"Subaltern" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... him. She would hardly have done so had she been conscious of its having so serious an import. Yet, what was the secret of her manifest agitation? A sudden inspiration flashed across his mind; a smile came upon his lips. She was in love! The enemy's line contained some sighing Strephon of a young subaltern with whom she was in communication, and for whom she had undertaken this quest. The flower was their language of correspondence, no doubt. It explained also the young girl's animosity against the younger officers,—his ...
— Clarence • Bret Harte
... volunteers could only be auxiliaries around this solid nucleus which would show them the way to perform their duty and take the brunt of every encounter. The young regulars who asked leave to accept commissions in state regiments were therefore refused, and were ordered to their own subaltern positions and posts. There can be no doubt that the true policy would have been to encourage the whole of this younger class to enter at once the volunteer service. They would have been the field officers of the new regiments, and would ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... offensive operations with such a force, the young officer, aided by the one subaltern, made the best disposition possible for defence, trusting to hold the building until the fugitives should return with aid from Brunswick. Those who had their muskets were stationed at the few windows, while the dragoons with drawn swords ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... feebly aided by female hands, gave ample opportunity to gratify the ardent minds panting to exchange the tame drudgery of school and college for the limited, but to them world-wide, authority of the subaltern's sword and epaulet. There seemed to them but one road to advancement. The profession of arms was the sole pursuit which opened a career bounded only by the wildest dreams of ambition. What had been could be; and the fortunate soldier might find no check in the progressive honors of his course, until ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... the Front. "The enemy are continuing to fortify the coast, Sir," said the subaltern. "I don't care if they fiftify it," roared his commanding officer; "it'll make no difference." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... how difficult it is to take any interest in military matters sometimes. The inclination to let things slide. The feeling that an order is not so terrifying as it once was; that after all, who will know or bother if one furtive subaltern creeps ...
— Letters to Helen - Impressions of an Artist on the Western Front • Keith Henderson
... protection, Fraulein," he said, stooping at the box again, "we must make a subaltern ...
— Ruth Fielding at the War Front - or, The Hunt for the Lost Soldier • Alice B. Emerson
... chief spirits of the Mahometan heaven, such as Gabriel the angel of Revelation, Israfil by whom the last trumpet is to be sounded, and Azrael the angel of death, there were also a number of subaltern intelligences of which tradition has preserved the names, appointed to preside over the different stages of ascents into which the celestial world was supposed to be divided.[2] Thus Kelail governs the fifth heaven; ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... created "I." (which stands for Intelligence), carefully selected his Staff, arrayed them in tabs of appropriate hue, and told them to go the limit. And they have been going it faithfully ever since. What the Marines are to the Senior Service, "I." is to us. Should a Subaltern come in with the yarn that the spook of HINDENBURG accosted him at Bloody Corner and offered him a cigar, or a balloon cherub buttonhole you with the story of a Bosch tank fitted with rubber tyres, C-springs ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 17, 1917 • Various
... General Hughes, the Minister of Militia, sat in the seat beside Earl Roberts. Age had dealt very kindly with the veteran of Kandahar and South Africa. Although a consistent water drinker, Lord Roberts had a very florid complexion, which was just as bright and ruddy as that of a subaltern of twenty, despite his extreme age. This kind of complexion makes it difficult for a man to gain admission to a temperance club ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... listening to her. He sent for her continually to his presence—he delighted in her conversation, so new, so natural, so spirited—he settled a pension upon her at that time, of unprecedented amount, in the case of a subaltern officer; and by his desire, because the year 1625 was a year of jubilee, she departed in a few months from Madrid to Rome. She went through Barcelona; there and everywhere welcomed as the lady whom the King ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... their management. Many volumes of this singular correspondence are still preserved in the royal library at Berlin. The business of this fortunate adept increased so rapidly, that he found it necessary to employ a number of subaltern assistants, who, together with their master, realized considerable fortunes. He died in high reputation and favour with his ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... slowly. He could not bear the pain and terror in the eyes of the slender English youth, who, though he wore the uniform of a subaltern, seemed so much out of place there in the deep woods. Yet the forester meant to take no ...
— The Keepers of the Trail - A Story of the Great Woods • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the road, the Subaltern could not help thinking that this was indeed a queer send-off. A few sergeants' wives, standing at the corner of the Parade ground, were saying good-bye to their friends as they passed. "Good-bye, Bill;" "Good ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... his senior officer again, Wally chattered away like a magpie, asking questions, telling Irish fishing-stories, and other stories of adventures in Ireland, hazarding wild opinions about the war, and generally manifesting a cheerful disregard of the fact that the tired man opposite him was not a subaltern as irresponsible as himself. Somehow, the weariness died out of Major Hunt's eyes. He began to joke in his turn, and to tell queer yarns of the trenches: and presently, indeed, the whole party seemed ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... battle of Mook-Heath, the army had helped itself, and at that time, as often happened on similar occasions, an Eletto—[The chosen one. The Italian form is used, instead of the Spanish 'electo'.]—had been chosen from among the rebellious subaltern officers. Ulrich had then been lying seriously wounded, but after the end of the mutiny was told by many, that no other would have been made Eletto had he only been well and present. Now an Eletto was again to be chosen, and whoever was elected would have command of at least three ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... The smooth-faced young subaltern who but now had all his life before him, realized the change when he was swept by the leaden spray of death on Spion Kop, and received in his face of summer warmth, or in his young exultant heart, the quietus to all his hopes, impulses and desires. The young find no solace ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... own room or at the wine-party of a friend. Many young men in the army, I believe, adopt this system, from motives both of moral and of economical prudence. A pint, or even half a pint, of wine per day, makes a considerable hole in the pay of a subaltern, or in the stipend of a country curate, or in the allowance of a briefless barrister. Avoid acquiring factitious wants. Do not by habit make wine necessary to your comfort. It is wise, when young, not to indulge ...
— Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford - In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew • Edward Berens
... subaltern is our guide in that maze of trenches, and we walk and walk and walk, with a brisk exchange of compliments between the '75's' of the French and the '77's' of the Germans going on high over our heads. The trenches are boarded at the sides, and have a more permanent look ...
