"Herculean" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... law of God, but the law of man, that produces these herculean evils which constantly threaten the peace ...
— Black and White - Land, Labor, and Politics in the South • Timothy Thomas Fortune
... young mother. Jozsef Bardy—a handsome man of about thirty-five, with regular features, and black hair and beard; a constant smile beamed on his gay countenance, while he playfully addressed his little son and gentle wife across the table. The other was his brother, Barnabas—a man of herculean form and strength. His face was marked by smallpox; he wore neither beard or mustache, and his hair was combed smoothly back, like a peasant's. His disposition was melancholy and taciturn; but he seemed constantly ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... ordered the enforcement of Mr. Bradlaugh's withdrawal. Once more the order is given, once more the refusal made, and then the Serjeant-at-Arms was bidden to remove him. Strange was the scene as little Captain Cosset walked up to the member of Herculean proportions, and men wondered how the order would be enforced; but Charles Bradlaugh was not the man to make a vulgar brawl, and the light touch on his shoulder was to him the touch of an authority he admitted and ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... room, that opened at once on the confined and crowded lane. Before the threshold was a group of men, whose iron and well-strung muscles, whose short and Herculean necks, whose hardy and reckless countenances, indicated the champions of the arena. On a shelf, without the shop, were ranged jars of wine and oil; and right over this was inserted in the wall a ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... man, who has long filled a distinguished place in the service of his sovereign and the eyes of the world, in whose hands the task of regenerating Sardinia, herculean as it may appear, would be not only a labour of love, but facile comparatively with any others on which it may devolve. I speak of General the Count Alberto di Marmora, known to all Europe by his Topographical Survey, and his able work, the Voyage en Sardaigne, of which two additional ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... where, "towards the close of the year 17——," several gentlemen in three-cocked hats were playing bowls. A friend of mine preferred the Malabar coast in a storm, with a ship beating to windward, and a scowling fellow of Herculean proportions striding along the beach; he, to be sure, was a pirate. This was further afield than my home-keeping fancy loved to travel, and designed altogether for a larger canvas than the tales that I affected. Give me a highwayman and I was full to the brim; a Jacobite ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... at hand now. The foremost one, a man of Herculean build, jumped his mount across the brook, and leaped off while he hauled the horse to a stop. The second rider came close behind him; the others approached leisurely, with the gait of ...
— The Border Legion • Zane Grey
... by their consent and influence had been handed down, and declared to have been evidenced by all the miracles recorded in the four Evangelists, do you not see that your first proposition would be of Herculean strength against this religion? On the contrary, it being well established, from unquestionable authority, that as St. Paul observed, Christ crucified was a stumbling block to the Jews, and to the Greeks foolishness, the whole force of Jewish and Greek superstition, as it opposed, serves ...
— A Series of Letters In Defence of Divine Revelation • Hosea Ballou
... emperors, set to the task of stealing a dog—for that is what I should have to do—from an unscrupulous gang of thieves whose identity, abode and methods were alike unknown to me. Truly, Sir, you will own that this was a herculean task. ...
— Castles in the Air • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... scarcely any writer, however inconsiderable, who does not aim, in some degree, at the same species of excellence. But let us not ungratefully undervalue that beautiful style, which has pleasingly conveyed to us much instruction and entertainment. Though comparatively weak, opposed to Johnson's Herculean vigour, let us not call it positively feeble. Let us remember the character of his style, as given by Johnson himself[662]: 'What he attempted, he performed; he is never feeble, and he did not wish to be energetick; he ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell
... complete breakdown, pitiful from its contrast with the man's herculean physique and fine, if contracted, features. If the end, it was a sad end, and Mr. Gryce, whose forehead had taken on a deep line between the eyebrows, slowly rose and took his stand by the young man, who looked ready to fall. The inspector, ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... never once looked at me. He stood with his back to the fire, which set off the herculean breadth of his shoulders. His face was dark and expressive; his under jaw squarely formed, and remarkably heavy. I was struck with his ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... writing in the Gazetteer, in which I never had the honour of inserting a single Word." What can have occurred, in the bewildering turmoil of that eighteenth-century party strife, that the author of Pasquin, the possessor of "Captain Vinegar's" Herculean Club, should have to vindicate himself from a charge of writing in the columns of Walpole's Gazetteer. During these last months of Sir Robert's power his Cabinet was much divided, and two of his Ministers were in active revolt; possibly rumour assigned the services of the witty pen of Counsellor ...
— Henry Fielding: A Memoir • G. M. Godden
... revealed that during his time as a lawyer he was unable for a period of months to buy a dinner on half the days and lay ill for weeks from hunger and exhaustion by reason of having assumed the debts of a relative." His was the Herculean task of revising and regenerating the school system of Massachusetts, and by so doing the whole U. S. The influence was not confined to this country alone, but ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... ardent, and to triumph shy, Fair Victory named him from the polar sky. Fanes to the gods, to men he manners gave; Rest to the sword, and respite to the brave; So high could ne'er Herculean power aspire: The god should bend his looks to the Tarpeian fire." [Footnote: Book ix. ...
— The Old Roman World • John Lord
... but it was lodged in a powerful, herculean body, and carnal imaginings began to disturb his sleep and his vigils. He drove them away; they came back again; and he murmured from time to time, ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... was such neither could doubt. The guide, gifted with herculean strength, had tried to move the stone on discovering how it lay. With his feet firmly planted in the projections below, and his shoulder to the rock above, he had given a heave that would have lifted a loaded ...
— The Lone Ranche • Captain Mayne Reid
... be dying. He thought he was getting weaker—but how could he tell for sure? He could feel nothing, there was no pain, no muscular failure, no falling weakly to the ground. There were no muscles left and he was on the ground already. It was a Herculean effort to keep his eyes open, to listen as he had vowed he would. But that might be only fatigue, the need for sleep. And shock! Of course. He had to be suffering from shock, and from exposure, too. ...
