed. A Western American man is not a talking man. He will sit for hours over a stove, with a cigar in his mouth and his hat over his eyes, chewing the cud of reflection. A dozen will sit together in the same way, and there shall ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... the news of the American achievement reached the population. They knew full well what it meant. The danger was still present, but the crisis was over. The boche could not break through. He could and would be stopped and ultimately thrown back, out of France, out of Belgium, ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... most frequent way in which drafts precipitate a cold is by temporarily lowering the vital resistance. This gives the swarms of germs present almost constantly in our noses, throats, stomachs, bowels, etc., the chance they have been looking for—to break through the cell barrier and run ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... Business, in such Alliances, or in such Circumstances, that they have no proper Occasions of exerting themselves; but instead of that, are continually tugging and striving with things that are cross and ungrateful to them. And that must be a strong Mind indeed, that shall break through the Censures and Opposition of the World, and dare to quit a Station, for which a Man has been brought up, and in which he has acted for some Time, that he may get into another Sphere, where he sees he can act according to the Impulses ...
— 'Of Genius', in The Occasional Paper, and Preface to The Creation • Aaron Hill
... outlook, Poor changeling! trembled. Or the children, plucking In the thorn-choked gullies Wild gooseberries, scared her, The shy mountain-bear! Or the shepherds, on slopes With pale-spiked lavender And crisp thyme tufted, Came upon her, stealing At day-break through ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... he had argued both with his sister and with Roden that their marriage would be unsuitable because of their difference in social position, and had justified his opinion by declaring it to be impossible that any two persons could, by their own doing, break through the conventions of the world without ultimate damage to themselves and to others, he had silently acknowledged to himself that he also was bound by the law which he was teaching. That such conventions ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... ventured to speak of the past to him. I hoped to break through the icy reserve which he always maintains towards me now. He looked at me, I will not soon forget his eyes, and said with fearful impressiveness: 'My son is dead. You know that, Regine. We will let the dead rest in peace.' I have never ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... that crept into the system, it is well for the world that gunpowder at last came, to break through the knight's coat of mail, to teach the nobility respect for common men, roughly to end this age of so much superficial politeness and savage bravery, and to bring in a more ...
— Stories of King Arthur and His Knights - Retold from Malory's "Morte dArthur" • U. Waldo Cutler
... names were called out, she heard with unspeakable pleasure the words, "Frances Havergal, numero eins!" (number one). The "Englaenderin's" papers and conduct were so good that the masters agreed in council assembled to break through the rule for once and give her ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... two conditions: a very small class to whom he must kneel, and a very large number who must kneel to him. Even his mother addressed him publicly as "My Lord Count." On rare occasions, in the deep privacy of her closet, mother-love would get the better of her and break through the crust of ceremony. Then she indulged herself and him in the ravishing, though doubtful, luxury of calling him "Little Max." No one but I, and perhaps at rare intervals Duke Frederick, ever witnessed this lapse ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... sneak up to the buffaloes; but the sentinel found that out. And now the bull buffaloes are ready for him. The tiger growls in rage. He prowls round and round the ring of bull buffaloes, as you see in the picture. But he dare not try to break through those horns. ...
— The Wonders of the Jungle - Book One • Prince Sarath Ghosh
... a stone. That that stone should have feeling is not natural, but supernatural. God, to give sensation to that stone, must break through the natural order of things, because to feel is beyond the native powers of a stone. It is not natural for an animal to reason, it is impossible. God must work a miracle to make it understand. Well, the stone is just as capable of feeling, and the animal ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... anything else but honest and sincere. It was not for them to see into the future, nor yet to solve those impossibly intricate problems of human passion, of human strength and weakness, which, in defiance of all laws human and divine, break through the traditions of ages, make a mockery of all commonplace laws, and finally solve themselves with an accuracy as pitiless as ...
— The Missionary • George Griffith
... to go west 14 miles, when we break through a long line of heavy brash mixed with large lumps and 'growlers' We do this under the fore-topsail only, the engines being stopped to protect the propeller. This takes us into open water, where we make S. 50 W. for 24 miles. Then we again encounter pack which forces us to the north-west ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... early when Marjorie awoke the next morning. Indeed, the sun had not yet risen, but the coming of this event had cast rosy shadows before. The east was cloudily bright, where the golden beams were trying to break through the lingering shades of night, and the scattering clouds were masses of pink ...
— Marjorie's Maytime • Carolyn Wells
... found himself near Hassler, he would have fled at once in terror and emotion. But he butted with all his force, like a ram, among the skirts and legs that divided him from Hassler. He was too small; he could not break through. ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... stuck his rifle butt first in the snow. He walked over to it; Hazel followed. When he stood, with the rifle slung in the crook of his arm, she tried again to break through this silent aloofness which cut her more deeply than any harshness of speech ...
— North of Fifty-Three • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... energy. The most fiercely driven rays of the fishes flamed incandescent against it, in vain. Even the incredible violence of a concentration of every available force-ball against one point could not break through. At that unimaginable explosion water was hurled for miles. The bed of the ocean was not only exposed, but in it there was blown a crater at whose dimensions the Terrestrials dared not even guess. The crawling fortresses ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... clocks as ever permitted themselves so far to break through their constitutional reserve as to speak above a whisper, had announced in varying tones that it was midnight, yet the group of men seated in easy attitudes before the fire in one of the sitting-rooms of the St. Filipe Club showed no signs of breaking ...
— The Pagans • Arlo Bates
... Ammalat is not frank or confiding. I cannot blame him. I know how difficult it is to break through habits imbibed with a mother's milk, and with the air of one's native land. The barbarian despotism of Persia, which has so long oppressed Aderbidjan, has instilled the basest principles into the Tartars of the Caucasus, and has polluted their sense of honour by the most despicable ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 53, No. 331, May, 1843 • Various
... at all mortified, when sometimes I see my Works thrown aside by Men of no Taste nor Learning. There is a kind of Heaviness and Ignorance that hangs upon the Minds of ordinary Men, which is too thick for Knowledge to break through. Their Souls ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... freely of Tibr stored in quills, carried behind the ear, and sold at Suez—not at Cairo for fear of consequences. Yet neither promises nor bribes would persuade the poorest to break through the rule of silence. The whole might have been a canard: on the other hand, there was also a valid reason for reticence; the open mouth would not long have led to a sound throat. So our many informants contented themselves ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... his perpetual sleep so far as to obtain from him answers to her questions. It would be an easy matter to lay one hand upon his brow, bidding him see and speak—how easy, she alone knew. But on the other hand, to disturb his slumber was to interfere with the continuity of the great experiment, to break through a rule lately made, to incur the risk of an accident, if not of ...
— The Witch of Prague • F. Marion Crawford
... point out many inconveniences arising from the fact that the old economic forms are retained when moral conditions which befitted them have entirely disappeared, but until employers of domestic labor become conscious of their narrow code of ethics, and make a distinct effort to break through the status of mistress and servant, because it shocks their moral sense, there is no chance ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... shabbily. But it shan't be so any longer; I stand up for the aard-vark; and, although the tamanoir has been specially called Myrmecophaga, or ant-eater, I say that the Orycteropus is as good an ant-eater as he. He can break through ant-hills quite as big and bigger—some of them twenty-feet high—he can project as long and as gluey a tongue—twenty inches long—he can play it as nimbly and "lick up" as many white ants, as any tamanoir. He can grow as fat too, ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... The seamen lined the barricade and made a strenuous resistance. Cutlass clashed against Moorish yatagan; the Moors were too crowded together to use their guns, and as they could gather no more closely in front than the sailors stood, they were unable to break through the barricade. At last, after many had fallen, the rest retired. Three or four of the sailors had received more or less severe wounds, but none were absolutely disabled. Tom Stevens had fought pluckily among the rest, and Will was ready with his shouts of ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty
... though I indeauerd all day yesterday to get a ffew days more I can not because they say they see I am dallied w{th} all & so they say I shall be for euer: so I can not reuoke my doome I haue cryd myself dead & could find in my hart to break through all & get to y{e} king & neuer rise till he weare pleasd to pay this; but I am sick & weake & vnfitt for yt; or a Prison; I shall go to morrow: But I will send my mother to y{e} king w{th} a Pitition for I see euery body are words: & I will not perish in a Prison from whence he swears ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. I (of 6) • Aphra Behn
... compliance With the humours and desires of the men. On the contrary, nothing was wanting to soothe, encourage, and soften the sense of their condition to them. Men know not in general how much they destroy of their own pleasure, when they break through the respect and tenderness due to our sex, and even to those of it who live only by pleasing them. And this was a maxim perfectly well understood by these polite voluptuaries, these profound adepts in the great art and science of ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... before he and his squire had time to offer any effectual resistance, they had borne him to the ground. Then, throwing chains of steel around him, they carried him, helpless as an infant, before the King. Thence, without form of trial, he was cast into a dungeon, so massive that no strength could break through it. There, guarded night and day by lynx-eyed warders, he languished for many long years, his only companion being the faithful De Fistycuff; their chief subject of conversation being the deeds that they had done, and the wonders they had seen, and the deeds they would ...
— The Seven Champions of Christendom • W. H. G. Kingston
... successfully held the line of the River Aisne between Soissons and Villers against the most desperate endeavours of the enemy to break through, that memorable battle has now been brought to a conclusion, so far as the British Forces are concerned, by the operation which has once more placed us on the left flank of ...
— 1914 • John French, Viscount of Ypres
... these fascinating, electric, magnetic beings was Clinton. Louis had long been one of his captives, but he was such a gay, frank, confiding, porous hearted being, it was not strange, but that he should break through the triple bars of coldness, haughtiness and reserve, which Mittie had built around her, so high no mortal had scaled them—this was more ...
— Helen and Arthur - or, Miss Thusa's Spinning Wheel • Caroline Lee Hentz
... out to drill in the open sea, and every Saturday they went straight back to those same islands, so as to let the married men in the squadron get back to Toulon to their family duties on the Sunday. I was the first admiral to break through ...
— Memoirs • Prince De Joinville
... not to argument or persuasion or reason but to a chill February draft that blew in through the open window above his head. He couldn't get away from it. The others wouldn't let him. They got him up in a corner and he couldn't break through. He told them he was getting pneumonia, that the draft would be the death of him, that he'd take back what he said about the smoke almost suffocating him,—still they surrounded him, and argued with him, and called him things he didn't feel physically able ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... of lamentation is worked out on a grand scale, and in intimate association with the motives of brooding and of warning. Kraus is not content with the ordinary materials of composition. His creative force is always impelling him to break through the fetters of the diatonic scale, and to find utterance for his ideas in archaic and extremely exotic tonalities. The pentatonic scale is a favorite with him; he employs it as boldly as Wagner did in Das ...
— A Book of Burlesques • H. L. Mencken
... only sigh for a quiet bright spot In the churchyard by the stream, Whereon the morning sunbeams float, And the stars at midnight dream; Where only Nature's sounds may wake The sacred and silent air, And only her beautiful things may break Through the long ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... the warmth increased; and the farmers coming into town reported great ponds of water dammed up in the swales and hollows against the enormous snow-drifts. Another warm day, and these waters would break through, and the streams would go free in freshets. Tuesday dawned without a trace of frost, and still the strong warm wind blew; but now it was from the east, and as I left the carriage to enter my office I was wet by a scattering ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... requirements, such as refer to the plaiting of the hair, to being uncovered in public, are said to refer to the customs of the East, and not to bind woman in this age of progress. The principle covered by those requirements then, rules now. Paul said, Let not a Christian woman break through any of the restraints of womanhood, and so appear as do the harlots, with uncovered faces and with plaited hair, who mingle freely with men, and are shorn of that modesty and weakness so becoming woman. Woman's right to be a woman implies the right to be loved, to ...
— The True Woman • Justin D. Fulton
... carry out the plans which he had formed at Bloemfontein, namely, to outflank us with large bodies of mounted troops. He attempted to do this to the north-east of Thaba'Nchu, but at first was not successful. On a second attempt, however, he managed, after a fierce fight, to break through our lines. It was during this action that Commandant Lubbe was shot in the leg, and had the misfortune to be taken prisoner. At Frankfort also, Lord Roberts met with success, and General De la Rey was forced ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... down another large tributary, 30 m. wide, coming from the north-east, was observed on the right bank. Farther still, the river formed a large basin 300 m. wide. Lovely forest flourished round the sweeping curve of the basin. There was simply a solid mass of marvellously fresh foliage, with hardly a break through which, it seemed, a human being could pass. In that particular part the leaves came right down to the water, but there was no reason to suppose that they grew ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... two distant cities talked to each other through an intermediate town, and long-distance telephony was established. To-day special lines are built to carry long-distance messages from one great city to another, and these direct lines are used entirely except when storms break through or the rush of business makes the roundabout route through intermediate ...
— Stories of Inventors - The Adventures Of Inventors And Engineers • Russell Doubleday
... consequence, and that he must insist upon my taking the cheque. But I again declined, telling him that doing so would be a violation of a rule which I had determined to follow, and which nothing but the greatest necessity would ever compel me to break through—never to incur obligations. "But," said he, "receiving this money will not be incurring an obligation, it is your due." "I do not think so," said I; "I did not engage to serve you for money, nor will I take any from you." "Perhaps ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... error lies; let it be discovered. If I am in the wrong make me willing to retract. I want to be a Christian in deed and truth.—It was impressed upon my mind to call upon Miss M. H., and urge her to seek salvation, having long been a hearer of the Gospel. I scarcely knew how to break through, as I had no particular acquaintance with her. However, passing by the same day, providence so ordered it, that she sat facing the door. I passed, but remembering my impression, mustered courage and ...
— Religion in Earnest - A Memorial of Mrs. Mary Lyth, of York • John Lyth
... veils of illusion. Nothing is in general more gloomy and monotonous than declamations on the hollowness and transitoriness of human life and grandeur: but here, too, the great charm of Marcus Aurelius, his emotion, comes in to relieve the monotony and to break through the gloom; and even on this eternally used topic he is imaginative, fresh, ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... these distinguished adversaries, but held on his way pluckily, and without a swerve. It was a sight to see those two cunningly lay wait for him, like two spiders for a fly. There was nothing for it but to plunge headlong into their web in a desperate effort to break through. Alas! brave man! Naylor has him in his clutches, the Craven forwards come like a deluge on the spot, our forwards pour over the Craven, and in an instant our hero and the ball have vanished from sight under a heap ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... charm over us is indispensable too; and this strangeness must be sweet also—a lovely strangeness. And to the true admirers of Michelangelo this is the true type of the Michelangelesque—sweetness and strength, pleasure with surprise, an energy of conception which seems at every moment about to break through all the conditions of comely form, recovering, touch by touch, a loveliness found usually only in the simplest natural ...
— The Renaissance - Studies in Art and Poetry • Walter Pater
... the stride of his horse had been checked by a dense mass of plunging animals in front—a mass that grew more dense and more tangled with every instant. Those behind were still endeavouring to press forward, and those in front were hurled back upon them or were striving frantically to break through the rearmost squadrons and escape; while, shrill above the clash of arms and the shouts and screams, rose a name that Sergius found himself listening to with ...
— The Lion's Brood • Duffield Osborne
... them was addressed in my mother's writing, and I feared the worst when I saw it. It was quite the wrong day for a letter from her, and I knew that nothing except a serious disaster would induce her to break through her regular rule of Sunday writing. Another of the letters came from the Archdeacon. I knew his hand. Two of the other envelopes bore handwritings which I did not recognize. The addresses of the remaining two were typewritten. I turned them all over thoughtfully and decided to open ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... Mr. Pater well observes, "these simple gifts, and others equally trivial, bread and wine, fruit and milk, might regain that poetic and, as it were, moral significance which surely belongs to all the means of our daily life, could we but break through the veil of our familiarity with things by no means vulgar ...
— The Pleasures of Life • Sir John Lubbock
... brightly for a little while in various parts of the world at different times, and flickered out. They broke forth with the fury of an explosion in France during the Revolution and in Russia during the Red Terror. They have smoldered quietly in some places and had just begun to break through with a steady, even flame. But America struck the match and gathered the wood to start her own fire. She is the first country in the world which was founded especially to promote individual freedom and the ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... lead swept the crowded masses of the attackers away. At that close range every bullet from the machine guns and rifles of the defenders drove through two or three assailants, every bomb and grenade slew a group. Only in one spot by sheer weight of numbers did they break through. ...
— The Elephant God • Gordon Casserly
... were a considerable number of fowls in the valley the progeny of some cocks and hens accidentally left there by an English vessel, and which, being strictly tabooed, flew about almost in a wild state—he determined to break through all restraints, and be the death of them. Accordingly, he provided himself with a most formidable looking gun, and announced his landing on the beach by shooting down a noble cock that was crowing what proved to be his own funeral dirge, on the limb of an adjoining ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... vigorous effort to break through the outposts and fall upon those employed in the works, harass the troops, march round them, and throw themselves in their way. A mingled shout arose from the workmen and the combatants; all things equally ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various
... undoubtedly prevent a great number in this rank of life from following the bent of their inclinations in an early attachment. Others, guided either by a stronger passion, or a weaker judgement, break through these restraints, and it would be hard indeed, if the gratification of so delightful a passion as virtuous love, did not, sometimes, more than counterbalance all its attendant evils. But I fear it must be owned ...
— An Essay on the Principle of Population • Thomas Malthus
... your head all the time and your arms most of the time. As soon as the ball is snapped, out with your arms, Thayer. Lunge against the opponent. Get him first and hold him off until you can see where the ball's going. Don't try to break through blindly. Hold him at arm's length, keep your legs out of the way and then put him in or out, as the case may be, and go through for the runner. If you can get your arms on the other fellow before the ball is snapped, do it, but don't try it too long before or you won't be able to hold ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... incomprehensible obsession, uneasy as at something of which he only waited the passing, resentful because of the discomfort this caused him, unable to break through the artificial restraint that enveloped his spirit, lifted his eyes suddenly, dead and ...
— The Silent Places • Stewart Edward White
... crop out; start up, spring up, show up, turn up, crop up; glimmer, loom; glare; burst forth; burst upon the view, burst upon the sight; heave in sight; come in sight, come into view, come out, come forth, come forward; see the light of day; break through the clouds; make its appearance, show its face, appear to one's eyes, come upon the stage, float before the eyes, speak for itself &c (manifest) 525; attract the attention &c 457; reappear; live in a glass house. expose to view ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... people, or opportunity for travel. With very few exceptions, foreigners have been confined to the extremest limit of the islands, and forbidden even to leave the coast; and in no case has any disposition been shown to satisfy the curious demands of those who have attempted to break through the national reserve. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... approached in war. More than one million men, the choicest troops of Germany, were ready to assault the British lines and they came on, wave after wave, and Germany came perilously near success in her efforts to break through the British lines. The British were driven back beyond the lines of the battle of the Somme in 1916, important towns were captured, but their lines still held. The first phase of the great battle—known in history ...
— Kelly Miller's History of the World War for Human Rights • Kelly Miller
... hide from him the Light of the world! cold winds from the desert of foiled endeavour may sorely buffet and for a time baffle his hope; but every now and then the blue pledge of a great sky will break through the clouds over his head; and a faint aurora will walk his darkest East. Gradually he grows more capable of imagining a world in which every good thing thinkable may be a fact. Best of all, the story of him who is himself the good news, the gospel of God, becomes not only more and more believable ...
— Hope of the Gospel • George MacDonald
... a feeble effort to break through, or it may be that he is doing his best, but he knows he cannot get out in that way. Suddenly he wheels and makes a dash for a part of the ring which he thinks is weakest. If he gets through he dashes away, with the others at his ...
— Healthful Sports for Boys • Alfred Rochefort
... and proper as he should, when they were for stealing him an' all t' others, and did kill poor Darley as we come fra' seeming buried. A suppose, now yo're such a Quaker that, if some one was to break through fra' t' other side o' this dyke and offer for to murder Sylvia and me, yo'd look on wi' yo'r ...
— Sylvia's Lovers — Complete • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... services more justice than your very old friend Nelson and Bronte." The order of sailing was to be the order of battle: the fleet in two lines, with an advanced squadron of eight of the fastest-sailing two-deckers. The second in command, having the entire direction of his line, was to break through the enemy, about the twelfth ship from their rear: he would lead through the centre, and the advanced squadron was to cut off three or four ahead of the centre. This plan was to be adapted to the strength of the enemy, so that they should always be one-fourth superior ...
— The Life of Horatio Lord Nelson • Robert Southey
... around the corner with his back to the wall, and his arms convulsively drawn up for a grapple; and felt something rush whirring past his flank, striking him on the shoulder as it went by, with a buffet that made a shock break through his frame. That shock restored him to his senses. His delusion was suddenly shattered. The goblin was gone. He ...
— The Ghost • William. D. O'Connor
... first moment of surprise and indignation, groped their way towards the steps and mounted the platform, where they held a council of war. Should they stay where they were or make a sally at once, break through the crowd and get back to their colleges? It was curious to see how in that short minute individual character came out, and the coward, the cautious man, the resolute prompt Englishman, each was there, and more than one ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... my lord—and you, my good ladies—that the mind must be truly diabolical, that could break through the regard due to the solemn injunctions of a dying parent. They did hold me a good while indeed; and as fast as I found any emotions of a contrary nature rise in my breast, I endeavoured for some time to suppress them, ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... Pablo; if we fell the trees inside the wood at each side, and let them lie one upon the other, the animals will never break through them." ...
— The Children of the New Forest • Captain Marryat
... tears win the notice, the affection, that would be so priceless; and, sadder still, there is many an instance where both parent and child are truly noble and affectionate, and would give the world if they could break through the separating barrier, and lavish their whole hearts on each other; but, in spite of these generous qualities, their common desires and their bitter suffering, some falsehood, some pride, some shyness, some suspicion, some chill, intangible phantom, is set fatally between them. In every community ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... to the perfection of the form. There are frequent discontinuities of thought where the style is smoothest. He reminds one at times of those Alpine glaciers where an exquisitely rounded surface of snow conceals yawning crevasses beneath; and if one stops for a moment to think, one is apt to break through the crust with an abrupt and ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... a risk in this. The sleeping emperor might at any time awake, call the people and the army to his aid, and break through the web that the great spider of military rule had woven about his court. Some great event might stir Japan to its depths and cause a vital change in the state of affairs. Such an event came in ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... century and swept it to the western edge of the plateau and beyond; others pressed into central and eastern Armenia, and, by weakening the Vannic king, enabled Ashurbanipal to announce the humiliation of Urartu; others again ranged behind Zagros and began to break through to the Assyrian valleys. Even while Ashurbanipal was still on the throne some of these last had ventured very far into his realm; for in the year of his death a band of Scythians appeared in Syria and raided southwards even to the frontier of Egypt. It was this raid which virtually ended the Assyrian ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... is dark indeed; but there are gleams of sunshine that occasionally break through the clouds. One of these is his association with Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, in the Quantock hills, out of which came the famous Lyrical Ballads of 1798. Another was his loyal devotion to poetry for its ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... his arm. Oh that she could break through that awe of him and his goodness, that shame of ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... clung to the bare ground, expecting every moment to be whirled away and whelmed in the black, howling sea. Oh, it was a night of terrible anxiety! and no one can conceive the feelings of intense gratitude and relief with which we at last saw the dawn of day break through the vapoury mists ...
— The Coral Island • R.M. Ballantyne
... educated; these conditions being variously mingled with cruder mannerisms resulting from timidity, or actual imperfection of body. Northern hands and eyes are, of course, never so subtle as Southern; and in very cold countries, artistic execution is palsied. The effort to break through this timidity, or to refine the bluntness, may lead to a licentious impetuosity, or an ostentatious minuteness. Every man's manner has this kind of relation to some defect in his physical powers or modes of thought; so that in the greatest work there is no manner visible. It is at first ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... made out a regiment, drawn up with leveled rifles. In one last desperate attempt to break through, Hal and the driver of the ...
— The Boy Allies On the Firing Line - Or, Twelve Days Battle Along the Marne • Clair W. Hayes
... heroic words, and plant our lives upon as secure an ethical foundation as he did. Let us make pilgrimages to Concord, and stand with uncovered heads beneath the pine tree where his ashes rest. He left us an estate in the fair land of the Ideal. He bequeathed us treasures that thieves cannot break through and steal, nor time corrupt, nor rust ...
— The Last Harvest • John Burroughs
... Argos held out against him, and the positions were rapidly reversed. Under the experienced direction of Kolokotronis, the Greeks from their hill-fastnesses ringed round the plain of Argos and scaled up every issue. Dramali's supplies ran out. An attempt of his vanguard to break through again towards the north was bloodily repulsed, and he barely succeeded two days later in extricating the main body in a demoralized condition, with the loss of all his baggage-train. The Turkish army melted away, Dramali was happy ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... when day's first glimmerings break Through curtains half withdrawn, To lie and smell it, scarce awake, In some great farm at dawn; Cocks crow, the milkmaid clanks the pails, The housemaid bangs the stairs; And BACON suddenly assails ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch |
