"Rubicon" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Austrian ultimatum, and thereafter and for the space of about a week a series of diplomatic communications passed between the Chancelleries of Europe, designed on their face to prevent a war and yet so ineffective that the war is precipitated and the fearful Rubicon crossed before the world knew, except imperfectly, the nature of the differences between the Governments involved. The ethical aspects of this great conflict must largely depend upon the record that has been made up by the official communications which can, therefore, be treated as documentary ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... ac si auribus lupum teneas. Tu vero da operam, et cum primum Petrus responderit, me de eo facias certiorem: nam hoc solum expecto" (Ep. I. 21). From this time his mind was made up: he would leap the Rubicon: he would go in for the forgery, and his friend must have confidence in him. So speaking of his powers for the great task which he meditated he proceeds thus interestingly in the letter to Niccoli bearing date London, the 10th of June, 1422: ...
— Tacitus and Bracciolini - The Annals Forged in the XVth Century • John Wilson Ross
... citizen had been asked if he did not fear that the conqueror of Gaul might establish a throne upon the ruins of public liberty, he would have instantly repelled the unjust insinuation. Yet Greece fell; Caesar passed the Rubicon, and the patriotic arm even of Brutus could not preserve the liberties of his devoted country! The celebrated Madame de Stael, in her last and perhaps her best work, has said, that in the very year, almost the very month, when the president of the Directory ...
— Henry Clay's Remarks in House and Senate • Henry Clay
... dictionary, and found that the Rubicon flowed through Cesena. They were amazed, and, as I wished them to have full scope for wrong reasoning, ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... the lines of battle form. When John Brown crossed the Nation's Rubicon, Him Freedom followed in the battle-storm, And John Brown's soul ...
— The Arena - Volume 18, No. 92, July, 1897 • Various
... themselves or their significance. I do not now recall any of the facts connected with the great epoch-making events of classic times; I cannot tell as I write, for example, who fought in the battle of the Allia; why Caesar crossed the Rubicon, or why Cicero delivered ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... you have, and what's unknown The same (my Lord) if Tully's, or your own. All that we feel of it begins and ends In the small circle of our foes or friends; To all beside as much an empty shade An Eugene living, as a Caesar dead; Alike or when, or where, they shone, or shine, Or on the Rubicon, or on the Rhine. A wit's a feather, and a chief a rod; An honest man's the noblest work of God. Fame but from death a villain's name can save, As justice tears his body from the grave; When what the oblivion ...
— Essay on Man - Moral Essays and Satires • Alexander Pope
... it was a confidence inspired by a liberal dose of brandy. He felt that he had already passed the Rubicon. There could be ...
— The Submarine Hunters - A Story of the Naval Patrol Work in the Great War • Percy F. Westerman
... from pleasure. She said a gentle word to each girl, and a minute afterwards they had, so to speak, crossed the Rubicon, and were in the heart of Aylmer House; for Aneta had seized Merry's hand, and Cicely followed immediately afterwards, while Molly and Belle found themselves one at each ...
— The School Queens • L. T. Meade
... "The Rubicon is forded," thought Rosa, complacently, the while her compassion for him was sincere and strong. "He can never shut his heart inexorably ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... postponed; and on the 29th McClellan desired Banks to ascertain the intentions of the enemy as soon as possible, and if he were in force to drive him from the Valley of the Shenandoah. Thus spurred, Banks at last resolved to cross the Rubicon. "Deficiency," he replied, "in ammunition for Shields' artillery detains us here; expect it hourly, when we shall push Jackson sharply." It was not, however, till April 2, four days later, that Mr. Lincoln's protege crossed Tom's Brook. His advanced ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... well known, after the German peace action had failed, the definite decision to declare unrestricted submarine war was taken in Pless on the 9th January. In this way, as the Chancellor said, the Rubicon was crossed. War with the United States seemed inevitable, unless it were found possible at the eleventh hour to annul the decision of the German Government. Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg has declared ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... remember a certain saying of Squire Cumpston? It was this: "If you're going to cross the Rubicon, cross it! Don't wade out to the middle and stand there: you only ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... inevitable. I am not speaking of what men talk about in such cases, or of what they do, but of what they feel,—of the fact that, in too many instances, Nature not having meant men for bondage, after they have passed the Rubicon to that spot from which the code of civilized honor does not permit them to turn back, they usually have a period of regret, and are forced to make a real effort to face the ...
— Told in a French Garden - August, 1914 • Mildred Aldrich
... with an eagerness somewhat deeper than the mannish pride of youths who have just crossed the Rubicon that divides them from their much-scorned 'teens.' "I have advanced, and you seem to have stood still; there is scarcely any difference between us now." And Olive, somewhat amused, let her old ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... if her eyes had not laughed at him with that twinkle of good-fellowship which he had noted on the night of the supper, Pellams never would have had the nerve. That look hauled him over the Rubicon; they went down the arcade together, in the face of Jimmy Mason, the loafers, the whole crowd shifting between lectures. Yet the sun shone as brightly on the palm-circles, the Quadrangle pillars kept their perpendicular. A little ...
— Stanford Stories - Tales of a Young University • Charles K. Field
... affairs was most alarming. Caesar and Pompey were in antagonism. He must choose between them, and he distrusted both. Caesar was the more able, accomplished, and magnanimous, but he was the more unscrupulous and dangerous. He had ventured to cross the Rubicon,—the first general who ever dared thus openly to assail his country's liberties. Pompey was pompous, overrated, and proud, and had been fortunate in the East. But then he sided with the Constitutional authorities,—that is, with the Senate,—so far as his ambition allowed. So Cicero took ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume III • John Lord
... of their knowledge of what was passing in the way of policy, exerted an influence on the strategy of the forces on both sea and land; Caesar, for instance, was embarrassed in many of his operations by the Roman Senate, and it was for this reason that he crossed the Rubicon and passed from Gaul into Italy. When William I and Napoleon III went to war in 1870, however, Von Moltke had foreseen the effects of the telegraph and of rapid-mail communications, in giving to the headquarters of the army information of a much greater ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... There the bottom was so soft, and the dray wheels had become so embedded in the mud, that only with the assistance of the second team could the passage be effected. The second dray was not even so fortunate as the first; for all efforts of the double team were unavailing to pass the rubicon; and it settled in the mud mid-way between the banks. Adding to this, the fact that the water was already above the axle, and consequently damaging the loading; and that in all probability, if not speedily extricated, the dray would become even more immovable; it was evident, ...
— Fern Vale (Volume 1) - or the Queensland Squatter • Colin Munro
... The little Rubicon doth brim Its purple tide—a check for him, Hinted, how vainly![15] He All bounds and marks, the world's dull wonder, Calmly o'erleaps, and snaps asunder All reverend ties that be! The soldier carries in his sword The primal right by bridge or ford To pass. Shall kingly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... in the same way. As with nervous pain it seems at first impossible to "relax to it;" but the Rubicon once crossed, we cannot long be irritable,—it is so much simpler not to be, ...
— Power Through Repose • Annie Payson Call
... world or its senseless gossip; my prudence, or my self-restraint! These all seemed to vanish in a day; and, yielding myself, slavishly, a willing captive to bright eyes and silvery tones, upon one fine morning I passed the Rubicon of safety, and offered her my hand and heart. But, to my sore dismay, she only ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 9 • Various
... modico parvisque impellitur undis Puniceus Rubicon, cum fervida canduit aestas— Tunc vires ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch
... fling a bomb at him, and I have met several young ladies almost as pretty as you who were ready enough to adopt the latter alternative. At any rate you will take no harm by crossing the Danube. It is not the Rubicon, you know, and you have Saint Peter to lean on in case ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... the better financial terms which removed her {148} most tangible grievance. By this time most of the leaders of the repeal party were ready for this step, even though their followers were not. Had Howe sunk his egoism and consulted them before he crossed the Rubicon, had there been no telegraph between Ottawa and Halifax, so that he could have come personally and have been the first to explain to them the improved financial terms which he had won, and the necessity of his entering the Cabinet as a pledge of his sincerity, they would probably have been satisfied. ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant
... was forty then; and this is the cruelest cut of all! Had it been thirty-nine or fifty! Thirty-nine is still under the mark, and fifty so far beyond it, so hopeless; but forty—the critical age, the Rubicon—I cannot, will not, dwell on it. But, O America! land of my devotion and my idolatry! is it from you the blow has come? Let Quarterlys and Blackwoods libel, but the Boston Literary! ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... 12,340; and visitors, including 'passengers' as well as ships' crews, averaged 11,876; or excluding male hangers-on from the one side and passengers from the other side, residents averaged 5,660 and visitors 5,435. Figures no longer yielded an uncertain sound. The Rubicon was only just crossed, but was indisputably and irrevocably crossed. Thenceforth the living-rooms were larger than the corridors, and political arithmetic pointed at the permanent occupants as the men of destiny. In 1764 the new tilt of the balance struck the law officers of the Crown, ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... hands with her. Amongst those who did so was Fanny Crawford. She squeezed Betty's hand significantly, and at the same moment put her finger to her lips. This action was so quick that only Betty observed it; but it told the girl that, now that she had "crossed the Rubicon," Fanny would not be the one ...