— A Visit to Three Fronts • Arthur Conan Doyle
... in the city, situated near the port. There he met the customary patrons. In the vestibule a few youths dressed in peasant style, with military caps, soldiers of the garrison who served as orderlies; within the dining-room, subaltern officers of a batallion of light infantry, young lieutenants who were smoking with a bored mien and gazing through the windows at the immense blue expanse like prisoners of the sea. During the meal they lamented their bad luck at having their youth wasted by being chained ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... created, and what a crowd of imitators followed in their train. The Magazines soon caught up the tone, and became doubly interesting, with the lives of private soldiers, "Two or Three Years in the Peninsula," and the "Subaltern." The camp and the man-of-war now poured forth their vast stories of anecdote and adventure, in all shapes and sizes—octavo and article—sketches of character, local customs and antiquities, filled up the other attractions of the day; and to read for improvement, ...
— Sinks of London Laid Open • Unknown
... of the Chatelet was not an unkindly man, and muttering something about "hangman's work" he came up and surveyed us by the light of the torches. Then he ordered my hands to be freed, and drawing his subaltern aside gave him some commands in a ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... should a Letter have come for you by that Steamer; for I wrote one duly, and posted it in good time myself: I will hope therefore it was but some delay of some subaltern official, such as I am told occasionally chances, and that you got the Letter after all in a day or two. It would give you notice, more or less, up to its date, of all the points you had inquired about ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... Illinois to welcome his sister and gladden his mother's eyes. But until then, the boy had said to himself, he'd stick to the field, and the troop that had the roughest work to do was the one that best suited him, and so it had happened that by the second spring of his service in the regiment no subaltern was held in higher esteem by senior officers or regarded with more envy by the lazy ones among the juniors than the young graduate, for those, too, were days in which graduates were few and far between, except in higher grades. Twice had he ridden in the ...
— Warrior Gap - A Story of the Sioux Outbreak of '68. • Charles King
... Roulette-table hold a melancholy pre-eminence,—being at once a shameful source of revenue to the prince,—a rallying point for the gay, the beautiful, the professional blackleg, the incognito duke or king,—and a vortex in which the student, the merchant, and the subaltern officer are, in the course of the season, often hopelessly and irrevocably ingulfed. Remembering the gaming excitement of the primitive Germans, we can scarcely be surprised to find that the descendants of these northern races poison the pure stream ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume I (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... of military life in the West. He applied for his discharge, as the compulsory term of service was at an end. When his papers came he was able to get about with the aid of a crutch. One morning his colonel entered his subaltern's bachelor quarters. ...
— The Man on the Box • Harold MacGrath
... the colonel began thus: "I think, serjeant, Mr. Booth hath told me that you was foster-brother to his lady. She is really a charming woman, and it is a thousand pities she should ever have been placed in the dreadful situation she is now in. There is nothing so silly as for subaltern officers of the army to marry, unless where they meet with women of very great fortunes indeed. What can be the event of their marrying otherwise, but entailing misery and beggary on ...
— Amelia (Complete) • Henry Fielding
... his skill in making a week's C.B. a veritable holiday are the talk of the regiment. All the officers know him, and many of them who have been victims of his smart repartee fear him more than they care to acknowledge. The subaltern with the eyeglass is a bad route-marcher, and Wankin once remarked in an audible whisper that the officer had learned his company drill with a drove of haltered pack-horses, and the officer bears the name of ...
— The Amateur Army • Patrick MacGill
... Steph'anus drew his dagger and struck him with much violence; but the wound not being mortal, Domi'tian caught hold of the assassin and threw him upon the ground, calling out for assistance. But Parthe'nius, with his freedman, a gladiator, and two subaltern officers, now coming in, they ran furiously upon the emperor and dispatched him: Steph'anus, however, was slain by the guards, but the other conspirators ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... applied to any uses of local public utility, as roads, irrigation, encouragement of commerce and industry and the like; what is not sent home to the Sultan goes into the private pouches of the pasha and his many subaltern officials. This is like taking the milk and omitting to feed the cow. The consequence is, the people lose their interest in work of any kind, leave off striving for an increase of property which they will not be permitted to enjoy, and resign themselves to utter destitution with a stolid apathy ...
— Chaldea - From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria • Znade A. Ragozin
... lady absolute. She abdicated without a word or a struggle. "Go to Mr. Moore, ask Mr. Moore," was her answer when applied to for orders. Never was wooer of wealthy bride so thoroughly absolved from the subaltern part, so inevitably compelled to assume a ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... one's country is, first of all, to be a good man. All springs from there. For my part, although you are right in thinking that I have to do with politics, I am unfit by intellect and temper for a leading role. I was intended, I fear, for a subaltern. Yet we have all something to command, Mr. Fritz, if it be only our own temper; and a man about to marry must look closely to himself. The husband's, like the prince's, is a very artificial standing; and it is hard to be kind in either. Do you ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... righteous indignation before the arrival of the prodigal. Yet he contrived to be out when the dog-cart conveying the said prodigal, and Mr. Decies of the 101st Lancers—a friend of Guy Quayle, home on leave from India, whence he brought news of his fellow-subaltern—actually drove up to the door. When, pushed thereto by an accusing conscience, he did at last come in, Lord Fallowfeild easily persuaded himself that there really was not time before dinner for the momentous ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... better in two antecedent duels, for the vindication of his lovely and terrible young wife. He perished on the field, critically admiring the stroke to which he owed his death. A week after Harry's burial his widow was asked in marriage by his colonel. Captains, and a giddy subaltern likewise, disputed claims to possess her. She, however, decided to arrest further bloodshed by quitting the regiment. She always said that she left India to save her complexion; "and people don't know how very candid ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... moved by nothing but an invasion; and it would be almost as rational to wait the growth of an oak, as to wait the signing of your commission; but it shall be done in my own way. I have means which can make the tardy quick, and open the eyes of the blind. You shall be a subaltern in the Guards, unless you are in too much haste to be a general, and get yourself shot by some Parisian cobbler in the purloined uniform of a rifleman. But, let me tell you one fact, and I might indorse this piece of intelligence, 'Secret and Confidential,' ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... Plessy's subalterns extended his hand and laid it on his sleeve. Plessy turned upon him angrily, and the subaltern withdrew his hand. ...
— Ensign Knightley and Other Stories • A. E. W. Mason
... ago I was handing over a battery-position in a fairly warm place. The major, who came up to take over from me, brought with him a subaltern and just enough men to run the guns. Within half-an-hour of their arrival, a stray shell came over and caught the subaltern and five of the gun-detachment. It was plain at once that the subaltern was dying—his name must have been written ...
— The Glory of the Trenches • Coningsby Dawson
... Willy, the third son, it showed itself first in a revolt against Oxford, while he was still at Christ Church, leading to his going out to India and joining the Indian Army, at the age of twenty, only to find the life of an Indian subaltern all but intolerable, and to plunge for a time at least into fresh schemes ...
— A Writer's Recollections (In Two Volumes), Volume I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... how they run!" exclaimed Lieutenant Brown of the Grenadiers, who supported him. "Who run?" demanded the General like one roused from sleep. "The enemy, sir," responded the subaltern. "Go, one of you, to Colonel Burton," returned Wolfe, with an earnestness that detained the spirit in his almost lifeless body; "tell him to march Webb's regiment down to the St. Charles to cut off their ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... signed von Bissing (so that nobody could imagine that these measures were taken by some too zealous subaltern) and posted in Malines, on the 30th of May, tells us that "the town of Malines must be punished as long as the required number of workmen have not resumed work." These workmen were employed by the Belgian State—which ...
— Through the Iron Bars • Emile Cammaerts
... large party, chiefly women in very splendid attire. There were, I think, eight of them altogether, and they had only one man with them, a subaltern in a Guards regiment. He slipped away almost at once, telling me as he passed out, that he wanted to telephone to a friend and that he would be back in a few minutes. I do not think he came back at all. He probably went to his club. I do not know what was said to him the next day by the ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... of the senses is a world of shows; it does not exist for itself, but has a symbolic character; and a true prudence or law of shows recognizes the co-presence of other laws and knows that its own office is subaltern; knows that it is surface and not centre where it works. Prudence is false when detached. It is legitimate when it is the Natural History of the soul incarnate, when it unfolds the beauty of laws within the narrow ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the missions of the Rio Negro, and examine the natural canal which unites two great systems of rivers. In those desert forests instruments had been seen only in the hands of the commissioners of the boundaries; and at that time the subaltern agents of the Portuguese government could not conceive how a man of sense could expose himself to the fatigues of a long journey, to measure lands that did not belong to him. Orders had been issued to seize my person, my instruments, ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... of insurrection. The little town of Saint-James, between Pontorson and Fougeres was occupied by them, apparently for the purpose of making it for the time being a headquarters of operations and supplies. From there they were able to communicate with Normandy and the Morbihan without risk. Their subaltern leaders roamed the three provinces, roused all the partisans of monarchy, and gave consistence and unity to their plans. These proceedings coincided with what was going on in La Vendee, where the same intrigues, under ...
— The Chouans • Honore de Balzac
... required in an absolute Sovereign are not such as are demanded from or likely to be developed in the subordinate ruler of a dominion however important, and that functions like those of a Regent, at least as important as those of the Viceroy of India, ought not to be entrusted to men trained in subaltern administrative duties. Among the youths of greatest promise, in their eighth year, a certain small number are selected by the chiefs of the University, who visit for this purpose all the Nurseries of the ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... A young subaltern was acting for him. My sergeant pal tipped me off. As I have said, I was an old soldier with all that that implies. He marched me up to the officer, already more or less at sea about his new duties. I asked for money. He was ...
— The Escape of a Princess Pat • George Pearson
... Greek in the original was Lord Cromer, and he had not had a classical education. He left a private day-school in London to go straight to Chatham, where he was prepared for entry into the artillery. And at Chatham they did not teach Greek. Therefore when, as a gunner subaltern, he went to the Ionian Islands on the staff of Sir Henry Storks, he was without any knowledge of Greek. He wanted, however, as he told me, to know modern Greek, as the language of the islands. Also, like the natural Englishman he was, ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... the death of the king, and this while they knew him to be the prophet of the true God, the supreme King of Israel, [for they were still under the theocracy,] which was no less than impiety, rebellion, and treason, in the highest degree: nor would the command of a subaltern, or inferior captain, contradicting the commands of the general, when the captain and the soldiers both knew it to be so, as I suppose, justify or excuse such gross rebellion and disobedience in soldiers at this day. ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... completely saturated with the river its terms, its memories, its influence remained a definite factor in his personality to the end of his days. Moreover, it was his first period of great triumph. Where before he had been a subaltern not always even a wage-earner—now all in a moment he had been transformed into a high chief. The fullest ambition of his childhood had been realized—more than realized, for in that day he had never dreamed of a boat or ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... loved in the barrack-room he is ever the most popular figure in the Officers' Mess. There is nothing of the namby-pamby, I mean, in his solicitude for the soldier's welfare, nothing to make him unpopular with his brother officers, nothing that makes even the youngest subaltern a little contemptuous. Tout au contraire. The place he holds in the affections of his brother officers may, perhaps, be seen in a quotation from the letter of an officer in the 13th Hussars, which I received during the most anxious days of the siege of Mafeking. After ...
— The Story of Baden-Powell - 'The Wolf That Never Sleeps' • Harold Begbie
... 1691, he is described on one as "of the city of Dublin," on another, as "of Pennyburn Mill, co. Derry." No other person of his name appears in my whole Army List; although the "Diary" preserved in the Harleian Miscellany (old edit., vol. vii. p. 482.) erroneously suggests a subaltern of his name. In the titular Court of St. Germains, two of the name of Sheldon were of the Board of Green Cloth. Dr. Gilbert Sheldon was Archbishop of Canterbury in the middle of the seventeenth century; and the Sheldons are shown ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 235, April 29, 1854 • Various
... to bed, of course, sir, and the Senior Subaltern said he wasn't going to risk his commission—they're awfully down on ragging nowadays in the Service—but the rest of ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... There was absolutely nothing in the chief clerk to inspire liking, or even common business confidence; on the contrary, while Hallock attended to his duties and carried out his superior's instructions with the exactness of an automaton, his attitude was distinctly antagonistic. As the chief subaltern on Lidgerwood's small staff he was efficient and well-nigh invaluable. But as a man, Lidgerwood felt that he might easily be regarded as an enemy whose designs could never be fathomed ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... be sorry that you are not going with it, but I can assure you that this business will be vastly more useful to you in your profession, than anything you would be likely to meet with as a cavalry subaltern in Spain." ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... to which he had already shown some inclination, and which promised to open the most free career to those who had only their merit to rely on. "Were I a general officer," he is alleged to have said, "I would have adhered to the king; being a subaltern, I join the patriots." ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... and a fellow-subaltern attempted to leave the Castle grounds by way of the private gate in the western wall, only to be driven back by careful watchers on the outside. A second attempt was made at two o'clock. This time they went through the crypt into the ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... and provisos," interjected the lieutenant, filling a tumbler and handing it to the corporal, who drained it at a draught. In a moment the empty glass was returned to the lieutenant, who, instead of receiving it from the subaltern, refilled the tumbler. ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... carriage with their masters. The two descendants, as they call themselves, of the house of Chatillon, insist that this Chatillon, who married an attorney's daughter, is descended from the illegitimate branches of that family. His son was a subaltern in the Body Guard. In the summer time, when the young officers went to bathe, they used to take young Chatillon with them to guard their clothes, and for this office they gave him a crown for his supper. Monsieur having taken this poor person into his service, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... hadn't the slightest intention of treating you with ceremony. [She sits down: a liberty which gives him a perceptible shock.] I am quite at a loss to imagine why I should treat a perfect stranger named Duval: a captain! almost a subaltern! with the smallest ceremony. ...
— The Inca of Perusalem • George Bernard Shaw
... when you attain possession of your inheritance, as I hope you soon will, I trust you will not add one to the idle followers of the Court, but reside on your patrimonial estate, cherish your ancient tenants, relieve and assist your poor kinsmen, protect the poor against subaltern oppression, and do what our fathers used to do, with fewer lights and with less means ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... this gentleman, "that I should assist in procuring Mr Arnott such a renovation? Is there no subaltern part I can perform to facilitate the project? for I will either hide or seek with any boy in the parish; and for a Q in the corner, there is ...
— Cecilia Volume 1 • Frances Burney
... knick-knacks, her wraps, her scarf, her fan, her parasol, her cushion. His last chapter would probably be in a ball-room, husband and lover standing by the door watching the Marchioness swinging round the room on the arm of a young subaltern. 'Other women are younger than she, Kilcarney, but who is as graceful? Have you ever seen a woman hold herself like Violet?' One of the daughters (for there have been children by this second, or shall we say by this third, marriage) comes up breathless after the dance. ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... crossed when a frightful misfortune occurred. The bridge had been mined, to blow it up on the approach of the foe. This duty had been carelessly trusted to a subaltern, who, frightened by seeing some of the enemy on the river-side, set fire hastily to the train. The bridge blew up with a tremendous explosion, leaving a rear-guard of twenty-five thousand men in Leipsic cut off from all hope of escape. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... ordered or being noticed by his officer or the bulk of his comrades. How easily this may happen can be seen from what occurred amongst our own men at Nicholson's Nek. Here the white flag was raised, according to the published letter of an officer present, by a subaltern, without the knowledge and against the wishes of the officer in command. The officer who raised the flag may quite well—we do not know the circumstances accurately—have wished to save the lives of the ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... not reply; he had raised himself upon his elbow and was listening eagerly to something else. His attention had been caught by the conversation of a couple of officers who were coming up from the water-side. One was a young army subaltern, fresh from home, very innocent and well-meaning, but belonging to that class of youth who, because of a serene consciousness of vast inward resources, is certain to fall a prey to circumstances. His companion was slightly older, a young officer of the Naval Brigade under Lord ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... diminished head, retire into the shade, yield the palm, play second fiddle, be upstaged, take a back seat. Adj. inferior, smaller; small &c 32; minor, less, lesser, deficient, minus, lower, subordinate, secondary; secondrate &c (imperfect) 651; sub, subaltern; thrown into the shade; weighed in the balance and found wanting; not fit to hold a candle to, can't hold a candle to. least, smallest &c (little) (small) &c 193; lowest. diminished &c (decreased) 36; reduced &c (contracted) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... it, and has been caring for you all this time. I do not mean Andy Curtin. He is nothing but a subaltern; but the dear Lord, our Father in Heaven, who never forgets us, though he often afflicts us. He sent me to you now, that you might know he loves you. It was he who made me love you and care to help ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... upon their mother's fortune, a sum which had been set aside for their education by their father at her death, after which, beyond providing them with a home—the ramshackle inheritance that had come to him from his father—he had made little further provision for them. His eldest son, Rupert, was a subaltern in a line regiment. No one knew whether he lived on his pay or not, and no one inquired. The second son, who possessed undeniable brilliance, had earned a scholarship, and was studying medicine. And Noel, now aged sixteen, was still at school, distinguishing himself at sports and ...
— The Rocks of Valpre • Ethel May Dell
... Meanwhile, the boatswain himself—not a boatswain's mate—is keeping up a persevering whistling with his silver pipe; for the Commodore is never greeted with the rude whistle of a boatswain's subaltern; that would be positively insulting. All the Lieutenants and Midshipmen, besides the Captain himself, are drawn up in a phalanx, and off hat together; and the side-boys, whose number is now increased to ten or twelve, make an imposing display ...
— White Jacket - or, the World on a Man-of-War • Herman Melville
... of the officers were married men, and had their wives with them. These, when they learned that the young subaltern had disguised himself, and enlisted in the Pioneers in order to go up with them to the front, took a lively interest in him, and made quite a pet of him. Two other regiments were at the station at the time and, consequently, there was a good deal of gaiety in the way of lawn tennis and croquet ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... in a recent despatch tells us how a British subaltern saw, from a wood, an unsuspecting German soldier patrolling the road. Not caring to shoot his man in cold blood, he gave him a ferocious kick from behind, at which the startled German ran away with a yell. This subaltern certainly ought to have figured ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, October 21, 1914 • Various
... legions of the enemy, in all its superior numbers, ranged in order of battle on the rising ground. The sun at mid-day flashed its brilliant radiance over their military casques and arms. The cannonade then became general; the Duke of Wellington exposed himself like a subaltern; his personal venture in the strife excited anxiety; it was in vain that the officers of his staff urged him to be less conspicuous, that the fate of the battle hung upon his life: it was evident that he had determined to conquer or die: we knew it in Bruxelles, and ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... as Sidonia, or coolly, as Lord Monmouth, but always calmly and with no point of passion in his regard: the Eskdales, Villebecques, Ormsbys, Bessos, Marneys, Meltons, and Mirabels, the Bohuns and St. Aldegondes and Grandisons, the Tadpoles and the Tapers, the dominant and subaltern humanity of the world. All these are drawn with peculiar boldness of line, precision of touch, and clearness of intention. And as with his men so is it with his women: the finest are not those he likes best but those who interested him most. Male and female, his eccentrics surpass ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... sixty years old, he looked seventy. He was much broken in health by gout and the fast pace of his early manhood. But his spirit was untouched by misfortune, disease, or hardship. His courage was as good as when he served as a subaltern of the Guards in the trenches before Sebastopol, or presented his body as a mark for the sledge-hammer blows of Tom Sayers, just for diversion. His constitution must have been superb, for even in his decrepitude he ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... phrases and minute points of etiquette or field discipline. Waverley was naturally modest, and therefore did not fall into the egregious mistake of supposing such minuter rules of military duty beneath his notice, or conceiting himself to be born a general, because he made an indifferent subaltern. The truth was, that the vague and unsatisfactory course of reading which he had pursued, working upon a temper naturally retired and abstracted, had given him that wavering and unsettled habit of mind which is most averse to study and riveted attention. Time, in the ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... all the rest put together, he comes not short of any philosopher whatever, not even of Socrates himself. Innocence, in this man, is a quality peculiar, sovereign, constant, uniform, incorruptible, compared with which, it appears in Alexander subject to something else subaltern, uncertain, variable, ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... deprive the Crown of a most valuable prerogative. If such a brevet as the one proposed were to lead to great additional expense, the Queen could understand the objection on the ground of economy; but the giving brevet rank to a few subaltern officers is too trifling a matter to alarm the Government. Perhaps the number might be reduced even, but to deviate from the established precedents for the first time altogether in this case, and that after the excellent behaviour of the Army ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... joyfully accepted, and gradually filtered through its authorised channels, suffering some office change or other at each stage till it finally reached one of our ancient seats of learning. It arrived rather like the peremptory order of a newly-gazetted and bewildered subaltern, who, having got his platoon hopelessly tied up, falls back on the time-honoured and usually infallible ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, Feb. 5, 1919 • Various
... an officer," said the German suddenly to the British subaltern? "I surrender myself to you, and demand to be treated as an honorable prisoner of war. I do not wish to be left in ...
— Action Front • Boyd Cable (Ernest Andrew Ewart)
... best read the charge," said the subaltern, "but perhaps the lady would like to retire first," he ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard
... as many war-tribunes as had hitherto commanded the whole army, and the number of staff-officers was thus doubled. It was at this period probably that the clear line of demarcation became established between the subaltern officers, who as common soldiers had to gain their place at the head of the maniples by the sword and passed by regular promotion from the lower to the higher maniples, and the military tribunes placed at the head of whole legions—six to each—in whose case there was no regular promotion, and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Evans, no one liked or cared for, and I know nothing of him, except that I once saw him in court, on trial for some alleged petty tyranny towards his men,—still a subaltern officer. ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... and agreeably to what was conceived to be the intention of the law. Had the opposite course been pursued, the lieutenants serving in the Department must either have outranked some of the captains selected or else the selections must have been confined altogether to the subaltern officers of the Army. It will appear, therefore, that the relative rank of these officers has been properly settled, both by a fair construction of the law and the long-established regulation of the service which requires that "in cases where commissions of the same grade and ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... called to the orderly-room, and directed to march with the Grenadier company on outlying picket to the left rear of the cantonment, and close to the lines of the disarmed sepoys. Two guns of the Light Field Battery, under a subaltern, were also placed under my orders, and I took with me a young ensign to ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... employed himself in watching the prostrate Boer attentively, and noticed that his eyes were being blinked violently, as if the man were in a great state of excitement. But he seemed to calm down rapidly as the young subaltern walked to and fro, holding the light up, then down, and always coming back ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... to matter. But the species derived from the end, is more formal than that which is derived from the object, as stated above (A. 6). Therefore the species derived from the end is contained under the species derived from the object, as the most specific species is contained under the subaltern genus. ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... scarce two miles to run, but the navigation was delicate, the entrance to this northern anchorage was not only narrow and shoal, but lay east and west, so that the schooner must be nicely handled to be got in. I think I was a good, prompt subaltern, and I am very sure that Hands was an excellent pilot; for we went about and about, and dodged in, shaving the banks, with a certainty and a neatness that were ...
— Treasure Island • Robert Louis Stevenson
... effect, the mother of ever-new mischiefs, which renders well-doing or improvement impossible, and drives bad everywhere continually into worse. The work being what we see, a stupid subaltern will do as well as a gifted one; the essential point is, that he be a quiet one, and do not bother me who have the driving of him. Nay, for this latter object, is not a certain height of intelligence even dangerous? I want no mettled Arab horse, with his flashing glances, arched, ...
— Latter-Day Pamphlets • Thomas Carlyle
... European army; but what lieutenant, educated or not, who had the will and the remarkable military adaptation so evident in General Jackson's intellectual and physical organization, ever remained a subaltern? Much less could General Jackson fail to rise to his proper place in a country where there was so much more elbow-room, and fewer artificial obstacles than in less favored lands. But, whatever those obstacles might have been, General Jackson ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... whom he owed most at this juncture was Aymar de Chastes. Though Champlain had served the king faithfully, his youth and birth prevented him from doing more than belongs to the duty of a subaltern. But De Chastes, as governor of Dieppe, at a time when the League seemed everywhere triumphant, gave Henry aid which proved to be the means of raising him from the dust. It was a critical event for Champlain that early in 1603 De Chastes had determined to fit out an expedition to Canada. ...
— The Founder of New France - A Chronicle of Champlain • Charles W. Colby
... the same year. Soon afterwards, upon a site for the settlement being chosen, the necessary operations were commenced, and by the end of May in the following year, the preliminary arrangements having been completed, the Alligator left, and Captain John Macarthur, R.M., with a subaltern, assistant-surgeon, storekeeper, and a linguist, together with a detachment of forty marines, remained in charge of the new settlement. The Britomart remained behind for several years as a tender to this ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... these places contains names of many persons who should set better examples to the humbler classes of the community; for the unfortunate results of this too fatal propensity to parents and society have been severely felt. Among many instances on record, a very interesting one is related of a young Subaltern in a regiment of cavalry, who, by successive losses, was reduced to such a state of distress, as to form the desperate resolution of trying the road. In a moment of agony, he accidentally met with an opportunity which seemed to favour ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... certain degree, committed herself; that is to say that, notwithstanding the injunctions of her parents, she had fallen in love with a young lieutenant in a marching regiment, whose pedigree was but respectable, and whose fortune was anything but respectable, consisting merely of a subaltern's pay. Poor men, unfortunately, always make love better than those who are rich, because, having less to care about, and not being puffed up with their own consequence, they are not so selfish, and think much more of the lady than of themselves. Young ladies, ...
— The Pirate and The Three Cutters • Frederick Marryat
... concluded with Austria is executed by His Imperial Majesty with the most perfect good faith, and as we have no diplomatic agent at his Court he personally inquired into and corrected a proceeding of some of his subaltern officers to the injury of our consul in one ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Andrew Jackson • Andrew Jackson
... papers, &c., without a guard, and on the flank nearest the enemy, was just what might have been anticipated:—in attempting to pass the British post of Malden the whole detachment was attacked and captured, "by a subaltern and six men, in ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... a subaltern was lucky who could mount one step of the promotion ladder in his first ten years; that a major at fifty, a colonel at sixty, and a general at seventy were quite the usual thing. And they realized that the pay they would receive would be a mere beggar's pittance in a neighborhood ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... dangerous enemies, the father Daubenton, received an order to quit Madrid, where his restless nullity had lost itself in a maze of intrigues. Authorised in a manner to form her ministry, she nominated the President Amelot as Ambassador for Spain, a diplomatist although very high minded, yet of somewhat subaltern ability, one of the lights of that magistracy from which Louis XIV. loved to recruit the staff of his government, and whence Madame des Ursins herself sprung on her mother's side. The Marshal de Tesse was appointed to the command of the army, and Orry, a pupil of Colbert ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... heroes. The common soldier enters the stormed fortress and, falling in the breach which his valor has made, sleeps in a nameless grave. The subaltern whose surname is scarcely heard beyond the roll-call on parade, bears the colors of his company where the fight is hottest. And the corporal who heads his file in the final charge, is forgotten in the "earthquake ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... me a job like fighting the battle of Waterloo, or Sedan, or Bull Run, I knew all about that, as I had crammed it up and been examined in it, too. I also knew how to take up a position for a division, or even an army corps, but the stupid little subaltern's game of the defence of a drift with a small detachment was, curiously enough, most perplexing. I had never really considered such a thing. However, in the light of my habitual dealings with army corps, it would, no doubt, be ...
— The Defence of Duffer's Drift • Ernest Dunlop Swinton
... your brother no longer,' he returned passionately; 'from a child you have been far dearer to me. I never remember the time since I was a subaltern that I did not love you, and my love ...
— Lover or Friend • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... to him was a young Gunner subaltern, with most of his right leg shot away, and they talked spasmodically, in the intervals of trying to read month ...
— Mufti • H. C. (Herman Cyril) McNeile
... of your old modest qualms, Pathfinder, and will do you no credit with the girl. Women distrust men who distrust themselves, and take to men who distrust nothing. Modesty is a capital thing in a recruit, I grant you; or in a young subaltern who has just joined, for it prevents his railing at the non-commissioned officers before he knows what to rail at; I'm not sure it is out of place in a commissary or a parson, but it's the devil and all when it gets possession of a real soldier or a lover. Have as little to do with it as ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... was very close. First-year men—that is to say, junior officers returning from their first leave—were the most encumbered, self-possessed, and asserting; those of the second year, so to say, usually got a corner-seat and looked out of window; while here and there a senior officer, or a subaltern with a senior's face, selected a place, arranged his few possessions, and got out a paper, not in the Oxford manner, as if he owned the place, but in the Cambridge, as if he didn't ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... so, I perfectly remember." So with this memorial of poor Hood, it may have, no doubt, a greater interest for me than for others, for I was fighting, so to speak, in a different part of the field, and engaged, a young subaltern, in the Battle of Life, in which Hood fell, young still, and covered with glory. "The Bridge of Sighs" was his Corunna, his Heights of Abraham—sickly, weak, wounded, he fell in the full blaze and fame of ...
— Roundabout Papers • William Makepeace Thackeray
... thick with dead of both sides. Colonel Laurie said, "Follow me, I will lead you!" rushed out, and fell gallantly, shot dead at the head of his men. Is there a finer death? For myself, I escaped with my guns last night, and here I am resting after a desperate 9 days. But I lost my favourite subaltern and nearly every friend I had in the Division. I am still very lame, and this ...
— Letters of Lt.-Col. George Brenton Laurie • George Brenton Laurie
... English and Portuguese take the field. Count La Lippe is sent over to command them. Brigadier Burgoyne surprizes [sic] Valenca d'Alcantara in Spain, and destroys one of their best regiments there. A sejeant [sic] and six men only engage a Spanish subaltern with twenty-five dragoons, unbroken, kill six of their men, and bring in the rest prisoners, with every horse of the party. Soon after Brigadier Burgoyne and Colonel Lee surprize the Spanish camp at Villa Vehla; and the Spaniards are obliged ...
— A Museum for Young Gentlemen and Ladies - A Private Tutor for Little Masters and Misses • Unknown
... his squadron, and the next minute a subaltern and twenty men detached themselves from the column, and, at a brisk trot, began retracing their steps along the road. Upon arriving in sight of the house to which they were proceeding, they leaped their ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... delicate-looking youngster in the early twenties. It was the Prince of Wales, but, so far as receiving any attention from the hurrying throng was concerned, he might as well have been an unknown subaltern. For it is an extremely democratic army, and royalty receives from it scant consideration; Lloyd George is of far more importance than King George to the ...
— Italy at War and the Allies in the West • E. Alexander Powell
... he might, as Sovereign, have his love passages with whom he willed—although be it said, truly, he had one and only one love, Bianca Cappello Buonaventuri—but he could not tolerate any amours between a princess of his house and a subaltern ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... interval a young subaltern of the enemy's infantry, followed by his eager men, burst into this reeking interior. But just over the threshold he halted before the scene of blood and death. He turned with a shrug to his sergeant. "God, I should have estimated them at least ...
— Men, Women, and Boats • Stephen Crane
... whispered the lad; and the subaltern's heels dropped at once from the table upon which they had been resting, for plainly heard through the window, in a loud, forced cough, full of importance, came the utterance, "Errrrum! Errum!" and Private Peter Pegg's lower jaw dropped, and his eyes, as he fixed them upon the subaltern's ...
— Trapped by Malays - A Tale of Bayonet and Kris • George Manville Fenn
... over again," Lady Desmond would say, referring to a brother who had served the great Fetish from subaltern to Colonel and left his name on ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... "Compadres" and chums as we were destined to become, we were utterly unknown and indifferent to each other; but in point of regimental reputation at the time, Van had decidedly the best of it. He was a celebrity at head-quarters, I a subaltern at an isolated post. He had apparently become acclimated, and was rapidly winning respect for himself and dollars for his backers; I was winning neither for anybody, and doubtless losing both,—they go together, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, November 1885 • Various
... the narrative of the campaigns in Egypt and Pontus, known as the Bellum Alexandrinum, was written by him or by another officer of Caesar's, Gaius Oppius. The books on the campaigns of Africa and Spain which follow are by different hands: the former evidently by some subaltern officer who took part in the war, and very interesting as showing the average level of intelligence and culture among Roman officers of the period; the latter by another author and in very inferior Latin, full of grammatical solecisms ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... of discord were first sown between the rival commanders, and the plot carefully laid, which finally led to Colonel Fremont's court martial. Rank, with its green-eyed monster, jealousy, which is ever watching with a restless and caustic determination to snatch from the subaltern his hard-earned laurels, was actively at work during these winter months. By the programme, cut and dried, the ambitious young soldier, who was nobly breasting the conflicts against the enemies of his country, was to be summarily put down, and his career ...
— The Life and Adventures of Kit Carson, the Nestor of the Rocky Mountains, from Facts Narrated by Himself • De Witt C. Peters
... little at the ingenuous confession of the subaltern, but a moment later, he opened his eyes very wide, when Roderick told him in minute detail all the circumstances which we have narrated ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... for three years. Though every one of these young plants represents vast productive power, they are made, as one may say, into cashiers. They receive appointments; the rank and file of engineers is made up of them; they are employed as captains of artillery; there is no (subaltern) grade to which they may not aspire. Finally, when these men, the pick of the youth of the nation, fattened on mathematics and stuffed with knowledge, have attained the age of fifty years, they ...
— Library of the World's Best Mystery and Detective Stories • Edited by Julian Hawthorne
... began to come and a machine-gun subaltern, looking at a black East in search of daylight, so that he might say, "It is now light; I may go to bed," was somewhat startled. "For," he said, "I have received shocks as the result of too much whisky of old, but from a split tea and chloride of lime—no! It must be the pork and beans." However, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Aug 15, 1917 • Various
... I was subaltern of the cantonment main-guard at Bangalore one day in the month of June, 182-. Tattoo had just beaten; and I was sitting in the guard-room with my friend Frederick Gahagan, the senior Lieutenant in the regiment to which I belonged, ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... have captured him near Lasnes— A subaltern of the Silesian Horse. A note from Bulow to Lord Wellington, Announcing that a Prussian corps is close, Was found on him. He speaks our ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... New England to settle on the vacant lands in Nova Scotia, he was a young man of twenty-four years of age. His father had died at Haverhill; August 15th, 1757. The next year he went with his uncle, Capt. Hazen, to the assault of Ticonderoga, in the capacity of a subaltern officer in the Provincial troops, and shortly after the close of the campaign proceeded to Nova Scotia in order to find a promising situation for engaging in trade. The fur trade was what he had chiefly in mind at this time, but ...
— Glimpses of the Past - History of the River St. John, A.D. 1604-1784 • W. O. Raymond
... protection in his pocket, was put to death without question. A boy of eight years, who fell at Campbell's feet imploring mercy, and offering to serve him for life, was stabbed to the heart by one Drummond a subaltern officer. Eight-and-thirty persons suffered in this manner, the greater part of whom were surprised in their beds, and hurried into eternity before they had time to implore the divine mercy. The design was to butcher all the males ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... Government has thought proper to allow them. They are thereby more led to temperance, to improve themselves by study, to mind their duty and how best to promote the service of their country. I served sixteen years as a subaltern officer in the army, made long sea voyages with the Regiment, furnished myself with sea stores, camp equipage and every other necessary equipments [and] my Father nor any Relation during that time was never [put to] one farthing's expense upon my account. Altho' I sometimes lost ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... masters feel about a certain article, Tyrant, in the Philosophical Dictionary. They will never forgive Voltaire for saying that it was better to have to do with a single wild beast, which one could avoid, than with a band of little subaltern tigers who are incessantly getting between your legs.... To return to those two unfortunate wretches whom they have condemned to the galleys. When they come out, what will become of them? There will be nothing left for them to do, save to turn highway robbers. The ignominious ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists (Vol 1 of 2) • John Morley
... boast of no more than three principal theatres, exclusively of l'Opera Buffa introduced in 1788. These were l'Opera les Francais, and les Italiens, which, with six inferior ones, called petits spectacles, brought the whole of the theatres to ten in number. The subaltern houses were incessantly checked in their career by the privileges granted to the Comedie Francaise, which company alone enjoyed the right to play first-rate productions: it also possessed that of censorship, and sometimes exercised ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... establishments of the infantry battalions. For reasons unknown, provision for Signalling and Transport Officers was omitted and the duties had henceforth—until some time after arrival in France—to be carried on by subaltern officers taken away from ...
— The 28th: A Record of War Service in the Australian Imperial Force, 1915-19, Vol. I • Herbert Brayley Collett
... Berlaimont, head of the financial department—a stern and intolerant satellite of the court, and a furious enemy to those national institutions which operated as checks upon fraud. These three individuals formed the stadtholderess's privy council. The remaining creatures of the king were mere subaltern agents. ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... all, the perfect prince was De La Motte, a subaltern in the 29th Punjabis, ever the leader of the dangerous patrols along the native bush paths that give themselves so readily to ambush. Shot through the spine and paralysed below the waist his life was only a question of months. But if he had little time to live, he had determined ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... Sir Robert Peel's famous system was introduced in 1861, when hosts of inspectors, sub-inspectors and head constables were let loose on Bengal. The new force was highly unpopular, and failed to attract the educated classes. Subaltern officers, therefore, used power for private ends, while the masses were so inured to oppression that they offered no resistance. There has been a marked improvement in the personnel of late years; and Mr. Banerjea's lurid pictures of corruption and petty tyranny ...
— Tales of Bengal • S. B. Banerjea
... and I were friends before either of you were born," he said simply. "I was a cornet in his old regiment. Little Lady Mary played at the knee of the poor young subaltern." ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... The subaltern went to carry out the order, and Falconnet fell to pacing back and forth before the little wigwam. I could see his face at the turn where the firelight fell upon him; 'twas the face of a villain at his worst, namely, a villain half in liquor. There was a lurking devil of passion peering out ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde
... the sick, with provisions sufficient to carry them to the first inhabitants on the Kennebeck river. They also determined to send a party forward to the nearest settlement in Canada to procure provisions and return to meet the army with all possible expedition. Captain Oliver Hanchet, with one subaltern and fifty privates set out with ten days provisions, each man taking 10 pints of flour and 5 lbs of pork. The sick, forty in number, went back. We then pushed forward with all possible speed. We gained nine miles against the stream ...
— An interesting journal of Abner Stocking of Chatham, Connecticut • Abner Stocking
... the bigger boy who has just struck him, turn against the nearest smaller boy and beat him? Did you ever know a schoolmaster, angered by one of the boy's parents, vent his pent-up spleen upon the unoffending class? Did you ever see a subaltern punished because an officer had been reprimanded? These are familiar examples of vicarious vengeance. When the soul is stung to fury, it must solace itself by the discharge of that fury—it must relieve its pain by the sight of pain in others. We are so constituted. We need sympathy ...
— The Lock and Key Library • Julian Hawthorne, Ed.
... twenty years old, and was, for a girl of her age, exuberantly fat; yet as her skin and complexion were not coarse, many thought her handsome; but she promised to be as large as her mother, and certainly was not at all suited for a wife to a subaltern ...
— Percival Keene • Frederick Marryat
... afford an illustration of the consequences detailed above. From this battery, by the end of November, 1899, there had been drafted off to staff, service batteries, ammunition columns, or excess numbers, the captain, the senior subaltern (the only one who had had four months' service in field artillery), five sergeants, one corporal, one bombardier, four shoeing smiths, two trumpeters, the wheeler, six gunners and five drivers. In December, 1899, the battery commander, with ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... GLEIG, author of The Subaltern's Furlough, Saratoga, &c., is now Inspector-General of Military Schools, and lives ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... have told us of this. We've been trapped,' said a subaltern. 'Aren't the camel guns ever going to ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... had the weakness at once to fear Fouche and to think him necessary. Fouche, whose talents at this trade are too well known to need my approbation, soon discovered this secret institution, and the names of all the subaltern agents employed by the chief agents. It is difficult to form an idea of the nonsense, absurdity, and falsehood contained in the bulletins drawn up by the noble and ignoble agents of the police. I do not mean to enter into details on this nauseating subject; and I shall only ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton
... Mr Kipling which relates how Eustace Cleever, a celebrated novelist, came to the rooms of a young subaltern and his companions who were giving an account of themselves. Eustace Cleever was a literary man, and was greatly impressed when he learned that one of the company, who was under twenty-five and was called the Infant, had killed people ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... than this proclamation the lofty position of an officer in the British service at that time as compared with a private. A field officer received four thousand acres; a captain three thousand; a lieutenant, or other subaltern commissioned officer, two thousand; a non-commissioned officer, whether sergeant or corporal, dropped to two hundred acres, while the poor private was put off with fifty acres. Fifty acres of wild land, on the hill-sides of Washington County, was not an extravagant reward for seven ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... the green standards on the mountain moved down to assist them in a last rally. This was unwise. The Lancers chafing in the right gorge had thrice despatched their only subaltern as galloper to report on the progress of affairs. On the third occasion he returned, with a bullet-graze on his knee, swearing strange oaths in Hindustani, and saying that all things were ready. So that ...
— Soldier Stories • Rudyard Kipling
... for investing in National War Bonds, a patriotic subaltern was heard at Cox's asking if his overdraft could be transferred ...
— Punch, Volume 156, January 22, 1919. • Various
... was made one of a ministry; Marcas remained in the opposition to hinder his man from being attacked; nay, by skilful tactics he won him the applause of the opposition. To excuse himself for not rewarding his subaltern, the chief pointed out the impossibility of finding a place suddenly for a man on the other side, without a great deal of manoeuvring. Marcas had hoped confidently for a place to enable him to marry, and thus acquire the qualification he so ardently desired. He was two-and-thirty, ...
— Z. Marcas • Honore de Balzac |
