"Onset" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... touching "the point of honor and the pride of virtue." But while these are as yet fomenting the passions and swelling the bosom, the attack is made; and probably the latter words were reiterated at the onset; at least, were yet sounding in the ear. Gentlemen of the jury, for Heaven's sake, let us put ourselves in the same situation! Would you not spurn at that spiritless institution of society which tells you to be a subject at the expense of ...
— Public Speaking • Irvah Lester Winter
... destined to an evil death; assuredly soon was he himself to be slain by the sword of Clytius. Then Ancaeus, the dauntless son of Lycurgus, quickly seized his huge axe, and in his left hand holding a bear's dark hide, plunged into the midst of the Bebrycians with furious onset; and with him charged the sons of Aeacus, and with them started warlike Jason. And as when amid the folds grey wolves rush down on a winter's day and scare countless sheep, unmarked by the keen-scented dogs and the shepherds too, and they seek what first to attack and carry ...
— The Argonautica • Apollonius Rhodius
... if there is pain, and its seat is in the head. This is frequently the very first outward sign of any thing being wrong, and will occur at the very onset of disease; if therefore remarked at an early period, and proper remedies used, its notice may prevent one of the most fearful of infantile ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... foe set foot upon British ground, if he could procure no other conveyance, he would crawl upon his hands and knees to the coast to meet them, and there, old and feeble as he was, he would make a bulwark of his shattered frame, to check in the first onset their daring attempt to destroy our rights and liberties. In fact, he did every thing that man could do, to persuade them to perform their duty, and to save their character from such foul irretrievable ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... crown with success so just a cause. The enemy will endeavor to intimidate by show and appearance; but remember they have been repulsed on various occasions by a few brave Americans. Their cause is bad,—their men are conscious of it; and, if opposed with firmness and coolness on their first onset, with our advantage of works, and knowledge of the ground, the victory is most assuredly ours. Every good soldier will be silent and attentive, wait for orders, and reserve his fire until he is sure of ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... at what has been done since 1860 in the way of occupation. South Australia has founded on theNorth Coast a Settlement at Adam Bay, on the Adelaide River, but its progress seems to have been marked from the onset by misfortune. The officer charged with its formation, in a short time managed to raise so strong a feeling of dissatisfaction and dislike amongst the settlers as to call for a Commission of Enquiry on his administration, which resulted in his ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... come, fast they come; See how they gather! Wide waves the eagle plume, Blended with heather. Cast your plaids, draw your blades, Forward each man set; Pibroch of Donuil Dhu, Knell for the onset! ...
— English Songs and Ballads • Various
... thanks but the Well done of God in heaven." Did they cower and go back? Ere the words had spent their echoes, every man's will was as the living adamant of God's purpose, and every man's hand was as the hand of Destiny, and from the shock of their onset the Austrians fled as from the opening jaws of an earthquake. Demosthenes told Athens only what Athens knew. He merely blew upon the people's hearts with their own best thoughts; and what a blaze! True, the divine fuel was nearly ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 84, October, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... indispensable not to place the eggs of both the wild and tame duck under the same hen, for in this case "the young wild ducks die off, leaving their more hardy brethren in undisturbed possession of their foster-mother's care. The difference of habit at the onset in the newly-hatched ducklings almost entails such a result to a certainty." The wild ducklings were from the first quite tame towards those who took care of them as long as they wore the same clothes, and likewise to the dogs and cats of the house. They would even ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, Vol. I. • Charles Darwin
... dormant forces of China, as it seems bent upon doing, and the same law of eastern aggressiveness which is at the bottom of the present war will push the yellow mass toward Europe. Russia, as comparatively western, will have to bear their first onset; for this she will require Occidental assistance, and in the turmoil of that direful conflict—or, let us hope, in order to avoid it—she will readily give up all designs against her western neighbors, and she may become really western ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 2, May, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... bird alone!" The boys, terrified at this unexpected onset, started and ran in every direction. The boy who had the nest, dropped it upon the ground, and dodged back into the bushes. Jonas took it up carefully, put little Mosette, who had fallen out, back in the nest, and walked out into the road to meet Rollo, who was coming down ...
— Rollo at Play - Safe Amusements • Jacob Abbott
... are little round pancakey blobs, twisted and covered with butter and sugar. Then the wafelen, which are oblong wafers stamped in a mould and also buttered and sugared. You eat twenty-four poffertjes and two wafelen: that is, at the first onset. Afterwards, as many more as you wish. Lager beer is drunk with ...
— A Wanderer in Holland • E. V. Lucas
... So fierce was that onset that each horse fell back upon the ground and only by great skill and address did the knight who rode him void his saddle, so as to save himself from a fall. And in that meeting the horse of Sir Turquine was killed outright and the back of Sir Launcelot's horse was broken ...
— The Story of the Champions of the Round Table • Howard Pyle
... onset. Slipping lithely to one side he avoided the bull-rush, all the time talking in the same pleasantly ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... and erecting bastions and a staging for sharp-shooters, we converted it into an excellent fortress, though it would not have been of much use against artillery. Our patrols used to be out all night, since we chiefly feared a night attack, and generally every preparation was made to resist the onset that was hourly expected, and I believe that it was that state of preparedness that ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... muskets. Once more the fight raged, and the sounds were heard as distinctly as before; the struggle was but short, the lances of the south-eastern army snapped like hemp-sticks, and their firm columns went down together in mass beneath the onset of their foes. The overthrow was complete. Scarcely had the victors and vanquished vanished, than the clear blue space where they had stood appeared suddenly streaked with broad crimson streams flowing athwart the sky. The ...
— The Lily of Leyden • W.H.G. Kingston
... brought back the uproarious and hostile mob of a huge city to perfect order and quiet. His burst into the Puerta del Sol was the most tremendous and successful piece of daring ever witnessed. I admired so much the spirit of the "brute bull" that I frequently, during his wild onset, shouted "Viva Quesada!" for I wished him well. Not that I am of any political party or system. No, no! I have lived too long with Rommany Chals and Petulengres {9} to be of any politics save Gypsy politics; ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... dazing him so that he staggered back and seemed to fall over the chariot. Then others rushed at me, and but for Userti's armour three times at least I must have died. Fighting madly, I staggered against the rock, and whilst waiting for a new onset, saw that Seti, hurt by Laban's thrust, was now beneath the great Hebrew who had him by the throat, and was choking the life out ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... brings his rain he brings it with the majestic onset announced by his breath. And when the light follows, it comes from his own doorway in the verge. His are the opened evenings after a day shut down with cloud. He fills the air with innumerable particles of moisture that scatter and bestow the ...
— The Colour of Life • Alice Meynell
... a little, fellow citizens; and you, gentlemen of the rabble, a word of godly exhortation to strengthen your hands, ere you give the onset. ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... Sangster, and here the musing thought must for ever conjure up De Salaberry, McDonell, the 800 waiting behind their breastworks in the gloom of the woods, the touching scene of Captain Longtin and his Beauharnois men, and the stubborn onset of Daly against overwhelming odds. The meaning of it all is: that given a good cause, and the defence of our homes against wanton aggression, we can dare odds that otherwise would seem hopeless; that it is in the future, as in the past, the spirits of men, and not their material resources, ...
— An Account Of The Battle Of Chateauguay - Being A Lecture Delivered At Ormstown, March 8th, 1889 • William D. Lighthall
... gospel, which explains the remarkable unanimity with which the German nation has stood behind the Kaiser's Government in each trial of strength. They have learned to consider all attempts of the lesser peoples (Britain, France and Russia included) to maintain themselves against the Teutonic onset as impudent attacks on sacred Germany, which also illuminates the fact that Germans call the ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... man who had mounted guard at the gate, came up with his friends, rescued the carriage, and surrounding the coachman with their pikes brought him safely into the yard. The pole of the carriage having been broken in the first onset, the housekeeper could not leave Edgeworth Town till morning. She passed the night in walking up and down, listening and watching, but the rebels returned no more, and thus our house was saved by the gratitude of ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... board. It was fearful work we were about, but our blood was up, and there was no quarter asked or given on either side. We did not stop to think. The pirates knew that there was no pardon for them, and seemed determined to sell their lives dearly. Our onset was too furious to be withstood, and in a minute we had cleared a small space on the schooner's decks abaft the foremast, but beyond that ...
— Captain Mugford - Our Salt and Fresh Water Tutors • W.H.G. Kingston
... higher in childhood; but any heat above 99.5 deg. may be regarded as evidence that something is wrong, and the persistence for more than twenty-four hours of a temperature of 101 deg. and upwards, may be taken as almost conclusive proof of the existence of some serious inflammation, or of the onset of one of the ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... of Mu spread out extensive; Bright shone the chariots of sandal; The teams of bays, black-maned and white-bellied, galloped along; The Grand-Master Shang-fu. Was like an eagle on the wing, Assisting king Wu, Who at one onset smote the great Shang. That morning's encounter was followed ...
— The Shih King • James Legge
... terrible onset of the troops who were still shouting "Remember Jackson!" and who were led on by a plumed knight out of the Middle Ages, shaking a great sabre and now singing at the top of his voice his favorite line, "Old Joe Hooker, won't you ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... joined Unbroken to the past; to force the gates Not find them open, fire and sword to bring Upon the harvests, not through fields unharmed To pass his legions — this was Caesar's joy; In peaceful guise to march, this was his shame. Italia's cities, doubtful in their choice, Though to the earliest onset of the war About to yield, strengthened their walls with mounds And deepest trench encircling: massive stones And bolts of war to hurl upon the foe They place upon the turrets. Magnus most The people's favour held, yet faith with fear Fought ...
— Pharsalia; Dramatic Episodes of the Civil Wars • Lucan
... horssemen were sent afore, to take the higher ground: [Sidenote: The Englishmen set vpon the Scots.] which when the Englishmen perceiued, they staied not till the enimies should begin the battell, but straightwaies caused their trumpets to sound, and so giue the onset. ...
— Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland (2 of 6): England (4 of 12) - Stephan Earle Of Bullongne • Raphael Holinshed
... justify contemplation and silence. It was an hour to caress in years to come, none the less that it was accepted as the mere routine of daily life in the short term of its existence. It was an hour that came to an end when the party arrived at the hedge of the unripe sloes that had checked the onset of Albion Villas towards the new town, and passed through the turnstile Fenwick and Vereker had passed through in the morning. Then speech came back, and each did what all folk invariably do after ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... host Smit with sick presage of some wrathful God Quailed, but the foe as from one iron throat With one great sheer sole thousand-throated cry Shook earth, heart-staggered from their shout, and clove The eyeless hollow of heaven; and breached therewith As with an onset of strength-shattering sound The rent vault of the roaring noon of night From her throned seat of usurpation rang 1510 Reverberate answer; such response there pealed As though the tide's charge of a storming sea Had burst the sky's wall, and made broad ...
— Erechtheus - A Tragedy (New Edition) • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... alone upon his danger. He was near the tavern, he was passing the end of a court. From the blackness there men rushed upon him. They managed it well. He was almost borne down by the first onset, but hearing something in time, seeing a glimmer of steel, he swung aside and staggered back into the kennel slashing at them with his stick. They were borne past him by their vehemence, but he carried no sword and their swords were all about him. There was no hope. Two blades seared through ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... first onset the Indian had ceased yelling, and we both fought in the intense earnestness ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... Jeff meant was not to be so easily done. Lynde had not grown up in dissolute idleness without acquiring some of the arts of self-defence which are called manly. He met Jeff's onset with remembered skill and with the strength which he had gained in three months of the wholesome regimen of the Brooker Institute. He had been sent there, not by Dr. Lacy's judgment, but by his despair, and ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... will happen now; the King will come, La Hire will come, and with them our veterans, and behind them all France!" And so we were full of heart again, and could already hear, in fancy, that stirring music the clash of steel and the war-cries and the uproar of the onset, and in fancy see our prisoner free, her chains gone, her ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc Volume 2 • Mark Twain
... the railroad for a reserve. He also directed Wood to suspend his preparations for his crossing and for him to move at once to the new line on the right and hold Hascall in reserve. Up to this time Rosecrans had hoped that McCook, notwithstanding the disaster to the right, might stay the onset with his own troops. With the volume of stragglers and the detachments from the broken commands swarming to the rear through the cedars Rosecrans soon became satisfied that McCook was routed. He then ordered ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... stubborn resistance. General W. T. Sherman, then comparatively unknown, inspired his division of raw troops with his own intelligent courage. Their gallant and protracted fight around the Shiloh log church made them the heroes of the day. But the Confederates' onset was impetuous. Step by step they forced their opponents back through the heavy woods, and by noon stood in possession of the Union camps; Grant's army, badly shattered, being cooped up in a narrow space along ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... horses of the surge, 10 Plunging in thunderous onset to the shore, Trample and break ...
— Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics • Bliss Carman
... can hardly be imagined. The Indians seldom presented themselves in large numbers, never gathered for a decisive action, but, dividing into innumerable prowling bands, attacked the lonely farm-house, the small and distant settlements, and often, in terrific midnight onset, plunged, with musket, torch, and tomahawk, into the large towns. These bands varied in their numbers from twenty to thirty to two or three thousand. The colonists were very much scattered in isolated farm-houses ...
— King Philip - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... judgments in such melancholy dispensations. The wind increased, the roaring of the ocean deepened upon the ear, and all hands in every craft upon the gulf were engaged in reefing their sails, and making every thing snug for the onset. ...
— Ups and Downs in the Life of a Distressed Gentleman • William L. Stone
... tremor and rumbling sound were alike absent. So sudden, indeed, was the onset of the earthquake, that the survivors generally found themselves beneath the ruins of their houses before they were conscious of any shock. The destruction, practically instantaneous, was wrought by four or five vertical blows, so ...
— A Study of Recent Earthquakes • Charles Davison
... strung along a half mile of hill and valley, with no more order or care than if they had been chasing rabbits. Black Hawk, who had been at supper when the running fight began, hastily gathered a handful of warriors and attacked the scattered whites. The onset of the savages acted like an icy bath on the red-hot valor of the volunteers; they turned and ran for their lives, stampeding the camp as they fled. There was very little resistance—so little that Black Hawk, fearing a ruse, tried ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... themselves, one by one, into certain houses hard by the Port St. Denis, where certain of their party dwell. Now, very early to-morrow morning, before dawn, the purpose of the English is to send forth a company of a hundred men-at- arms, who will make a sudden onset on the windmill, where the Maid lies to-night, and so will take ...
— A Monk of Fife • Andrew Lang
... end of the onset, when he gave her her release from volunteer service, she turned shining eyes upon him. "I've never been so treated in my life! You're ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... signal for their onset. Nash pinioned his arms behind while Boland seized a long cabbage stump which was lying in the gutter. Struggling and kicking under the cuts of the cane and the blows of the knotty stump Stephen was borne back against a ...
— A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man • James Joyce
... BRAND).—There is no time now to have a sick soul. We shall have to fight. As soon as my brother-in-law Kolbein has made an onset at our fort and lost many men he will himself see fit to obtain ...
— Poet Lore, Volume XXIV, Number IV, 1912 • Various
... but very slowly. He felt assured that his ear caught a contiguous step. He repeated his interrogatory in a louder tone, but it obtained no response. Again he stopped. Suddenly he was seized; an iron grasp assailed his throat, a hand of steel griped his arm. The unexpected onset hurried him on. The sound of waters assured him that he was approaching the precipitous bank of that part of the river which, from a ledge of pointed rocks, here formed rapids. Vigorous and desperate, Egremont plunged like some strong ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... the supposed criminal, calculating to reach there about dusk,—the hour they deemed most favorable for making the arrest. After proceeding in silence about two-thirds of the way to their destination, they halted, to make their final preparations and arrangements for the onset; when, knowing the great strength and desperate character of the man with whom they would have to deal, they first carefully prepared their fire-arms, and then detailed a half-dozen of their number, ...
— Gaut Gurley • D. P. Thompson
... Brunswick could have withstood the impetuous onset of the ill-clad, half-starved, but unconquerable peasants now following the French tricolour in its progress through Holland, who shall say? The exploits of Pichegru and his levies border on the miraculous until we remember that half of the Dutch laboured on their behalf, while the troops ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... a nimble, agile retiarius. The one Brinnaria was watching was more than usually light- footed and skipped about his adversary in a taunting, teasing way. Again and again he cast his net intentionally too short, merely to show how easily he could recover it and escape his opponent's onset. He danced, capered, pretended to be lame and that he could not avoid being overtaken, led his pursuer on, out-manoeuvred him, derided him; twice he lunged through the flapping straps of his kilt and grazed his thigh. The secutor was barely scratched, but his blood trickled ...
— The Unwilling Vestal • Edward Lucas White
... time the victorious onset was checked by the disappearance of the king's snow white plumes, and a report ran through the army that the king was killed. They wavered irresolutely. The enemy, regaining courage from the cessation ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... counted securely upon winning an immense advantage from the fact that she would herself fix the date of war, and enter upon it with a sudden spring, fully prepared, against rivals who, clinging to the hope of peace, would be unready for the onset. She hoped to sow jealousies among her rivals; she trusted to catch them at a time when they were engrossed in their domestic concerns, and in this respect fate seemed to play into her hands, since at the moment ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... Horn from the eastward, setting to the teeth of the great west wind, to the shock and onset of towering seas; furious combination of the elements that ...
— The Brassbounder - A Tale of the Sea • David W. Bone
... creative spirit's vital spark! None but a genius, we say, Would make his onset backward in the dark Or choose this route for getting at the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 28, 1917 • Various
... unexpected and his onset so impetuous that the widow had no time to consider what kind of a reception she ought to give her wayward son, of whom she ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... from the corner, where, like a pet cat, they lay on a bit of carpet, the only piece in the cottage, spread for them between his chair and the wall, and, though cautiously mindful of its age and proved infirmity, filled the bag full, and burst into such a triumphant onset of battle, that all the children of the Seaton were in a few minutes crowded about the door. He had not played above five minutes, however, when the love of finery natural to the Gael, the Gaul, the Galatian, triumphed over his love of music, and he stopped with ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... Lee in the hearts of the Southern soldiers was Thomas Jonathan Jackson, better known by the sobriquet of "Stonewall," which General Bee gave him during the first battle of Bull Run. Driven back by the Union onset, the Confederate left had retreated a mile or more, when it reached the plateau where Jackson and his brigade were stationed. The brigade never wavered, but stood ...
— American Men of Action • Burton E. Stevenson
... way; and Barere apologised for his former speech, and implored his colleagues to abstain from disputes which could be agreeable only to Pitt and York. On the next day, the ever-memorable ninth of Thermidor, came the real tug of war. Tallien, bravely taking his life in his hand, led the onset. Billaud followed; and then all that infinite hatred which had long been kept down by terror burst forth, and swept every barrier before it. When at length the voice of Robespierre, drowned by the President's bell, and by shouts of "Down with the tyrant!" had died away in hoarse gasping, Barere ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... signally honorable to Major-General Harrison, by whose military talents it was prepared; to Colonel Johnson and his mounted volunteers, whose impetuous onset gave a decisive blow to the ranks of the enemy, and to the spirit of the volunteer militia, equally brave and patriotic, who bore an interesting part in the scene; more especially to the chief magistrate of Kentucky, at the head of them, whose heroism signalized in the war which established ...
— State of the Union Addresses of James Madison • James Madison
... what happens hundreds and thousands of times in actual life. At the very first onset Fatia Negra, the notorious, the practised, the invincible swordsman was disarmed by a young civilian who had never, perhaps, held a naked sword in his hand before and possessed no advantage over his opponent save the courage of an honest ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... with a tumultuous, racing flood of foam-flecked water, a rushing river that poured out of a natural tunnel in the steeply sloping rocky bottom of the pass as from a sluice. It surged against the precipitous cliffs, leaping up against the walls that hemmed it in, sweeping in mad onset of white-topped waves and eddying whirlpools flinging spray high in air. The stoutest swimmer would be tossed about helplessly in it, rolled over and over, choked, suffocated, sucked under, the life ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... he, "they are as good as the material the Rebels have for their army. In some respects, they are better. The Northern blood is cold; the Southern is full of life and passion. In the first onset, our enemies will prove more impetuous than we, and will often overpower us. In the beginning of the struggle, they will prove our superiors, and may be able to boast of the first victories. But their physical energy will soon be exhausted, while ours ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... of excitement. The schoolboy and the clown invigorate their trembling limbs, by whistling, or singing, as they pass by a country churchyard, and the soldier feels his departing courage recalled in the onset of a battle, ...
— Popular Lectures on Zoonomia - Or The Laws of Animal Life, in Health and Disease • Thomas Garnett
... on the table; and at this time a dinner was on the table, rich with every dainty of the season, that earth, air, and sea, could provide. Grace being first said by the chaplain, the bishop sat down "richly to enjoy;" but it happened in the first onset, that a morsel too large for his lordship's swallow stuck in his throat. The bishop grew crimson—purple—black in the face; the chaplain started up, and untied his neckcloth. The guests crowded round, one offering water, another advising bread, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. VII - Patronage • Maria Edgeworth
... ride through the water as quickly as on land, at once charged the invaders in front, and sent round a detachment to take them in the rear. The assault was accordingly soon changed into a disgraceful flight, in which those who had been the loudest in urging to this rash onset set the example. Barca Gana, who had boasted himself invulnerable, was deeply wounded through his coat of mail and four cotton tobes, and with difficulty rescued by his chiefs from five La Sala horsemen, who had vowed his death. ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... knows how soon these fatiguing letters of the alphabet, rallying to the defence, will come, pasteboard in hand, to return the onset? In this contest, fair ladies, "there are blows to take as well as blows to give," in the words of the immortal Webster. Some day, on returning, you will find a half-dozen cards on your own table that will undo all this morning's work, and send ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... defeat, and the hearts that guard that flag have never flinched before the foe, and the bravery that shoots through every film of these hearts has never faltered. On with the conflict! Let it rage! Our line of battle reaches back to Calvary. That line has never been broken by wildest onset! These soldiers have never fled! We are the sons of veterans who have marched through a campaign of eighteen hundred years—marched and never halted—marched and always triumphed! We belong to the old Imperial Guard of Faith! We never yet ...
— Public School Education • Michael Mueller
... and sure across the Swan's Bath Sped Sea-stag on Raven's track, Heav'd Ran's breast in raging billows, Stream'd gale-banners through the sky! Yet did Eric the war-eager Leap with Baresark-mate aboard, Fierce their onset on the ...
— Eric Brighteyes • H. Rider Haggard
... time the visiting sportsmen are increasing in number, going farther from the Uganda Railway, and persistently seeking out the rarest and finest of the game. The buffalo has recovered from the slaughter by rinderpest only in time to meet the onset of oversea sportsmen. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... And forward spurred his mounture fierce withal, Within his arms longing his foe to strain, Upon whose helm the heavy blow did fall, And bent well-nigh the metal to his brain: But he, whose courage was heroical, Leapt by, and makes the Pagan's onset vain, And wounds his hand, which he outstretched saw, Fiercer than eagles' talon, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... king saw with indignation one of his divisions defeated and the other in coward flight, but his forces were still vastly superior to those of the English, and ordering his men to dismount, he prepared to receive their onset. The English now gathered their forces which had been scattered in combat, and again advanced to the fight. The archers as usual heralded this advance with showers of arrows, which shook the ranks of the French and opened the way for the cavalry. These dashed in, and the ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... threshold of laissez-faire than that Hume really understood the problem of freedom. He realized that the House of Commons had become the pivot of the State; though he looked with dread upon the onset of popular government. He saw the inevitability of parties, as also their tendency to persist in terms of men instead of principles. He was convinced of the necessity of liberty to the progress of the arts and sciences; and no one, save ...
— Political Thought in England from Locke to Bentham • Harold J. Laski
... All the same, ever since she had left him at the doors of the Hotel Metropole, a certain constraint had crept into their intercourse. Wyndham was not easily deceived, and he rightly interpreted her abrupt dismissal of him as a final effort to assert herself before the onset of the inevitable. Even if he at times suspected her of playing a part, she had chosen the right part to play, and he respected her for it. He himself was leading a curious double life. He was working hard at his novel, which promised to surpass everything that he had yet done. He was so ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... wind roared to-day across the low-hung, cloud-smeared sky, driving the broken rack before it, warm and wet out of the south! What a wintry landscape! leafless trees bending beneath the onset of the wind, bare and streaming hedges, pale close-reaped wheat-fields, brown ploughland, spare pastures stretching away to left and right, softly rising and falling to the horizon; nothing visible but distant belts of trees and coverts, with here and there the tower of a hidden church overtopping ...
— Hugh - Memoirs of a Brother • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and marched forth. They met, he and the English, under Brantor Hill yonder; and then appeared the real character of the boy. At the first onset, before ever a blow was struck, he turned and fled, ...
— Boycotted - And Other Stories • Talbot Baines Reed
... voice sounds strong and full, as he ends his words with 'I shall drive them out, as the Lord spake.' That has the true ring. What were the three Anak chiefs, with their barbarous names, Sheshai, and Ahiman, and Talmai, and their giant stature, to the onset of a warrior faith like that? Of course, 'Caleb drove out thence the three sons of Anak,' and Hebron became his inheritance. Nothing can stand against us, if we seek for our portion, not where advantages ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... "He knew that he was right in refusing; but he knew that Stoller was right, too, and that he had not meant the logic of what he had said in his letter, and of what Burnamy had let him imply. He braved Stoller's onset, and he left his presence untouched, but feeling as little a moral hero as ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... be withstood?—one to whom, further, every movement in the thoughts of his antagonist is revealed by the light of his own experience; who, therefore, sympathizes with weakness gently, and wins his way by forbearance; and hath, when needful, an irresistible power of onset, arising from gratitude to the truth which he vindicates, not merely as a positive good for mankind, but as his own ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... make the arrest, Vestinus was entertaining a large party of friends at supper. The festivities were suddenly interrupted, and the whole company were thrown into a state of the most frightful excitement and confusion, by the sudden onset of this large body of armed men, who besieged the doors, blocked up all the avenues of approach, and, surrounding and guarding the house on every side, shut all the inmates in, as if they were investing the castle of an enemy. Certain soldiers ...
— Nero - Makers of History Series • Jacob Abbott
... the world, how could I glide Into communion with her sylvan shades, Erewhile my tuneful haunt? It pleased me more To abide in the great City, [P] where I found 245 The general air still busy with the stir Of that first memorable onset made By a strong levy of humanity Upon the traffickers in Negro blood; [Q] Effort which, though defeated, had recalled 250 To notice old forgotten principles, And through the nation spread a novel heat Of virtuous feeling. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Wordsworth, Vol. III • William Wordsworth
... camps, and discover his every movement. For this service they had no equals. In the woods they could steal upon an enemy unawares, or lie in wait for his approach. In the field they were of little use. Much of the terror they inspired came from the suddenness of their onset, their hideous looks and unearthly war-cries, and their cruel practice of ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... up. The sparrow is after him; but, as he comes dashing round the trunk, he always seems to expect to find the creeper perched upon some twig, as any other bird would be, and it is only after a little reconnoitring that he again discovers him clinging to the vertical bole. Then he makes another onset with a similar result; and these manoeoeuvres are repeated, till the creeper becomes disgusted, and ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey
... ready help. This Easter morning bids us lift our eyes to a risen Lord who 'has not left us to serve alone,' nor gone up on high, like some careless general to a safe height, while his forsaken soldiers have to stand the shock of onset without him. From this height He bends down and 'covers our heads in the day of battle.' 'He was received up,' says the Evangelist, 'and sat on the right hand of God, and they went forth and preached everywhere.' Strange contrast between His throned rest ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... he who had taught Moab the purest lessons of morality, and Midian, alas! the practice of the vilest profligacy; he who saw from afar 'the sceptre arise out of Israel and the Star from Jacob'; he who longed to 'die the death of the righteous'! The onset of the avenging host, with the 'shout of a king' in their midst; the terror of the flight, the riot of havoc and bloodshed, and, finally, the quick thrust of the sharp Israelite sword in some strong hand, and the grey hairs all dabbled with his blood—these ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus and Numbers • Alexander Maclaren
... what to do, or what might be expected from me by government in a case of such emergency as the setting up of a newspaper so declaredly adverse to every species of vested trust and power; for it was easy to forsee that those immediately on the scene would be the first opposed to the onset and brunt of the battle. Never can any public man have a more delicate task imposed upon him, than to steer clear of offence in such a predicament. After a full consideration of the business, Mr Scudmyloof declared that he would retire from the field, and stand ...
— The Provost • John Galt
... Fellow, and if Mr. Freeman submits, I shall be looked upon as an Incendiary, and never get a Wife as long as I breathe. He has indeed sent Word home he shall lie at Hampstead to-night; but I believe Fear of the first Onset after this Rupture has too great a Place in this Resolution. Mrs. Freeman has a very pretty Sister; suppose I delivered him up, and articled with the Mother for her for bringing him home. If he has not Courage to stand it, (you are a great Casuist) ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... forgotten,' laughed the Duke. 'But, allons. Now for the onset. We are already seen. The ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... around him, hurling them against the firm front of Charles' veterans. It was the crucial moment; the turning point in a struggle that could not be prolonged, but would be rather sharp, short and decisive. If his men failed at the onset, all was lost; if they gained but a little ascendancy now, their mastery of the field became fairly assured. Great would be the reward for success; the fruits of victory—the emperor himself. And savagely the ...
— Under the Rose • Frederic Stewart Isham
... little noise in the onset, save the groans of the sufferers. It endured but a moment, but it was a moment that resembled the passage of a whirlwind. The defendants knew that they were succored, and the assailants recoiled ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... and prayed aloud to the god not to allow him to fall ingloriously by the hands of his fellow-citizens, after leading him safe through so many perils to the threshold of the city. But neither courage nor superstition availed him against the fury of the Samnite onset. For the first time in his life Sulla was beaten, and either retreated into Rome or maintained a desperate struggle close to the walls during the night. On the right wing, however, Crassus had gained the day, had chased the foe to Antemnae, and halting there sent to Sulla for a supply ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... jesting, to strike her cap from her head with his long pike. The blow fell upon her forehead, cutting a deep gash, and the blood gushed out over her face. The assassins around, deeming this the signal for their onset, fell upon her. A blow from a bludgeon laid her dead upon the pavement. One, seizing her by the hair, with a saber cut off her head. Others tore her garments from her graceful limbs, and, cutting her body into fragments, paraded the mutilated remains ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... battle, once begun, raged with the greatest fury; but Cromwell and his "Ironsides" (a name given to them because of their iron resolution) were irresistible, and swept through the enemy like an avalanche; nothing could withstand them—and the weight of their onset bore down all before it. Their spirit could not be subdued or wearied, for verily they believed they were fighting the battles of the Lord, and that death was only a passport to a crown of glory. Newcastle's "White Coats," a regiment of ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... mentioned the guilt and rashness of the Caesar; and ventured to assure them, that if the mutineers of Gaul presumed to meet them in the field, they would be unable to sustain the fire of their eyes, and the irresistible weight of their shout of onset. The speech of the emperor was received with military applause, and Theodotus, the president of the council of Hierapolis, requested, with tears of adulation, that his city might be adorned with the head of the vanquished rebel. [40] A chosen detachment was despatched away in post-wagons, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... passions, and the Chance of the atheist reigned alone in the merciless heavens. Pride humbled to the dust; ambition shivered into fragments; love (or the passion mistaken for it) blasted into ashes; life, at the first onset, bereaved of its holiest ties, forsaken by its truest guide; shame that writhed for revenge; and remorse that knew not prayer,—all, all blended, yet distinct, were in that awful spectacle ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of 1790 the French fugitives congregated at Coblentz on the German frontier, persuaded that they were performing a patriotic duty in organizing an invasion of their country even should their onset be fatal to their relatives and to their King. And Louis doubted not that he also did his duty as a trustee of a divine commission when he in one month swore, before the Assembly, to maintain the constitution tendered him, and in the next authorized his brother, the Comte d'Artois, ...
— The Theory of Social Revolutions • Brooks Adams
... them. The ships commanded by Vincente Sodre, Pedro Raphael, and Diego Perez, being prime sailers, closed up first with the enemy, and immediately attacked two of the largest ships of the Moors. Sodre fought with one of these alone, and Raphael and Perez assailed the other. Almost on the first onset, great numbers of the enemies were so dismayed that they leapt into the sea to escape by swimming. On the coming up of De Gama with the rest of the fleet, all the enemies ships made off as fast as they could towards the shore, except those two which were beset at the first, and were unable ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... submission. But though the Pope forgave him on condition that he meddle no more with politics, war, or episcopal office, another summer found him wielding sword and lance against the man he hated, this time under the banner of the Guelphs. The Germans had made another onset on Denmark, but again King Valdemar defeated them. The bishop intrenched himself in Hamburg, and made a desperate resistance, but the King carried the city by storm. The beaten and hopeless man fled, and shut himself up in a cloister in Hanover, where daily and nightly ...
— Hero Tales of the Far North • Jacob A. Riis
... policy in or toward Asia. There was a national instinct which impelled Russia eastward. Twice had Europe been invaded by Asiatic hordes, and, owing to its position, Russia was doomed to bear the brunt of the onset. Russia's history points out a ceaseless desire to be a European nation, to share with Europe its progress and its burdens. It is within a few years that the heir to the throne first visited the extensive Asiatic dominions. No czar had ever put foot in them. Until ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... reckons so many postures of the pike and musket as if he were counting at noddy. When he comes at first upon a camisado, he looks, like the four winds in painting, as if he would blow away the enemy; but at the very first onset suffers fear and trembling to dress themselves in his face apparently. He scorns any man should take place before him, yet at the entering of a breach he hath been so humble-minded as to let his lieutenant lead his troops for him. He is so sure ...
— Character Writings of the 17th Century • Various
... began their retreat, and the Indians renewed their attack with great fury in the afternoon, on all sides except the northeast, where the invaders were hemmed in by swamps. There seems to have been no cause for their retreat, except the danger of an overwhelming onset by the savages, which must have been foreseen from the start. But the army, as it was called, was wholly without discipline; during the night not even a sentry had been posted; and now their fear became a panic, their retreat became a rout. They made their way as best they could through ...
— Stories Of Ohio - 1897 • William Dean Howells
... impetuous swords of the enemy. Astonished at seeing the soldier walking at large, he expressed his surprise with some suspicions. But Grimsby told him the strategem he had used, and assured him Lord Andrew had not been seen since the onset. This information inspired the earl with a hope that his nephew might have escaped: and when the soldier also said, that he had seen the countess led by Lord Soulis across the hall toward the Lady Helen's apartments, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... And Heaven's high Arbitrator sit secure In his own strength, this place may lie exposed, The utmost border of his kingdom, left To their defence who hold it: here, perhaps, Some advantageous act may be achieved By sudden onset—either with Hell-fire To waste his whole creation, or possess All as our own, and drive, as we were driven, The puny habitants; or, if not drive, Seduce them to our party, that their God May prove their foe, and with repenting hand Abolish his own works. This would surpass ...
— Paradise Lost • John Milton
... your eyelids? Once, like you, I too was young; From the first is life a struggle, and fresh youth its Berserk-gang. Hardly pressed and tried it must be, that its onset triumph not; I have proved you and forgiven. I have ...
— Fridthjof's Saga • Esaias Tegner
... horseman rode in to take up the hawk the other crow descended straight upon the falcon, knocked her off its prostrate mate, and the two flew off together to cover before the falcon had realised whence the onset came. This crow not only showed great courage in facing both the falcon and the sportsman, but timed its interference with the greatest judgment ...
— The Naturalist on the Thames • C. J. Cornish
... gave orders to a troop of wasps that at the first onset they should march straight toward Captain Reynard and fixing themselves about his tail, should sting him with all their might. The wasps did as they were told; and when Reynard felt the first sting, he started ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf (Vol 2 of 17) - Folk-Lore, Fables, And Fairy Tales • Various
... mollifying the slaves of facts, she saw them at their heels, a tearful fry, abjectly imitative of her melodramatic performances. The spectacle was presented of a band of legal gentlemen vociferating mightily for swords and the onset, like the Austrian empress's Magyars, to vindicate her just and holy cause. Our Law-courts failing, they threatened Parliament, and for a last resort, the country! We are not going to be the woman Warwick ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... sea, and without its attendant haunting sense of peril; there is no fear that the house will founder or dash against your neighbor's cottage, which is dimly seen anchored across the field; at every thundering onset there is no fear that the cook's galley will upset, or the screw break loose and smash through the side, and we are not in momently expectation of the tinkling of the little bell to "stop her." The snow ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Britain were won. The invaders were masters as yet but of Kent, Sussex, Hampshire, and Essex. From London to St. David's Head, from the Andredsweald to the Firth of Forth the country still remained unconquered, and there was little in the years which followed Arthur's triumph to herald that onset of the invaders which was soon to make Britain England. Till now its assailants had been drawn from two only of the three tribes whom we saw dwelling by the northern sea, from the Saxons and the jutes. But the main work of conquest was to ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... Therefore he wings straight in that direction and does not stop until he nears those latitudes where the mean temperature is that of the zone which he inhabits. If he does not find his home at the first onset, it is because he has borne a little too much to the right or to the left. In any case, it takes him but a few hours' search in an easterly or westerly direction to ...
— The Mason-bees • J. Henri Fabre
... kind of ground most favorable for the operations of that species of force, Cyrus felt some solicitude in respect to the impression which might be made by it on his army. Nothing is more terrible than the onset of a squadron of horse when charging an enemy upon the field of battle. They come in vast bodies, sometimes consisting of many thousands, with the speed of the wind, the men flourishing their sabers and rending the air with the most unearthly cries, those in advance ...
— Cyrus the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... they depressed and even confused his metrical play, hurting thus the two vital spots of poetry. Many of the stanzas for music make an unlucky repeating pattern with the poor variety that a repeating wall-paper does not attempt. And yet Campion began again and again with the onset of a true poet. Take, for example, the poem beginning with the vitality of this line, "touching in ...
— Flower of the Mind • Alice Meynell
... remember that one-eyed butcher, and if there be virtue in hisses or in thumbs, he shall rue the hour he laid a lash on Gallienus, poor fellow! Whose horsemanship is equal to such an onset? I'll haunt the theatre till ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... I had known all my patients from previous years, I ordered them to my office two weeks before the usual onset of the disease. I advised them to irrigate the nose with a warm solution of chloride of sodium four times a day—morning, noon, evening, and on retiring; and, a few minutes after the cleansing of the parts, had the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 795, March 28, 1891 • Various
... axiom, that it is never lawful for a private individual to kill any one whatever. We say, from a technical standpoint, that he does not kill but arrests the onset of the aggressor. ...
— Moral Philosophy • Joseph Rickaby, S. J.
... benighted times such attacks were popularly ascribed to possession by evil spirits. The hysterical nuns, as the chronicles tell us, explained their condition to Mignon by informing him that, shortly before the onset of their trouble, they had been haunted by the ghost of their former confessor, Father Moussaut. Here Mignon found his opportunity. Picture him gently rebuking the unhappy women, admonishing them that such a good man as Father Moussaut would never ...
— Historic Ghosts and Ghost Hunters • H. Addington Bruce
... mountains are cleft asunder and give way before the march of its banners waving triumphantly in the heavens; as the mist before the rising sun, the tangled obscurities of material things vanish at its irresistible approach. Pain, disease, and disorder are at every step receding before its onset; the obstructions of ignorance are being thrust aside; the darkness of blindness is being pierced through; and behold, the promised land of wealth and health, of poetry and art, of knowledge and righteousness ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... received a shot, which broke both his legs: his brother and friends endeavoured to support him in their arms. It being then nearly dark, added much to the confusion, as it was difficult to distinguish friend from foe; indeed, so sudden had been the onset, that many could scarcely have been aware of the cause of the contest. But our unhappy friend, who seemed particularly marked out in this unfortunate affray, soon after received another bullet, which struck him on the ...
— A Narrative of a Nine Months' Residence in New Zealand in 1827 • Augustus Earle
... with thirst, of the child's arms lopped at the wrist even at the moment they were stretched forth for the blessing of the Imam, of the noblest chief of Islam betrayed and choosing death to dishonour, of his last lonely onset, his death and mutilation at the hand of a former friend and fellow-champion of the faith,—this picture indeed appealed and still appeals, as no other can, to the hidden depths of the Persian heart. ...
— By-Ways of Bombay • S. M. Edwardes, C.V.O.
... the poor | sailors | stand a | -maz'd and | tremble! While the hoarse | thunder, | like a bloody | trumpet, Roars a loud | onset | to the | gaping | waters, Quick to ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... afternoon he gathered his forces together for one supreme effort. Horse and foot, they swung along as blithely as if the battle were only beginning. I looked round on our diminished ranks, and wondered if we had strength to withstand another onset. ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... that the slighter man must be borne down by the onset. But Bonbright gathered himself, his arms shot out and gripped his assailant midway. Struggling, panting, gasping, stamping, they wrenched and swayed, the three who watched them holding aloof. Then with a sheer effort of strength Creed tore the ...
— Judith of the Cumberlands • Alice MacGowan
... our men lay in the trenches, amidst pain which amounted to torture, incessantly firing, or again, at the word of command, ready to rush forward to meet the onset of ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together, to make war against him that sat on the horse, and against his army' (Rev 19:14,19). It is they that fall on, it is they that pick the quarrel, and give the onset. Besides, the armour, as I said, is only spiritual; wherefore the slaughter must needs be spiritual also. Hence as here it is said the Lamb did slay his enemies, by the sword, spirit, or breath of his mouth; so his army also slays them by ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... in dull failure to sense the great forward sweep of a nation determined on honesty and publicity in public affairs, is already wearing thin under the ceaseless hammering of the progressive onset. The demand of the people for political progress will not be denied. Does any man, not blinded by personal interest or by the dust of political dry rot, suppose that the bulk of our people are anything else but progressive? If such there be, let him ask the young ...
— The Fight For Conservation • Gifford Pinchot
... tell, you know, the onset of such a complication as this; for when one finds the victim of malaria hazy and stupid after his fever has abated; and, more especially, if he develops wandering tendencies, leaving his stretcher at night ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... have expected. For when Simmias was mentioning his difficulty, I quite imagined that no answer could be given to him, and therefore I was surprised at finding that his argument could not sustain the first onset of yours, and not impossibly the other, whom you call Cadmus, may ...
— Phaedo - The Last Hours Of Socrates • Plato
... German people to a sense of patriotism and independence, than they predicted a similar disposition to return to the old faith; and being thus convinced of their danger, they wrote very vigorously, and attempted to be fully prepared for the onset. We therefore behold the anomaly of a system which had almost run its race before arriving ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst
... with a suddenness even greater than that of its onset. Like a tangible flock of evil birds or of the spirits Victor Hugo has painted in Les Djinns, the sand-storm blew itself out to sea and vanished. The black sky opened its eyes of starlight, once again; gradually calm descended on the desert, ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... mustered his forces The war of wars to wage, And with storm and thunder of onset Did the foe of foes engage, And the Lord of Death, the undying, Was beset and harried sore, In his immemorial fastness At night's aboriginal core. And during years a thousand Man leaguered his enemy's hold, While nature was one deep tremor, And the heart of the world waxed cold, Till the phantom ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... victors. Our modern scientific way of fighting is different from that. But in the old time the one thing needful was that a man should stand firm and resist the shock of the enemies as they rushed upon him. Unless our footing is good we shall be tumbled over by the onset of some unexpected antagonist. And for good footing there are two things necessary. One is a good, solid piece of ground to stand on, that is not slippery nor muddy, and the other is a good, strong pair ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Lancaster. Lan. And it sufficeth. Now, my lords, know this, That Gaveston is secretly arriv'd, And here in Tynmouth frolics with the king. Let us with these our followers scale the walls, And suddenly surprise them unawares. Y. Mor. I'll give the onset. War. And I'll follow thee. Y. Mor. This tatter'd ensign of my ancestors, Which swept the desert shore of that Dead Sea Whereof we got the name of Mortimer, Will I advance upon this castle ['s] walls— Drums, strike alarum, raise them from their ...
— Edward II. - Marlowe's Plays • Christopher Marlowe
... centre of the semicircular disposition so instantly assumed; and a tremendous fire was at once opened on the English. For a moment Gage's troops paused aghast at the furious yells and strangeness of the onset. Rallying immediately, he returned their fire, and halted a moment till St. Clair's working-party came up; when he bade his men advance at once upon the centre of the concentric line. As he drew near he was again greeted with a staggering discharge, and again his ranks were shaken. Then in return, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... Huskies from the woods—they evidently knew too much for that—but by a Bulldog from the town; there was scuffling of many feet; a low rumbling for a time replaced the yapping of the pack; a flashing of those red and grizzled jaws, a momentary hurl back of the onset, and again he stood alone and braced, the grim and grand old bandit that he was. Three times they tried and suffered. Their boldest were lying about him. The first to go down was the Bulldog. Learning wisdom now, the Dogs held back, less sure; but his square-built chest showed never a sign ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... and the clapping of hands and kicking of heels was most satisfactory. There was at any rate no prejudice at the onset. "English Ladies and Gentlemen," he said, "I am in the unenviable position of having to say hard things to you for about an hour and a half together, if I do not drive you from your seats before my lecture is done. And this is the more the pity because I could talk to ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... harbor to join Major Anderson at Sumter, opened fire upon the fort. The North charged the war was thus inaugurated by the South. The South believed its action was necessary for self-defence. However that might be, it was the onset of battle—of the greatest Civil War the world has ever known. President Lincoln and President Davis both called for troops. Mass meetings were held in every part of the country North and South. The roll of the ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts
... Scottish hearts can do." With a cheer the regiment advanced. Pressing forward unflinchingly under a hail of bullets they won their way up the hill, and then gathering, hurled themselves with a shout upon the heavy masses of Spanish veterans. For a moment the latter recoiled before the onset; then they closed in around the Scotch, who had already lost a third of their ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... singular enough that whilst Clinton was introducing the subject of Hycy's attachment to his sister, that worthy young gentleman was sustaining a much more serious and vehement onset upon a similar subject at home. Gerald Cavanagh and his wife having once got the notion of a marriage between Kathleen and Hycy into their heads, were determined not to rest until that desirable ...
— The Emigrants Of Ahadarra - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... youth is good for an onset, it needs habit and discipline to give steadiness. A boy will risk his life where a veteran will be too circumspect to follow him; but to perform a difficult manoeuvre in face of an enemy requires Sicinius with forty-five scars on his breast. "The very apprehension of a ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II., November, 1858., No. XIII. • Various
... re-establish the throne. The endeavor would not only be utterly unavailing, but would, with certainty, involve them in speedy and retrieveless ruin. They could not unite with the Jacobins in their reckless onset upon every thing which time had rendered venerable, and substitute for decency, and law, and order, the capricious volitions of an insolent, ignorant, and degraded mob. The only hope that remained for them was to struggle to continue firm in the position which they had already assumed. ...
— Madame Roland, Makers of History • John S. C. Abbott
... sacrifice of motherhood, they cannot consent to marriage under present conditions. It is not that they are without opportunity, for many of them during ten or fifteen years of their lives may refuse one proposal after another, and spend the intervals in avoiding the onset of such attentions. It is not necessarily that the men who propose are of an inferior type. Such women may refuse many men who come well up to or far surpass the modern male standard. It is not that they are by any means without capacity for affection; nor can one be at all certain ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... heads they wore yellow turbans, like coronets; their demeanor was grave and firm; their hair, like that of women, was suffered to grow uncut; they were defended by the cuirass or breast-plate; and in rushing to battle, their onset was like that ...
— A Brief Commentary on the Apocalypse • Sylvester Bliss
... what he did not know so well. I knew the fiery proud spirit of my native portion of the people. While his banter fell on my ears, my eyes went off to the sunlit green fields where the troops were parading; on Southern soil; and I saw in imagination the rush and fury of vengeful onset, which might come over those very fields; I saw the unequal contest; I saw - what happened soon after. I sighed as I turned my eyes to ...
— Daisy in the Field • Elizabeth Wetherell
... king, "Belike thou sayest sooth. Knightly he standeth there as for the onset—he and his warriors with him. We will go down to ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... agreeing as it did with what his own terrors suggested, was readily received. He ordered his army to fall back, and this order decided his fate. Clive snatched the moment, and ordered his troops to advance. The confused and dispirited multitude gave way before the onset of disciplined valour. No mob attacked by regular soldiers was ever more completely routed. The little band of Frenchmen, who alone ventured to confront the English, were swept down the stream of fugitives. In an hour the forces of Surajah Dowlah were ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... the pike it was very strong, but two miles away it degenerated into scattered regiments, unskilfully disposed. Bragg threw against these three or four to one, with all the fury of the Southern soldier in the onset. The line was crumbled, and before noon crushed back ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... sword with the hand released by de Sigognac, and drew it partly out of its scabbard, as if he meant to attack him, his eyes flashing fire and every feature working in its frenzy—the baron meanwhile standing perfectly motionless, quietly awaiting the onset. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... soldiers charging at the run would be out of breath and overcome with fatigue at the moment of contact. Pompey's immobility was an error because there is in every one an animation, a natural ardor that is instilled by the onset to the combat. Generals ought not to check but to encourage this ardor. It was for this reason that, in olden times, troops charged with loud shouts, all trumpets sounding, in order to frighten the ...
— Battle Studies • Colonel Charles-Jean-Jacques-Joseph Ardant du Picq
... had force enough to burn a colony, to storm camps, and, if success had not damped their vigor, would have been able entirely to throw off the yoke; and shall not we, untouched, unsubdued, and struggling not for the acquisition but the security of liberty, show at the very first onset what men Caledonia has reserved for ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... disease known as General Paresis, officially called Dementia Paralytica. This disease is caused by syphilis and is one of its late results. The pathological changes are widespread throughout the brain but may at the onset be confined mostly to the frontal lobes. The very first change may be—and usually is—a change in character! The man hitherto kind and gentle becomes irritable, perhaps even brutal. One whose sex morals have been of the most conventional kind, a loyal ...
— The Foundations of Personality • Abraham Myerson
... tell people you are ill; never own it to yourself. Illness is one of those things which a man should resist on principle at the onset.—Bulwer-Lytton. ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... and truly—I've nothing to wear." "Nothing to wear! Go just as you are; Wear the dress you have on, and you'll be by far, I engage, the most bright and particular star On the Stuckup horizon——" I stopped, for her eye, Notwithstanding this delicate onset of flattery, Opened on me at once a most terrible battery Of scorn and amazement. She made no reply, But gave a slight turn to the end of her nose (That pure Grecian feature), as much as to say, "How absurd that any sane man should suppose ...
— Little Masterpieces of American Wit and Humor - Volume I • Various
... saw at last that they had fallen behind the furious onset of the flood, but Roger was still swimming with it, desperately throwing up his head from time to time, and snorting the water from his nostrils. All his efforts to gain a foothold failed; his strength was nearly spent, and unless some help should come in a few minutes ...
— McGuffey's Fourth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... furnishes every thing necessary; the chief rivers are the Danube, the Rhine, Elbe, Oder, and Weser. Tacitus, speaking of the Ancient Germans, says, "They sung [sic] when they marched to fight, and judged of the success by the shouts and huzzas at the onset. Their wives, as martial as themselves, accompanied them to the war to dress their wounds, and provide them with necessaries. They esteemed nothing so infamous as to throw away or lose their shield. They buried the bodies of their noblemen on a funeral pile, with their arms and ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... chance, but bears down all opposition, not only by his wit and onset of words, resistless in their sharpness as so many bayonets, but by actual physical superiority,—raising his voice, and rushing on his opponent with a torrent of sound. This is not in the least from unwillingness to allow freedom to others. On the ...
— On the Choice of Books • Thomas Carlyle
... intending to defer the attack till the following day, was still at Balundsas, half a mile from the town, when news reached him that his young soldiers were already at blows with their adversaries, and he hastened to their assistance. The Dalecarlians opposed their long pikes to the onset of the cavalry with such effect that, more than four hundred horses having perished in the assault, they were driven back on the infantry, who were posted in their rear, and compelled to flee along with them, while Lawrence Ericson pushed into ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various
... and south-westerly winds, which raise the temperature during their prevalence to from eighty-eight to ninety-eight degrees, seldom last longer than a few hours; insomuch that "their disagreeable heat and dryness may be escaped by carefully closing the windows and doors of apartments at their onset."[58] Such sudden and short variations seem just what is wanted to accentuate the differences in question. Accordingly, the opportunity seems one not lightly to be lost, and the British Association or this Society itself might take ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XXII (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... amiss, to bend nature, as a wand, to a contrary extreme, whereby to set it right, understanding it, where the contrary extreme is no vice. Let not a man force a habit upon himself, with a perpetual continuance, but with some intermission. For both the pause reinforceth the new onset; and if a man that is not perfect, be ever in practice, he shall as well practise his errors, as his abilities, and induce one habit of both; and there is no means to help this, but by seasonable intermissions. But let not a man trust his victory over his nature, too far; for nature ...
— Essays - The Essays Or Counsels, Civil And Moral, Of Francis Ld. - Verulam Viscount St. Albans • Francis Bacon
... Pallas has to appear in the form of Mentor, in order to put courage into the heart of Ulysses. The first armed set of Suitors advance and throw their javelins without effect, while the four on the side of Ulysses kill four men. Four more Suitors are slain in a fresh onset, then two more; now their store of weapons is exhausted. Thirteen mentioned here by name have fallen beside those unnamed ones whom the arrows of Ulysses slew. The most prominent Suitors are weltering ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider |
