"Subaltern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... a young subaltern of the enemy's infantry, followed by his eager men, burst into this reeking interior. But just over the threshold he halted before the scene of blood and death. He turned with a shrug to his sergeant. "God, I should have estimated them at least ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... order to have her strangled, commanded him to provide him another the next night. Whatever reluctance the vizier might feel to put such orders in execution, as he owed blind obedience to the sultan his master, he was forced to submit. He brought him then the daughter of a subaltern, whom he also put to death the next day. After her he brought a citizen's daughter; and, in a word, there was every day a maid married, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... put in bottles until it fermented and became worse in odor than sulphureted hydrogen. At reveille roll-call every morning this fermented liquor was dealt out to the company, and as it was my duty, in my capacity of subaltern, to attend these roll-calls and see that the men took their ration of pulque, I always began the duty by drinking a cup of the repulsive stuff myself. Though hard to swallow, its well-known specific qualities in ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... Major-General Commanding in Chief communicates to the Army the melancholy intelligence with feelings of the most profound sorrow. The long, arduous, and faithful military services in which President Harrison has been engaged since the first settlement of the Western country, from the rank of a subaltern to that of a commander in chief, are too well known to require a recital of them here. It is sufficient to point to the fields of Tippecanoe, the banks of the Miami, and the Thames, in Upper Canada, to recall to many of the soldiers ...
— Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Harrison • James D. Richardson
... untrue. We cannot believe that any human being ever asked a direct question so elaborately lengthy. People do not talk like that. As a contrast, let us notice for a moment the poignant truthfulness of speech in Mr. Rudyard Kipling's story, "Only a Subaltern." A fever-stricken private says to Bobby Wick, "Beg y' pardon, sir, disturbin' of you now, but would you min' 'oldin' my 'and, sir"?—and later, when the private becomes convalescent and Bobby in his turn ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... to bed. Next morning he created "I." (which stands for Intelligence), carefully selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs of appropriate hue, and told them to go the limit. And they have been going it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs and hot and cold water, that he has seen climbing trees ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... Captain Gronow—a subaltern of the 1st Guards at Waterloo—gives us the following glimpse of the Duke and his Staff, on the morning of the 18th, before the opening of ...
— A Week at Waterloo in 1815 • Magdalene De Lancey
... leave in order to give excuse for the appointment of A.P.M.'s. There are thousands of us, and we are supposed to run the War. These are the things which I am sure (if you get newspapers in Ceylon) jump into your mind the moment I mention the word subaltern, and I may as well tell you that in associating me with any one of these deeds at the present time you are ...
— Punch, or The London Charivari, Vol. 153, November 7, 1917 • Various
... owed most at this juncture was Aymar de Chastes. Though Champlain had served the king faithfully, his youth and birth prevented him from doing more than belongs to the duty of a subaltern. But De Chastes, as governor of Dieppe, at a time when the League seemed everywhere triumphant, gave Henry aid which proved to be the means of raising him from the dust. It was a critical event for Champlain that early in 1603 De ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... unnamed heroes. The common soldier enters the stormed fortress and, falling in the breach which his valor has made, sleeps in a nameless grave. The subaltern whose surname is scarcely heard beyond the roll-call on parade, bears the colors of his company where the fight is hottest. And the corporal who heads his file in the final charge, is forgotten in the "earthquake shout" of the victory which he has helped to win. The victory may be due as ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... had known for many years the silent woes of poverty, and now he observed with some good-will the young man's sad but haughty smile. Then he ordered his young subaltern, his battery-mate, as he called him, to ascend the broad crumbling staircase, and glance into the dismantled chambers, while himself with the third of the party—a trusty old gunner—should ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... of men which he held in his hand to launch forward and draw back, who had given him his rank, ministered to his pride and commanded his thoughts—seemed centred for a moment on the person of the most promising subaltern. He cleared his throat in a threatening ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... and independent mind, wedded to a character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pursued its own path of self-improvement for more than half a century, part gymnosophist, part backwoodsman; and thus did it come twice, though in a subaltern attitude, into the ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ch. 8. sect. 14; and of his Life, sect. 14. See also Of the War, B. IV. ch. 5. sect. 4. Moreover, we find, sect. 7, that he imitated Moses, as well as the Romans, in the number and distribution of the subaltern officers of his army, as Exodus 18:25; Deuteronomy 1:15; and in his charge against the offenses common among soldiers, as Denteronomy 13:9; in all which he showed his great wisdom and piety, and skillful conduct in martial affairs. Yet may we discern in his very high character of ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... me first bury my prince." Medoro pronounced these words with an air so sweet and tender that a heart of stone would have been moved by them. Zerbino was so to the bottom of his soul. He was on the point of uttering words of mercy, when a cruel subaltern, forgetting all respect to his commander, plunged his lance into the breast of the young Moor. Zerbino, enraged at his brutality, turned upon the wretch to take vengeance, but he saved himself by a ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... the garrison were killed, including two officers. The prisoners amounted to five hundred and forty-three, among whom were one lieutenant colonel, four captains, and twenty subaltern officers. The military stores taken in ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 3 (of 5) • John Marshall
... The major had two daughters; Matilda and Fanny were as well known in the army as Lord Fitzroy Somerset, or Picton, from the Isle of Wight to Halifax, from Cape Coast to Chatham, from Belfast to the Bermudas. Where was the subaltern who had not knelt at the shrine of one or the other, if not of both, and vowed eternal love until a change of quarters? In plain words, the major's solicitude for the service was such, that, not content with providing ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever
... effect, the mother of ever-new mischiefs, which renders well-doing or improvement impossible, and drives bad everywhere continually into worse. The work being what we see, a stupid subaltern will do as well as a gifted one; the essential point is, that he be a quiet one, and do not bother me who have the driving of him. Nay, for this latter object, is not a certain height of intelligence even dangerous? I want no mettled Arab horse, with his flashing glances, arched, neck ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... to his squadron, and the next minute a subaltern and twenty men detached themselves from the column, and, at a brisk trot, began retracing their steps along the road. Upon arriving in sight of the house to which they were proceeding, they leaped their horses over a narrow ditch dividing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... she may begin to tire of an existence, which in spite of its general freedom, is subject to certain restraints. She therefore decides to emancipate herself by submitting to a husband. She finds no difficulty, with the assistance of her mother, in discarding the penniless subaltern who has devoted himself to her, and whom she has induced to believe that she preferred to the whole world. Having received an offer from a gentleman of presentable looks and immense possessions, she promptly accepts it, and ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... resentment that our lords and masters feel about a certain article, Tyrant, in the Philosophical Dictionary. They will never forgive Voltaire for saying that it was better to have to do with a single wild beast, which one could avoid, than with a band of little subaltern tigers who are incessantly getting between your legs.... To return to those two unfortunate wretches whom they have condemned to the galleys. When they come out, what will become of them? There will be nothing left for them to do, save ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... with enthusiasm for battery duty, and so was perpetually at war with Waring, who dared to have other aspirations. He delighted in a man who took pride in his dress and equipment, and so rejoiced in Waring, who, more than any subaltern ever attached to "X," was the very glass of soldier fashion and mould of soldier form. He had dropped in at the bachelor mess just in time to hear some gabbling youngster blurt out a bet that Sam Waring would cut review and keep ...
— Waring's Peril • Charles King
... we have to deal is a certain nervousness in the subaltern branches of the corps; as the hour of some design draws near, these chicken-souled conspirators appear to suffer some revulsion of intent; and frequently despatch to the authorities, not indeed specific denunciations, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... which served the women who played on the instruments to be set near the window where Ebn Thaher and the prince of Persia heard them, and having got things in order, she sat down upon a silver throne; then she sent by the slave, her confident, to bring in the chief of the eunuchs, and his subaltern officers. ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Volume 1 • Anonymous
... long at Brighton, and then in barracks, the beauty of Oxford was in itself alone a revelation to him. The work there, too, was entirely congenial. As a gunner subaltern he had been a square peg in a round hole. As regards the work there had been far too much to be accepted on authority for one of his fundamental type of mind; the relations existing between an officer and his men—in peace time, at ...
— A Student in Arms - Second Series • Donald Hankey
... Manuel Ribeyra, a Jesuit, states that the governor there, Gaviria, has fortified the Spanish posts in his care, which are in unusually good condition; certain supplies, however, are needed for them, as also a better class of subaltern officers. Gaviria is somewhat overbearing in disposition, but Ribeyra commends his ability. That officer himself writes to Fajardo, explaining why he cannot at present fill the governor's order for a quantity of cloves. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVIII, 1617-1620 • Various
... of the pay which Government has thought proper to allow them. They are thereby more led to temperance, to improve themselves by study, to mind their duty and how best to promote the service of their country. I served sixteen years as a subaltern officer in the army, made long sea voyages with the Regiment, furnished myself with sea stores, camp equipage and every other necessary equipments [and] my Father nor any Relation during that time ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... received a sealed packet from the government. On opening the outer cover was found an order that the interior packet was not to be opened till a certain day and at a certain hour, and in the presence of the subaltern authorities, and a most severe injunction to keep even that operation secret till the moment of its execution. On the arrival of the day and hour appointed the packets were opened, as had been previously arranged, simultaneously; and then was found, in each, ...
— Roman Catholicism in Spain • Anonymous
... expected that the duty would seem a disgrace, when the Prior of the Knights of Saint John was superintendent of the operations, when the Captain-General of the Netherlands had arranged the whole plan, and when all, from subaltern to viceroy, had received minute instructions as to the contemplated treachery from the great chief of the Spanish police, who sat on the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... kindly, as Sidonia, or coolly, as Lord Monmouth, but always calmly and with no point of passion in his regard: the Eskdales, Villebecques, Ormsbys, Bessos, Marneys, Meltons, and Mirabels, the Bohuns and St. Aldegondes and Grandisons, the Tadpoles and the Tapers, the dominant and subaltern humanity of the world. All these are drawn with peculiar boldness of line, precision of touch, and clearness of intention. And as with his men so is it with his women: the finest are not those he likes best but those who interested him ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... in a recent despatch tells us how a British subaltern saw, from a wood, an unsuspecting German soldier patrolling the road. Not caring to shoot his man in cold blood, he gave him a ferocious kick from behind, at which the startled German ran away with a yell. This subaltern certainly ought to have figured in "Boots' Roll of ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... brother no longer,' he returned passionately; 'from a child you have been far dearer to me. I never remember the time since I was a subaltern that I did not love you, and my ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... have a care," said the officer, laughing, as he and his subaltern rose, bade their charge good-night, ...
— The Hot Swamp • R.M. Ballantyne
... hope it is not indiscreet to mention it—that the first thing you did, on joining your regiment in India as a young subaltern, was to gather all the European children in cantonments together and march them through the place, playing 'The Girl I Left Behind Me' on ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Ripperda for Minister; a surprising Dutch adventurer, once secretary of some Dutch embassy at Madrid; who, discerning how the land lay, had broken loose from that subaltern career, had changed his religion, insinuated himself into Elizabeth's royal favor; and was now "Duke de Ripperda," and a diplomatic bull-dog of the first quality, full of mighty schemes and hopes; ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Volume V. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... years later the chance came, when, no longer a subaltern, but as a member of the House of Commons, he patronized Kitchener by defending him from ...
— Real Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... the Rhine, and drilled Emigrant Regiments. But as he sat one morning in his tent, sour of stomach doubtless and of heart, meditating in Tartarean humour on the turn things took, a certain Captain or Subaltern demanded admittance on business. Such Captain is refused; he again demands, with refusal; and then again, till Colonel Viscount Barrel-Mirabeau, blazing up into a mere burning brandy barrel, clutches his sword, and tumbles out on this canaille of an intruder,—alas, on the canaille of an ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... the lad; and the subaltern's heels dropped at once from the table upon which they had been resting, for plainly heard through the window, in a loud, forced cough, full of importance, came the utterance, "Errrrum! Errum!" and Private Peter Pegg's lower jaw dropped, and ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... in Willy, the third son, it showed itself first in a revolt against Oxford, while he was still at Christ Church, leading to his going out to India and joining the Indian Army, at the age of twenty, only to find the life of an Indian subaltern all but intolerable, and to plunge for a time at least into fresh schemes ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... strangers, and Wee Willie Winkie was a very particular child. Once he accepted an acquaintance, he was graciously pleased to thaw. He accepted Brandis, a subaltern of the 195th, on sight. Brandis was having tea at the Colonel's, and Wee Willie Winkie entered strong in the possession of a good-conduct badge won for not chasing the hens round the compound. He regarded Brandis with gravity for at least ten minutes, and then ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... blond Viking of a German in the uniform of a captain shouldered heavily through the doorway and, acknowledging the salute of the rat-faced subaltern with a bare nod, stood looking down at Lanyard in taciturn silence, hostility in his blood-shot ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... any uses of local public utility, as roads, irrigation, encouragement of commerce and industry and the like; what is not sent home to the Sultan goes into the private pouches of the pasha and his many subaltern officials. This is like taking the milk and omitting to feed the cow. The consequence is, the people lose their interest in work of any kind, leave off striving for an increase of property which they will not be permitted to enjoy, and resign themselves to utter destitution ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... service her establishment was not confined to what is usual in a ship of that class; but, with a first and second captain, she had also three lieutenants, a master, purser, surgeon and two mates, a boatswain, a gunner, and a subaltern's detachment of marines. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... Anglo-Indian gossip adroitly introduced by the now nerve-steadied Hawke. General Renwick's loss of his faded and feeble spouse, the far-famed "Poor Thing" of much polite apology for her socially aristocratic ailments; Vane Tempest's singular elopement with the beautiful wife of a green subaltern; Harry Chillingly's untoward end while potting tigers; Count Platen's enormous winnings at Baccarat; Fitzgerald Law's falling into a peerage; and Mrs. Claire Atterbury, the wealthy widow's purchase of a handsome ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... who had died, boys at nineteen. And the lists of missing startled her. One morning she read in the personal column a query, asking if any one could give the details of the death of a young subaltern. She cried over that. In all her care-free life never before had she wept over the griefs ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... only fit and proper that she should magnify her first real commission. No veteran soldier ever donned a field marshal's uniform with the same zest that he displayed when his subaltern's outfit came from the tailor. So Helen glowed with that serious enthusiasm which is the soul of genius, for without it life becomes flat and gray, and she passed many anxious, half-doubting hours until a courteous bank official handed her a packet ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... gladden his mother's eyes. But until then, the boy had said to himself, he'd stick to the field, and the troop that had the roughest work to do was the one that best suited him, and so it had happened that by the second spring of his service in the regiment no subaltern was held in higher esteem by senior officers or regarded with more envy by the lazy ones among the juniors than the young graduate, for those, too, were days in which graduates were few and far between, except ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... Pontiff, and on the left are the standards of two recent chiefs (Luther and Calvin), who, shaking off a yoke that had become tyrannical, had raised altar against altar in their reform, and wrested half of Europe from the Pope. Behind these are the subaltern sects, subdivided from the principal divisions. The Nestorians, Eutychians, Jacobites, Iconoclasts, Anabaptists, Presbyterians, Wickliffites, Osiandrians, Manicheans, Pietists, Adamites, the Contemplatives, the Quakers, the ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... A subaltern entered, received an order, and disappeared. The Duke withdrew to the embrasure of a window, and immediately ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... owes service to his nation, in time of need, but fighting service should not be exacted if some one else could perform it better than he where he is expert in some other needed field. The recent action of England in sending to the front as subaltern officers, who were speedily killed, many highly trained technicians and young scientists and medical men who would have been much more valuable at home in connection with war measures, is an example of this mistake. ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... representatives of the most vigorous and masculine element of the battalion, to show off the strength and muscular power of their legs. A lieutenant jumped the aqueduct. A captain, to be in no way behind the subaltern, did the same, but he got his feet wet. His amour propre being excited, he took off his coat and jumped it again easily. The others did the same. The scene then assumed the appearance of the Olympian games, ...
— The Grandee • Armando Palacio Valds
... and so, I perfectly remember." So with this memorial of poor Hood, it may have, no doubt, a greater interest for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak, in a different part of the field, and engaged, a young subaltern, in the Battle of Life, in which Hood fell, young still, and covered with glory. "The Bridge of Sighs" was his Corunna, his Heights of Abraham—sickly, weak, wounded, he fell in the full blaze and fame ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... had now been for some time on half-pay, and a brevet-major, after doing good service in the Indian wars, and was not yet thirty-four. Molyneux had served in the same light cavalry regiment as his subaltern, and there the foundation was laid of their close alliance. It was not a very fair or well-balanced one, being made up of implicit obedience, reliance, and reverence on the one side, and a sort of protecting condescension on the other—much like the old Roman relation between Client ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... fire, and Major Taunton has dropped. The encounter closing within ten minutes afterwards on the arrival of assistance to the two Englishmen, "the best friend man ever had" is laid upon a coat spread out upon the wet clay by the heart-riven subaltern, whom years before his generous counsel had rescued from ignominious destruction. Three little spots of blood are visible on the shirt of Major Taunton as he lies there with the breast ...
— Charles Dickens as a Reader • Charles Kent
... of opening other people's letters," the subaltern remarked pleasantly. "It's a bad habit and will grow on you. When you go home you'll never be able to resist it. You'll be unfit for ...
— Leaves from a Field Note-Book • J. H. Morgan
... midnight hours, When star-shells droop through the shattered trees, Steal they back to their ancient bowers, Beau Brocade and his Belle Marquise? Greatly loving and greatly daring— Fancy, perhaps, but the fancy grips, For a junior subaltern woke up swearing That a gracious lady had kissed ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, May 16, 1917. • Various
... skill and respect for order in their military organization, as in other things. The troops were divided into bodies corresponding with our battalions and companies, led by officers, that rose, in regular gradation, from the lowest subaltern to the Inca noble, who was intrusted with the ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... inexorably doomed, might you not see humiliation in power itself, obscurity in renown, gloom in the present, despair in the future? And would it not seem to you nobler even to desert the camp than to sink into a subaltern?" ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... call it a habit, when it is had perfectly, so as not to be lost easily. And thus a disposition becomes a habit, just as a boy becomes a man. Secondly, they may be distinguished as diverse species of the one subaltern genus: so that we call dispositions, those qualities of the first species, which by reason of their very nature are easily lost, because they have changeable causes; e.g. sickness and health: whereas we call habits those qualities which, by reason of their very nature, are not easily changed, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... the Major at Fort Bridger for an escort under a subaltern officer to proceed with two waggons with the treasure to Denver. Pete Hoskings and Jerry were to remain as managers of the mine throughout the winter. Harry and Tom had made up their minds to go to England and to return in the spring. The ore was now very much poorer than it had ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... had the weakness at once to fear Fouche and to think him necessary. Fouche, whose talents at this trade are too well known to need my approbation, soon discovered this secret institution, and the names of all the subaltern agents employed by the chief agents. It is difficult to form an idea of the nonsense, absurdity, and falsehood contained in the bulletins drawn up by the noble and ignoble agents of the police. I do not mean to enter into details on this nauseating ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... wilds of Connaught, lighting up with cheering expectation the most desolate hovels of the proscribed. To the Puritans settled in Ireland, most of whom, from the mean condition of menial servants, common soldiers and subaltern officers, had become rich proprietors, the same tidings brought apprehension and alarm. But their leaders, the Protestant gentry of an earlier date, wealthy, astute and energetic, uniting all their influence for the common protection, turned this ...
— A Popular History of Ireland - From the earliest period to the emancipation of the Catholics • Thomas D'Arcy McGee
... not fail, after having sated their curiosity, to cross the stream in order to visit the royal tombs, he awaited them on his own ground, certain of fleecing them to some extent. He looked upon the whole of this funereal realm as his own property, and treated with scant courtesy the little subaltern jackals who ventured to ...
— The Works of Theophile Gautier, Volume 5 - The Romance of a Mummy and Egypt • Theophile Gautier
... stay at Montreal, La Barre embarked his little army at La Chine, crossed Lake St. Louis, and began the ascent of the upper St. Lawrence, In one of the three companies of regulars which formed a part of the force was a young subaltern, the Baron la Hontan, who has left a lively account of the expedition. Some of the men were in flat boats, and some were in birch canoes. Of the latter was La Hontan, whose craft was paddled by three ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... was, for a girl of her age, exuberantly fat; yet as her skin and complexion were not coarse, many thought her handsome; but she promised to be as large as her mother, and certainly was not at all suited for a wife to a subaltern of ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... I have play'd the little hour, Have seen the tall subaltern Life to Death Yield up his sword; and, smiling, draw the breath, The first long breath of freedom; when the flower Of Recompense hath flutter'd to our feet, As to an actor's; and, the curtain down, ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... And the young subaltern lit a cigar to console himself for the withdrawal of the clear blue eyes that looked so deep under the shadow of the umbrella, and tried to find as much piquancy in the "funny book" he had recently purchased at the St. Michael's book-stall, while the good ship went ploughing on, ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... connexions, and a greater share of parliamentary interest, by which those contests are generally decided; and lastly, he has a greater command of money to smooth the way to his success. For my own part (said he), I know no Scotch officer, who has risen in the army above the rank of a subaltern, without purchasing every degree of preferment either with money or recruits; but I know many gentlemen of that country, who, for want of money and interest, have grown grey in the rank of lieutenants; whereas very few instances of this ill-fortune are to be found among the natives of South-Britain. ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... whenever they should be declared insolvent by the tribunals. It appears to me that money would then be lent with more confidence, and borrowed with greater circumspection. Another advantage which would accrue from such a regulation, would be, that the subaltern orders of men, who imitate the customs and the prejudices of the higher class of citizens, would soon be apprehensive of incurring the same disgrace; and that fidelity in engagements would become one of the ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... woman was, undoubtedly, cruel, as, notwithstanding his entrance into the Order, he had not wholly laid aside the character of man of the world. Moreover, the princess, instead of appearing hurt and offended by this sudden transformation of the superior into a subaltern, and of the subaltern into a superior, looked at Rodin with a sort of curiosity mingled with interest. As a woman—as a woman, intensely ambitious, seeking to connect herself with every powerful influence—the princess loved this strange species ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... stepped out of the car, he threw a contemptuous glance at the man who could be so callous. He was a slightly built, fresh-complexioned young fellow of middle height, with amiable gray eyes and a fair, closely-trimmed mustache. He belonged to the demobilized subaltern type and had the weary, drawn expression of over-strained nerves that so many young faces had at that time. He was dressed in a smartly fitting suit of striped navy-blue flannel and carried himself ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... liveliness and all social qualities, either in their own room or at the wine-party of a friend. Many young men in the army, I believe, adopt this system, from motives both of moral and of economical prudence. A pint, or even half a pint, of wine per day, makes a considerable hole in the pay of a subaltern, or in the stipend of a country curate, or in the allowance of a briefless barrister. Avoid acquiring factitious wants. Do not by habit make wine necessary to your comfort. It is wise, when young, not to indulge in luxuries which in any future period of your life you probably will not be able ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... our junior subaltern, and we called him Joshua after Sir JOSHUA REYNOLDS, on account of his artistic attainments, though portraits by the hand of our Joshua tended rather more in the direction of caricature than those I have seen ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Jan. 15, 1919 • Various
... deceived, and are you but a genius of the second order—a subaltern spirit, an intermediate power? Diable! this would take away a little of my consideration ...
— The Conspirators - The Chevalier d'Harmental • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... see how they run!" exclaimed Lieutenant Brown of the Grenadiers, who supported him. "Who run?" demanded the General like one roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir," responded the subaltern. "Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned Wolfe, with an earnestness that detained the spirit in his almost lifeless body; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down to the St. Charles to cut off their retreat from ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... and he had not been affable with his wife and daughter the evening before, when driving to the play. But now he was rather pleased with himself. He did not care for all this sort of thing, of course; he had had quite enough of it as a subaltern, dancing about London all night, and going everywhere—all very well for a young fellow, but you got tired of it. Still, there was a certain flavour about a Court Ball, even for a one-time subaltern in the Blues, who had taken ...
— The Squire's Daughter - Being the First Book in the Chronicles of the Clintons • Archibald Marshall
... it from her. And how she loves her darling Miss Adiante! She won't hear of "princess." She hates that marriage. She was all for my brother Philip. She calls him "Our handsome lieutenant." She'll keep the poor fellow a subaltern ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... the seat beside Earl Roberts. Age had dealt very kindly with the veteran of Kandahar and South Africa. Although a consistent water drinker, Lord Roberts had a very florid complexion, which was just as bright and ruddy as that of a subaltern of twenty, despite his extreme age. This kind of complexion makes it difficult for a man to gain admission to a ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... vehemently arguing with a stocky sergeant of cavalry, who seemed master of the situation, and greatly enjoying his own importance. A pale-faced young woman, whom the conductor of Number Six addressed as Mrs. Osborn, was imploring his aid, when, to the amaze of the sergeant, this big subaltern in boots and spurs bulged in between him and Conductor Osborn and demanded to know the nature of ...
— Lanier of the Cavalry - or, A Week's Arrest • Charles King
... Markgraf of SLESWIG grows into Markgraf of DITMARSCH and STADE; retiring over the Elbe, if Norse Piracy get very triumphant. ANTWERP falls obsolete; so does MEISSEN by and by. LAUSITZ and SALZWEDEL, in the third century hence, shrink both into BRANDENBURG; which was long only a subaltern station, managed by deputy from one or other of these. A Markgraf that prospered in repelling of his Wends and Huns had evidently room to spread himself, and could become very great, and produce change in boundaries: observe ...
— History Of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol, II. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Of Brandenburg And The Hohenzollerns—928-1417 • Thomas Carlyle
... with such a force, the young officer, aided by the one subaltern, made the best disposition possible for defence, trusting to hold the building until the fugitives should return with aid from Brunswick. Those who had their muskets were stationed at the few windows, while the dragoons with drawn swords were grouped ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... which the Arctic story is told, scarcely can fail to be impressed by the pertinacity with which men, after one experience in the polar regions, return again and again to the quest for adventure and honors in the ice-bound zone. The subaltern on the expedition of to-day, has no sooner returned than he sets about organizing a new expedition, of which he may be commander. The commander goes into the ice time and again until, perhaps, the time comes when he does not come out. The leader of a rescue party becomes ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... subaltern commanding the Greek outposts. He was a Spartan of less sluggish wits than many of his breed, and presently believed Glaucon when he declared he had reason in asking ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... midnight before they arrived, and then with horses blown and trembling with exhaustion, and the whole party bearing every sign of fatigue and disturbance. The colonel said a few sharp, decisive words to the subaltern, who, pale and reticent, plucked at his little moustache, but took the whole blame upon himself. HE and Mrs. Lascelles had, he said, outridden the trooper and got lost; it was late when Cassidy (the trooper) found them, ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte
... she laughed with the happy heedlessness of an impassioned amorosa. It was not that the jurisdiction of the Congregations was in itself ruinous; indeed, in principle, it was gratuitous. Still there were a multitude of petty expenses, payments to subaltern employees, payments for medical consultations and certificates, copies of documents, and the memoirs and addresses of counsel. And although the votes of the cardinals were certainly not bought direct, some of them ended by costing considerable sums, for it ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... family with as much satisfaction as most men, the restoration of peace excited in me sensations of a very equivocal nature. At the age of eighteen, and still enthusiastically attached to my profession, neither the prospect of a reduction to half-pay, nor the expectation of a long continuance in a subaltern situation, were to me productive of any pleasurable emotions; and hence, though I entered heartily into all the arrangements by which those about me strove to evince their gratification at the glorious termination of the war, it must be acknowledged ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... superior. Then he escorted them up the side to the deck, which was marvelously neat and attractive. Some half a dozen sailors lounged here and there and these stared as wonderingly at the invasion of strangers as the subaltern had done. But their guide did not pause longer than to see that they had all reached the deck safely, when he led them into ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces Out West • Edith Van Dyne
... come constantly to her dressing-room, and afterwards she promised to find other pleasant reading; but after such excitement, it was not easy to find anything that did not appear dry. As the daughter of a Peninsular man, she thought nothing so charming as the Subaltern, and Gilbert seemed to enjoy it; but by the time he had heard all her oral traditions of the war by way of notes, his attendance began to slacken; he stayed out later, and always brought excuses—Mr. Salsted had kept him, he had been with a fellow, ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the subaltern answered, "it was nothing but a dog. It came down from Montmorenci, and some ...
— The Chase Of Saint-Castin And Other Stories Of The French In The New World • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... in the middle of the race, between two fences, "You will perceive that I have already sacrificed my cap, and laid it as a votive offering on the altar of Diana." One would hardly have anticipated that a youthful cavalry subaltern, in the middle of a steeplechase, would have been able to lay his hands on such choice flowers of speech. Unfortunately, owing to the time lost by these well-turned periods, both the speaker and my nephew ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... fortune. To deceive her, he pretended to be the heir to the earldom, and, after a hasty courtship, they ran off, and were married. When they compared notes, which they soon did, it was discovered that, on his side, he had nothing but the pay of a subaltern, and on hers, that she had not one shilling. Your father stormed, and called his wife an impostor; she recriminated, and the second morning after the marriage was passed in tears on her side, and oaths, curses, and revilings on his. The lady, however, appeared the more sensible ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... ago I was handing over a battery-position in a fairly warm place. The major, who came up to take over from me, brought with him a subaltern and just enough men to run the guns. Within half-an-hour of their arrival, a stray shell came over and caught the subaltern and five of the gun-detachment. It was plain at once that the subaltern was dying—his name must have been written on the shell, as we say in France. ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... interviews, and congratulations; everybody in the chateau was drunk with joy; each one felt that he had been suddenly promoted in rank, so they embraced each other, exchanged compliments, and confided to each other hopes and plans for the future. There was no subaltern too humble to be inspired with ambition; in a word, the antechamber, saving the difference of persons, furnished an exact repetition of what passed in the saloon. Nothing could be more amusing than the embarrassment of the whole service ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... here—just a moment," says the colonel, and, marvelling not a little, the subaltern ...
— A War-Time Wooing - A Story • Charles King
... touched, I am sure, by the pretty story now current concerning the earnest young subaltern and the Brigadier. The former was responsible for the training of an expert section, in no matter what particular black art; the latter called in person one morning to witness an experimental display. The apparatus ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 150, February 16, 1916 • Various
... disastrous mismanagement in military affairs; and still more, to find his reasonable request, after a long course of severe duty, for a temporary leave of absence to attend to his private concerns peremptorily refused, and that with as little courtesy as though he were a mere subaltern seeking to absent himself ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... father-in-law, had married his Molly, when he was a subaltern of a foot regiment, and had a purse scarce better filled than my own. They had had their ups and downs of fortune. I think (though my wife will never confess to this point) they had married, as people could do in their young time, without previously asking papa's and mamma's leave. [The ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... as to how many would be sent empty away. Inch by inch we moved forward, mounted the steps one by one, and came within the relative warmth of the vestibule. At last the weary waiting-time was over; the young subaltern stepped before the guichet and, pointing to a handbill, demanded in a loud and dignified voice a ticket for next Monday's performance of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, March 12, 1919 • Various
... have come for you by that Steamer; for I wrote one duly, and posted it in good time myself: I will hope therefore it was but some delay of some subaltern official, such as I am told occasionally chances, and that you got the Letter after all in a day or two. It would give you notice, more or less, up to its date, of all the points you had inquired about ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... smiled a little at the ingenuous confession of the subaltern, but a moment later, he opened his eyes very wide, when Roderick told him in minute detail all the circumstances which we have ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... school, he declined on the ground that he was teaing with Chadwick, of Appleby's. Now in the matter of absolute outsiderishness Chadwick, of Appleby's, was to Merrett, of Seymour's, as captain is to subaltern. Linton was horrified, ...
— The Politeness of Princes - and Other School Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... He could not bear the pain and terror in the eyes of the slender English youth, who, though he wore the uniform of a subaltern, seemed so much out of place there in the deep woods. Yet the forester meant to take no ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... offices, helping an old frail woman carefully out of the train and handing out her baggage, giving chocolates to children, interesting themselves in their fellow- travellers. At one place I saw a proud and anxious father, himself an old soldier, I think, seeing off a jolly young subaltern to the front, with hardly suppressed tears; the young man was full of excitement and delight, but did his best to cheer up the spirits of "Daddy," as he fondly called him. I felt very proud of our soldiers, their simplicity ...
— Escape and Other Essays • Arthur Christopher Benson
... behind him and passed (the statement) to a constant attendant of his, to put away: "Go back," he enjoined him, "and give it to His Excellency Mr. Chao, at the head of the Board of Revenue, and tell him, that I present him my compliments, and would like him to draw up a warrant for subaltern of the Imperial Body Guard of the fifth grade, and to also issue a commission; that he should take the particulars from this statement and fill them up; and that to-morrow I'll come and have the money weighed ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... men in UN battledress came up and took them prisoner. Benson shouted to them, and then rose and came down to join them. They were British—Argyle and Sutherland Highlanders, advertising the fact by inconspicuous bits of tartan on their uniforms. The subaltern in command ...
— Hunter Patrol • Henry Beam Piper and John J. McGuire
... low. We all remember what powerful sensations those literary wonders at first created, and what a crowd of imitators followed in their train. The Magazines soon caught up the tone, and became doubly interesting, with the lives of private soldiers, "Two or Three Years in the Peninsula," and the "Subaltern." The camp and the man-of-war now poured forth their vast stories of anecdote and adventure, in all shapes and sizes—octavo and article—sketches of character, local customs and antiquities, filled up the other attractions of the ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... the most obscure of their fellow-soldiers. History can only add, that the rebellion against the emperor Philip broke out in the summer of the year two hundred and forty-nine, among the legions of Maesia; and that a subaltern officer, [1] named Marinus, was the object of their seditious choice. Philip was alarmed. He dreaded lest the treason of the Maesian army should prove the first spark of a general conflagration. Distracted with the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... friend of Lee and Gates in opposition to General Washington. In the beginning of January, 1778, it was reported to Burr that Lord Stirling had made some remarks respecting the manner in which the colonel had contributed to arrange the rank of his (Burr's) subaltern officers. Lord Stirling at this time commanded the division. It will be recollected that, a few weeks previous, Colonel Burr had proposed to the commander-in-chief an enterprise against Staten Island, which was rejected; but, immediately after, it was unsuccessfully attempted by Lord Stirling. ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... cheerily; mules, linked in fives, were being zigzagged frowardly down to water. The Royal Irish Fusiliers had loosened their belts, but not their sturdy bearing. Under their horses' bellies lay the diminished 18th Hussars. Presently came up a subaltern of the regiment, who had been on leave and returned just too late to rejoin before the line was cut. They had put him in command of the advanced troop of the Lancers, and how he cursed the infantry and the convoy, and how he shoved the troop along ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... a subaltern was lucky who could mount one step of the promotion ladder in his first ten years; that a major at fifty, a colonel at sixty, and a general at seventy were quite the usual thing. And they realized that the pay they would receive would be a ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... certain restrictions which a Royal man, in conversing with a commoner, is not supposed to forget. In fact, he forgot that he was Royal, or that she was not, and his voice grew unsteady, his tone eager, as if he had been some poor subaltern with the girl of ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson
... no family," said a somewhat distant and subaltern Vipont, whisperingly and hesitating, ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... no other in the world, was ended at last, however, and they puffed past Lake Nakuro to the village station. Here their trip was ended, their baggage was rolled off, and they were taken in charge by a young subaltern, Lieutenant Smithers, together with the Boer merchant, Piet Andrus. The latter offered them the hospitality of his trading store, which ...
— The Rogue Elephant - The Boys' Big Game Series • Elliott Whitney
... I was subaltern of the cantonment main-guard at Bangalore one day in the month of June, 182-. Tattoo had just beaten; and I was sitting in the guard-room with my friend Frederick Gahagan, the senior Lieutenant in the regiment to which I belonged, and manager ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... confronted, and, although the cause was removed, the combat nevertheless commenced. The column of the insurgents surrounded the chateau. The Marseillais and Bretons who occupied the first rank had just forced the Porte Royale on the Carrousel, and entered the court of the chateau. They were led by an old subaltern, called Westermann, a friend of Danton, and a very daring man. He ranged his force in battle array, and approaching the artillerymen, induced them to join the Marseillais with their pieces. The Swiss filled the windows of the ...
— History of the French Revolution from 1789 to 1814 • F. A. M. Mignet
... and Isis, he had not the faintest odor of myth about him; absolutely bourgeois, he lacked even that atmosphere of burlesque that surrounded Claud; he was not even vicious. But he was a soldier, a brave one; and if, with the acquired economy of a subaltern who has been obliged to live on his pay, he kept his purse-strings tight, they were loose enough if a friend were in need, and he paid no one the compliment of a lie. He was projected sheer out of the republic. The better ...
— Imperial Purple • Edgar Saltus
... after the usual course of study at Chatham was quartered for a short time at Pembroke Dock. In December, 1854, he received his orders for the Crimea, and reached Balaklava on January 1, 1855. As a young engineer subaltern serving in the trenches, his daring was conspicuous, while his special aptitude for obtaining a personal knowledge of the movements of the enemy was a matter of common observation among his brother officers. ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 6 of 8 • Various
... comparatively insignificant sum of money to be provided for my expenses to England, Mr. Davis greeted me as Major. I replied: "I might ask, Mr. President, in what regiment," having in mind the well known anecdote of the subaltern who, on handing the Emperor Napoleon his chapeau which had fallen, was thanked under the title of captain. Mr. Davis then explained the principle he had laid down for himself in appointing officers who had been in the U. ...
— The Supplies for the Confederate Army - How they were obtained in Europe and how paid for. • Caleb Huse
... couldn't have been more than nine years old. The other, the young man, held himself up and marched along without a single cry as the thongs fell brutally upon him. I was appalled. I did not give my husband time to open his mouth before I called to the subaltern who commanded the detachment, 'You should be ashamed to strike a child and a Christian like that, which cannot defend itself.' The general told him the same thing. Then the subaltern told us that the little child had just killed a lieutenant in the street by firing ...
— The Secret of the Night • Gaston Leroux
... as low as he could on his forehead, and I could not discern his face ; but I was instantly certain he was not Bonaparte, on finding the whole commotion produced by the rifling crew above mentioned, which, though it might be guided, probably, by some subaltern officer, who might have the captive in charge, had left the field of battle at a moment when none other could be spared, as all the attendant throng were evidently amongst the refuse ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... conclusion that he had had enough of military life in the West. He applied for his discharge, as the compulsory term of service was at an end. When his papers came he was able to get about with the aid of a crutch. One morning his colonel entered his subaltern's bachelor quarters. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... that your father was man enough for Mahommed Khan to love and that you are your father's son! And listen! Don't let me hear you, ever, under any circumstances, breathe a word of doubt as to that man's loyalty! D'you understand me, sir? You, a mere subaltern, a puppy just out of his 'teens, an insignificant jackanapes with two twelve-pounders in your charge, daring to impute disloyalty to Mahommed Khan!—your impudence! Remember this! That old Risaldar is the man who rode with your father through the guns at Dera! He's a pauper without a pension, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... he said fussily, relighting his cigarette at every instant; there was always a litter where he stood, for he wasted dozens of matches, lighting one cigarette. "Listen, my life now is the nastiest possible. The worst of it is any subaltern can shout: 'Hi, there, guard!' I have overheard all sorts of things in the train, my boy, and do you know, I have learned that life's a beastly thing! My mother has been the ruin of me! A doctor in the train told me that if parents are immoral, ...
— The Chorus Girl and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... could not refuse myself to. Yet he happily returned to his master before he was missed; but, at taking leave, I forced him (for he had sentiments enough to refuse it) to receive money enough to buy a silver watch, that great article of subaltern finery, which he at length accepted of, as a remembrance he was carefully to preserve of ...
— Memoirs Of Fanny Hill - A New and Genuine Edition from the Original Text (London, 1749) • John Cleland
... western gate, as soon as the pursuers were at hand; but, alarmed by the volleys of Sacken's Russians, whom Bluecher had sent to work round by the river courses north-west of the town, the bewildered subaltern fired the mine while the rearguard and a great crowd of stragglers were still on the eastern side.[383] This was the climax of this day of disaster, which left in the hands of the allies as many as thirty generals, including Lauriston and Reynier, and ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... your inheritance, as I hope you soon will, I trust you will not add one to the idle followers of the Court, but reside on your patrimonial estate, cherish your ancient tenants, relieve and assist your poor kinsmen, protect the poor against subaltern oppression, and do what our fathers used to do, with fewer lights and with ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... these leaders of the civil world, taking distinction away from the military, even when, as a man of parts, he had to court their influence. His was the profession that was and ever should be the elect. A penniless subaltern was a gentleman, while he could never think of a man hi ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... Pontus, known as the Bellum Alexandrinum, was written by him or by another officer of Caesar's, Gaius Oppius. The books on the campaigns of Africa and Spain which follow are by different hands: the former evidently by some subaltern officer who took part in the war, and very interesting as showing the average level of intelligence and culture among Roman officers of the period; the latter by another author and in very inferior Latin, full ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... mere discussion of the case, commanded Fra Domenico to withdraw his acceptance of the challenge and secede from the affair. The Franciscan declared himself content: he had not directed his challenge to any subaltern, but to ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... subalterns extended his hand and laid it on his sleeve. Plessy turned upon him angrily, and the subaltern withdrew ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... of my aristocratic prejudices as your father calls them—and I might, perhaps, be a little peremptory. But John Clay is a man just risen from the ranks, lately promoted from being a manufacturer's son, to be a subaltern in good company, looking to rise another step by purchase: no, no—a Percy could not accept such an offer—no loss of fortune could justify such a mesalliance. Such was my first feeling, and I am sure yours, when you read ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... hobbled to the edge of the garden to meet the soldier boys home on their first leave. Christina had known they would be in khaki, but when a trim young private of artillery in jingling spurs and bandolier, and a smart young subaltern in shining boots and straps and belt and what not leaped from the democrat and charged upon her; instead of running to meet them, their sister put her head down against the gate post and burst into tears. Somehow the sight of Sandy in the uniform of his country's service had overwhelmed ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... Because you have been unfaithful in a very little, you propose yourself to be a ruler over ten cities. You strip yourself by such a step of all remaining consolations and excuses. You are no longer content to be your own enemy; you must be your wife's also. You have been hitherto in a mere subaltern attitude; dealing cruel blows about you in life, yet only half responsible, since you came there by no choice or movement of your own. Now, it appears, you must take things on your own authority: God made you, but you marry yourself; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... wait the growth of an oak, as to wait the signing of your commission; but it shall be done in my own way. I have means which can make the tardy quick, and open the eyes of the blind. You shall be a subaltern in the Guards, unless you are in too much haste to be a general, and get yourself shot by some Parisian cobbler in the purloined uniform of a rifleman. But, let me tell you one fact, and I might indorse this piece of intelligence, 'Secret and Confidential,' to the English cabinet, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... extraordinary fellows to about a score of the smaller class. None of them carried anything in their mouths, but all trotted along empty- handed and outside the column, at pretty regular intervals from each other, like subaltern officers in a marching regiment of soldiers. It was easy to be tolerably exact in this observation, for their shining white heads made them very conspicuous amongst the rest, bobbing up and down as the column passed over the inequalities of the road. I did not ...
— The Naturalist on the River Amazons • Henry Walter Bates
... against him on the Company's records. The choice of Mr. John Stables, from an inferior military to the highest civil capacity, was by no means proper, nor an encouraging example to either service. His conduct, indeed, in the subaltern military situation, had received, and seems to have deserved, commendation; but no sufficient ground was furnished for confounding the lines and gradations of service. This measure was, however, far less exceptionable than the former; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... senses is a world of shows; it does not exist for itself, but has a symbolic character; and a true prudence or law of shows recognizes the co-presence of other laws and knows that its own office is subaltern; knows that it is surface and not centre where it works. Prudence is false when detached. It is legitimate when it is the Natural History of the soul incarnate, when it unfolds the beauty of laws within the narrow ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... how much I should let my man charge me for shoe-blacking, or advised as to the most effectual way of preventing the butler from stealing my cheroots, while Dora Harris, remote as a star, talked to a cavalry subaltern about wind-galls and splints! At these moments I felt my seniority bitterly; to give Dora to a cavalry subaltern was such ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... clear that his solitude was a matter of choice and not of necessity. He had few friends, however, and none who showed any inclination to come and see him, though his acquaintances were numerous; for he had been rather popular in society when a young subaltern, and had been welcome wherever his ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... is dependent on the Audiencia; those of subdelegate of treasury (although he does not have the disposal of the monopolized incomes), and as such has to render accounts, bonds, and obedience to the chiefs of the treasury; and finally, if he is of military rank, he is commandant-of-arms, and subaltern of the captain-general; and even though he be not of military rank he obtains the rank of military commander [capitan a guerra] by virtue of his rank of alcalde-mayor. He has charge of the company ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVII, 1609-1616 • Various
... Army as a cornet of Hussars in 1819, to the tragic close of his life, Lord George always cut a conspicuous and brilliant figure in the world. He was the spoilt child of Fortune; and, like all such spoilt children, was constantly getting into hot water—and out of it again. As a subaltern, for instance, he showed such little respect for his seniors that, one day on parade, a Captain Kerr exclaimed aloud: "If you don't make this young gentleman behave himself, Colonel, I will." Whereupon the insubordinate sub. retorted: "Captain Kerr ventures to say on parade that ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... mounted, some ill, but all flying along as best they might, the subaltern as good as the general, jostling and pushing, spurring and driving, with every thought thrown to the winds save that they should have the blood of this absurd fox! Truly, they are an ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... was so clear and easily to be understood, but the side which showed their takings wrapt in mystery and hieroglyphics such as not even the world's leading financiers and mathematicians could hope to unravel? My subaltern, being consulted, agreed with me; I would have had him carpeted by the C.O. at once if ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, February 25th, 1920 • Various
... Turenne was observing Germany. The king was alone with Vauban. Maestricht held out three weeks. "M. de Vauban, in this siege as in many others, saved a number of lives by his ingenuity," wrote a young subaltern, the Count of Alligny. "In times past it was sheer butchery in the trenches, now he makes them in such a manner that one is as safe as if one were at home." "I don't know whether it ought to be called swagger, vanity, or carelessness, the way we have of showing ourselves unadvisedly and without ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... captain's room and made himself known as Bonaparte's aide-de-camp. The captain, with the placid obedience of a subaltern to his superior officer, gave him the keys and followed behind him. Sir John was waiting before the porch, admiring, in spite of the mutilation to which they had been subjected, the ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas, pere
... purpose, so the survivors were compelled to surrender. There is better evidence here than at Magersfontein that the enemy were warned and ready. Every one of the officers engaged, from the Colonel to the boy subaltern, was killed, wounded, or taken. Eleven officers and one hundred and fifty men were our losses in this unfortunate but not discreditable affair, which proves once more how much accuracy and how much secrecy is necessary for a successful night attack. Four companies of the ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... subaltern advancing within cry of the Schweidnitz Gate, requests of the Town-guard there, To send him out a Town-Officer. Town-Officer appears; is informed, 'That Colonels Posadowsky and Borck, Commissioners or plenipotentiary Messengers from his Prussian Majesty, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Major, eyeing his eighteen-year-old subaltern son with a shrewd affectionate glance, "a little well-placed courtesy goes a long way. For instance, if a Sergeant should call you 'Sir,' never forget ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, February 14, 1917 • Various
... of his mission, and in the end his old companions in arms received their just dues. "Fifteen thousand acres were awarded to a field officer, nine thousand to a captain, six thousand to a subaltern, and so on." Stobo and Van Braam, who were with him at Great Meadows, received nine thousand acres apiece. They were in London at the time, and subsequently Washington purchased their claims ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer
... Steph'anus drew his dagger and struck him with much violence; but the wound not being mortal, Domi'tian caught hold of the assassin and threw him upon the ground, calling out for assistance. But Parthe'nius, with his freedman, a gladiator, and two subaltern officers, now coming in, they ran furiously upon the emperor and dispatched him: Steph'anus, however, was slain by the guards, but the other ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... involved, and you have such good reason to consider McConachan the man guilty of his uncle's death, it becomes my duty to put aside my private feelings and to confess to you that I am unable to look upon Mark McConachan as entirely above suspicion. When he was a subaltern in the regiment I have the honour to command, he was a source of grave worry and trouble ...
— The Ashiel mystery - A Detective Story • Mrs. Charles Bryce
... greatly cheered by an answer given to him by a young subaltern, Lieutenant Gomm, of the Forty-sixth Regiment, who, in the heat of action, was wounded in ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... of your old modest qualms, Pathfinder, and will do you no credit with the girl. Women distrust men who distrust themselves, and take to men who distrust nothing. Modesty is a capital thing in a recruit, I grant you; or in a young subaltern who has just joined, for it prevents his railing at the non-commissioned officers before he knows what to rail at; I'm not sure it is out of place in a commissary or a parson, but it's the devil and all when it gets possession ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... George, then a subaltern, made a report to his commanding officer, and it went wider than routine. He offered a frank account of the events attending the tithe-collecting, including the attitude of the peasantry, and the lessons that occurred to himself. These, the commanding officer ...
— The Romance of a Pro-Consul - Being The Personal Life And Memoirs Of The Right Hon. Sir - George Grey, K.C.B. • James Milne
... read the charge," said the subaltern, "but perhaps the lady would like to retire first," he ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... not entirely harmonious. While a young infantry subaltern at a Gulf station, he had been attracted by the piquant foreign accent and dramatic gestures of a French Creole widow, and—believing them, in the first flush of his youthful passion more than an offset to the encumbrance of her ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... thank you," said the general. He did not again look at the prisoner, but turned to a lieutenant who stood near-by. "You may remove the prisoner," he directed. "He will be destroyed with the others—here is the order," and he handed the subaltern a printed form upon which many names were filled in and at the bottom of which the general had just signed his own. It had evidently been waiting the outcome of ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... ride, he visited the quartermaster-general of his division, received the report of his chief of staff, and gave necessary orders. It was at this place, and never at the General's own dwelling, that the captains or subaltern officers presented themselves when they had occasion to speak ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... a traitor!" exclaimed the subaltern, who was evidently the kinder spirit of the two. ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 2, July 8, 1850 • Various
... two miles to run; but the navigation was delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot; for we went about and about, and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that was a ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... with my personal experiences as subaltern and Captain in the Sixty-first N. Y. Volunteers during the first and last days of June, 1862, in the Peninsular ...
— Personal Recollections of the War of 1861 • Charles Augustus Fuller
... right in the way of the subaltern who wants to be a General before he has smelt powder; and it stands (and should stand) in everybody's way who applies for pay or position before he has served his apprenticeship and proved himself. Your sister's ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... to things; and when later feudal law declared the serf ATTACHED TO THE GLEBE, it only periphrased the literal meaning of the word servus.[16] Spontaneous reason, oracle of fate itself, had therefore condemned the subaltern workman, before science had established his debasement. Such being the case, what can the efforts of philanthropy do for beings whom ...
— The Philosophy of Misery • Joseph-Pierre Proudhon
... Now, though this desire of distinction, when it is disproportionate to the powers and qualities by which the individual is indeed distinguished, or when it is the governing passion, or taken as the rule of conduct, is but a "knavish sprite," yet as an attendant and subaltern spirit, it has its good purposes and beneficial ...
— Literary Remains (1) • Coleridge
... Ordnance-Master, as an Imperial General of rank, is needed now for War-Service, if he has any skill that way. In those late months, he was duly in attendance at Philipsburg and the Rhine-Campaign, in a subaltern torpid capacity, like Brunswick-Bevern and the others; ready for work, had there been any: but next season, he expects to have a Division of his own, and to do something considerable.—In regard to Berlin and the Diplomacies, he has appointed ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. IX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... before they had been married three months. I've always thought it was rather poor-spirited of her to die too; for of course she never cared for him. She must have married him only to pique Kersley. By the way, Major Hunt-Goring met them in his subaltern days. He said everyone fell in love with her. I supposed that included himself, and he smiled and said, 'Calf-love, senorita!' Allegro, I wonder if I ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell
... taking his position, in the dark, Col. Horry advanced too near to a sentinel, who fired upon him. In a moment he rushed up to the house, found the British arms piled before the door, and seized upon them. Twenty-two British regulars, of the 63d regiment, two tories, one captain, and a subaltern were taken, and one hundred and fifty of the Maryland line, liberated. In his account of this affair Gen. Marion says he had one man killed, and Maj. Benson wounded. But the man, Josiah Cockfield, who was shot through the breast; lived to fight bravely again, and to be again wounded. In the ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James |
