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More "Forlorn hope" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... could content him. Astronomy was derived from astrology: chemistry from alchemy, and physiology from auguries. The position occupied by philosophy in the history of mankind is that of the great initiative to positive science. It was the forlorn hope of mankind, and though it perished in its efforts, it did not perish without having led the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... could not trust himself to speak; and then, with determination plainly marked in their haggard faces, they set to work in the shelter of the dwarfed pines around them, and packed one sledge with all they felt to be necessary to take on this forlorn hope expedition, and with it the last of their ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... him the assurance of success from the start. There was nothing counterfeit about my tone of humility, for in truth I was very near despair. I was making this last effort at the bidding of my brother, but I felt it to be a forlorn hope: in my heart of hearts I knew I ...
— The Man with the Clubfoot • Valentine Williams
... to speak of these things, however, just then, for the storm, or rather the squall, burst forth again with increased violence, and the pass was still before them—so like the men of a forlorn hope who press up to the breach, they braced themselves to renew the conflict, and pushed on. The truth of the proverb, that "fortune favours the brave," was verified on this occasion. The storm passed over almost as quickly ...
— Lost in the Forest - Wandering Will's Adventures in South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... him. Under other circumstances he would never have asked that question so directly; but he had lost reckoning of everything but these poor devils' dreadful need of doctoring, and he was like a man roused out of a dream. If a holy war had been proclaimed already, then he was engaged on a forlorn hope. But the ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy
... Province after province rose in arms, except the north and centre, where 80,000 French troops held the patriots in check. In the van of the movement was the rugged little province of Asturias, long ago the forlorn hope of the Christians in their desperate conflicts with the Moors. Intrenched behind their mountains and proud of their ancient fame, the Asturians ventured on the sublime folly of declaring war against the ruler of the West and the lord of 900,000 warriors. Swiftly Galicia and Leon in the north ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... "The forlorn hope of the Tory and Orange press went still further. They boldly disputed Ireland's right to the title of Catholic. So, although, ten years and twenty years before, these same journals furiously opposed ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... result of this lowly organization, founded as a forlorn hope, appeared on the 15th of April 1905, when at the close of the eloquent appeal of Samuel Harris, its field secretary, before the Presbytery at Grant, Rev. F. W. Hawley, the Synodical Missionary of Indian Territory, ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... Kid with the idea that a battle might possibly take place somewhere in the vicinity of Stevensville or Ridgeway; as he knew that the leader of the Irish Republican Army, or forlorn hope, as so small a body of men might be termed, would attempt to intercept a junction of the enemy somewhere near one or the other of these points, as both lay on the line between Chippewa and Port Colborne, ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... Somehow or another that last dotage of S. Mark's decrepitude is more recoverable by our fancy than the heroism of Pisani in the fourteenth century. From his prison in blockaded Venice the great admiral was sent forth on a forlorn hope, and blocked victorious Doria here with boats on which the nobles of the Golden Book had spent their fortunes. Pietro Doria boasted that with his own hands he would bridle the bronze horses of S. Mark. But now he found himself between the navy of Carlo Zeno in the Adriatic ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Frenchmen, if any should approach to offer it. Rather would he lie at the bottom of the Channel, or drift about among contending fishes, than become again a prisoner with his secret in his mind, and no chance of sending it to save his country. As a forlorn hope, he pulled out a stump of pencil, and wrote on the back of a letter from his mother a brief memorandum of what he had heard, and of the urgency of the matter. Then taking a last draught of his tarry water, he emptied the little tub, ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... thunderstruck; lawyers abashed and almost blushing, for it was on their quibbles and evasions he fell most heavily, at the same time answering a whole session of arguments on the side of the court. No, it was unique; you can neither conceive it, nor the exclamations it occasioned. Ellis, the Forlorn Hope, Ellis presented himself in the gap, till the ministers could recover themselves, when on a sudden Lord George Sackville led up the Blues; spoke with as much warmth as your brother had, and with ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... very similar to that of his Bohemian companions. The younger son of a poor Gascon family of doubtful nobility, he had come to seek his fortune at Paris; by turns petty officer of a forlorn hope; provost of an academy, bath-keeper, horse jockey, peddler of satirical news and Holland gazettes; he had more than once pretended to be a Protestant, feigning conversion to the Catholic faith in order to secure the fifty crowns that M. Pelisson ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... behind them, the main divisions had halted and made their last preparations for their own assault. They had not yet begun their advance, and the nearest was still half a mile distant, when the few survivors from the forlorn hope, their maddened horses bristling with arrows, flew past ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle
... were thus gazing in silence at each other and at the distant vessel, their enterprising leader had been casting about in his mind as to the best method of at least attempting the deliverance of his men, and he finally turned round to propose, as a forlorn hope, that all hands should strip off their upper clothing, that every unnecessary article should be removed from the boats, that a specified number should get into each, and that the remainder should hang on by the gunwales, ...
— Personal Reminiscences in Book Making - and Some Short Stories • R.M. Ballantyne
... of more. In this entirely obscure way he had reached the age of forty; was with the small body of Reformers who were standing siege in St Andrew's Castle,—when one day in their chapel, the Preacher after finishing his exhortation to these fighters in the forlorn hope, said suddenly, That there ought to be other speakers, that all men who had a priest's heart and gift in them ought now to speak;—which gifts and heart one of their own number, John Knox the name of him, had: Had he not? said the Preacher, appealing ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... they drew 4-1/2 miles nearer to the One Ton Depot, and there they made their last camp. Throughout Tuesday a severe blizzard held them prisoners, and on the 21st Scott wrote: 'To-day forlorn hope, Wilson and Bowers ...
— The Voyages of Captain Scott - Retold from 'The Voyage of the "Discovery"' and 'Scott's - Last Expedition' • Charles Turley
... hand for an instant like one who is dazzled—then he led forward his wife, as men have led on a forlorn hope. ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... steeling himself to one last forlorn hope—that Mercedes could defend herself. She had a gun. He doubted not at all that she would use it. But, remembering her terror of this savage, he ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... instructions that the men under his charge should move up to and occupy the round point of the hill, a position which I named Fort O'Hare in memory of a truly brave soldier, my commanding officer who fell at Badajoz in leading the forlorn hope of the Light ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 2 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... ugly money-lending business ending in suicide, which had excluded him from the society most accessible to his race. His alliance with Mrs. Newell was doubtless a desperate attempt at rehabilitation, a forlorn hope on both sides, but likely to be an enduring tie because it represented, to both partners, their last chance of escape from social extinction. That Hermione's marriage was a mere stake in their game did not in the least affect Garnett's view of its urgency. ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... a weather vane and decided against shipping to England, with the forlorn hope of, somehow attending Oxford or Cambridge, and studying English literature there. My old ideal of being a great adventurer and traveller had vanished, and, in its stead, came the desire to live a quiet life, devoted entirely to writing poetry, as ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... to follow a forlorn hope? Among the less vociferous, here are singers whose faces are alight with a mysterious radiance. Though they promise us little, saying that they themselves are blinded by the transcendent vision, so that they appear as men groping ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... had been in the war zone long enough to know that it might prove a very disagreeable matter to be caught sneaking through back alleys at night. There was a single chance—a sort of forlorn hope—and that was to risk fate and make a dash beneath the sentry's nose for the opposite ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... millions of Germany's armed forces. Even these were not effectively placed. The 30,000 men at the frontier were not sufficient to permit of any effective sorties to protect the approaches to the Liege fortifications. It was a forlorn hope from a military standpoint, but for three weeks the Belgians with shrinking forces held in check the war power of Germany. Every week help was expected from the Allies, but no help came, for no country in Europe outside of Germany and Austria ...
— The Audacious War • Clarence W. Barron
... is for a bashful man to talk, it is still more difficult for him to close the conversation. Most men like to leave a favorable impression, and a bashful man is always waiting with the forlorn hope that some favorable turn in the talk may let him out without absolute discomfiture. And so Bud stayed a long time, and how he ever did get ...
— The Hoosier Schoolmaster - A Story of Backwoods Life in Indiana • Edward Eggleston
... is the prospect before us! And unless you, and some of your friends who have influence at Court, can get up a giant as a forlorn hope, it is all over with this ...
— Miscellaneous Papers • Charles Dickens
... said he, like a lad in a nightmare, his hair standing on end; and then in he sprang, with the forlorn hope of bringing her out. Ah! there was a dark story told of the victim once sucked in by that ...
— The Heiress of Wyvern Court • Emilie Searchfield
... layer; these produce a flask-shaped, poisoned bomb which is discharged by the convulsive contraction of the cell itself so as to stun and injure the enemy or prey. The bomb-throwing cells die immediately after they have ejected their missiles; like soldiers participating in a forlorn hope, they sacrifice their lives in one supreme effort of service to the cell-community of which ...
— The Doctrine of Evolution - Its Basis and Its Scope • Henry Edward Crampton
... Persia, was no more; key they had none to unlock the great fortresses of the empire, none to unloose the enthusiasm of the native population. Yet such was the desperation of their circumstances, that a coup-de-main on the capital seemed their best chance. The whole army was and felt itself a forlorn hope. To go forward was desperate, but to go back much more so; for they had a thousand rivers without bridges in their rear; and, if they set their faces in that direction, they would have 300,000 light cavalry upon their flanks, besides ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... bad luck, but nurtured a desperate hope—the forlorn hope that deceives all gamblers—that he should retrieve his losses on some future occasion, which he eagerly looked for and, one ...
— The Reminiscences Of Sir Henry Hawkins (Baron Brampton) • Henry Hawkins Brampton
... Greeby possessed. She had no skill in managing a man, as her instincts were insufficiently feminine, and her courage was of a purely rough-and-tumble kind. She could have endured hunger and thirst and cold: she could have headed a forlorn hope: she could have held to a sinking ship: but she had no store of that peculiar feminine courage which men don't understand and which women can't explain, however much they may exhibit it. Miss Greeby was an excellent comrade, but ...
— Red Money • Fergus Hume
... talked of his strife, The forlorn hope He had led, How He opened the gates of life, And rescued from Death the dead; And with Him we saw a bright host, Our comrades gone on before, The right wing of our army ...
— Victor Roy, A Masonic Poem • Harriet Annie Wilkins
... it was determined to make a great effort. The point selected for assault was an outwork called Windmill Hill, which was not far from the southern gate. Religious stimulants were employed to animate the courage of the forlorn hope. Many volunteers bound themselves by oath to make their way into the works or to perish in the attempt. Captain Butler, son of the Lord Mountgarret, undertook to lead the sworn men to the attack. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... oblivion as the Clifton Hot Well: this may be due, in part, to the exaggerated estimate that was formed of the virtue of the water, and to the blamable practice which prevailed of sending patients here at their last gasp as a forlorn hope. Of too many it might be said as in these lines from the epitaph on his wife by the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... spilt, that their splendid young lives had been an empty sacrifice to the demons of Incompetence and Inefficiency. To those in Australia who in their hearts may feel that shreds of truth were woven in the rumours—that the Anzacs were spent on a forlorn hope, were wasted on a task foredoomed to failure—let this simple drawing bring the comfort ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... luncheon was quite ready. I was called, as having a most undeserved reputation for "pluck," to make trial of the aerial-looking fabric. I did not like it at all, and entreated some one else to lead the forlorn hope; so a very quiet young lady, who really possessed more courage in her little finger than I do in my whole body, volunteered to go first. The effect from the bank was something like tight-rope dancing, and it was very difficult to keep one's balance. ...
— Station Life in New Zealand • Lady Barker
... Questions that were put to him respecting his "late friend, James Deane," he answered with apparent good faith by saying that it was a long time since he had seen him, and that it was only as a "last forlorn hope" that he had set out to try and find him, "as he had always been helpful to those in need." Mary herself wished that this little fiction of her "father's friend" should be taken as fact by all the village, and a curious part of her character was that she never sought ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... was the German invasion of Brussels, and the train mentioned was considered the forlorn hope of the correspondents to connect with the outside world—that is, every correspondent thought it to be the other man's hope. Secretly each had prepared to outwit the other, and secretly Davis had already sent his story to Ostend. He meant to ...
— The Lost Road • Richard Harding Davis
... releases the Greeks from the horse (289-315). Hector's wraith warns AEneas in a dream to flee with the sacred vessels and images (316-351), and Panthus brings news of Sinon's treachery. The city is in flames. AEneas heads a forlorn hope of rescue (352-441). He and his followers exchange armour with certain Greeks slain in the darkness. The ruse succeeds until they are taken for enemies by their friends. The Greeks rally. The Trojans scatter. At Priam's palace a last stand is made, but Pyrrhus ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... chased his vessels out of the harbour and got possession of most of their cargoes of sheep, oxen, wine and other booty. The defence was brilliantly conducted throughout, and Valdory relates that when three hundred musketeers were requested for a forlorn hope, no less than two thousand men thronged to the officers' houses demanding weapons to join in the sally. "Rouvel" was very busy all the time in the town belfry, and rang furiously by night or day whenever the scouts gave notice that the enemy were likely to attack. ...
— The Story of Rouen • Sir Theodore Andrea Cook
... his head. Yet he added, with the instinct of a business man ready to nurse a forlorn hope, "There would be no harm in trying. I don't believe, though, that you have the ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... I can for you, Cis; but I am afraid it is a forlorn hope. I don't believe he is a man who can be coaxed into talking shop, and I fear he hasn't the least idea of accepting any invitations, while he is down here. I will try to get him; but you may be driven into taking a piano ...
— Phebe, Her Profession - A Sequel to Teddy: Her Book • Anna Chapin Ray
... front of them to the south, they took heart, and a small party started out, moved along the ridge toward Majuba Hill, and at last, finding themselves still unopposed, began to mount the hill itself. A second party supported this forlorn hope, and kept up a fire upon the hill while the first party climbed the steepest parts. Each set of skirmishers, as they came within range, opened fire at the British above them, who, exposed on the upper slope and ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... English extraction, though born in Scotland. His grandfather was a trooper in Monk's army, and one of the party of dismounted dragoons which formed the forlorn hope at the storming of Dundee in 1651. Stephen Butler (called from his talents in reading and expounding, Scripture Stephen, and Bible Butler) was a stanch Independent, and received in its fullest comprehension the promise ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... show him nothing but a sodden plot planted with wearied-looking shrubs, he has the key of that magic casement which opens on perilous seas in fairylands forlorn. He will never do anything great in the world, he will never lead a forlorn hope, or marry the Princess, or see far lands; he will never be anything but a poor, shabby clerk, but he is of such stuff as dreams are made of, and God has given to ...
— Olivia in India • O. Douglas
... his chair behind his great office desk and looked at his melancholy manager with the eyes of a general whose officers refuse the madness of a forlorn hope. ...
— Septimus • William J. Locke
... national history. For that reason one is apt to find famous places in Europe which have only an historical significance somewhat disappointing. One fails to find in a battle fought for the sake of conquest by an overweening ambition such soul-stirring pathos as in the leading of a forlorn hope from the spirit of patriotism, or of a woman's pleadings where a man's arguments have failed. For that reason Austerlitz touches one not so nearly as the struggle around Memel. As we drew near Memel things began to look lonely ...
— As Seen By Me • Lilian Bell
... of being an office-seeker, yet it happened frequently that his name would be mentioned in connection with some important position. He became quite early in life one of the prominent leaders of the Whig party of the State, and for a long time, in connection with a few devoted associates, led the forlorn hope of that party. During a period of about twenty years there was seldom more than one Whig member in the Illinois delegation of Congressmen. The Sangamon district, in which Mr. Lincoln lived, was always sure to elect a Whig member when the party was united; but it contained quite ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... aside that his pilot might escape from his sinking ship; there is Lawrence, whose last words are still ringing down the years; there is Nathan Hale, immortalized by his lofty bearing beneath the scaffold; there is Robert Gould Shaw, who led a forlorn hope at the head of a despised race;—even to name them is to review those great events in American history which bring proud tears to the eyes of ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... repentance in you—that the greatest delight would have been for me to say to myself 'At least I have conquered the evil in that man's nature by showing him a good return for his vicious acts, and turned a bitter enemy into a friend,' but that was a forlorn hope. May you live to repent your ...
— Jack Harkaway and his son's Escape From the Brigand's of Greece • Bracebridge Hemyng
... partiality, i.e. that you should call on Scotsmen to act like Scotsmen, is unfair, and he would be sorry it was known he, late and future placeman, should encourage such paw-paw doings. Yet if Sir W.S. could be got to stand forlorn hope, the legal gentleman would suggest, etc. etc. Suggest and be d—d. Sir W.S. knows when to [doff] his bonnet, and when to cock it in the face of all and sundry. Moreover, he will not be made a ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... bitterly. "He loved the woman. It was not her fault. I doubt that she knew it, and she could not help it. But it cost him his life, for it made him attempt to carry a forlorn hope. And she never even knew. It is suicide to love a woman ...
— Montlivet • Alice Prescott Smith
... myself reduced to the last stages of life, for no one would give me food, I went to a pool of water in a ravine amongst the hills, and for the last fortnight have been living there on water and the gums of trees. Seeing I was about to die, as a forlorn hope I ventured in this direction, without knowing whither I was going, or where I should come to; but God, you see, has ...
— What Led To The Discovery of the Source Of The Nile • John Hanning Speke
... Michigan and two from the Second Iowa, and placing Captain Alger, of the former regiment, in command of them, I informed him that I expected of them the quick and desperate work that is usually imposed on a forlorn hope. ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... has made of his misgivings as to the result of the election, if it were made public, would shatter his every chance. The world will not lend its support to a man or a cause that admits its hopelessness. A forlorn hope, however forlorn, ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... he was my only relative. That he might live near me was the last forlorn hope of my life. Before you condemn me, remember how few people exist in this world for me to love. I have no friends. I was so cold, so dreary! There was nothing left to me but your child and this one brother. How could I part with either of them? ...
— The Old Countess; or, The Two Proposals • Ann S. Stephens
... his close and logical reasoning, and thus established an interpretation of the Constitution of vast moment. The truth is, that the suggestion of the constitutional point, not a very remarkable idea in itself, originated, as has been said, with a layman, was regarded by Mr. Webster as a forlorn hope, and was very briefly discussed by him before the Supreme Court. He knew, of course, that if the case were to be decided against Woodward, it could only be on the constitutional point, but he evidently thought that the ...
— Daniel Webster • Henry Cabot Lodge
... Having disposed his troops in order, and given the necessary directions, he began at daybreak to ascend the difficult and steep defile, leading the advanced guard in person, directly before which was a forlorn hope of twenty half-pay officers much experienced in similar warfare. He had scarcely got half way up the mountain when he was attacked with the utmost fury by Quintuguenu; but animating his troops by his voice and example, he sustained for more than an hour ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 5 • Robert Kerr
... all professionals, at any rate," said the Captain. "I admit that the officers lead; but the men follow pretty close. And in a forlorn hope there are fifty men ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... the stable, and the second time found but three horses left. I walked along behind them, murmuring, 'Trumpeter, Trumpeter!' in the forlorn hope that one of the three brutes would give ...
— The Delectable Duchy • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... Bagstock took down Mrs Skewton; the young thing with the shoulders was bestowed, as an extinguisher, upon the East India Director; and the remaining ladies were left on view in the drawing-room by the remaining gentlemen, until a forlorn hope volunteered to conduct them downstairs, and those brave spirits with their captives blocked up the dining-room door, shutting out seven mild men in the stony-hearted hall. When all the rest were got in and were seated, one of these mild men ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... Bradshaw's party, Southey's party, stretching along the edge of the wide plains of the Round Hill, and drinking their Western waters. The post of honour and of danger was the line of the Kap River. This was occupied by the party of Scott below Kafir Drift, and by the Irish party above it. The forlorn hope of the entire settlement was Mahony's party at the clay pits, who had to bear the first brunt of every Kafir depredation in the Lower Albany direction. Names thicken as we proceed from Waay-plaats towards Grahamstown. Passing ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... of a party in the forlorn hope, and was commanded on what seemed almost a desperate service, to dispossess the French of the church-yard at Ramillies, where a considerable number of them were posted to remarkable advantage. They succeeded much better than ...
— The Life of Col. James Gardiner - Who Was Slain at the Battle of Prestonpans, September 21, 1745 • P. Doddridge
... interesting group of itinerants, who frequented the numerous fairs and markets held up and down Wessex during the summer and autumn months. Although Phillotson had never spoken to one of these gentlemen they now nobly led the forlorn hope in his defence. The body included two cheap Jacks, a shooting-gallery proprietor and the ladies who loaded the guns, a pair of boxing-masters, a steam-roundabout manager, two travelling broom-makers, who called themselves ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... not sure that the government of Canada is a manageable affair, and unless I think I can go to good purpose I will not go at all." Sir Francis Hincks says: "All Sir Charles Metcalfe's correspondence prior to his departure from England is indicative of a feeling that he was going on a forlorn hope expedition," and Hincks adds that such language can be explained only on the assumption that he was sent out for the purpose of overthrowing responsible government. It is certainly established by the Peel correspondence that the British government strongly disapproved of Sir Charles ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... beckons on the blossoming and fruitage; it is the starlight dew that perfumes life with sweetness and besprinkles it with splendor; it is the music-tide that sweeps the soul, scattering treasures; it is the victorious and blessed leader of integrity's forlorn hope; it is the potent alchemy that transmutes failure into success; it is the hidden manna that nourishes when all other sustenance fails; it is the voice that speaks to hopes all dead, "Because I live, ye shall live also." For the loftiest friendships have no commercial element in them: they are ...
— For Auld Lang Syne • Ray Woodward
... they not been impressed on her mental vision by the strength of despair? The Austrian soldiers at the frontier could not detain them, though without passports, for even they would not prevent a dying child from being conveyed on a forlorn hope. Such grief could scarcely be rendered more or less acute by circumstances. They arrived at their inn in a gondola, but only for Clara to die in her mother's arms ...
— Mrs. Shelley • Lucy M. Rossetti
... a forlorn hope, like a despised and feeble remnant, but they were animated with the spirit of a conquering army. With many a hearty wring of the hand and fervent "God bless you!" and, not without eyes suffused with tears, they took their leave of one another, and ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... place, was the mountain unoccupied? The mountain without the Austrians was in itself difficult enough to conquer! Lannes was despatched like a forlorn hope with a whole division. He crossed the peak of the Saint-Bernard without baggage or artillery, and took possession of Chatillon. The Austrians had left no troops in Piedmont, except the cavalry in barracks and a few posts of observation. There were no obstacles to contend ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... much admired. At least, much remarked on. You know I have told you not to believe what the young men tell you. I was unable to see your poor mother when in Richmond. Before I could get down I was sent off here. Another forlorn hope expedition. Worse than West Virginia.... I have much to do in this country. I have been to Savannah and have to go again. The enemy is quiet after his conquest of Port Royal Harbor and his whole fleet is lying there. May God guard ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... cared little, when the water had crept up to the furnaces and put the fires out, and we realized for the first time that the ship had met her match and was slowly filling. Without a pump to suck we started the forlorn hope of buckets and began to bale her out. Had we been able to open a hatch we could have cleared the main pump well at once, but with those appalling seas literally covering her, it would have meant less than 10 minutes to float, had ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... Here the camp remained for some days. A line of green bulrushes fringed this spring. While the main party camped here, I once more tried to find some remains or traces of my lost companion Gibson, taking with me only Tommy Oldham. It was quite a forlorn hope, as Gibson had gone away with only one horse; and since we reached the range, we had passed over places where I knew that all the horses I then had with me had gone over the ground, but no signs of former horse-tracks could be seen, therefore the chance of finding ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... and throbbed in The Hollow, but the hidden bird did not break it by another call. At last it became evident that Cynthia was beyond the reach of her slave's desires, and so poor Sandy gathered together his flagging strength and spirits and turned toward home with the forlorn hope that he might meet Cynthia on the way there. Now that the parting time had come he knew that the girl was his only real friend on earth in the sense that youth knows a friend. They were near each other, though so far apart. They spoke a common tongue and there ...
— A Son of the Hills • Harriet T. Comstock
... had coolly recommended to his fellow blacks the only solution to the slave question, which, after twenty-five years of arduous labor of the most hopeful and noble-hearted of the abolitionists, seems the forlorn hope of freedom to-day—insurrection and bloodshed. Great Britain was in the midst of that bloodless revolution which, two years afterwards, culminated in the passage of the Reform Bill, and thus prepared the joyous ...
— The Colored Regulars in the United States Army • T. G. Steward
... with open eyes and well-considered resolution. Adverting to the prevalence of fever in some parts of the country, while other parts were comparatively healthy, he says in his Journal: "I offer myself as a forlorn hope in order to ascertain whether there is a place fit to be a sanatorium for more unhealthy spots. May God accept my service, and use me for his glory. A great honor it is to he a fellow-worker with God." "It is a great venture," he writes to his ...
— The Personal Life Of David Livingstone • William Garden Blaikie
... preparation for the great event. "You!" exclaimed the steward, gazing in amazement at the modest, yet apparently audacious lad before him. "And who are you?" "I am Antonio Canova, the grandson of Pisano, the stonecutter." Desperately grasping at even the most forlorn hope, the perplexed servant gave the boy permission to try his ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... that; they even threatened to win. They seemed to forget that they were doormats for the "regulars," mere "sparring partners," to be straightened up with one punch and knocked down by the next. The "forlorn hope" had suddenly become a triumphant hope. The worm had turned, and turned with a vengeance. Pale and panting, plastered with mud and drenched with sweat, with "blood in their eyes" and here and there a little on their features, they faced the "big fellows" ...
— Bert Wilson on the Gridiron • J. W. Duffield
... Neither ambition nor pleasure could hold out any allurements to Ivy. Maternal authority was at length hinted at, only hinted at, and the spoiled child declared that she had not had her own will and way for sixteen years to give up quietly in her seventeenth. One last resort, one forlorn hope,—one expedient, which had never failed to overcome her childish stubbornness: "Would she grieve her parents so much as to oppose this their darling wish?" And Ivy burst into tears, and begged to know if she should show her love to her father and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... Christians tarried, and their great numbers peopled these paths and grottoes, by day assembling to exchange words of cheer and comfort, or to bewail the death of some new martyr; by night sending forth the boldest among them, like a forlorn hope, to learn tidings of the upper world, or to bring down the blood-stained bodies of some new victims. Through the different persecutions, they lived here so secure that although millions perished throughout the empire, the power of Christianity at ...
— The Martyr of the Catacombs - A Tale of Ancient Rome • Anonymous
... all that had been given him—and she knew she would never forget that phrase of his—willingly, and it seemed to her that the gifts he had been entrusted with were rare and precious ones—steadfast, unflinching courage, compassion, and the fine sense of honour which had sent him out on that forlorn hope. He had gone down, unyielding and undismayed—she felt curiously sure of that—amidst the blinding snow, but this was his vindication which had crowned him with ...
— Hawtrey's Deputy • Harold Bindloss
... daylight. Even then the situation was little better, for the guides were still at sea. About the time that Clark decided, to return to the river, miles away, and take a fresh start, he fired a shot in the forlorn hope of getting a response from some section of the compass. A distant shot came in answer and he pushed on and soon came up with the colonel and Tarlton returning home after a night in the temporary elephant camp. The colonel gave him full directions and ...
— In Africa - Hunting Adventures in the Big Game Country • John T. McCutcheon
... think of giving up. He remembered all Allie had told him. Those fiends had gotten her again. He believed now all that she had said; and there was something of hope in the thought that if Durade had found her again she would at least not be at the mercy of ruffians like Fresno. But this was a forlorn hope. Still, it upheld Neale and determined him to seek her during the time in which his ...
— The U.P. Trail • Zane Grey
... plane taxied across the platform, swooped into space. But it was not till it had risen and steadied that I realized the complete idiocy of our forlorn hope of escape. What fools we were! And Brice—Brice must, in truth, be mad! How could we get away? How could we ever escape the terrific power of the magnetic ray? That ray that Fraser worked himself from his laboratory—the ...
— The Floating Island of Madness • Jason Kirby
... was made Colonel of Dragoons, and accompanied the Queen with his regiment to the royal head-quarters at Oxford. The year after we find him at the siege of Gloucester, then at the first battle of Newbury leading the forlorn hope with Sir George Lisle, afterwards marching with Sir Charles Lucas into the associate counties, and present at the royalist rout at Newport. That he was esteemed a valiant and skilful officer is apparent from the circumstance, that ...
— Industrial Biography - Iron Workers and Tool Makers • Samuel Smiles
... tranquil, whatever Matter might suffer. As the novelist says, "Lighting upon a grain of gold or silver betokens that a mine of the precious metal must be in the neighbourhood." It had been otherwise with my first Expedition: a forlorn hope, a miracle of moral audacity; the heaviest of responsibilities incurred upon the slightest of justifications, upon the pinch of sand which a tricky and greedy old man might readily have salted. It reminds me of a certain "Philip sober," who in the morning ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... in her heart of hearts all the same that it was a forlorn hope. The old sexton had probably seen Monica walk through the village, and had come to lock the church as usual after her practice, quite unaware that anyone was exploring the belfry. By this time he would be at home again, with the keys in his pocket. ...
— The Manor House School • Angela Brazil
... the duke, applying to me, "M. Marston, you have been later on the spot than any of us. What can you tell of this M. Dumourier, who, I see from my letters, is appointed to the forlorn hope of France—the command of the broken armies of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... the other for signs of a hoax. These two, under normal circumstances, were always up to something. But what I saw in their expressions convinced me that I had better go, and somehow, there rose in my breast a forlorn hope. ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science July 1930 • Various
... The forlorn hope had failed; he was limping back to Ruth wounded and broken. He had sent her a wireless message. She would be at the dock to meet him. How could he face her? Fate had been against him, it was true, but he was in no mood to make excuses for himself. ...
— The Coming of Bill • P. G. Wodehouse
... was held; and it was determined, in the first place, to endeavor to force the position by direct attack. Some men of approved courage were chosen to lead the forlorn hope; a number of marksmen, with arrows and firearms, were placed in the valley to keep up a fire upon any who might show themselves on the path, while above, several hundreds of men were sent up, with crowbars, to loosen and hurl ...
— Under Drake's Flag - A Tale of the Spanish Main • G. A. Henty
... ideas are very fine, but not worth a "dern;" and instead of them proclaims the true cry, that Breitmann is sound upon the goose, about which he tells a story. Then it is reported that the German cannot win, and that, as he is a soldier, he has been sent into the political field only to lead the forlorn hope and get beaten. In answer to this, Twine starts the report that Smith has sold the fight to Breitmann, a notion which the Americans take ...
— The Breitmann Ballads • Charles G. Leland
... true," said he. "I have met men qualified to lead a Forlorn Hope; but never before a woman. Allow me to express my regret that it is such a forlorn one." Then, with a twinkle in his eye which bespoke a lighter mood, he remarked in ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... with great vigour. At length it was resolved, in a council of war, that a detachment should pass at a ford a little to the left of the bridge, though the river was deep and rapid, the bottom foul and stony, and the pass guarded by a ravelin, erected for that purpose. The forlorn hope consisted of sixty grenadiers in armour, headed by captain Sandys and two lieutenants. They were seconded by another detachment, and this was supported by six battalions of infantry. Never was a more desperate service, nor was ever exploit performed with more valour and intrepidity. ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... announced, and the asperity of Miss Jemima's feelings softened a little by that, especially as she reflected that her father would be obliged to lead Mrs. Mellen into the dining-room. But that dreadful Elsie destroyed even that forlorn hope. ...
— A Noble Woman • Ann S. Stephens
... It would be seven days yet before I could get news. I waited,—waited calmly and composedly. Mon Dieu! they talk of heroism in leading a forlorn hope,—Cesar Prevost was a hero for those eight days. I do not think ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 40, February, 1861 • Various
... many races lost by a head, how many games by a point, she must have known before her silver laugh became so hollow, and her pleasant smile so evidently theatrical and lip-deep; before what once was chanceful became desperate, and she fell back into the ranks of the forlorn hope—of ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... were then advancing through Persia towards the Holy Land, and to these, in the forlorn hope of checking their course, he sent as ambassadors a body of Franciscan friars composed of Father Ascelin and three companions. It was in the year 1246 that these papal envoys set out, armed with full powers from the head of the Church, but sadly deficient in ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... the pursuit of happiness the objective of love. Happiness for human beings is a forlorn hope. Because of conflicts within himself and between himself and others, man is doomed to be unhappy most of the time. He is always having to deal with the inevitable conflicts and accidents of life that give him a sense of vulnerability, both as an individual ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... approach was regarded by the Queen with ominous reluctance. At length, however, the moment for the meeting of the States General at Versailles arrived. Necker was once more in favour, and a sort of forlorn hope of better times dawned upon the perplexed monarch, in ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... confusion of his uncle, who, at once overcome with conviction and fear, again ventured to speak: "It is too sure you speak truth, Andrew; but what am I, or any other private individual, that we should make ourselves a forlorn hope for the whole nation? Will Baliol, who was the first to bow to the usurper, will he thank us for losing our heads in resentment of his indignity? Bruce himself, the rightful heir of the crown, leaves us to our fates, and ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... could have saved Burnside's extraordinary campaign. Had he been assigned to lead a forlorn hope, regardless of consequences, his plan, if it can be called a plan, might have been justified, but under the existing circumstances it was reckless to the point of madness. His first moves, however, were characterized by an excess of caution and so slowly did he advance ...
— On the Trail of Grant and Lee • Frederick Trevor Hill
... is, perhaps, a forlorn hope, but it is our only chance. You have appealed to the government—you have failed! Appeal, then, to ...
— The Great Secret • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... sea-shore, over whose firm sands he guided his horse, though with little hope of escaping his active foes. Fortunately, he soon perceived a Greek vessel at no great distance from the shore, a vision which held out to him a forlorn hope of escape. The land was perilous; the sea might be more propitious; he forced his faithful animal into the water, and swam towards the vessel, in the double hope of being rescued and ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... that the question was one of honour, like that of leading a forlorn hope; but, on my saying that I had planned the enterprise and thereby was entitled by right to be the first to venture down, quite apart from the fact of my supplying the rope, he yielded gracefully. Thereupon, without any more fuss, I got ...
— On Board the Esmeralda - Martin Leigh's Log - A Sea Story • John Conroy Hutcheson
... upon his pinnacle until the hour arrived for embarkation. In the game of stone-throwing, should Cap'n Sproul accept that gage of battle, the beach was too vulnerable a fortress, and, like a prudent commander, Mr. Butts had sent a forlorn hope onto the firing-line to test conditions. This was all clear to Cap'n Sproul. As to Mr. Butts's exact intentions relative to the process of getting safely away, the Cap'n ...
— The Skipper and the Skipped - Being the Shore Log of Cap'n Aaron Sproul • Holman Day
... Man.' The 'Phrenology' is very clever, and amusing; but I do not think it logical or satisfactory. I forget whether 'slowness of the pulse' is mentioned in it as a symptom of the poetical aestus. I am afraid, if it be a symptom, I dare not take my place even in the 'forlorn hope of poets' in this age so forlorn as to its poetry; for my pulse is in a continual flutter and my feet not half cold enough for a pedestal—so I must make my honours over to poor papa straightway. He has been shivering and shuddering through the cold weather; and partaking ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon
... mother, that he might be relieved of his anxiety and be rid for the moment of the sight of the awful catastrophe of the fire. Warrenton and Stuteley rushed in together, at his command, to try to save the two remaining foresters; but it was a very forlorn hope. Warrenton in his just revenge had pushed things to their extreme limits: Master Ford and all his band had paid the utmost penalty of their failure to overcome this relentless ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... something like men leading a forlorn hope, but felt that they must of necessity expose themselves to the round shot and bullets of the enemy. They had not long to wait before the guns from the battery opened fire; the first shot struck the starboard bulwarks and went through ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... sounds of his undulating, flexible, cautiously modulated voice, winding his way betwixt heaven and earth, now courting popularity, now calling servility to his aid, and with a large estate, the "saints," and the population of Yorkshire to swell his influence, never venturing on the forlorn hope, or doing any thing more than "hitting the house between wind and water." Yet he is probably a ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... Mr. Holbrook. I came to Lidford the night before last, with the hope of finding out something about him; but all my endeavours have resulted in failure. It struck me at last, as a kind of forlorn hope, that this Mr. Holbrook might possibly be one of your autumnal visitors; and I came here to ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... useless as propellers, performing now the office of life-preservers. So, cutting the lashing of the water-proof match keg, after many failures Starbuck contrived to ignite the lamp in the lantern; then stretching it on a waif pole, handed it to Queequeg as the standard-bearer of this forlorn hope. There, then, he sat, holding up that imbecile candle in the heart of that almighty forlornness. There, then, he sat, the sign and symbol of a man without faith, hopelessly holding up hope in the midst of despair. Wet, drenched through, and shivering cold, despairing ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... the forlorn hope of attracting his attention. "Cinders!" Then, with a sudden spurt of animation, "Cinders darling, just come and see ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... forlorn hope for us, and I took it. It was useless to try to pass over her, for that would have allowed her to force us against the rocky dome above, and we were already too near that as it was. To have attempted to dive below her would have ...
— The Gods of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... one's nerves to the leading of a forlorn hope, and a gnat gets into one's eye, or a little cinder grit, and there it sticks; and there is no question of leading any forlorn hope, after all, and never will be; all that was in the imagination only: it is always gnats and cinder ...
— Peter Ibbetson • George du Marier et al
... soldier's overcoat, with cape and hood, which Mr. Green had brought in case of emergency. The cold had become intense. We had not wasted words at any time, and on remounting, preserved as profound a silence as if we were on a forlorn hope, even the ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... Pontiac was leading his forlorn hope, he made his conquerors ridiculous. Major Loftus with a detachment of troops came up the Mississippi to take possession according to treaty. Pontiac turned him back. Captain Pittman came up the river. Pontiac turned him back. Captain Morris started from Detroit, and Pontiac squatted defiantly ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... herself to recording of the men of Prizren that "of one thing the population is determined: that is, that never again shall the land be Serb"; but she adds, on her own account, that in this picturesque town and its neighbourhood the Serbs are engaged in a forlorn hope and that their claims are no better than those of the English on Normandy. Yet if, in her opinion, the Serbs have been rewarded beyond their deserts, she must acknowledge that they are not wholly undeserving—in the days of her cherished Albanians it was ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... later phases was not the Napoleon of Austerlitz. Out of the great heart and brain some essential element had gone. Burton, too, had tasted defeat and knew its bitterness. He was going back to rally shrunken forces and lead a forlorn hope and his eyes were grimly defiant—where once they had been regnantly confident. Perhaps Hamilton Burton during those next few months was after all more worthy of admiration than he had been since a boy whose dreams burned city-ward. Feeling each day ...
— Destiny • Charles Neville Buck
... girl quietly home. I bag the back seat and Adrien. It is hard on me, I know, but fifteen minutes more of Patsy and I shall be counting my tootsies and prattling nursery rhymes. Here they come," he breathed. "Now, 'a little forlorn hope, deadly breach act, if you love me, ...
— To Him That Hath - A Novel Of The West Of Today • Ralph Connor
... York City. The clock in the office marked the hour as one. A toddied individual in a great buffalo coat waited for her outside, hiccoughing and bandying jest with the half-frozen men who had spent the night with him in the forlorn hope of finding THE GIRL. ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... faded, musty love letters from some young Spanish gallant to somebody's inconstant wife, and the carver spoke of them. Satterlee impetuously bade him halt his work and wrote a wild letter to Ann Westfall begging her to let him hide the truth in the well of the candlestick with the forlorn hope that one day Carl might know. This she granted. Later he had the candlesticks brought to his apartments to be sealed in his presence. As he took from his pocket the written account intended for Carl, another paper fluttered ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... windows, upstairs, downstairs and in the cellar. The Yankees cheered and charged, and our boys got happy. Colonel Field told us he had orders to hold it until every man was killed, and never to surrender the house. It was a forlorn hope. We felt we were "gone fawn skins," sure enough. At every discharge of our guns, we would hear a Yankee squall. The ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
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