— Betty Vivian - A Story of Haddo Court School • L. T. Meade
... picturesque entry into Dunkirk, with its drawbridge and mediaeval towers and grey city wall; here our passes were again examined, and there was a long queue of cars waiting to get through as we drew up. Once "across the Rubicon" we sped through the town and in time came to Furnes with its quaint old market place. Already the place was showing signs of wear and tear. Shell holes in some of the roofs and a good many broken panes, together with the general air of desertion, all combined ...
— Fanny Goes to War • Pat Beauchamp
... early as 1839 Sterling had written an article in the Westminster, which gave him intense pleasure; for while contemning praise in almost the same words as Byron did, he loved it equally well. In 1840 he had crossed the Rubicon that lies between aspiration and attainment. The populace might be blind or dumb, the "rattlesnakes"—the "irresponsible indolent reviewers," who from behind a hedge pelt every wrestler till they found societies for the victor—might still obscurely hiss; but Carlyle was at length safe by the ...
— Thomas Carlyle - Biography • John Nichol
... love—she owes him at least the outside observances of love. If he has pretended love and it is for some other motive, his Nemesis will fall upon himself in the disillusion and contempt he will inspire. But in all cases the woman, through want of intelligence or pure misfortune, has crossed the Rubicon with him; she has allowed him to teach her the meaning of dual life—she has put it into his power with her to create future lives. She cannot, for any price or any prayers, recross that fatal stream. So for all reasons of common ...
— Three Things • Elinor Glyn
... like impartial grace affords, And Choughs and Daws, and such republic birds: Secured with ample privilege to feed, Each has his district, and his bounds decreed; Combined in common interest with his own, But not to pass the Pigeon's Rubicon. ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... case. If we do we shall tarnish the laurels of Caesar, who would have shown no genius in killing the republic had the republic been already dead. There was still respect for the law and the constitution. Pompey's hesitation when supreme power was within his grasp, Caesar's own pause at the Rubicon, are proofs of it. The civil wars of Marius and Sulla had fearfully impaired, in the eyes of Romans, but they had not utterly destroyed, the majesty of Rome. There were still great characters—characters which you may dislike, but of which you can never ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... no dreams? Does the soul wither at that Rubicon which lies between the Gallic country of youth and the Rome of manliness? Does not fancy still love to cheat the heart, and weave gorgeous tissues to hang upon that horizon which lies along the years that are to come? Is happiness so exhausted that no ...
— Dream Life - A Fable Of The Seasons • Donald G. Mitchell
... cried dramatically. "We have crossed the Rubicon and found the Golden Fleece! This is the place of all others for our Tea Club meeting, and it doesn't matter what the rest of the house may be like. Patty, you will kindly consider the ...
— Patty at Home • Carolyn Wells
... said coolly, 'back again to its proper owner, I suppose. Well, let it. We have no further need of it, for, like Caesar, we have now crossed the Rubicon. We are no longer convicts from a French prison, my friend, but shipwrecked sailors; you hear?'—with a sudden scintillation from his black eyes— 'shipwrecked sailors; and I will tell the story of the wreck. Luckily, I can depend on your discretion, as you have not even a tongue to ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... Webster, in the decline of his life, intoxicated by his magnificent position or led astray by ambition, made serious political errors. What then? All great men have made errors, both in judgment and in morals,—Caesar, when he crossed the Rubicon; Theodosius, when he slaughtered the citizens of Thessalonica; Luther, when he quarrelled with Zwingli; Henry IV., when he stooped at Canossa; Elizabeth, when she executed Mary Stuart; Cromwell, when he bequeathed absolute power to his son; Bacon, when ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... search of gorgeous sunrises. His devil should be transformed into a backbone of unremitting apprenticeship in loving service for the father who had built for him in love. Though his head split, he would master every detail of the business. And when Jack stepped into the Rubicon he did not splash around or look back. He went right over to the new country ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... difference, the coward sees the danger, and sickens under it; the hero, warmed by the difficulty, dilates, and rises in proportion to that, and in some sort makes use of his very fears to disarm it. A remarkable instance of this we have in the great Caesar, when he came to the Rubicon, and was entering upon a part, perhaps, the most hazardous he ever bore (certainly the most ungrateful), a war with his countrymen. When his mind brooded over personal affronts, perhaps his anger burned with a desire of revenge. But when more serious reflections laid before him ...
— The Tatler, Volume 1, 1899 • George A. Aitken
... poverty in our midst." She raised her head and looked round the room. No, there was nothing left to sell or pawn—for her dire necessity had driven her to the pawnshop, that last refuge of the destitute, that dire rubicon which, having passed it, a girl like Celia feels is the last barrier between ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... consider the shot across my bows as an attack," said he, and he slapped on every stitch of canvas, so that the Emilie was soon abreast of the Britisher. Boom! A broadside roared into her and she struck her colors. Bold Robert Surcouf had passed the Rubicon,—he had seen the English flag lowered to him, for the first time; and his heart swelled with patriotic pride, in spite of the fact that this was an act of piracy, for which he could be hanged ...
— Famous Privateersmen and Adventurers of the Sea • Charles H. L. Johnston
... success; yet as I quitted the examination- room and descended into the quadrangle of the Ecole, crowded with sauntering groups of garrulous students, my spirit was heavy within me, and the expression of my face could hardly have been that of a young man who has safely passed the Rubicon of scientific apprenticeship, and who sees the laurels and honors of the world within his reach. The world? The very thought of its possible homage repelled me, for I knew that its best successes and its loudest praise are accorded to men ...
— Dreams and Dream Stories • Anna (Bonus) Kingsford
... the deed still remained to be done, the conflict between the conscience and the evil intentions of Rainscourt had been dreadful; but now that it was done, now that the Rubicon had been passed, to listen to the dictates of conscience was useless; and, worn out as it had been, in the struggle, and further soothed by the anticipation of continued prosperity, it no longer had ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... crush enemies. The Senate vainly commanded him to disperse his army by a certain day, on pain of being considered an enemy of the country. He continued to advance till he came to the boundaries of Italy, a little river, whose name, the Rubicon, was then made famous forever, which separated Cisalpine Gaul from Umbria. To cross this was practically to declare war, and even the resolute Caesar hesitated awhile. He thought his course over ...
— Roman life in the days of Cicero • Alfred J[ohn] Church
... latter answered quickly. "We change. Read First Corinthians, seventh chapter, and if you take Paul's advice and don't pass the Rubicon, then you 'll be free to change ...
— The Opened Shutters • Clara Louise Burnham
... progress, and glorifies our descendants more than it abases our ancestors. But to whichever view we may incline on sentimental grounds the fact remains that, while Charles Darwin declared language to form no impassable barrier between man and the lower animals, Professor Max Muller calls it the Rubicon which no brute dare cross, and deduces hence the conclusion that man cannot have descended from an unknown ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... destiny—not of an individual, but of the human race; a life risked without hesitation or retrospect in venturing into the unknown and phantom-peopled ocean, 1,500 leagues across, and on which the first step no more allowed of second thoughts than Caesar's passage of the Rubicon; untiring study, knowledge as extensive as the science of his day, skillful but honorable management of courts to persuade them to truth; propriety of demeanor, nobleness, and dignity in outward bearing, which ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... formidable a place as Stirling Castle!" returned Murray. "Having, indeed, passed the Rubicon, we must go forward, but resolution, not rashness, should be the principle of our actions. And my opinion is, that a few minor advantages obtained, our countrymen would flock to our standard, the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... returning expatriate had crossed his Rubicon; in other words, his train had rolled through the majestic steel bridge spanning the clay-colored flood of the Missouri River at Omaha, and he was entering upon scenes which ought to have been familiar—which should have been and were not, ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... Caesar's slowness to grasp the situation). Well, we shall now know who your foes are. The name of every man who has plotted against you since you crossed the Rubicon may be in these papers, for ...
— Caesar and Cleopatra • George Bernard Shaw
... the flame in Lennan as nothing had yet fanned it. Earthiness! Was it earthiness to love as he did? If so, then not for all the world would he be otherwise than earthy. In the shock of reading it, he crossed his Rubicon, and burned his boats behind him. No more did the pale ghost, chivalrous devotion, haunt him. He knew now that he could not stop short. Since she asked him, he must not, of course, try to see her just yet. But when he did, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... only costs. Once the Rubicon crossed, they ate heartily. The basket was emptied. It still contained one pat de foie gras, one pat de mauvette, a piece of smoked ham, Crassane pears, a Pont-l'Evque cheese, assorted petits-fours, and a cup full of pickled gherkins and onions, Boule ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... shortens the miles and the hours of your existence; so tranquil is the passage, and so easy the transition, you suffer no shock by the change of temperature about you. Happy were it for us that in our courtship, as in our voyage, there were some certain Rubicon to remind us of the miles we have journeyed! Well were it if there were some ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 2 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... Back! My soul, tempest-toss'd, Hath her Rubicon cross'd, She shall fly—saved or lost! Void of dread! Sharper pang than the steel, Thou, oh, serpent! shalt feel, Should I set the bruised heel On thy head. [He ...
— Poems • Adam Lindsay Gordon
... aware of it, Mrs. Armine crossed a Rubicon. She crossed it when she came out of the big tent into the sands to go back to the camp by the lake. While she had been with Baroudi the sky had partially cleared. Above the tents and the blazing fire some stars shone out ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... with her own hand, she drew the heavy bolts across the doors that he had closed behind him, and returned to the King, whose gesture of surprise and annoyance she affected not to remark. She had passed the Rubicon, and she felt that she had no time to lose if she did not desire to become herself the victim of the struggle in which she was engaged; and thus having announced to her son the dismissal of Richelieu and his relatives from ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... yet been made sufficiently plain is, who it was that Gracchus especially meant to benefit. Much of the public land previously described lay in the north and south of Italy from the frontier rivers Rubicon and Macra to Apulia. It formed, as Appian says, the largest portion of the land taken from conquered towns by Rome. [Sidenote: Agrarian proposals of Gracchus.] What Gracchus proposed was to take from the rich and give to the poor some of this land. It was, in fact, merely the Licinian law ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... traveled in the parts won by the destroyers. More than eighteen centuries have mourned over the loss of the empire. A mortal disease was upon her before Caesar had crossed the Rubicon; and Brutus did not restore her health by the deep probings of the senate-chamber. The Goths, and Vandals, and Huns, the swarms of the North, completed only what was begun at home. Romans betrayed Rome. The legions were bought ...
— Successful Methods of Public Speaking • Grenville Kleiser
... Rubicon; the boundaries of Cisalpine Gaul and Italy. On this side I am still the Proconsul—not as yet rightly deposed. On the other—Caesar, the Outlaw, the Insurgent, the Enemy of his Country, whose hand is against every man, every man's hand against him. What say you? Speak! speak quickly! ...
— A Friend of Caesar - A Tale of the Fall of the Roman Republic. Time, 50-47 B.C. • William Stearns Davis
... rather uncomfortable quarters and to rejoin his companions, who were awaiting him some little distance off. All were in high spirits over the success of the strategy of the Mohawk, but they could not shut their eyes to the fact that in one sense they had crossed the Rubicon. As there was no turning back, they ...
— The Wilderness Fugitives • Edward S. Ellis
... as Avon was concerned, he had crossed the Rubicon; for, if seen, it was impossible to re-enter the cabin, the door of which had ...
— The Great Cattle Trail • Edward S. Ellis
... forty-three lines of the law, and is concerned with the public land of Italy, from the Rubicon southwards. It commences by referring to the condition of this land in the year 133, when Tiberius Gracchus was tribune. The law does not affect to touch any thing which had been enacted concerning this land prior to 133. It either confirms or alters what had been done in 133, and since ...
— Public Lands and Agrarian Laws of the Roman Republic • Andrew Stephenson
... open spaces. At last they emerged upon the cleared area of the temple. There Felix, without one moment's hesitation, with a firm and resolute tread, stepped over the white coral line that marked the taboo of the great god's precincts. That was a declaration of open war; he had crossed the Rubicon of Tu-Kila-Kila's empire. Toko stood trembling on the far side; none might pass that mystic line unbidden and live, save the Korong alone who could succeed in breaking off the bough "with yellow leaves, resembling ...
— The Great Taboo • Grant Allen
... realise that posterity is the best thing a man can leave behind him. He had two sisters, both of whom were well along in life, unmarried, and possessed of their brother's disinclination to marry. To encourage them to cross the Rubicon he made the will that entailed the Canaan Tigmores to the heirs, first of one and then the other, under the following provisions: the land was to go to the male heirs of his sister Nancy Peele, from oldest ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... is preposterous in its perversity. The great if not incomparable power displayed in Webster's delineation of such criminals as Flamineo and Bosola—Bonapartes in the bud, Napoleons in a nutshell, Caesars who have missed their Rubicon and collapse into the likeness of a Catiline—is a sign rather of his noble English loathing for the traditions associated with such names as Caesar and Medici and Borgia, Catiline and Iscariot and Napoleon, than of any sympathetic interest ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... ship on the Thames, suddenly rose. It seemed to me such a wonderfully courageous act—for I knew perfectly what it would mean to him—that I immediately found myself on my feet, and went out feeling that I had crossed the Rubicon, and must do ...
— A Labrador Doctor - The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell • Wilfred Thomason Grenfell
... how important a part the ferry and the ford have played in human affairs? How differently would history read without its Caesar crossing the Rubicon, its Xerxes crossing the Hellespont, and its Washington crossing the Delaware, its Paul Revere wherried across the Charles, and its Burr and Hamilton ferried over to Weehawken,—not to speak of the Hebrews going over Jordan, Jacob ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... and killed them, first Tiberius and afterward Caius. These murders did not end the trouble. The leaders on both sides armed their followers, and bloody battles were fought in the streets. Generals led their armies to Rome, although, according to the laws, to bring an army into Italy south of the Rubicon River was to make war on the republic and be guilty of treason. Once in the city these generals put to ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... their master's expense, have put by for forty years, and yet not even by aid of interest and compound interest and perquisites and commissions squeezed out of little tradesmen and other time-honored embezzlements, have reached the rubicon of four figures. Five thousand little shopkeepers, active, intelligent and greedy, have bought wholesale and sold retail, yet never mounted so high as this above rent, housekeeping, bad debts and casualties. Many a writer of genius has charmed his ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... Fayette. He left the Assembly while they as yet formed but one party. His attachment to both is equal, and he labors incessantly to keep them together. Should he be obliged to take part against either, it will be against that which shall first pass the Rubicon of reconciliation with the other. I should hope, in this event, that his weight would be sufficient to turn the scale decidedly in favor of the other. His command of the armed militia of Paris (thirty thousand in number, and comprehending ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... simply an exposition of the power of the government—a sort of Chinese warfare of gongs and tom-toms. The passage of the Potomac and seizure of a city under the aegis of the Confederate Government was actually crossing the Rubicon and carrying the war directly into the southern territory. Fortress Monroe and other fortified points still held by the United States, in the South, were conceded to be in a measure hers, at least by the right of possession; but Alexandria ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... the Rubicon Julius Caesar was staggered at the greatness of the undertaking before him. The more he reflected and took counsel of his friends, the greater loomed the difficulties of the attempt and the more appalling the calamities his passage of that river ...
— Initiative Psychic Energy • Warren Hilton
... Rubicon Springs is such a place; a quaint old hunting and fishing camp, where a few nature lovers hide away from; the world every summer and really "rough it." I caught there some of the finest mountain trout I ...
— Reno - A Book of Short Stories and Information • Lilyan Stratton
... later life. And I may say that I became at this time as anxious about Caesar, and as desirous of reaching the truth as to his character, as we have all been in regard to Bismarck in these latter days. I lived in Caesar, and debated with myself constantly whether he crossed the Rubicon as a tyrant or as a patriot. In order that I might review Mr. Merivale's book without feeling that I was dealing unwarrantably with a subject beyond me, I studied the Commentaries thoroughly, and went through a mass of other reading which the object of a magazine ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... difficult. The Rubicon once crossed, they fell to with a will. They emptied the basket, which contained, besides the provisions already mentioned; a pate de foie gras, a lark pie, a piece of smoked tongue, some pears, a slab of gingerbread, ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Vol. 1 (of 8) - Boule de Suif and Other Stories • Guy de Maupassant
... buying up all the weapons they could find when the sale of arms, ammunition, and salt was prohibited. Detachments were despatched to the Mansu and Prahsu stations; the latter is upon the Bosom (Abosom, or Sacred) Prah, the frontier between Ashanti and the Protectorate, to cross which is to 'pass the Rubicon.' Here, as at other main fords and ferries, defensive works were laid out. Arrangements were made for holding nine out of the eighteen forts, abandoning the rest; and Accra was strengthened as the central place. The 'companies,' or 'native levies,' ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... Pithecanthropus, the brute is passing into the man. We note the erect attitude, to be inferred from his thigh-bone, and the considerably enlarged, though even so hardly human, brain. The Piltdown individual, on the other hand, has crossed the Rubicon. He has a brain-capacity entitling him to rank as a man and an Englishman. Such a brain, too, implies a cunning hand, which doubtless helped him greatly to procure his food, even if his massive jaw enabled him to dispose of the food in question without ...
— Progress and History • Various
... Warmfield, or Dewsbury, there would have been nothing remarkable in it; but Utica at once revived the scenes at school long past and half-forgotten, and carried me with full speed back again to Italy, and from thence to Africa. I crossed the Rubicon with Caesar; fought at Pharsalia; saw poor Pompey into Larissa, and tried to wrest the fatal sword from Cato's hand in Utica. When I perceived he was no more, I mourned over the noble-minded man who took that part which he thought would most benefit his country. There ...
— Wanderings In South America • Charles Waterton
... nothing more decided than taking the Riverston coach. He came back again by it while it was still daylight, having made up his mind that he must go to Lydgate's that evening. The Rubicon, we know, was a very insignificant stream to look at; its significance lay entirely in certain invisible conditions. Will felt as if he were forced to cross his small boundary ditch, and what he saw beyond it was ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... governor of Gaul. Gaul was a troublesome place to be, and they were quite willing he should go there. For a priest to go among the fighting Gauls—they smiled and stroked their chins! Gaul had definite boundaries on the south—the Rubicon marked the line—but on the north it was without limit. Real-estate owners own as high in the air and as deep in the earth as they wish to go. Caesar alone guessed ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... bulrushes on the shore of the Egyptian river; Alexander the Great gazed with amazement on the self immolation by fire to which it inspired the Gymnosophists; Casar found its tenets propagated among the Gauls beyond the Rubicon; and at this hour it reigns despotic, as the learned and travelled Professor of Sanscrit at Oxford tells us, "without any sign of decrepitude or decay, over the Burman, Chinese, Tartar, Tibetan, and Indian nations, including at least ...
— The Destiny of the Soul - A Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life • William Rounseville Alger
... Tuileries; here, at all events, he should soonest learn the worst: and every day, as he took up the English newspapers, a sick feeling of apprehension and fear came over him. No! till the seal was set upon the bond, till the Rubicon was passed, till Miss Cameron was the wife of Lord Vargrave, he could neither return to the home that was so eloquent with the recollections of Evelyn, nor, by removing farther from England, delay the receipt ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Book VI • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Caesar passed the Rubicon With helm, and shield, and breast-plate on, Dashing his war-horse through the waters; The R*d*r would have built a barge, Or steamboat, at the city's charge, And passed it with his ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 1 January 1848 • Various
... cannot give assent to my own shame 150 And ruin. Thou—no—thou canst not forsake me! So let us do, what must be done, with dignity, With a firm step. What am I doing worse Than did famed Csar at the Rubicon, When he the legions led against his country, 155 The which his country had delivered to him? Had he thrown down the sword, he had been lost, As I were, if I but disarmed myself. I trace out something in me of his spirit. Give me his luck, that ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... ever done in the world? Has it built any cities? Has it invented any telephones, any telegraphs? Has it built any steamships, established any universities, any asylums, any hospitals? Was there any chance in Caesar's crossing the Rubicon? What had chance to do with Napoleon's career, with Wellington's, or Grant's, or Von Moltke's? Every battle was won before it was begun. What had luck to do with Thermopylae, Trafalgar, Gettysburg? Our successes we ascribe to ...
— Architects of Fate - or, Steps to Success and Power • Orison Swett Marden
... must be his Rubicon. Either he must enter the unknown to seek, to strive, to find, or turn back and fail and never know and be always haunted. A friend's strange story had prompted his singular journey; a beautiful rainbow with its mystery and promise ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... even among these grave young gentlemen, by a visit from the emancipated Toots; who is regarded with a kind of awe, as one who has passed the Rubicon, and is pledged never to come back, and concerning the cut of whose clothes, and fashion of whose jewellery, whispers go about, behind hands; the bilious Bitherstone, who is not of Mr Toots's time, affecting to despise the latter to the ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... at first, and then to Fontainebleau, whilst the Prince of Conde, having retired to Meaux, summoned to his side his relatives, his friends, and all the leaders of the Reformers, and wrote to Coligny, "that Caesar had not only crossed the Rubicon, but was already at Rome, and that his banners were beginning to wave all over the neighboring country." For some days Catherine and L'Hospital tried to remain out of Paris with the young king, whom Guise, the Constable de Montmorency, and ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume IV. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... I had 'crossed the Rubicon,' however; and, ever after this, when at home of an afternoon, sometimes with Mick, who, of course, imitated me, sometimes without him on those occasions when he did not get permission to go ashore, I used ...
— Young Tom Bowling - The Boys of the British Navy • J.C. Hutcheson
... we shall be millions worse than we were at that enviable period. Such a request, had it been complied with a year ago, would have won the heart and soul of the Continent—but now it is too late, "The Rubicon is passed." ...
— Common Sense • Thomas Paine
... brave general, too, is slain in battle in far Parthia, and Pompey steals a march by getting a long term in Spain. Caesar demands as much and is refused by Pompey's friends. Then the storm breaks and Caesar comes back from Gaul to cross the Rubicon, and take all Italy in sixty days. Pompey, ambitious, ill-starred, fights losing battles everywhere. Murdered at last in Egypt, he, too, is dead, and Caesar stands alone, master of Rome and of the world. One year he ruled, and then they slew ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... gorge of the Apennines he naturally remembers the hardships which Hannibal's army endured, and proceeds to cite, not the authentic narrative of Polybius, not the picturesque narrative of Livy, but the languid hexameters of Silius Italicus. On the banks of the Rubicon he never thinks of Plutarch's lively description, or of the stern conciseness of the Commentaries, or of those letters to Atticus which so forcibly express the alternations of hope and fear in a sensitive mind at a great crisis. His ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... received by the notables of the town, among them a young intellectual, who took from his pocket a long address. Bolivar listened to the beginning and at once knew that it was going to be not only long but tedious. The young man came to a sentence reading: "When Caesar crossed the Rubicon...," at which point Bolivar interrupted him, saying, "My dear friend, when Caesar crossed the Rubicon he had had his breakfast, and I have not yet had mine. Let us first have breakfast." Generally, he respected everyone's feelings, and was much inclined ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... one sense the Rubicon was crossed. They had turned their backs on the ranch, and it was to be dismissed from their thoughts until they should ...
— The Young Ranchers - or Fighting the Sioux • Edward S. Ellis
... a sigh of relief that at last the Rubicon was crossed—his desire and purpose made known; but a glance at the captain's grave and troubled face dashed his hopes ...
— Elsie at the World's Fair • Martha Finley |