— A Choice of Miracles • James A. Cox
... shirt sleeve from his herculean arm and Szilard was astonished to see the half healed and cross-like scar—it ...
— The Poor Plutocrats • Maurus Jokai
... the pursuit of knowledge. The celestial fruits, the golden apples of the Hesperides, are ever guarded by a hundred-headed dragon which never sleeps, so that it is an Herculean ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 61, November, 1862 • Various
... stay, Emma managed, little by little, to take the place of second mother in the household. She had tact and finesse and cleverness enough even for that herculean feat. Grace's pale cheeks and last year's wardrobe made her firm ...
— Emma McChesney & Co. • Edna Ferber
... majestic assemblage of rock shapes on the shores of Fatu-hiva appeared as if some Herculean sculptor with disordered brain and mighty hand had labored to reproduce the fearful ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien
... observations. It is almost impossible to elevate the spirits of a man groaning under ideal calamities; but nothing is easier than to render him wretched, though on the pinnacle of felicity: as it would be an herculean task to hoist a man to the top of a steeple, though the merest child could topple him ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... of the herculean emperor had not disgusted him at first; it had merely displeased his taste. Now, it became suddenly an atrocious contrast to the secret loveliness of unveiled beauty. That was a manly instinct in him, ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... Iron Horse were, like their Herculean child, men of mettle. They fought a gallant fight for their darling's freedom, and came ...
— The Iron Horse • R.M. Ballantyne
... are not by any means the most difficult to clear, though to a "new chum" the work will appear at first of a Herculean character. Brushing the dense undergrowth and then felling the timber at a face costs from L1 10s. to L2 per acre, according to density, size of timber, and proportion of hardwood trees contained in it, and once this is done the fallen ...
— Fruits of Queensland • Albert Benson
... were clouded and obscured for the greater period of their working lives. Unobserved, they received, and made their own preparations for utilising, the legacy of the mid-Victorian novel—moral thesis, plot, underplot, set characters, descriptive machinery, landscape colouring, copious phraseology, Herculean proportions, and the rest of the cumbrous and grandiose paraphernalia of Chuzzlewit, Pendennis, and Middlemarch. But they received the legacy in a totally different spirit. Mark Rutherford, after a very brief experiment, put all these elaborate properties and conventions reverently ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... the fate of the short-lived republics whose wrecks lay along the pathway of history, and from the unwritten Constitution of the mother country, as their only guides, the leaders of the Convention were at once in the difficult role of constructive statesmen. The Herculean task to which with unwearied effort they now addressed themselves was that of "builders" of the Constitution; the establishers, for the ages, of the fundamental law for ...
— Something of Men I Have Known - With Some Papers of a General Nature, Political, Historical, and Retrospective • Adlai E. Stevenson
... for the sand-bars and shallows of the upper river, and that a monotonous but very musical cadence was being repeated at intervals, in muffled tones, somewhere on board. I went down to the cargo department of the lower deck and found the singers,—the herculean porters. One after another they bent their backs, and two mates hoisted the huge bales, chanting a refrain which enabled them to move and lift in unison. The words were to the following effect: "If all don't grasp together, we cannot lift the weight." The music was ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... interrupted the performance of Charles VI. with most unseemly cries. After the customary medical and legal proceedings, he was ordered to be sent to the Charenton Hospital. But opposite the porte Saint-Martin, taking advantage of a lock among the vehicles, and of the Herculean strength with which he is endowed, he wrested his hands from his keeper, threw him down, beat him, leaped at a bound into the street, and disappeared in the crowd. The most active search was immediately set on foot, and we have it from ...
— The Man With The Broken Ear • Edmond About
... spirit once had was gone. He moved wearily, automatically doing his work and doing it ill. The very movements of his hands, slack and fumbling, were an exasperation to the other men, setting their strength to a herculean measure, and giving of it without begrudgment. David saw their anger and did not care. Fatigue made him indifferent, ate into his pride, brought down his self-respect. He plodded on doggedly, the ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... rescue. Though he was advised of the danger of such an attempt, his spirit and determination made him invincible. He proceeded to a place where some colored men were working. With a firm and determined look, and a herculean shout, he called out to them, "To arms, to arms! boys, we must rescue this man; I shall lead if you will follow." "We will," was the immediate response. And they went and overtook them, and dispersed his claimants. They brought Dorsey ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... the evening before. He has spent the night drinking, gambling, and though he looks heated, there is no sign of fatigue. Nature, in wasting on this man many of her most glorious elements of happiness, had not forgotten an herculean constitution,—always restless and never tired, always drinking and never drunk. Certainly it is some consolation to delicate invalids that it seldom happens that the sickly are very wicked. Criminals are generally athletic; constitution ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... word of this there had been condemnation. It was as though Mr Apjohn were devoting him to infernal torture, telling him that his only escape would be by the exercise of some herculean power which was notoriously beyond his reach. It was evident to him that Mr Apjohn had come there under the guise of his advisor and friend, but was in fact leagued with all the others around him to drive him to his ruin. Of that ...
— Cousin Henry • Anthony Trollope
... So soon as he discovered Capt. Gibson, he raised the war whoop and fired [61] his rifle—the ball passed through Gibson's hunting shirt and wounded a soldier just behind him. Gibson sprang forward, and swinging his sword with herculean force, severed the head of the Little Eagle from his body—two other Indians were shot down, and the remainder escaped ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... occurred in the action of a drama in order to allow him as spectator, to thoroughly master the meaning of one special scene. Therefore he took the opportunity offered, and, looking full at Zephoranim, thought he had never beheld so magnificent a man. Of stately height and herculean build, he was most truly royal in outward bearing,—though a physiognomist judging him from the expression of his countenance would at once have given him all the worst vices of a reckless voluptuary and utterly selfish sensualist. ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... them to make war upon other parties of the whites. Eleven volunteers were selected for the expedition, and the young and fragile Kit Carson was entrusted with the command. In manners he was gentle as a girl, with a voice as soft as that of a woman. He had no herculean powers of muscle, but he had mind, mental powers which had been developed in a hundred emergencies. And these stout, hardy veterans of the wilderness seem with one accord to have decided that he was the fitting one to lead them into battle, where they were to encounter perhaps hundreds ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... with the Gallipoli Expeditionary Force. I have stated that there are eighty-two signs in Grade II Braille; but Braille shorthand contains six hundred and eighty word and letter signs that have to be committed to memory. A herculean task was before me, but by dogged effort on my part and patience on the part of my instructor, I succeeded so well that in a few weeks I was able to take shorthand notes as speedily as the average sighted stenographer. Meanwhile, I had been diligently at work at my typewriting, and under ...
— Through St. Dunstan's to Light • James H. Rawlinson
... to vigorous athletic pastimes, and to fierce brawls among themselves, were generally overmatches for the Indians in hand-to-hand struggles. One such fight, that took place some years before this time, deserves mention. A man of herculean strength and of fierce, bold nature, named Bingaman, lived on the frontier in a lonely log-house. The cabin had but a single room below, in which Bingaman slept, as well as his mother, wife, and child; a hired man slept in the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... still stronger force of the enemy under Baraguay d'Hilliers a second time against Botzen called Chasteler in person into the field, and the French, after a smart engagement near Volano, where the Herculean Passeyrers carried the artillery on their shoulders, were forced to retreat. It was on this occasion that Leiningen, who had hastily pushed too far forward, was rescued from captivity by Hofer.[5] The Vorarlberg had, meanwhile, also been raised by Teimer. A Dr. Schneider ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... to do, miss," replied Sam, exerting his Herculean strength in vain. With the aid of a hammer and the kitchen-poker, however, he at last succeeded in forcing it open. We all pressed forward eagerly to peer inside. There was something in it certainly, but we none of us could determine what, until Sam, who was the ...
— A Stable for Nightmares - or Weird Tales • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... powerful a man to be allowed to live, and that he must die. He was accordingly led out to execution, but without any of the ordinary accompaniments of torture. His hands were bound behind him, he was laid upon the ground, and his head was placed upon a stone. An Indian warrior of herculean strength stood by, with a massive club, to give the death blow by crushing in the skull. Just as the fatal stroke was about to descend, a beautiful Indian girl, Pocahontas, the daughter of the king, rushed forward and throwing ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... had scarcely passed his lips, when he was stretched at his full length upon the ground. Nor did Glanville stop there. With all the strength of his nervous and Herculean frame, fully requited for the debility of disease by the fury of the moment, he seized the gamester as if he had been an infant, and dragged him to the door: the next moment I heard his heavy frame rolling down the stairs with no decorous ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... desirable,—so that a month or two of the spring need not be consumed on that preliminary question. But this period had not as yet been reached, and it was thought by the entire City that Mr. Palliser was much too sanguine. It was so probable, many said, that he might kill himself by labour which would be Herculean in all but success, and that no financier after him would venture to face the task. It behoved Lady Glencora to see that her Hercules ...
— The Eustace Diamonds • Anthony Trollope
... he needed. A little whisky would strengthen him, revive him, and make it possible for him to bestir himself and undress and go to bed. But when he thought of rising and moving to pour the whisky out, he shrank from that effort as from an Herculean labour; no—he was too tired. Then his mind went back to the friends he had left in Chelsea half an hour ago; it seemed an indefinably long time ago, years and years ago; they were like blurred phantoms, dimly ...
— Grey Roses • Henry Harland
... at all in the year and a quarter, and with his herculean shoulders and powerful head, his fair hair, blushed into a great tuft above his forehead, only just beginning to turn gray, he was still the very type and picture of ripe manhood ...
— The Malady of the Century • Max Nordau
... bitterness and fury, echoed through the dell; morning broke more and more, ill accordant in its celestial beauty with our brute and noisy contest. I and my enemy were still struggling, when the wounded man exclaimed, "The Earl!" I sprang out of the herculean hold of the keeper, panting from my exertions; I cast furious glances on my persecutors, and placing myself with my back to a tree, resolved to defend myself to the last. My garments were torn, and they, as well as my hands, were stained with the blood of the man I had wounded; one hand ...
— The Last Man • Mary Shelley
... that I learned the stuff of which my three comrades were composed. They were grave, it is true, and thoughtful, but of an invincible serenity. For the moment we could only sit among the bushes in patience and wait the coming of Zambo. Presently his honest black face topped the rocks and his Herculean figure emerged upon the top of ...
— The Lost World • Arthur Conan Doyle
... compass." Yet Chatham, just before the recess, put a bold front upon his affairs in the house. He proclaimed a war against party cabals, and asserted that his great point was to destroy faction, and that he could face and dare the greatest and proudest connexions. But this was an Herculean task which neither Chatham nor any other minister has yet been able to accomplish. Faction is an hydra-headed monster, which no man can destroy, either by the charms of his eloquence or the terror ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... be the oldest of the sisterhood, holds the book close to her eyes, as if from dimness of sight, which fact, contradicted as it is by a frame of obviously Herculean strength, gives a mysterious intentness ...
— The Old Masters and Their Pictures - For the Use of Schools and Learners in Art • Sarah Tytler
... the vehicle too. The huge domestic, descending from his perch, gave a rap at the door which almost drove in the building. All the heads were out; the sun was shining; the very organ-boy paused; the footman, the coach, and Goldmore's red face and white waistcoat were blazing in splendour. The herculean plushed one went back ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray
... Mme. Brunner expired while the authors of her being were yet alive, Brunner senior was obliged to bear the loss of the sums of which his wife had drained his coffers, to say nothing of other ills, which had told upon a Herculean constitution, till at the age of sixty-seven the innkeeper had wizened and shrunk as if the famous Borgia's poison had undermined his system. For ten whole years he had supported his wife, and now he inherited nothing! The innkeeper was a second ruin of Heidelberg, repaired ...
— Cousin Pons • Honore de Balzac
... the very great pleasure of presenting you with the last remaining stolen heirloom of the ancient House of Puddingham, thus recovering all the articles stolen from you on Easter Sunday night and throughout Easter Monday, which recovery is due to my herculean efforts, ably assisted from time to time by my old side-kicker, Doctor Watson. The only thing now remaining to be done is to seize Billie Budd when he comes up here in disguise to-morrow morning, and ship him into London with a ball and chain ...
— The Adventures of the Eleven Cuff-Buttons • James Francis Thierry
... because he was practically the senior officer available, and because he had gained experience in both regimental and staff duties, having filled with great credit the high office of Commander-in-Chief at Bombay. Herculean Mr. Allan, of Gateshead, sought for information how many months the Duke of Connaught was absent from his duties when he commanded at Portsmouth. Young Mr. Dalziel also came forward, wanting to know whether the Duke would receive the salary of a General or a Lieutenant-General. ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... reader, I behold Before me, as in days of old, Bold Paddy Whelan, Wexford Paddy Surely of noisy men the daddy; A man of most Herculean form, Who roamed through sunshine and through storm, And sounded loud in other days His notes in Hamnett Pinhey's praise— And well he might sing with loud swell, "The Lamb of March" deserved it well! A man of learning, ...
— Recollections of Bytown and Its Old Inhabitants • William Pittman Lett
... swear to you, Athenians, by the dog I swear!—for I must tell you the truth—the result of my mission was just this: I found that the men most in repute were all but the most foolish; and that others less esteemed were really wiser and better. I will tell you the tale of my wanderings and of the 'Herculean' labours, as I may call them, which I endured only to find at last the oracle irrefutable. After the politicians, I went to the poets; tragic, dithyrambic, and all sorts. And there, I said to myself, you will be instantly ...
— Apology - Also known as "The Death of Socrates" • Plato
... high tide kindled fresh hopes as "Little Mack" steeled himself for a last try with the Dewey's hardworked engines. Jack and Ted had spent the long evening in the wireless room with Sammy Smith, hearing not so much as a trace of a passing vessel. Eagerly they awaited the last herculean effort for freedom. At ten minutes to one the engines were set in motion again and the signal given to back away as before. Lieutenant McClure had resorted to the expedient of shifting everything movable within the Dewey ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... the value of his experience as a fisherman on the coast of Greenland, and of the usefulness of his dog Kaas, who could be used as a leader of the dogs which would be necessary to draw the sledges. Otto had only his good health, his herculean strength, and his devotion to the cause to recommend him. Thanks to the influence of the doctor and Mr. Bredejord, they were all three engaged ...
— The Waif of the "Cynthia" • Andre Laurie and Jules Verne
... had been hurled right and left by his herculean effort, closed upon him promptly, and, with very little ceremony, hauled him off with violence, hurling him to the deck and themselves falling on the top of him and holding him down with their weight. Yet once again he succeeded in wrenching himself free from the men's clutches and, staggering ...
— Across the Spanish Main - A Tale of the Sea in the Days of Queen Bess • Harry Collingwood
... wounded. The foresight of Napoleon extended even to sending, at the very last moment, to the convent upon the summit, an immense quantity of bread, cheese, and wine. Each soldier, to his surprise, was to find, as he arrived at the summit, exhausted with Herculean toil, a generous slice of bread and cheese with a refreshing cup of wine, presented to him by the monks. All these minute details Napoleon arranged, while at the same time he was doing the work of a dozen energetic men, in reorganizing ...
— Napoleon Bonaparte • John S. C. Abbott
... replied the man, addressing him with dry, parched lips, whilst his Herculean breast heaved up and down with agitation; "I didn't intend to do it, or to break in upon it, but now I must, for it's life or death with the three that's left me; and I durstn't go into the town to ask it there. I have lost four already. Maybe, sir, you could change this ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... populousness of a country have been considered as nearly connected with each other. And, as a rule, for the purpose intended, numbers, in the view of simplicity and certainty, are entitled to a preference. In every country it is a herculean task to obtain a valuation of the land; in a country imperfectly settled and progressive in improvement, the difficulties are increased almost to impracticability. The expense of an accurate valuation is, in all situations, a formidable objection. ...
— The Federalist Papers
... unsuccessful were received at the Rock, as if they had returned from a victory. The garrison beheld with admiration the wonderful efforts which were made to meet a still more formidable foe. Every day marked the progress of the Herculean labours in preparation for that event; the exertions, zeal, and intrepidity of Sir James's officers and crews increased in proportion to the multiplied force of the enemy, which, to men of any other cast, would have ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... the proximity of our meeting-place to the bank—"in case some of the day louts should be fooling about," as Warminster explained. Thereupon, with herculean efforts, we shoved out the stern across stream, the prow being still tethered; and catching on to a stake, we had the satisfaction not only of feeling ourselves in an unassailable position, but of knowing that we were effectually blocking ...
— Tom, Dick and Harry • Talbot Baines Reed
... tall figure, herculean in size, loomed out of the night and advanced hastily. The man's head was bent forward against the storm. Virginia caught a glimpse of his face as he passed in the streak of light thrown ...
— Rose O'Paradise • Grace Miller White
... never ceases to be himself, it certainly seems as if the genius of Michelangelo had had some effect. From what we know of the altarpiece, which perished by fire in 1867, but of which a good copy by Cigoli remains, Titian embarked suddenly upon forms of Herculean strength in violent action, but there his likeness to the Florentine ended; the figures were, indeed, drawn with a deep, though not altogether successful, attention to anatomy and foreshortening, but the picture obtained its effect and derived its impressiveness from the setting in which the ...
— The Venetian School of Painting • Evelyn March Phillipps
... once, the herculean savage was seen to make a motion of his arm, and before the act could be understood, the terrified Bippo called out that he was about to throw his javelin. At the same instant he and his two companions cowered in the bottom of the boat, where they ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... was a saint, a miscreant, a disguised prince, and an escaped convict, according to the state of the reporter's imagination or his digestion; while the stories told of Sleeny varied from cannibalism to feats of herculean goodness. They all agreed reasonably well, however, as to the personal appearance of the two men, and from this fact it came about that, in the course of the morning, evidence was brought forward, from a totally unexpected quarter, which ...
— The Bread-winners - A Social Study • John Hay
... in such a result of the Herculean labours of Scott to found and endow a new branch of the clan of Scott. When fifteen years after his death the estate was at length freed from debt, all his own children and the eldest of his grandchildren were dead; and now forty-six ...
— Sir Walter Scott - (English Men of Letters Series) • Richard H. Hutton
... abreast. In the van were a number of big, square-headed fellows, who seemed to possess the herculean strength and naive confidence of giants. They would doubtless prove blind, intrepid defenders of the Republic. On their shoulders they carried large axes, whose edges, freshly ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... AUGUST 4TH.—Lee is making herculean efforts for an "on to Washington," while the enemy think he merely designs a defense of Richmond. Troops are on the move, all the ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... father's sword, put on his helmet, and talked of the best method of killing all the rebel generals. The plans he laid for terminating the contest appeared so feasible to Constantia, that at length (though not without tears) she consented that he should enter on the Herculean labour of destroying the many-headed monster, Rebellion. Isabel thought that her father and uncle were likely to know what was best to be done, but as often as she ventured to hint that he might be too sanguine, Eustace reminded her, that girls knew nothing ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... no chance of rigging up a cable-way, while the incline was so steep and rough that it was out of the question to try to drag it up with ropes. Just as we were on the verge of giving up in despair, one of the Alpini—a man of Herculean frame who had made his living in peace-time by breaking chains on his chest and performing other feats of strength—came and suggested that he be allowed to carry the gun up on his shoulders. Grasping at a straw, I let him indulge in a few 'practice man[oe]uvres'; but these only showed that, ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... superhuman efforts of the firemen, the fire was extinguished, leaving only the bare and blackened walls standing as monuments of the destruction that had been wrought. Foremost among the brave fellows who were performing their self-appointed and herculean duty was a man about thirty-five years of age, stout and muscular in form, and with a good-humored, honest face, that would attract your friendly regard at a glance. He was the most active and energetic man upon the ground, and it ...
— The Burglar's Fate And The Detectives • Allan Pinkerton
... medal with a Herculean figure on the reverse, confining the head of the English leopard between his knees, whilst preparing a cord to strangle him, inscribed En l'An XII. 2000 barques sont construites;—this was in condemnation of the invasion and ...
— Anecdotes of Painters, Engravers, Sculptors and Architects and Curiosities of Art (Vol. 3 of 3) • S. Spooner
... during his middle life was spent at Paris, where he was busily engaged in the herculean task of issuing his splendid books. He varied his work, however, so that several hours daily were devoted to study and scientific research; and from time to time he made ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great - Volume 12 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Scientists • Elbert Hubbard
... the Rue Pigalle. He was a big fellow of fifty with broad shoulders and a full, bearded face. His most disagreeable characteristic was the narrow dogmatic pedantry which he had acquired at the Ecole Normale, and had never since been able to shake off. All his herculean efforts to be sceptical and frivolous, and the twenty years he had spent in Paris mingling with every section of society, had failed to rid him of it. Magister he was, and magister he remained, even in his most strenuous flights ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... second in which the athletic baronet stood, as it were breathless and incredulous, and then his Herculean fist whirled in the air with a most unseemly oath: the girl screamed, and a crash of glass and crockery, whisked away by their coats, ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... other men of Herculean power, he was not eager to exhibit his strength; but on one occasion he gave proof of it in the following circumstances. Mr. Murray had asked him to accompany him to the Coronation of George IV. They had tickets of admittance to Westminster Hall, but on arriving there they found that ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... materials are enough to keep it in check. In another, it may be a raging torrent, and he may slave night and day, gathering stone and sand, and sealing them with his very blood. But suppose in the end the torrent gets away from him! He fails, you say. Yet is he weaker after that herculean task than the other chap who dammed up his stream of tendency with the side of his boot? He publicly goes under,—yes! But may he not still be finer than his two-by-four brother whose temperament ran ...
— Sunlight Patch • Credo Fitch Harris
... once more grasps the tree. The enormous hind-quarters, the limbs and the loins, the broad pelvis and thick spinal cord, supplying abundant nervous energy to the swelling muscles inserted in the ridged and keeled bones, all come into play as a point d'appui for the Herculean effort." ...
— The Western World - Picturesque Sketches of Nature and Natural History in North - and South America • W.H.G. Kingston
... the winning pugilist; when he saw the man's face, scarred with the wounds of many battles, and imbruted by ferocious passions; when he surveyed the fellow's naked limbs, very marvels of exercise and training, and his shoulders of Herculean breadth, a thought of personal danger started a chill along every vein. A sure instinct warned him that the opportunity for murder was too perfect to have come by chance; and here now were the myrmidons, and their business was with him. He turned an anxious eye ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... endowed with that admirable love of industry which is characteristic of the Pennsylvania Dutch. In accordance with her acceptance of the command, "Six days shalt thou labor," she swept, scrubbed, and toiled from early morning to evening with Herculean persistence. The farmhouse was spotless from cellar to attic, the wooden walks and porches scrubbed clean and smooth. Flower beds, vegetable gardens and lawns were kept neat and without weeds. Aunt Maria was, as she expressed ...
— Patchwork - A Story of 'The Plain People' • Anna Balmer Myers
... ten paces, in the same manner as he had previously done; all of a sudden he turned, and taking the bridle of the burra gently in his hand, stopped her. I had now a full view of his face and figure, and those huge features and Herculean form still occasionally revisit me in my dreams. I see him standing in the moonshine, staring me in the face with his deep calm eyes. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... in Florence in 1509. In her fatherland she left a son of the same mettle as herself, Giovanni Medici, the last of the great condottieri of the country, who became famous as leader of the Black Bands. There is a seated figure in marble of this captain, of herculean strength, with the neck of a centaur, near the church ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius
... longing to "answer back," or, as the children put it, to "get even with" the man or woman whose speech offends us. The apostle showed marvelous knowledge of the weakness of sinful mortals when he affirmed that the tongue was an unruly member, for it is easier to perform a herculean feat, to strain physical strength and muscle to the utmost, than to bite back the sharp retort, or repress the acrid reply. And there is such a hopelessness in the sentence once uttered! It is gone from us forever. We may regret it and show our repentance ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... most placid fortune—when the dismal emergencies which checkered his life arose, he acted with as much promptitude and vigor as if he had never penned a stanza nor taken a glass too much, or was strung with herculean sinews. None of those temptations, in which misery is the most potent, to hazard a lavish expenditure for an enjoyment to be secured against fate and fortune, ever tempted him to exceed his income, when ...
— Charles Lamb • Barry Cornwall
... the men who climbed over the gangway—just as the boats were being hoisted up—was a sailor of gigantic height, of colossal proportions, and Herculean vigour. He was a Canadian by birth. He carried in his arms a young child that was cold and motionless, as if dead. A slight trembling in its limbs, however, proclaimed that there was still ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid
... I think, more rationalistic still, and decidedly inclined to treat it as an excellence pre-existing in the man and explanatory of the herculean performances of ...
— Pragmatism - A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking • William James
... and go. Conditions remain and work. From this on revolutionary socialism will be working, night and day, with might and main, here and there, everywhen and everywhere, and its three herculean tasks are: (1) to dethrone the great imperialist, competitive capitalism; (2) to enthrone the great democrat, co-operative industrialism; and (3) to make the world safe ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown
... a fusilade that ought to have mown down every blade of halfa-grass near. But Maxwell's men seemed not quite to get the range. The flag and flagstaff were riddled with bullet holes, and the dead were being piled around. Still, dervish after dervish sprang to uphold the black banner of Mahdism. A herculean black grasped the staff in one hand, and leaned negligently against it for what appeared to be the space of five or ten minutes,—probably less than one minute,—ere the soldiers managed to give him his final quietus. Then it was that the remnant of the army of the Khalifa began to melt away. It ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... persevered in his Herculean task. Having presented and spoken upon others in the interval, he presented another monster petition to the House on the 5th of February. It was signed, he said, by twenty-four thousand inhabitants of London and the neighbourhood. It complained of the unbearable weight ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, G.C.B., Admiral of the Red, Rear-Admiral of the Fleet, Etc., Etc. • Thomas Cochrane, Earl of Dundonald
... nation, and indicate in this case an antiquity of at least 5760 years. The monuments of Ake are peculiar, and the only specimens of their kind to be found among these ruined cities. They are evidently the handiwork of a herculean and uncouth race—the enormous height of each step in the staircase proves it—of that race of giants whose great bones and large skulls are now and then disinterred, and whose towering forms, surmounted by heads disproportionately small, we have seen pictured on ...
— The Mayas, the Sources of Their History / Dr. Le Plongeon in Yucatan, His Account of Discoveries • Stephen Salisbury, Jr.
... connected. Ten minutes a day for the rest of the week and you will have them at your fingers' ends. It is no trick at all. It is as easy as learning the names of the more important parts of the mechanism of your motor. There is nothing impossible or difficult, or even tedious, about it; but it seems Herculean because you have never taken the trouble to try to remember anything. It is the same attitude that renders it almost physically painful for one of us to read over the scenario of an opera or a column biography ...
— The "Goldfish" • Arthur Train
... the cliffs which overlooked the cove, he calculated the distance it would be necessary to take the schooner through the ice by sawing and cutting, and that through a field known to be some four feet thick, at five good miles at least. So Herculean did this task appear to be, that he even thought of abandoning his vessel altogether, and of setting out in the boats, as soon as the summer was fairly commenced. On reflection, however, this last ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... Congress of Women, meeting in New York and sponsored by Mary A. Livermore, Julia Ward Howe, and Maria Mitchell. This drawing away of women hurt her far more than newspaper gibes. In fact she was sadly disappointed in women's response to the herculean effort she was making ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... thither presently came Captain Lyon himself. Virginia tingled with antagonism when she saw this man who had made the city tremble, who had set an iron heel on the flaming brand of her Cause. He, too, showed the marks of his Herculean labors, but only on his clothes and person. His long red hair was unbrushed, his boots covered with black mud, and his coat unbuttoned. His face was ruddy, and his eye as clear as though he had arisen from twelve hours' sleep. He bowed to Virginia (not too politely, to be ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... his herculean labor in concocting this extraordinary playbill, he leaned back in his chair and read and reread it over and over again, to assure himself it was all right. Then with the consciousness that he had done his duty, he lay down to rest for a few hours to recuperate before he ...
— A Pirate of Parts • Richard Neville
... wondered, in one who from his face appeared to be old? Was there perchance, after all, some truth in the legend of Samson and did it dwell in that gigantic beard and those long locks of his? It was impossible to say and probably the man was but a Herculean freak, for that he was as strong as Hercules all the stories that I heard afterwards of his feats, left little room ...
— She and Allan • H. Rider Haggard
... Moffat the labour had been of a herculean character. He had spared himself no labour or drudgery which its prosecution involved. To accomplish it he had left his home and lived a semi-savage life for nearly three months, that he might perfect himself in the language. Without any special training for the important undertaking, and under the ...
— Robert Moffat - The Missionary Hero of Kuruman • David J. Deane
... an effort so sudden and unexpected, that he freed Rashleigh from my hold, and securing me, notwithstanding my struggles, in his own Herculean gripe, he called out—"Take the bent, Mr. Rashleigh—Make ae pair o' legs worth twa pair o' hands; ye ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... colossal!" he exclaimed. "Think of it! a whole city wiped out." I lowered my eyes to the goat nibbling beside us. "The courage and energy that rebuilt it is herculean." His enthusiasm was cumulative. "And rebuilt it in practically three years! No wonder you date all things ...
— The Lure of San Francisco - A Romance Amid Old Landmarks • Elizabeth Gray Potter and Mabel Thayer Gray
... not know that this excess of slavery is increasing, and will continue to increase in a ratio which is alarming in the extreme, and must overwhelm our descendants in ruin? Why then should we shut our eyes and turn our backs upon the evil? Will delay render it less gigantic, or give us more Herculean strength to meet and subdue it at a future time? Oh, no—delay breeds danger—procrastination is the thief of time, ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... which hung everlasting things. Each time there was the same growth in enthusiasm which began in decorous applause and ended in cheers and shouts as the artist came back after the performance of a herculean task, and added piece after piece to a programme which had been laid down on generous lines from the beginning. The careless saw the spectacle with simple amazement, but for the judicious ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... back to the blaze, his feet spread apart, and his hands deep in his pockets, stood the owner of the ranche—Swanson. Cast in a Herculean mold, he stood over six feet tall, his broad shoulders surmounted by a neck like a bull, and his red, cunning face, almost hid from sight by the thick, bushy whiskers ...
— Jim Cummings • Frank Pinkerton
... a length behind the Regent, whose hoofs as they dashed the ground up sounded like thunder, and for whose herculean strength the plough has no terrors; it was more than the lead to keep now, there was ground to cover, and the King was losing like Wild Geranium. Cecil felt drunk with that strong, keen, west wind that blew so strongly in his teeth, a passionate excitation was in him, every breath of winter ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... that mental aberration which ended his life, and does not hesitate to attribute the final catastrophe to the overworking of his powers in the service of pretentious and unsanctified science. Noble and true-hearted son of the Church though he was, and though laboring with herculean strength to set the Bible and science in harmony, he has not escaped the envenomed shafts of a portion of the religious press. By some he has been openly branded as a traitor in ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... he was not satisfied with the civility of a salute, nor even with the rudest attack he could make on her lips, but caught her in his arms, and endeavoured to kiss her breasts, which with all her strength she resisted, and, as our spark was not of the Herculean race, with some difficulty prevented. The young gentleman, being soon out of breath in the struggle, quitted her, and, remounting his horse, called one of his servants to him, whom he ordered to stay behind with her, and make her any offers whatever to prevail on her to return home with ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... had to climb as best they could the stubborn slope to the summit. But the fatigue which was thus imposed upon the tender limbs of women, upon the ancient frames of ecclesiastics, was not to be borne by the new King of Sicily. He was carried up the incline in a chair by two herculean Moorish slaves, so strong and surefooted that the stubborn ascent could be made with the least possible discomfort to his royal body. While the others had groaned and sweated as they scuffled up the hill—that they might reach the goal in time to receive ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... health of Mr. Pease began to fail under his herculean labors. He had carried his enterprise to a successful issue, however. He had done good to thousands, and had won friends for the institution, who were resolved, and possessed of the means, to carry it on. A Society was incorporated for the conduct of ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... to him. He flung up his cap in the air, with a burst of laughter. "So much the better!" he exclaimed; "the closer the preserve, the thicker the game." I had now a complete view of this hero of democracy. His figure was herculean; his countenance, which possibly, in his younger days, had been handsome, was now marked with the lines of every passion and profligacy, but it was still commanding. His costume was one which he had chosen for himself, and which was worn by ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... respect, I throw canons to the winds—it sounds a herculean feat—wash out the printed red of the rubric, and call, perhaps the saddest story ...
— Sally Bishop - A Romance • E. Temple Thurston
... himself was often ignorant of it. He took office (he was the third War Minister in fifty days) without any knowledge whatever of the imperial plan of campaign, or the steps to be adopted in the event of further French reverses, and a herculean task lay before this septuagenarian officer, who by experience knew right well how to deal with Arabs and Chinamen, but had never had to contend with European troops. Nevertheless, he displayed zeal and activity in his new semi-political and semi-military position. He greatly ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... this herculean undertaking, and were now being cut up—the reward of many who attempt such ambitious tasks. In reality, though, this charnel-house was the sculptors' studio, in which were modelled the gigantic figures which were to be placed on the buildings ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol. 1 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... short, and may be quickly told. M. Roussillon had taken advantage of the first moment when he and Hamilton were left alone. One herculean buffet, a swinging smash of his enormous fist on the point of the Governors jaw, and then he walked out of the fort unchallenged, doubtless on account of ...
— Alice of Old Vincennes • Maurice Thompson
... Haldimar was particularly struck by the air of bold daring and almost insolent recklessness pervading every movement of this man; and it was difficult to say whether the haughtiness of bearing peculiar to Ponteac himself, was not exceeded by that of this herculean warrior. ...
— Wacousta: A Tale of the Pontiac Conspiracy (Complete) • John Richardson
... comic poet. Feeling stronger, Alberti returned at the age of twenty to his law studies, and pursued them in the teeth of disadvantages. His health was still uncertain, and the fortune of an exile reduced him to the utmost want. It was no wonder that under these untoward circumstances even his Herculean strength gave way. Emaciated and exhausted, he lost the clearness of his eyesight, and became subject to arterial disturbances, which filled his ears with painful sounds. This nervous illness is not dissimilar to that which ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Second Series • John Addington Symonds
... at short distances from the cabins, but for these weak, starving creatures to obtain it was a herculean task. To go out when the storms were raging, would be almost impossible for a well, strong man. To struggle through the deep, loose drifts, reaching frequently to the waist, required, at any time, fearful exertion. The numb, fleshless fingers could hardly guide, or even wield the ax. Near ...
— History of the Donner Party • C.F. McGlashan
... one to be shunned and despised, and he will retreat within himself, close all the avenues to his head and his heart; and though your cause be naked truth itself, transformed to the heaviest lance, harder than steel, and sharper than steel can be made, and though you throw it with more than herculean force and precision, you shall be no more able to pierce him than to penetrate the hard shell of a tortoise with a rye straw. Such is man, and so must he be understood by those who would lead him, even ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... moment and had passed as quickly as a flitting cloud—Stafford was by her side, and at work extricating woman from horse. It was not an easy task, for though Adonis was now dead, a part of Maude's body lay under his shoulder; but with utmost herculean strength Stafford succeeded in getting her clear, and lifted her out of the hole on to the grass. Kneeling beside him, Ida, calm now, but trembling, raised Maude's head on her knee and wiped the blood ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... smiled faintly; for a month past she had been unconsciously striving to live up to Mrs. Wiggs's opinion of her, and the constant praise and commendation of that "courageous captain of compliment" had moved her to herculean effort. ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... mends; But this is not the best:—look, pr'ythee, Charmian, How this Herculean Roman does become ...
— Antony and Cleopatra • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... the roof after the model of his vaulting in the second bay from the west end, or would he have diminished the number of piers so as to give a distance between them equal to the space between the west wall and the first pier he erected? It is difficult to realise how such a herculean task would have been carried out with safety to ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Gloucester [2nd ed.] • H. J. L. J. Masse
... and the prospect clear, From the smirch'd scullion to the embroider'd peer. The ambitious drudge preferr'd, postilion rides, Advanced again, the chair benighted guides; Here doom'd, if Nature strung his sinewy frame, The slave, perhaps, of some insatiate dame; But if, exempted from the Herculean toil, A fairer field awaits him, rich with spoil, There shall he shine, with mingling honours bright, His master's pathic, pimp, and parasite; 80 Then strut a captain, if his wish be war, And grasp, ...
— Poetical Works of Johnson, Parnell, Gray, and Smollett - With Memoirs, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Samuel Johnson, Thomas Parnell, Thomas Gray, and Tobias Smollett
... the Duke had not been difficult, but this letter seemed to be an Herculean task. It was made infinitely more difficult by the fact that Lady Cantrip had not seemed to think that this marriage was impossible. "Young people when they have set their minds upon it do so generally prevail at last!" These had been her words, and they discomforted him greatly. ...
— The Duke's Children • Anthony Trollope
... to a parson in Edinburgh, one of the Smythe-Smythes of London. She made a doormat of herself, loving the herculean minister, and, though longing to stay at home and get married, had, at her lover's earnest request, consented to accompany her mother and sister ...
— The Hawk of Egypt • Joan Conquest
... classical example of these stories is an old Roman tale told by Petronius. It is put in the mouth of one Niceros. Late at night he left the town to visit a friend of his, a widow, who lived at a farm five miles down the road. He was accompanied by a soldier, who lodged in the same house, a man of Herculean build. When they set out it was near dawn, but the moon shone as bright as day. Passing through the outskirts of the town, they came amongst the tombs, which lined the highroad for some distance. There the soldier made an excuse for retiring behind a monument, ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... was President of the Parliament of Bordeaux. He was a voluminous writer, his most celebrated work being his "L'Esprit des Lois." Burke described him as "A genius not born in every country, or every time: with a Herculean robustness of mind; and nerves not to be ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole - Volume I • Horace Walpole
... the very poorest, however, being without a cottage, plot of ground, a cow and of poultry their own. Many of their interiors are far neater and cleaner than those of the farm-houses, their occupants not being so tied to the soil from morning to night, not, in fact, incited to Herculean labours by the spur of larger possession. We visited one of the poorest villages hereabouts, of not quite a hundred souls, but of course, provided with church, school and Mairie. Many a group of potato diggers we saw in the exquisite twilight, suggestive ...
— East of Paris - Sketches in the Gatinais, Bourbonnais, and Champagne • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... notions of a few, who are always ready to join, but never willing to march to action, and must not be taken as a specimen of South Carolina bravery. The Federal Government has become vicious and even puerile toward South Carolina; and since the Herculean power of the great Calhoun is gone, it treats us like a semi-barbarous and secluded people, mistaking our character. But we'll learn the Federal ...
— Manuel Pereira • F. C. Adams
... father, endowed with herculean strength, the Tsarevich Alexis, thin, pale, and delicate, makes a sad figure. Most historians, following the example of Voltaire, have represented this prince as a narrow-minded person, a victim of the bigoted and intolerant education of ...
— Contemporary Russian Novelists • Serge Persky
... destitution in Santiago with characteristic promptness and energy. To feed twenty or thirty thousand people at once, with the limited facilities and the small working force at her command, and to do it systematically and economically, without wastefulness and without confusion, was a herculean task; but it was a task with which experience and training in many fields had made her familiar, and she set about it intelligently and met the difficulties of the situation with admirable tact and judgment. Her first step was to ask the ablest, most influential, and most respected citizens ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... man endowed with herculean strength who is compelled by circumstances to follow a sedentary occupation, some minute exquisite work of the hands, for example, or to engage in study and mental labor demanding quite other powers, and just those which ...
— The Essays Of Arthur Schopenhauer: The Wisdom of Life • Arthur Schopenhauer
... busy to-day with ropes and axe, pick and shovel. But the task is vast, it is herculean, like unto the cleaning ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... reverent enough to them, because we possess too much of them. That sketch of four cherub heads from and English girl, by Sir Joshua Reynolds, at Kensington, is an incomparably finer thing than ever the Greeks did. Ineffably tender in the touch, yet Herculean in power; innocent, yet exalted in feeling; pure in color as a pearl; reserved and decisive in design, as this Lion crest, —if it alone existed of such,—if it were a picture by Zeuxis, the only one left ...
— The Queen of the Air • John Ruskin
... those tongues had, after a while, been the means of still further glorifying the erudition of Christminster. To acquire languages, departed or living in spite of such obstinacies as he now knew them inherently to possess, was a herculean performance which gradually led him on to a greater interest in it than in the presupposed patent process. The mountain-weight of material under which the ideas lay in those dusty volumes called the classics ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy |
