"Spartan" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... enough now. There was something Spartan about that girl. She had such an utter recklessness of exposure—it was in failure that ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... to his children in their early years, but his attitude toward himself was truly Spartan. He never visited the theater, for instance, but sought his recreation in various spiritual practices and in reading the BHAGAVAD GITA. {FN1-7} Shunning all luxuries, he would cling to one old pair of shoes until they were useless. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... has been burnt biscuit color by some warmer sun than England's; and yet there is, for a very subtle observer, a link between them. For she has a glass of water in her hand, and a rapidly clearing cloud of Spartan obstinacy on her tiny firm set mouth and quaintly squared eyebrows. If the least line of conscience could be traced between those eyebrows, an Evangelical might cherish some faint hope of finding her a sheep in wolf's clothing - for her frock is recklessly pretty - but as the cloud vanishes ...
— You Never Can Tell • [George] Bernard Shaw
... recovery of a leg sufficiently workable in the matter of climbing stairs, Dr. Farr's boarder had resigned the family couch in the sitting-room and had retired to his spartan chamber under the eaves. From its open window that night he watched the moon. Let nothing happen to the universe in the meantime, and there would be a full moon on Friday night. The professor hoped ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... it is only so in the process of eating in commons; a practice at least as antiquated as the collegiate halls of old England, where it still continues without producing, as far as we can learn, any of the Spartan virtues. A residence at Brook Farm does not involve either a community of money, of opinions or of sympathy. The motives which bring individuals there, may be as various as their numbers. In fact, the present residents are divisible into three distinct classes; and if ...
— Brook Farm • John Thomas Codman
... fully fifteen, if not twenty, years since my father commenced the composition of an historical romance on the subject of Pausanias, the Spartan Regent. Circumstances, which need not here be recorded, compelled him to lay aside the work thus begun. But the subject continued to haunt his imagination and occupy his thoughts. He detected in it singular opportunities for effective ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... the curtain over the scene of the Spartan mother—we hope you belong to that nearly extinct class—which is to follow. Let us suppose all differences settled, the habit ostensibly given up, and your darling, grown more honest or more artful,—the result ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... have practised them. There is hardly a vice or a crime (according to our own moral standard) which has not at some time or other in some circumstances been looked upon as a moral and religious duty. Stealing was accounted virtuous for the young Spartan, and among the Indian caste of Thugs. In the ancient world, piracy, that is, robbery and murder, was a respectable profession. To the mediaeval Christian, religious persecution was the highest of duties, and ...
— Human Traits and their Social Significance • Irwin Edman
... uniform and the barrack mess table are civilization's last word—would like no doubt to start a regime of National Kitchens and "Spartan Broth." They would point out the advantages thereby gained, the economy in fuel and food, if such huge kitchens were established, where every one could come for their rations of soup ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... excited the admiration of her Irish lover. She was proud of her own subsequent conduct, and gave herself credit for coming out strongly as a noble-minded matron. "I believe she thinks," said Mrs. Mackinnon, "that her virtue is quite Spartan and unique; and if she remains in Rome she'll boast of it ...
— Mrs. General Talboys • Anthony Trollope
... boots; and in his hand a stick with silver head and ditto ring upon it;—a personable old gentleman, of the eleventh century, in those parts. Sigurd was cautious, prudentially cunctatory, though heartily friendly in his counsel to Olaf as to the King question. Aasta had a Spartan tone in her wild maternal heart; and assures Olaf that she, with a half-reproachful glance at Sigurd, will stand by him to the death in this his just and noble enterprise. Sigurd promises to consult farther in his neighborhood, and to correspond by messages; ...
— Early Kings of Norway • Thomas Carlyle
... with his vulture, the Spartan boy with his decently concealed wolf! What of Lys d'Angely with an English chauffeur ...
— The Motor Maid • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... which she prefaces her death. Those who remember her in her youth and beauty, before disease rather than time had altered the pale heroic face, and bowed the slight, stately figure, may well perceive some strange analogy between soul and body in the Spartan firmness which enabled her to pen that last ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... be the last Our fated band shall ever see. To life, but not to hope, farewell; Yon trumpet's clang and cannon's peal, And storming shout and clash of steel Is ours,—but not our country's knell. Welcome the Spartan's death! 'Tis no despairing strife— We fall, we die—but our expiring breath ...
— Blue Bonnet's Ranch Party • C. E. Jacobs
... are in my Head; Latin I write, and Greek I— read."] We have also his own authority (in Tom Jones) for supposing that he occasionally, if not frequently, sacrificed "with true Spartan devotion" at the "birchen Altar," of which a representation is to be found in Mr. Maxwell Lyte's history of the College. And it may fairly be inferred that he took part in the different sports and pastimes ...
— Fielding - (English Men of Letters Series) • Austin Dobson
... her knightly accolade. And shall one detect the false or recognize the true by the minute-hand? I suppose so, since some do. But I cannot. People who live among the divinities may know the goddess, for all her Spartan arms, her naked knee, and knotted robe; but I, earth-born among earth-born, must needs behold the auroral blush, the gliding gait, the flowing vestment, and the divine odor of ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... the air the sad lamenting Of the helpless and deserted, Cries of anguish and of terror, Wails of suff'ring and despairing. Some brave souls remained in peril, 'Mid this notable hegira; Some remained with Spartan courage, And the enemy confronted; Some fell, martyrs in the struggle, When their task of love was ended. B. F. Duncan, kind physician! Stood his post a valiant soldier, Never faltered, never wavered, While his duty lay before him; Stood forth bold for his profession, Stood forth friend and ...
— The Song of Lancaster, Kentucky - to the statesmen, soldiers, and citizens of Garrard County. • Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... the same Spartan simplicity. Eunice, however, carried her point in regard to the salad; for Abel, after tasting and finding it very palatable, decided that oil and vinegar might be classed in the catalogue of True Food. Indeed, his long abstinence ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... impatient with the long delay. They weren't interested in seeing other nations going over the top—the same nations who had been over so many times; they wanted to see their sons and brothers at once given the opportunity to share the wounds and the danger. Their attitude was Spartan and splendid; they demanded a curtailment of their respite that they might find themselves afloat on the crimson tide. The cry of the civilians in America was identical with that of their men in France. "Let them take off our khaki or else hurry us into the trenches. We want to get started. This ...
— Out To Win - The Story of America in France • Coningsby Dawson
... now to depend upon. It may produce a respectable division in America, and unanimity at home: it will give America an option; she has yet had no option. You have said, 'Lay down your arms,' and she has given you the Spartan answer, 'Come, take.'" Lord Chatham here read his motion, which he afterwards said, if earned, would prove the herald of peace, and would open the way for treaty. In conclusion, he again urged the necessity of making peace with America before France should espouse the quarrel ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... classical doctor in Peregrine Pickle, has indisposed our tastes for the cookery of the ancients; but, since it is often "the cooks who spoil the broth," we cannot be sure but that even "the black Lacedaemonian," stirred by the spear of a Spartan, might have had a poignancy for him, which did not happen at the more recent ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... subject, he was secretly very proud to recall the former grandeur of his ancestors, one of whom, in old Greek days, had been a famous king over the frogs, eels, and snakes, in a Spartan marsh. ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, January 1878, No. 3 • Various
... prudence, that made him feel kindly towards the young Dane. Denmark's taking up arms, with its two million inhabitants, against a great power like Prussia, roused his enthusiasm. "It is great, it is Spartan!" he exclaimed. It must certainly be admitted that this human sympathy was not a prominent characteristic, and he wearied me with his hateful verdicts over all those whom I, and by degrees, all Europe, esteemed and admired ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... war; but duty is before everything. All my life I have sacrificed everything—peace, interest, happiness—to my destiny." These phrases in no way consoled Josephine who knew very well that her husband, in spite of his assumption of Spartan austerity; occasionally indulged ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... thankful for the merciful haste of it that she could not, until long after, recall herself to mourn. And she did honestly mourn. The little John was glad of that. So ill and tired had she been for years and yet so bound upon the rack of her husband's Spartan theories for her, that John thought he could not have borne it if she had not adored her righteous tormentor, if she had had to look on him as her master, not her lord by love. It seemed to him he was always mourning over ...
— Old Crow • Alice Brown
... Stanton in his bag. This was the sort of thing one had to expect when one travelled second-class! A few weeks before he would have thought it impossible as well as disgusting to bunk with a stranger whom he had never seen; but as he said to himself, with a shrug of the shoulders which tried to be Spartan, "Misfortune makes strange bedfellows." Max was disciplining himself to put up with hardships of all sorts which would probably become a part of everyday life. His own hand-luggage, a suitcase with his name ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... and my limbs fail me.—O daughter, touch thy mother, stretch forth thy hand—give it me—leave me not childless—I am lost, my friends. Would that I might see the Spartan Helen, the sister of the twin sons of Jove, thus, for through her bright eyes that most vile woman destroyed ...
— The Tragedies of Euripides, Volume I. • Euripides
... there prevailed there an equal poverty; and the commons were less ambitious, because the offices of the State, which were held to their exclusion, were confined to a few; and because the nobles never by harsh treatment aroused in them any desire to usurp these offices. And this was due to the Spartan kings, who, being appointed to that dignity for life, and placed in the midst of this nobility, had no stronger support to their authority than in defending the people against injustice. Whence it resulted that as the people neither feared nor coveted the power which they did not possess, ...
— Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livius • Niccolo Machiavelli
... Their steady protector, the bard so bold; The bard, they say, that has dared to speak, To attack the strong, to defend the weak. His fame in foreign climes is heard, And a singular instance lately occurred. It occurred in the case of the Persian king, Sifting and cross-examining The Spartan envoys. He demanded Which of the rival States commanded The Grecian seas? He asked them next (Wishing to see them more perplexed) Which of the two contending powers Was chiefly abused by this bard of ours? For he said, "Such a bold, so profound an adviser By ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... me," said d'Artagnan, "with a thousand livres each—I do not speak as a Spartan, but ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... own brain, she had respectable authority for the idea, and she trusted to its prompter to participate in her indignation, argue Ulick out of so poor a match, and at least put a decided veto upon Sophy's Spartan magnanimity— Sophy's health and feelings being the subject, she sometimes thought, which concerned ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... served in much the same proportion, and from the same motives, as the native-born. Taken as a whole, it was, even more than the Revolutionary War, a true citizens' fight, and the armies of Grant and Lee were as emphatically citizen armies as Athenian, Theban, or Spartan armies in the great age of Greece, or as a Roman army in the days of ...
— African and European Addresses • Theodore Roosevelt
... cold business man, far shrewder than his brother gave him credit for. He was already richer than any two of the other children put together, but he chose to keep his counsel and to pretend modesty of fortune. He realized the danger of envy, and preferred a Spartan form of existence, putting all the emphasis on inconspicuous but very ready and very hard cash. While Lester was drifting Robert was working—working ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... and lifted a smile of possessorship to Ralph. Mrs. Fairford seemed also struck by the presence Of the two ladies, and Undine heard her whisper to Mr. Bowen: "Do you see Clare over there—and Harriet with her? Harriet WOULD COME—I call it Spartan! And so ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... appeared to me, the only thing to be done. But I had the courage to hold my tongue, to gnaw at my entrails like the Spartan boy. I wished to ...
— A Journey to the Centre of the Earth • Jules Verne
... been, at the time, in the Roman camp, and others, the noblest of the citizens, must live in exile: so that the Roman nation was become a partisan of Nabis in his tyranny." Quinctius led back his army to Elatia, whence he had set out to the Spartan war. Some writers say, that the tyrant's method of carrying on hostilities was not by sallies from the city, but that he encamped in the face of the Romans; and that, after he had declined fighting a long time, waiting for succours from the Aetolians, he was forced ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... as she had to leave a large portion of her salary at home for the support of her mother and sisters, she could not afford to live as the other lady agents did. She had to economise in every direction, and took to subsisting wholly on native food. It was in this way she acquired those simple, Spartan-like habits which accompanied her through life. Her colleagues attributed her desire for isolation and native ways to natural inclination, not dreaming that they were a matter of compulsion, for she was too loyal ...
— Mary Slessor of Calabar: Pioneer Missionary • W. P. Livingstone
... games. Among these is Aristotle the philosopher, who alleges for proof an Olympic quoit, on which was preserved the inscription of Lycurgus's name. But others who, with Eratosthenes and Apollodorus, compute the time by the succession of the Spartan kings, place him much earlier than the first Olympiad. Timaeus, however, supposes that, as there were two Lycurguses in Sparta at different times, the actions of both are ascribed to one, on account of his particular renown; and that the ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... styled the "account-dinner," is partaken of by any of the shareholders who may wish to be present, on which occasion the manager and agents lay before the company the condition and prospects of the mine, and a quarterly dividend (if any) is paid. There is a matter-of-fact and Spartan-like air about this feast which commands respect. The room in which it is held is uncarpeted, and its walls are graced by no higher works of art than the plans and sections of the mine. The food is excellent and substantial, but simple. There is abundance of it, ...
— Deep Down, a Tale of the Cornish Mines • R.M. Ballantyne
... to be quite otherwise: a mere dumb piece of boyish romance, that I had lacked penetration to divine. But the error serves the purpose of my argument; for I am sure, at least, that the heart of young Scotland will be always touched more nearly by paucity of number and Spartan ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... 26, 1676, Captain Pierce, who, with a company of sixty-three white men and twenty Cape Indians, was advancing upon the enemy, was surrounded by about nine hundred Indians at a point on the Blackstone not far from William Blaxton's house. With true Spartan courage he and his little band resolved to sell their lives at a high price; so forming a circle back to back, they made a desperate resistance for two mortal hours, and after they had fallen it was found that ...
— The New England Magazine, Volume 1, No. 1, January 1886 - Bay State Monthly, Volume 4, No. 1, January, 1886 • Various
... Spartan valor that has made Thermopylae a name forever, serves to show the conclusion of ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 2, August, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... dear?" asked auntie, tenderly. "Are you in such pain?" for she knew that Cricket was a little Spartan ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... sir—hard! Egad! I'd burn the last ham in the locker to overtake her!"—and he hurls the glowing stump after the "Senator," as the Spartan youth hurled their shields into the thick of the battle ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... May more than a thousand women assembled in the Government Buildings at Pretoria for the purpose of deciding upon a course of action in the grave crisis which confronted the Republic. It was the gravest assemblage that was ever gathered together in that city—a veritable concourse of Spartan mothers. There was little speech, for the hearts of all were heavy, and tears were more plentiful than words, but the result of the meeting was the ...
— With the Boer Forces • Howard C. Hillegas
... to me? The utmost difference would be the difference between a dull pain and a sharp pain; and I think the sharper agony is easier to bear." Having argued with herself thus, Miss Paget endured her weekly martyrdom with Spartan fortitude. ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... shape of watered stock had nothing to do with the formation of the International Harvester Company. All the men who controlled these enterprises were individualists, with a natural loathing for trusts, combinations, and pools. They wished for nothing better than to continue fighting the Spartan battle that had made existence such an exciting pastime for more than half a century. But the simple fact was that these several concerns were destroying one another; it was a question of joining hands, ending ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... prove. He disposed of much idle declamation about the Lacedaemonians by saying, most concisely, correctly and happily, that the Lacedaemonian commonwealth really was a standing army which threatened all the rest of Greece. In fact, the Spartan had no calling except war. Of arts, sciences and letters he was ignorant. The labour of the spade and of the loom, and the petty gains of trade, he contemptuously abandoned to men of a lower caste. His whole existence ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... arrived from which my future life was to be reckoned. I was dressed and sent out to conquer, with a heart beating like that of an old knight-errant at his first sally. Scholars have told me of a Spartan matron, who, when she armed her son for battle, bade him bring back his shield, or be brought upon it. My venerable parent dismissed me to a field, in her opinion of equal glory, with a command to shew that I was her daughter, and not ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... supposed he would take equal objections to the Gentoo, or the Roman, or the Spartan code, as also to the Koran. ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... of a certain Lieutenant Miller, with six men under his command, left the odds greatly in favor of the Wyandots, who were all picked warriors. Notwithstanding the cowardice of their companions, our little Spartan band fought most heroically for an hour and three-quarters; when the few survivors, on both sides, being almost worn out, ceased hostilities as by mutual consent. In this ever memorable action, Captain Estill, a brave and popular man, together with nine of his gallant companions, fell to rise ...
— Ella Barnwell - A Historical Romance of Border Life • Emerson Bennett
... Borghese is on the other hand the first in Rome perhaps, for the distinguished excellencies of animated grace and active manliness: his head raised, the body's attitude, not studied surely, but the apparent and seemingly sudden effect of patriotic daring. Such one's fancy forms young Isadas the Spartan; who, hearing the enemy's approach while at the baths, starts off unmindful of his own defenceless state, snatches a spear and shield from one he meets, flies at the foe, performs prodigies of valour, is looked on by both armies as a descended God, and returns home at last unhurt, ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... always," Mat replied, and then because she had a Spartan spirit, she added: "But let's don't say any more that way. Let's think of what you are going to see—the plains, the Santa Fe Trail, the mountains, and maybe bad Indians. And even old Santa Fe town itself. You are in for 'the big ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... thou not inglorious in thy fate; For so Apollo, with unweeting hand Whilome did slay his dearly-loved mate Young Hyacinth born on Eurotas' strand, Young Hyacinth the pride of Spartan land; But then transform'd him to a purple flower Alack that so to change thee ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... slightly vexed with me. As kind a master as any dog could wish to have, he yet did not approve of cake being given to dogs. The Fyne dog was supposed to lead a Spartan existence on a diet of repulsive biscuits with an occasional dry, hygienic, bone thrown in. Fyne looked down gloomily at the appeased animal, I too looked at that fool-dog; and (you know how one's memory gets suddenly stimulated) ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... to me, and even in this he thinks he is acting for my good. I have never disobeyed him, and were I to do so now I believe it would break his heart. I am all that he has left, and after what he has suffered in his silent, Spartan way, I must bring joy—not sorrow—to his declining years. And this will be my only reason ...
— At the Time Appointed • A. Maynard Barbour
... may be a blank; but it is your duty not to let any one perceive it. Imitate the young Spartan, who smiled although the fox, hidden under his cloak, was gnawing his vitals. Let us avoid ridicule, my friend. In society there is nothing that provokes laughter more than a disappointed lover, who rolls his eyes about and looks woe-begone. ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and customs have an influence on the warmth or coldness of our characters. Who would expect, if two faithful portraits could have been handed down to us from antiquity, to find the same gravity or coldness of countenance and manners in an Athenian, as in a Spartan? And in the same manner who can expect, that there will not be a difference in the appearance of ...
— A Portraiture of Quakerism, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Clarkson
... struggling under every difficulty for the attainment of the most inestimable blessing of life, liberty. The chevalier was polite enough to approve my principle, and condescended to appear pleased with our Spartan living. In a word, he made us all exceedingly happy by his affability and good humour, ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... on 'Self-Help': 'A writer in the Edinburgh Review (July, 1859) observes that "the Duke's talents seem never to have developed themselves until some active and practical field for their display was placed immediately before him. He was long described by his Spartan mother, who thought him a dunce, as only 'food for powder.' He gained no sort of distinction, either at Eton or at the French Military College of Angiers." It is not improbable that a competitive examination, at this day, might have ...
— The Curse of Education • Harold E. Gorst
... an ancient noble family. His father, a strangely whimsical man, determined that his son should grow up a Spartan. A gymnastic instructor was his principal teacher, although he also studied natural science, mathematics, and international law. Music, as a pursuit unworthy of a man, was discarded. The female sex he was taught ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... Spartan-like education, which inured him to the severity of the seasons. Without this training he certainly would have perished in savage and freezing Siberia, where he lived in ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... upon the wrist of his young guest and quietly watched. There was no flinching. The coal burned itself out upon the motionless wrist of a Spartan. ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... building, which was largely due to the munificence of Archbishop Laud, was begun in 1635 and finished two years later. It cost, with the buildings above, about L4,200. Its dreary late-Gothic windows and heavy tracery, and the Spartan severity of its unbacked benches, are characteristic of the time of transition, alike architectural and religious, to which it belongs. It has been from that time to this the Parliament House of the University, where all matters are first discussed ...
— The Oxford Degree Ceremony • Joseph Wells
... that she would forget her duty and eat it and find herself fatally incapacitated for cutting loose on Mr. March's songs afterward. They must be rather remarkable songs that required to be approached in so Spartan a manner. Well, Paula assured us that they were. The family declined all responsibility in the matter, not having themselves heard a note of them, but if you wanted to you might ask Mr. Novelli, over there. He'd been working over them with ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... get a rise or two out of that Mrs. Morton. I did get her to be confidential and to tell me how much better the honours would have sat upon her dear husband. I believe she thinks that if he were alive he would have shared them like the Spartan kings. She wishes that "her brother, Lord Northmoor" (you should hear the tone), "were more worldly, and she begs me to impress on him the duty of doing everything for her dear Herbert, who, in the nature of things, must be ...
— That Stick • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not even attempt now to hide his dislike of me, nor to draw for me that cloak of suave composure over the fierce temper that is always gnawing at his vitals as surely as fox ever gnawed little Spartan. He sees that it is useless, I suppose. As I went upstairs to greet Madeleine, I laughed to myself to think how Fate ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... whipping Slave yokes Whipped Whipped and burnt Whipped to death Slaves treatment of Slave trade Sleeping in clothes Slitting of ears Smoothing iron on girl's backs Sophistry of slaveholders South Carolina laws of " " medical college Southern dogs and horses Spartan slavery Speece, Rev. Conrad opposed to emancipation Spirit of laws Springfield, S.C. Starvation of a female slave " " slaves Statement of a physician State, abuse of power in Stealing of freemen ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... which are indigenous to the Kirghiz Steppes; perhaps for the same reason that the Spartans of old excelled all other nations in physical strength, but with this difference, that nature doles out to the weakly colts the same fate which the Spartan parents ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... corners of it, and even Aunt Hitty was not proof against the magic of Araminta's smile. The girl's face had the creamy softness of a white rose petal, but her cheeks bloomed with the flush of health and she had a most disconcerting trick of blushing. With Spartan thoroughness, Miss Mehitable constantly strove to cure Araminta of this distressing fault, but as yet she had ...
— A Spinner in the Sun • Myrtle Reed
... he took a position in the deepest shadow and waited. Spartan little soldier that she was, she now sent a wail into the night that would have brought a dozen sentries; then, as before, everything was silent. Also, as before, hurried, angry steps soon were heard; yet this time, as the sentry passed close outside the rear wall, he ...
— Where the Souls of Men are Calling • Credo Harris
... of indiscretion stripped the Athenians of all the advantages which they had acquired on the mainland of Greece. In every city of Greece there were always two parties, the wealthy and noble, called oligarchs, and the demos, or commons; and according as Spartan or Athenian influence was in the ascendant the balance of power in each city wavered between the nobles and the people, the Athenians favouring the Many, the Spartans the Few. Accordingly there was always ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... this time he took a prominent part in Athenian politics during the Peloponnesian war. Originally friendly to Sparta, he subsequently became the leader of the war party in opposition to Nicias, and after the peace of 421 he succeeded by an unscrupulous trick in duping the Spartan ambassadors, and persuading the Athenians to conclude an alliance (420) with Argos, Elis and Mantineia (Thuc. v. 56, 76). On the failure of Nicias in Thrace (418-417) he became the chief advocate of the Sicilian expedition, seeing an opportunity for the realization of ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... Poule, as I do Raphael's "Disputa," and even rather more; for when abundant, beautiful possessions of this kind are almost always associated with vulgar luxury, and become then anything but indicative of noble character in their possessors. The ideal of human life is a union of Spartan simplicity of manners with Athenian sensibility and imagination; but in actual results, we are continually mistaking ignorance for simplicity, and ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... Spartan general who accompanied Cyrus on his expedition against Artaxerxes; commanded the retreat of the Ten Thousand; was put to death by Tissaphernes in 401 B.C., and replaced ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... plumb down to the hock kyard, he's nothin' but Jackson. This yere attitood of my grandsire, an' him camped in the swarmin' midst of a Henry Clay country, is frootful of adventures an' calls for plenty nerve. But the old Spartan ...
— Wolfville Days • Alfred Henry Lewis
... order in church service—these auxiliaries influence them so strongly in their sense of the beautiful that they think, "Surely I love God. Why, of course I love God." But to love God involves something practical. It means something more than mere profession. It means rugged self-denial, Spartan heroism, perhaps the loss of an "arm" or the "plucking out of an eye." Base must have been the soul which was not attracted by One who "spake as never man spake"; low-minded the man who did not see in Him imperishable beauty and refinement of soul; ...
— The Heart-Cry of Jesus • Byron J. Rees
... Pot of Broth, and one more classic than any black broth ever supped by Spartan; more pregnant of Fate than the hell-broth compounded by Macbeth's witches; broth in which was brewed the destiny of a great nation, broth but for whose brewing I certainly, and you, if you be of Pilgrim strain, had never been, for ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... melee, and blended with the rear of the fleeing column, until it seemed likely that both must enter the town together. But a charge of grape, fired obliquely from the Alameda, mowed a path between them—a Spartan business, for it reaped Imperialists among Republicans. However, a second and third blast were better gauged, and these carpeted the new alley-way with Republican bodies. Also, the Imperialists were re-forming, and under ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... not, however, have dreaded the news for after careful examination the eminent specialist had decided to take a single desperate chance and operate with the hope of success. Laurie, they were told, was a monument of courage and had the spirit of a Spartan. Unquestionably he merited the good luck that followed for fortune did reward his heroism,—smiling fortune. Of course, the miracle of health could not come all in a moment; months of convalescence must follow which would be unavoidably tedious ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... my description, let those who read my story remember that such courteous dignity, however natural, I am bound to believe, it is to them, was to me an utterly new excellence in human nature. All my mother's Spartan nobleness of manner seemed unexpectedly combined with all my little ...
— Alton Locke, Tailor And Poet • Rev. Charles Kingsley et al
... was nothing to show that the girl's heart beat a little more rapidly than usual as she watched her companion. His face, however, grew a trifle graver, for she had touched upon a rather momentous question to such men as him. There are a good many of them living in Spartan simplicity upon the prairie, well-trained, well-connected young Englishmen, and others like them from Canadian cities. They naturally look for some grace of culture or refinement in the woman they ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... depraved affections corrected, inveterate vices eradicated. For this, a strong force and a vehement impulse will be necessary.... Citizens, the inflexible austerity of Lycurgus created the firm basis of the Spartan republic. The feeble and trusting disposition of Solon plunged Athens into slavery. This parallel contains the ...
— Essays on Political Economy • Frederic Bastiat
... Thermopylae the Peloponnesian Greeks commenced to fortify the isthmus of Corinth with the view of defending it with their small army against the invading host of Xerxes. The Spartan troops were under the command of Cleombrotus, the brother of Leonidas, the hero of Thermopylae. He had been consulting the oracles at Sparta, and Herodotus states that "while he was offering sacrifice to know if he should march out against the Persian, ...
— The Story of Eclipses • George Chambers
... session he had raised his hand to announce stolidly to his long-suffering teacher, "I can't think of no subjeck"; and at last Miss Margaret had relaxed her Spartan resolution to make him do his own thinking and ...
— Tillie: A Mennonite Maid - A Story of the Pennsylvania Dutch • Helen Reimensnyder Martin
... affairs? In the history of Greece, let him read and examine the character of Aspasia, in a country in which the character and conduct of women were more restricted than in any modern nation, save among the Turks. Has he forgotten that Spartan mother, who said to her son, when going out to battle, 'My son, come back to me with thy shield, or upon thy shield'? Does he not remember Cloelia and her hundred companions, who swam across the river, under a shower of darts, escaping ...
— Memoir of the Life of John Quincy Adams. • Josiah Quincy
... really knew how fond I had grown of Lucilla, until I lost sight of the rectory at the turn in the road to Brighton. My natural firmness deserted me; I felt torturing presentiments that some great misfortune would happen in my absence; I astonished myself—I, the widow of the Spartan Pratolungo!—by having a good cry, like ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... that the Spartan Burr, whose life was one of incessant labor and whose kindliness toward every one was so well known, should have deserved a commentary like this. The charge of immorality is so easily made and so difficult of disproof that it has been flung promiscuously at all the great men of history, ...
— Famous Affinities of History, Vol 1-4, Complete - The Romance of Devotion • Lyndon Orr
... The Spartan boy was taught that he must become very strong and self-reliant. His schoolroom was very plain and bare. He was never allowed to go home to visit. He had to wear, in both summer and winter, the same plain, loose clothing. He slept out of doors in the ...
— A Child's Story Garden • Compiled by Elizabeth Heber
... who knows, she may blossom into a beauty yet. At any rate she can put on flesh and not be the scarecrow she is." And thus, while her more favoured sisters were revelling in the gaieties of Court life, Marie was sent to tell her beads and to spend Spartan days among ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall
... sacred of duties. The character, thus formed, has two aspects. Seen on one side, it must be regarded by every well constituted mind with disapprobation. Seen on the other, it irresistibly extorts applause. The Spartan, smiting and spurning the wretched Helot, moves our disgust. But the same Spartan, calmly dressing his hair, and uttering his concise jests, on what he well knows to be his last day, in the pass of Thermopylae, is not to ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Knox, or Cartwright. The allusion here is to the Scotch reformer and the Puritan divine, whose weighty tomes Tickletext might be supposed to carry with him for propagandist purposes. Fillamour has already rallied him on his Spartan orthodoxy, and anon we find the worthy chaplain hot at the 'great work of conversion'. It has been ingeniously suggested that a reference is intended to The Preacher's Travels of John Cartwright of Magdalen, Oxford, a book first ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... from all which considerations I will deliver it in person. It is entitled the "Fair Shepherdess," or rather "Herdswoman;" if you don't like the translation take the original title "[Greek (transliterated): hae boskopoula]." Galt also writes something not very intelligible about a "Spartan State paper" which by his account is everything but Laconic. Now the said Sparta having some years ceased to be a state, what the devil does he mean by a paper? he also adds mysteriously that the affair not being concluded, he ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Letters and Journals, Vol. 1 • Lord Byron, Edited by Rowland E. Prothero
... himself, confiscating church property, destroying pictures and altars—even going so far as to forbid the presence of her subjects at mass or in religious processions. "Her natural eloquence, the lightning flashes from her eyes, her reputation as a Spartan matron and an intractable Calvinist, all contributed to give her great influence with her party. The military leaders—Coligny, La Rochefoucauld, Rohan, La Noue—submitted their plans of campaign ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... had been strolling slowly for the girl's sake, though oppressed with a mournful certainty that her most prominent feature was fast becoming a fine copper-color; yet she had sustained herself like a Spartan matron, till it suddenly occurred to her that her charge might ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... pearls and the laugh that frames them, the merry eyebrows and the scintillating eyes they accentuate. A perilous intoxication, not to be too freely indulged in by a serious professional man at any time—in business hours certainly not. But if the doctor were quite in earnest over a sort of Spartan declaration of policy his heart feels the prudence of, would that responsive twinkle flutter in his face behind its mock gravity? He is all but head over ears in love with Sally—so why pretend? Really, we don't know—and ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... tawny hands were tied; But Belgium's plight and Serbia's woes we shared Each rise of sun or setting of the moon. So when the bugle blast had called us forth We went not like the surly brute of yore But, as the Spartan, proud to give the world The freedom that we never knew nor shared. These chains, O brothers mine, have weighed us down As Samson in the temple of the gods; Unloosen them and let us breathe the air That makes the goldenrod the flower of ...
— The Book of American Negro Poetry • Edited by James Weldon Johnson
... time enough to appease his hunger and reach Grove Lane by the suitable hour. He went out to the little coffee-shop which was his resort in Spartan moods, ate with considerable appetite, and walked over Westminster Bridge to the Camberwell tram. To kill time on the journey he ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... and judging exteriorly, you are wrong. There is recounted somewhere in the classics an altogether incredible story of a Spartan youth and a fox: the boy, with the animal hid beneath his cloak, preserved an unruffled demeanor despite the animal's tearing teeth, until he fell down and died. In the same way, young sir, no man can lose fifty-odd ...
— The Broad Highway • Jeffery Farnol
... from out thy heart A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three To make a ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... drooping looks of uncomplaining discontent,—that silent protest of many, that is so irritating to the home-rule. True, it might be only the quiescence of despair, but at least she veiled it decently under a show of Spartan cheerfulness. The fox of bitterness might gnaw, but she drew the mantle of her pride closer round her. She might suffer and pine, like a caged lark in her narrow cage, but at least no one, not even Archie, and least of all her mother, should guess ...
— Not Like Other Girls • Rosa N. Carey
... reply, and his silence wounded Lady Lucy to the quick. Was it her fault if her husband, out of an eccentric distrust of the character of his son, and moved by a kind of old-fashioned and Spartan belief that a man must endure hardness before he is fit for luxury, had made her and not Oliver the arbiter and legatee of his wealth? But Oliver had never wanted for anything. He had only to ask. What right had she to thwart ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... hounds are bred out of the Spartan kinde, So flew'd, so sanded, and their heads are hung With eares that sweepe away the morning dew, Crooke kneed, and dew-lapt, like Thessalian Buls, Slow in pursuit, but match'd in mouth like bels, Each vnder each. A cry more tuneable Was neuer hallowed to, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... a nation are badly educated, it must have a great effect on the education of their sons, and the conduct of their husbands. The Spartan and Roman mothers had the glory of making [end of page 100] their sons esteem bravery, and those qualities in a man that were most wanted in their state of society. It should be one part of female education to know and admire the qualities ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... were Spartan in the extreme, and in their simplicity would have met the demands of any demagogue in the land. The nights were cold and damp, and General Sherman uncomfortably active in his preparations, so that the assistant adjutant-general had no very luxurious post just then. We were surrounded ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... at Christ's Hospital in my time was ultra-Spartan;—all domestic ties were to be put aside. "Boy!" I remember Bowyer saying to me once when I was crying the first day of my return after the holidays, "Boy! the school is your father! Boy! the school is your mother! Boy! the school is your brother! the school is your ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Murray, if satisfactory to you, must be so to me. There need be no scruple, because, though I used sometimes to buffoon to myself, loving a quibble as well as the barbarian himself (Shakspeare, to wit)—'that, like a Spartan, I would sell my life as dearly as possible'—it never was my intention to turn it to personal, pecuniary account, but to bequeath it to a friend—yourself—in the event of survivorship. I anticipated that period, because we ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron
... the cold bath into which he had been thrown like a Spartan babe by his first contact with church sociability. His, as a new creature, was a vigorous constitution, and was destined to out-live many a shock incident to the earthly career of a heaven-born man. Both he and Winifred returned to their joy and calm, ...
— The First Soprano • Mary Hitchcock
... king's policy to let them depart, but so harass them by the way as to produce disorder and rout, which meant absolute destruction. It was in conducting this retreat, as a joint general with the Spartan Cheirisophos, that Xenophon showed all his resource. There were no great pitched battles; no room for strategy or large combinations; but ample scope for resource in the details of tactics for meeting new and sudden difficulties, ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... nation cannot adopt Prussianism piecemeal. It must take it as a whole, its lieutenants included, or not at all. Lieutenant von Foerstner is as typical a product of the Prussian system as the London policeman is of our own; and if we adopt Prussian or Spartan methods, we must run the risk of being ruled by him. "No other nation," says Dr. Sadler, "by imitating a little bit of German organisation can hope thus to achieve a true reproduction of the spirit of German ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... pucker settled upon her brow, and not once, but many times her eyes turned to the broad entrance across the sidewalk. She had telephoned to her father earlier in the afternoon; and he had promised faithfully to be ready at four o'clock for a spin up the drive behind Spartan. At three minutes past four the pucker made its first appearance; and now, several minutes later, it was quite distressing. Never before had he kept her waiting like this. She was conscious of ...
— Jane Cable • George Barr McCutcheon
... works of the poet. From his great disinclination to pursue the same path with Metastasio, he naturally fell into the opposite extreme: I might not unaptly call him a Metastasio reversed. If the muse of the latter he a love-sick nymph, Alfieri's muse is an Amazon. He gave her a Spartan education; he aimed at being the Cato of the theatre; but he forgot that, though the tragic poet may himself he a stoic, tragic poetry itself, if it would move and agitate us, must never be stoical. His language is so barren of imagery, that his characters seem altogether devoid of fancy; it is ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... developed a Kultur nation as the German Empire puts itself in a position where it is almost impossible to acquire any considerable degree of culture. Culture is the enemy of such a state—it must remain in the Spartan or Macedonian stage. Rome began to decline as soon as Hellenistic culture got the ascendency over the old Latin Kultur. Kultur, in short, galvanizes; culture liberates. A survey of modern Germany hardly warrants a ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... speak of Timaeus, when even men like Xenophon and Plato—the very demi-gods of literature—though they had sat at the feet of Socrates, sometimes forgot themselves in the pursuit of such paltry conceits. The former, in his account of the Spartan Polity, has these words: "Their voice you would no more hear than if they were of marble, their gaze is as immovable as if they were cast in bronze; you would deem them more modest than the very maidens in ...
— On the Sublime • Longinus
... Nativity and Resurrection of Christ, with a panel containing S. John the Baptist in the midst of certain other saints. The side-walls he painted in his own manner; one with figures of Fabius Maximus, Socrates, Numa Pompilius, F. Camillus, Pythagoras, Trajan, L. Sicinius, the Spartan Leonidas, Horatius Cocles, Fabius, Sempronius, the Athenian Pericles, and Cincinnatus. On the other wall he made the Prophets, Isaiah, Moses, Daniel, David, Jeremiah, and Solomon; and the Sibyls, the Erythraean, the Libyan, the Tiburtine, ...
— Lives of the Most Eminent Painters Sculptors and Architects - Vol. 04 (of 10), Filippino Lippi to Domenico Puligo • Giorgio Vasari
... which he was a great exponent. Degas has done this, not as Flandren tried to, by reproducing the externality of the master's work, but as only a man of genius could, by the application of the method to new material. Degas's early pictures, "The Spartan Youths" and "Semiramis building the Walls of Babylon". are pure Ingres. To this day Degas might be very fairly described as un petit Ingres. Do we not find Ingres' penetrating and intense line in the thin straining limbs of Degas's ballet-girls, ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... view; objectless, unreasoning, without possibility of material gain accruing; but for all that, deeds which for their sheer daring will ring for ever in the ears of men; of which the bare memory is an inspiration; whereof the fame in their own day roused the emulous courage of every Spartan and of every Englishman, making them ready to face any odds, and chilling the blood of their foes. Vain deeds, when we count the cost and the tangible gain—but very far from vain when we take into account the ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... combined scholastic accuracy with unaffected ease; condensed and pointed, yet rich and perspicuous. Were it possible for his numerous friends, by any energy of reminiscence, to collect his discourse, John Henderson would be distinguished as a voluminous author, who yet preserved a Spartan frugality of words. ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle
... shall awake the Spartan fife, And call in solemn sounds to life, The youths, whose locks divinely spreading, Like vernal hyacinths in sullen hue, At once the breath of fear and virtue shedding, 5 Applauding Freedom loved of old ...
— The Poetical Works of William Collins - With a Memoir • William Collins
... glad of it; glad she was going to be hurt. She could get back some of her self-respect, she thought, by enduring it all, first the wretchedness, then the pain, with a Spartan fortitude. There would he a sort of savage satisfaction in marching through all her miseries with her ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... one cruel memory, he might have learnt even to taste some humour in his situation. Thanks to Mr. Jope and Mr. Adams, who had taken a genuine fancy to him, he found life on board the Vesuvius cheerful if not comfortable. The fare was Spartan, indeed, but, for a short holiday, tolerable. The prospect of seeing some real fighting excited him pleasurably, for he was no coward. Here, before his eyes, lay the coast of France; the actual forts and guns with which his imagination had so often played. What a tale ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Spartan-like, to all the fatigues and exposures of war. He indulged in no luxury of tents or carriages, and ate the flesh of horses and wild beasts, which he roasted himself, over the coals. In his campaigns the ground was his bed, the sky his curtain, ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... stars are more nearly seen. But the familiar reader of our author will not be surprised to find the "walking eye-ball" simply sheltered, and the "endless experimenter with no past at my back" housed without ornament. Such a reader will have felt the Spartan severity of this intellect, and have noticed that the realm of this imagination is rather sculpturesque than pictorial, more Greek than Italian. Therefore he will be pleased to alight at the little gate, ...
— Literary and Social Essays • George William Curtis
... matter, Sarah Gurridge had proved herself a loyal friend. Dr. Parash, with conscientious soundness of judgment, had ordered her removal for a prolonged sojourn to city life in Toronto; a course which, in spite of heartbroken appeal on the girl's part, her mother insisted upon carrying out with Spartan-like resolution. ...
— The Hound From The North • Ridgwell Cullum
... there[44], With mirror of gold, Decking her face so fair, Girl-like; and hear, and stare, And turn death-cold: Never, ah, never more The hearth of her home to see, Nor sand of the Spartan shore, Nor tombs where her fathers be, Nor Athena's bronzen Dwelling, Nor the towers of Pitane For her face was a dark desire Upon Greece, and shame like fire, And her dead are welling, welling, From red Simois ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... her little Indian pony, would accompany him a few miles, or as far as his road led toward the scene of her own labors; but no Spartan dame or Roman matron could more sternly have resisted the young man's frequent entreaties to be allowed to accompany her farther than the point at which their ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... signers, was an early and devoted friend of liberty. Some of his worthy descendants are still living among us. Other descendants of the same patriotic family reside in Chester county, S.C. One of his daughters married George Houston, who, with a Spartan band of twelve or thirteen brave spirits, under Captain James Thompson, beat back a British foraging party of over four hundred soldiers, at McIntyre's Branch, on the Beattie's Ford road, seven miles north-west of Charlotte. His son, Hugh Houston, ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... afterward these "never-surrender" Spartan chaps were brought into camp, the most hang-dog looking set ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... in which Beth at length began to meditate on Spartan remedies. The situation was not to be endured. No word had come from Searle. The world might have swallowed him up. She was sick of him—sick of his ways of neglect. ...
— The Furnace of Gold • Philip Verrill Mighels
... know,' faltered Betty; 'I'm afraid I'm selfish, I'm not brave like you. I thought I should feel like the Spartan mothers, but I don't. I can't think of the country. I can only ...
— Two Maiden Aunts • Mary H. Debenham
... o'clock on a Wednesday morning. The good ship Spartan was lying off Boston Quay with her cargo under hatches, her passengers shipped, and everything prepared for a start. The warning whistle had been sounded twice; the final bell had been rung. Her bowsprit was turned towards England, and the hiss of escaping steam showed that all ...
— The Captain of the Pole-Star and Other Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is suitable to his condition. When he dined with me he began to declaim violently against the luxury of the young men of the military school. After a little he turned the conversation on Mania, and the present education of the young Maniotes, drawing a comparison between it and the ancient Spartan system of education. His observations on this head be told me he intended to embody in a memorial to be presented to the Minister of War. All this, depend upon it, will bring him under the displeasure of his comrades; and it will be ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... gather, Heed not sleet nor cold,— Ye are Spartan soldiers, Stout and brave and bold: Never Xerxian army Yet subdued a foe, Who but asked a blanket On a bed ...
— Beechenbrook - A Rhyme of the War • Margaret J. Preston
... the Victor's car And the low puppetry of thrones, to muse On that blest triumph, when the Patriot Sage[118:1] Called the red lightnings from the o'er-rushing cloud 235 And dashed the beauteous terrors on the earth Smiling majestic. Such a phalanx ne'er Measured firm paces to the calming sound Of Spartan flute! These on the fated day, When, stung to rage by Pity, eloquent men 240 Have roused with pealing voice the unnumbered tribes That toil and groan and bleed, hungry and blind— These, hush'd awhile with patient eye serene, Shall watch the mad careering of the storm; Then o'er ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... Spartan women, with a manly air, Fatigues and dangers with their husbands share: They in fantastic sports have no delight, Partners with them in exercise ...
— The Academic Questions • M. T. Cicero
... o'er days more blest? Must we but blush?—Our fathers bled. Earth! render back from out thy breast A remnant of our Spartan dead! Of the three hundred grant but three, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... everything I have ever wished to be.'—'Heh!' said I, 'and what about your daughter?'—'Bah!' says he, 'she is only a woman! And she is quite too much of a Hulot. Valerie has a horror of them all.—My son-in-law has never chosen to come to this house; why has he given himself such airs as a Mentor, a Spartan, a Puritan, a philanthropist? Besides, I have squared accounts with my daughter; she has had all her mother's fortune, and two hundred thousand francs to that. So I am free to act as I please.—I shall judge of my son-in-law and ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... in time for supper took his place at the table with mixed feelings, foremost among which was keen regret. Except for the company of his Scandinavian hired man and the latter's hard-featured wife, he had lived alone in Spartan simplicity, thinking of nothing but his farm; and his guests' arrival had revealed to him the narrowness of his life. They had brought him new desires and thoughts, besides recalling ideas he had long forgotten, ...
— Prescott of Saskatchewan • Harold Bindloss
... he remained, as we went our way,—a modern Spartan slave in a kind of marine pillory,—conveying to the red-legged children of Gotham, as they toddled ashore, a useful lesson on the doubtful relations existing between ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... would die! To go through life, unloving and unloved; To feel that thirst and hunger of the soul We cannot still; that longing, that wild impulse, And struggle after something we have not And cannot have; the effort to be strong And, like the Spartan boy, to smile, and smile, While secret wounds do bleed beneath our cloaks All this the dead feel not,—the dead alone! Would I ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... eye will be on Occoquan for the next few weeks, to find out how these women bear up under the Spartan treatment that is in store for them. If they have deliberately sought martyrdom, as some critics have been unkind enough to suggest, they have it now. And if their campaign, in the opinion of perhaps the great majority of the public, has ...
— Jailed for Freedom • Doris Stevens
... spirits of Leonidas and his men, and his wife, Gorgo, not a woman to be faint-hearted or hold him back. Long before, when she was a very little girl, a word of hers had saved her father from listening to a traitorous message from the King of Persia; and every Spartan lady was bred up to be able to say to those she best loved that they must come home from battle "with the shield or on it"—either carrying it victoriously or borne ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... grew suddenly uneasy, as if some intuition warned it of treachery, and tried valiantly to escape from his grasp, and never did Spartan boy with wolf concealed beneath his tunic suffer more tortures than Morrow with the wretched little creature clawing ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... "That's distinctly heroic, Spartan, of them, don't you think?" he said. "Intentionally, poor dears, they're very likely suffering agonies ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume X (of X) • Various
... any other would have struck his forehead violently, so as to crush the enticing insect, or at least to put it to flight. To feel six feet moving on his skin, without speaking of the fear of being bitten, and not make a gesture, one will agree that it was the height of heroism. The Spartan allowing his breast to be devoured by a fox; the Roman holding burning coals between his fingers, were not more masters of themselves than Cousin Benedict, who was undoubtedly descended from those ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... night. Before striking any sudden blow, he has been known to march sixty or seventy miles, taking no other food in twenty-four hours, than a meal of cold potatoes and a draught of cold water. The latter might have been repeated. This was truly a Spartan process for acquiring vigor. Its results were a degree of patient hardihood, as well in officers as men, to which few soldiers in any periods have attained. These marches were made in all seasons. His men were badly clothed in homespun, a light wear which afforded little warmth. They slept ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... which, and much else, let us note only this small consequence, that young Barbaroux, Advocate, Town-Clerk of Marseilles, being charged to have these things remedied, arrived at Paris in the month of February 1792. The beautiful and brave: young Spartan, ripe in energy, not ripe in wisdom; over whose black doom there shall flit nevertheless a certain ruddy fervour, streaks of bright Southern tint, not wholly swallowed of Death! Note also that the Rolands ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle |
