"Invulnerable" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... among the Indians of Brazil, 59 sq.; among the Indians of Guiana, 60 sq.; beating the girls and stinging them with ants, 61; stinging young men with ants and wasps as an initiatory rite, 61-63; stinging men and women with ants to improve their character or health or to render them invulnerable, 63 sq.; in such cases the beating or stinging was originally a purification, not a test of courage and endurance, 65 sq.; this explanation confirmed by the beating of girls among the Banivas of the Orinoco to ...
— Balder The Beautiful, Vol. I. • Sir James George Frazer
... Eastern and Western Powers have to attain a common end. Both bureaucracy and pseudo-democratic oligarchy have to accomplish an identical task, to cement the pacific alliance of the Pledged Allies and to socialise their common industrial and economic life, so as to make it invulnerable ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... to have been a Priest in the Co. Wexford, and was excommunicated for his bad conduct many years ago.—He was dressed in black, affected the appearance of a stupid enthusiast, and shewed some bullets which he said had been fired at him, but had rebounded from his invulnerable body—incredible as it may seem, this wretched invention was generally believed by the more wretched dupes under his command—You have here a real statement of the facts, of which I know you have sufficient curiosity to desire to ...
— An Impartial Narrative of the Most Important Engagements Which Took Place Between His Majesty's Forces and the Rebels, During the Irish Rebellion, 1798. • John Jones
... bounding and howling, and dropped on the snow in a limp, lifeless heap, dead as last summer's lily-pads. One of the quills had driven straight through his left eye and into his brain. Was it any wonder if in time the Porcupine came to think himself invulnerable? ...
— Forest Neighbors - Life Stories of Wild Animals • William Davenport Hulbert
... regions, had there obtained celestial weapons from Indra himself then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When I heard that afterwards Arjuna had vanquished the Kalakeyas and the Paulomas proud with the boon they had obtained and which had rendered them invulnerable even to the celestials, then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When I heard that Arjuna, the chastiser of enemies, having gone to the regions of Indra for the destruction of the Asuras, had returned thence successful, then, O Sanjaya, I had no hope of success. When I heard that Bhima and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... sudden sharp turn of the wind, and the presage of storm in the air. He was thinking only of the illusive, desirable, maddening quality of the girl that walked beside him, filled with inexplicable forebodings for a friend, whom he knew to be invulnerable to misfortune. Certain phrases of Dick's were ringing in his ears to the exclusion of all more ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... officer—a grand, white-whiskered old chap—Rutton Singh, from Jullunder-way. He only grinned, and said it was all right. Stalky had been out of the fort twice before, somewhere or other, accordin' to him. He said Stalky 'ud come back unchipped, and gave me to understand that Stalky was an invulnerable Guru of sorts. All the same, I put the whole command on half rations, and set 'em to ...
— Stalky & Co. • Rudyard Kipling
... known, by the protection of his mother, who was always at hand to guide and support him in the conflict, and to succor him in danger. Achilles, on the other hand, possessed a charmed life. He had been dipped by his mother Thetis, when an infant, in the river Styx, to render him invulnerable and immortal; and the immersion produced the effect intended in respect to all those parts of the body which the water laved. As, how ever, Thetis held the child by the ankles when she plunged him in, the ankles remained unaffected by the magic ...
— Romulus, Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... the good Cathelineau is dead," said Santerre. "The invincible, the invulnerable, the saint! ha, ha! What sweet names these dear friends of ours have ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... faith in the invulnerable superiority of his friends, he had not even looked at the master, but only at his destined victim. Yet as the word "two" rang out Johnny's attention was suddenly attracted to the surprising fact that the master's second, Seth ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... Shakespeare is pure, unveiled, as he gives us the last words of his favourite heroine: we must read them backwards and forwards to catch the portrait they enclose. We see the unconscious elevation of Cordelia's mind, not so much superior as invulnerable to mortal ills; we see this dignity and lovely pride cast down by pity and love, and then in answer to Lear's troubled and anxious look we hear in measured and steadfast tones the reassurance ...
— The Contemporary Review, January 1883 - Vol 43, No. 1 • Various
... new sort of bath that is the secret key to the whole contraption. For one period he could talk of nothing but dried milk; for another, acetic acid was the thing. Rub yourself with acetic acid and you would be as invulnerable to the ills of the body as Achilles was after he had been dipped by Thetis in the waters of Styx. The stars tell him anything he wishes to believe, and he can conjure up spirits as easily as another man can order a cab. It is not that he is a fool. In practical ...
— Pebbles on the Shore • Alpha of the Plough (Alfred George Gardiner)
... Lady Elizabeth by and bye what she thinks.—Now for a little about it, before I ature myself with implements of destruction.—The Dean is not quite dead yet; but if he live out this day,—I say, he is invulnerable. ...
— Barford Abbey • Susannah Minific Gunning
... the preparation of a certain herb boiled with ivy and rue over a fire of cypress-wood, and squeezed into a cup by hands that had never done harm. The juice thus obtained, if applied fresh every month, had the virtue of rendering bodies invulnerable. Isabella said she had seen the herb in the neighbourhood, as she came along, and that she would not only make the preparation forth-with, but let its effects be proved on her own person. She only stipulated, that the receiver ...
— Stories from the Italian Poets: With Lives of the Writers, Vol. 2 • Leigh Hunt
... I loved you always. I loved you invulnerable, wise, fortified beyond the wiles of men. How much more do I love you now with your one weak spot—so weak, so absurd that it can only be kissed, and ...
— Balloons • Elizabeth Bibesco
... the greatest ease,' Lee Fu repeated thoughtfully. 'Yet I wonder if he has been properly put to the test. See how the world protects him! But he is not invulnerable. Life will yet challenge him—it must be. Can a man escape the gods? I wonder. That is why I concern myself ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... Lyons Central Club, March 23, 1793). "They say that the sans-culottes will go on spilling their blood. This is only the talk of aristocrats. Can a sans-culotte be reached in that quarter? Is he not invulnerable, like the gods whom he replaces on this earth?"—Speech by David, in the Convention, on Barra and Viala: "Under so fine a government woman will bring forth without pain."—Mercier "Le Nouveau Paris," I. 13. "I heard (an orator) exclaim in one of the sections, to which I bear witness: ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... fight this cruel, invulnerable, resistless giant that went roaring down the world with a huge uprooted oak tree in its mouth for a toothpick! This yellow, sinuous beast with hell-broth slavering from its jaws! This dare-devil boy-god that sauntered along with a town in its pocket, and ...
— The River and I • John G. Neihardt
... the wind admits, there will be freely-moving steerable balloons wagging little flags to their friends below. And so far as the resources of the men on the ground go, the balloons will be almost invulnerable. The mere perforation of balloons with shot does them little harm, and the possibility of hitting a balloon that is drifting about at a practically unascertainable distance and height so precisely as to blow it to pieces with a timed shell, and to do this in the little ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... not lived to my time of life without learning a thing or two. My memory also has not failed as yet. There were young men who looked at me once just as you looked at Grace last evening, and I know what came of it in more than one instance. You are safe now, and you may be invulnerable, although it does not look like it; but if you can see much of Grace St. John and remain untouched you ...
— His Sombre Rivals • E. P. Roe
... he had wandered through remotest byways and crossed an uninhabited forest, chanced to come upon a cave where dwelt some maidens whom he knew not; but they proved to be the same who had once given him the invulnerable coat. Asked by them wherefore he had come thither, he related the disastrous issue of the war. So he began to bewail the ill luck of his failures and his dismal misfortunes, condemning their breach of faith, and lamenting that ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... nothing the matter with Mr Merdle. He has the constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an ostrich, and the concentration of an oyster. As to nerves, Mr Merdle is of a cool temperament, and not a sensitive man: is about as invulnerable, I should say, as Achilles. How such a man should suppose himself unwell without reason, you may think strange. But I have found nothing the matter with him. He may have some deep-seated recondite complaint. I can't say. I only say, that at present ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... Mo Mercer's ears as if rusty nails had been thrust into them; the heretofore invulnerable Mercer's knees trembled, the sweat started to his brow, as he heard the taunting whispers of "visiting the Capitol twice" and seeing ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume V. (of X.) • Various
... flaming orange of the screens was dying and flecks and spots appeared so dully red, that they seemed black. The greenish beams had been striving to kill the life that was in the machines, but it was life invulnerable to these beams. Powerful radio interference vainly attempted to stem imagined control, and still these intelligent machines clung ...
— The Last Evolution • John Wood Campbell
... statement or proposition more invulnerable than living forms are. Propositions prey upon and are grounded upon one another just like living forms. They support one another as plants and animals do; they are based ultimately on credit, or faith, rather than the cash of irrefragable conviction. ...
— Essays on Life, Art and Science • Samuel Butler
... shaft he sped but bore death upon its point; and although the Crusaders aimed repeatedly at his breast, and he stood in the most exposed position, their arrows fell harmless at his feet. He seemed to be invulnerable to attack; and a report was soon spread abroad, that he was no other than the Arch Fiend himself, and that mortal hand could not prevail against him. Godfrey of Bouillon, who had no faith in the supernatural character of the Mussulman, determined, if possible, to put an end to the dismay which was ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... that he knows His end with mine involvd; and knows that I Should prove a bitter Morsel, and his bane, When ever that shall be; so Fate pronounc'd. But thou O Father, I forewarn thee, shun 810 His deadly arrow; neither vainly hope To be invulnerable in those bright Arms, Though temper'd heav'nly, for that mortal dint, Save he who reigns above, none can resist. She finish'd, and the suttle Fiend his lore Soon learnd, now milder, and thus answerd smooth. Dear Daughter, since thou claim'st me for thy Sire, And my fair Son here ...
— The Poetical Works of John Milton • John Milton
... efforts, I and a few noble countrymen got clambered up to their rescue. At our arrival, there were not more than six of them upon their feet—all were covered with wounds and spent with fatigue. Your father still raged like a lion in the toils—all swords were aimed at him—he seemed invulnerable. I had reached his side, when a severe wound laid him insensible at my feet; but I stood over him, and backed by my brave followers, we fought till the French gave way before the numbers of our troops that had forced ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... paramount over even those of the parent; and neither has the right to jeopardise that life which belongs to the other. To say, 'I shall not catch the disease, because I have no fear,' is as idle as it would be for the soldier to say, 'Because I am brave, therefore I am invulnerable.' ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.
... and each mounting eighteen fifty-pounders, silenced the Russian fort at Kinburn. This was a lesson it would seem that any one might learn. Louis Napoleon did not fail to learn it. If a ship can be made invulnerable, or nearly so, in every part, then of what avail is that strategy which secures choice of position, and which, of old, almost decided the battle? Will not he come off victor who can produce guns from which the heaviest ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 73, November, 1863 • Various
... party of the main body of Blackfeet, which had been upon the trail of Sublette's party. Five white men and one halfbreed were killed, and several wounded. Seven of the Nez Perces were also killed, and six wounded. They had an old chief, who was reputed as invulnerable. In the course of the action he was hit by a spent ball, and threw up blood; but his skin was unbroken. His people were now fully convinced that he was proof against powder ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... Brenton, to gratify national complacency, grossly exaggerates in his 'Naval History' the difficulty of the enterprise. 'Of all places which ever came under our inspection none, we conceive, is more invulnerable to attack or more easily defended than Teneriffe.' He forgets to mention its principal guard, the valour of the inhabitants. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep! He hath awakened from the dream of life. 'Tis we who, lost in stormy visions, keep With phantoms an unprofitable strife, And in mad trance strike with our spirit's knife Invulnerable nothings. WE decay Like corpses in a charnel; fear and grief Convulse us and consume us day by day, And cold hopes swarm like worms within ...
— Percy Bysshe Shelley • John Addington Symonds
... already busy agents had little time or knowledge or enthusiasm to give to the new enterprise. With all its power, it found itself outfought by this compact body of picked men, who were young, zealous, well-handled, and protected by a most invulnerable patent. ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... found again in the midst of places bespattered with the dying; he quenches their thirst, he comforts them as a friend, he exhorts them as an apostle, and on this field of death he gleans abandoned souls. The example of this prelate, who seems to be invulnerable, animates with courageous emulation—not the clergy of lazy and emasculated dignitaries, for they fled at the first approach of danger, but—the parish-priests, the vicars and the religious orders; ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... events. Sewall's Point lay to the south, a stretch of woody beach, around whose western tip the dreaded Merrimac had so often moved slowly to the encounter. The spars of the Congress and the Cumberland still floated along the strand, but, like them, the invulnerable monster had become the prey of the waves. The guns of the Rip Raps and the terrible broadsides of the Federal gunboats, had swept the Confederates from Sewall's Point,—their flag and battery were gone,—and farther seaward, ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... low manner did this poor wretch proceed to argue, till he had worked himself up into an enthusiasm which by degrees soon became invulnerable to every human attack; so that when Mr. Snap acquainted him with the return of the writ, and that he must carry him to Newgate, he received the message as Socrates did the news of the ship's arrival, and that he was to prepare ...
— The History of the Life of the Late Mr. Jonathan Wild the Great • Henry Fielding
... Brimfield secured the ball by inches on a fourth down near the middle of the field and her first desperate attack, a skin-tackle play with St. Clair carrying the pigskin, piled through for nearly ten yards, proving that Chambers was no longer invulnerable. Carmine, still in control, called for more speed and still more. The Maroon-and-Grey warriors fairly dashed to their positions after a play. Chambers called time for an injured guard and substituted two new linesmen. Kendall and Harris were poked through left tackle for good gains ...
— Left Tackle Thayer • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Fur Company come from the head-waters of the Mississippi. One of the younger Audubons shot one in northern New York. The fox had been seen and fired at many times by the hunters of the neighborhood, and had come to have the reputation of leading a charmed life, and of being invulnerable to anything but a silver bullet. But Audubon brought her down (for it was a female) on the second trial. She had a litter of young in the vicinity, which he also dug out, and found the nest to hold three black and four red ones, which ...
— Winter Sunshine • John Burroughs
... speed. Can we not from the bumps of knowledge and the hare's foot trace the characteristics of the god Mercury, which, as previously stated, was the prototype of Harlequin. With the bat, or magic sword, the gift from the fairies to him, Harlequin was supposed to be invulnerable, and if he lost his sword he would fall into the power of ...
— A History of Pantomime • R. J. Broadbent
... shamir are the most marvellous. The salamander originates from a fire of myrtle wood[156] which has been kept burning for seven years steadily by means of magic arts. Not bigger than a mouse, it yet is invested with peculiar properties. One who smears himself with its blood is invulnerable,[157] and the web woven by it is a talisman against fire.[158] The people who lived at the deluge boasted that, were a fire flood to come, they would protect themselves with the blood ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... gathering of members of the Mutual Burial Club, a masculine company, and not meet for females. The men pulled themselves together, remembering that their proudest quality was a stoic callousness that nothing could overthrow. They refilled pipes, ordered more beer, and resumed the mask of invulnerable solemnity. ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... fight, let me fight honest flesh and blood, that's all, and none of these outlandish monsters. How do you know but that they are invulnerable ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... horned bonnet is not an invulnerable shield against the arrows of death. Age and infirmities are more potent than ...
— The Bravo • J. Fenimore Cooper
... see what was happening. Lord Meton saw, and understood; but he knew that the proud blood in Lady Isobel was an invulnerable armor that would protect her from indiscretion. And as for ...
— Thomas Jefferson Brown • James Oliver Curwood
... where you're dead wrong. I do know. I made it my business to find out. It was too important to have an invulnerable shield not to patch up the discrepancy as early as possible. It took me a year to get my facts and it cost a good chink of the filthy, but I got them. I not only know that John Massey is alive but I know where he is and what he is doing. I ...
— Wild Wings - A Romance of Youth • Margaret Rebecca Piper
... had often conspired against Cromwell, having, by his zealous lectures inflamed his own imagination and that of his followers, issued forth at their head into the streets of London. They were, to the number of sixty, completely armed, believed themselves invulnerable and invincible, and firmly expected the same success which had attended Gideon and other heroes of the Old Testament Every one at first fled before them. One unhappy man, who, being questioned, said, "he was for God and King Charles," was instantly murdered by them. They ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part F. - From Charles II. to James II. • David Hume
... others had a feeling that all these threats did not affect him and that, protected by his fetish, he believed himself to be invulnerable. But his wife fell on her knees ...
— The Eight Strokes of the Clock • Maurice Leblanc
... typhoid to the next friend of mine that contemplates a voyage like this," said the former presently. "It made you invulnerable, ...
— A Wounded Name • Charles King
... true, there is an edge in all firm belief, and with an easy metaphor we may say, the sword of faith; but in these obscurities I rather use it in the adjunct the apostle gives it, a buckler; under which I conceive a wary combatant may lie invulnerable. Since I was of understanding to know that we knew nothing, my reason hath been more pliable to the will of faith: I am now content to understand a mystery, without a rigid definition, in an easy ...
— Religio Medici, Hydriotaphia, and the Letter to a Friend • Sir Thomas Browne
... afterwards—when the wind cleared away the smoke from the ships—men could be seen on their sloping roofs, directing streams of water from the pumps upon small wreaths of smoke that curled up, here and there. Up to this time, the defenders had begun to fear that the craft were indeed as invulnerable as the Spaniards believed them to be; but these evidences that the red hot shot were doing their work greatly roused their spirits, and cheers frequently rose, as the men toiled at their ...
— Held Fast For England - A Tale of the Siege of Gibraltar (1779-83) • G. A. Henty
... of yourself. According to M. de Marivaux, who reviewed, as I am doing, the spirits of the mighty dead, you "conceived, on the strength of your reputation, a great and serious veneration for yourself and your genius." Probably you were protected by the invulnerable armour of an honest vanity, probably you declared that mere jealousy dictated the lines of Boileau, and that Chapelain's real fault was his popularity, ...
— Letters to Dead Authors • Andrew Lang
... is now commencing a new campaign, and is to confront a navy hourly improving, and an invulnerable fleet, armed with cannon more effective than any yet used in naval warfare. It is to encounter, with conscripts, a million of hardy volunteers, and to do this with its supplies reduced and its credit broken. It has but one reliance: a slave population of ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 10, Number 60, October 1862 • Various
... contemplation of the kingdom of Macomet, Trevigant, and Apollinis was exchanged for a vague horror, shot with gleams of curiosity—the devil also had his place in the world, a place much nearer and universal, and did marvellous things, pointing out treasures, teaching the future, lending invulnerable strength to the men and women who worshipped him, of whom some might be pointed out to you in every town—yes, grave and respectable men, priests and monks among them, and even Cardinals of Holy Church, as every one knew quite well.... So ...
— Renaissance Fancies and Studies - Being a Sequel to Euphorion • Violet Paget (AKA Vernon Lee)
... considered, on the other hand, that artillery is more than ever employed, which is increasing the dissimilarity. Again, though the bayonet is used, it is under circumstances quite new. Great strength enabled a single man, by wearing very thick armour, and wielding a longer sword or spear, to be invulnerable to men of lesser force, while he could perform what feats he pleased in defeating them. As gun-powder has destroyed the use of heavy armour, though with the sabre and bayonet men are not equal, they are all much more nearly so. No one is invulnerable, even in single combat, with the arme blanche, ...
— An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. • William Playfair
... colonists were distributed among them as ten-year servants. Roger Williams received a boy for his share. Many chiefs were executed at Boston and Plymouth on the charge of rebellion; among others, Captain Tom, chief of the Christian Indians at Natick, and Tispiquin, a noted warrior, reputed to be invulnerable, who had surrendered to Church on an implied ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 12 • Editor-In-Chief Rossiter Johnson
... grounds, Mr. Mortensgaard, I feel myself to be invulnerable. My conduct does not ...
— Rosmerholm • Henrik Ibsen
... disqualifying effect, if any, of her nonconformity, her newness of blood, and other things, among the old county families established round her; but the toughest prejudices, he thought, were not likely to be long invulnerable to such cheerful beauty and brightness of intellect as Paula's. When she emerged, as she was plainly about to do, from the seclusion in which she had been living since her father's death, she would inevitably ...
— A Laodicean • Thomas Hardy
... is," I said, "just conceivable that I have that power. I do not recollect my immersion in the Styx, but it is, I suppose, not impossible that, although I am not actually invulnerable, my sterling qualities may yet be so apparent to the bee mind that, even were I so indiscreet as to lay hands upon their hive, they would not so far forget themselves as to assail me. At the same time, it is equally on the cards that the ...
— The Brother of Daphne • Dornford Yates
... All, and of its moral aim. The Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and it would seem impossible for any fable to be invented to get any currency which was not moral. Aurora[117] forgot to ask youth for her lover, and though Tithonus is immortal, he is old, Achilles[118] is not quite invulnerable; the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which Thetis held him. Siegfried,[119] in the Niebelungen, is not quite immortal, for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon's blood, and that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it must be. There is a crack in everything ...
— Essays • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... your reputation as an interviewer who is not a highwayman in disguise, and you will achieve tenfold the success your less reputable confreres gain in the long run. Try and remember always that fame, glory, or even crime, do not destroy all human sensibilities, or render the possessor invulnerable to the thrust of ...
— A Woman of the World - Her Counsel to Other People's Sons and Daughters • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... forms. Her children were all destroyed by fire through her attempts to see whether they were immortal, and Achilles would have shared the same fate had not his father rescued him. She afterwards rendered him invulnerable by plunging him into the waters of the Styx, with the exception of that part of the heel by which she held him. Hygin. ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer
... one were needed, of Sir Charles's prescience. The fame of Sir Charles Dilke in the realm of industrial legislation will mount high, but to trade- unionists nothing will endear his memory more than the knowledge that, if and in so far as they have now a charter invulnerable alike to the prejudice and the caprice of those who administer the law, it is largely due to the clear vision of Sir Charles Dilke, and to the skill and invincible courage with which he ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke, Vol. 2 • Stephen Gwynn
... very beautiful soliloquy of Agenor, such as would naturally arise in the soul of a brave man going upon a desperate enterprise. From the conclusion it is evident, that the story of Achilles being invulnerable except in the heel, is an invention of a ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... five wild torrents fiercely glad! Who called you forth from night and utter death, From dark and icy caverns called you forth, Down those precipitous, black, jagged rocks, For ever shattered and the same for ever? Who gave you your invulnerable life, Your strength, your speed, your fury, and your joy, Unceasing thunder and eternal foam? And who commanded (and the silence came), Here let the billows ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 3 (of 4) • Various
... now seen making such haste as their natural tardiness admitted of, towards the Muscogulgee. From every part of the valley heads could be seen displaying forked tongues, and all pressing towards the alarmed warrior. But he stood invulnerable to them, though he knew it not, within the charmed circle made by his protecting spirit. Their powers of fascination had been taken away by the Maiden in Green, or rather the counter-fascination, which kept him within the charmed space, ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... followed in thought the mental processes of his enemies, kept a sharp eye out for their new methods of aggression. Themselves had had no more intimate knowledge of their astonishment, humiliation, and impotent fury at the successive victories of the invulnerable Secretary of the Treasury, than had Hamilton himself. He knew that they had confidently hoped to beat him by their combined strength and unremitting industry, and by the growing power of their party, before the finish of the preceding term. The Federalists no longer had ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... properties for our drama; but they offer no hint of its plot and meaning. A great imaginative apathy has fallen on the mind. One-half the learned world is amused in tinkering obsolete armour, as Don Quixote did his helmet; deputing it, after a series of catastrophes, to be at last sound and invulnerable. The other half, the naturalists who have studied psychology and evolution, look at life from the outside, and the processes of Nature make them forget her uses. Bacon indeed had prized science for adding to the ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... cure with words; to make ourselves loved by whomsoever we please; to know all the secrets of futurity; to bring down from heaven, according to one's will, on metals, impressions of happiness; to command demons, to raise invisible armies and invulnerable soldiers—all this is delightful, no doubt; and there are people who experience no difficulty whatever in believing all this to be possible; it is the easiest thing for them to conceive. But for me, I acknowledge ...
— The Magnificent Lovers (Les Amants magnifiques) • Moliere
... of Hariot's intellectual and scientific resources, his honesty of purpose, his fidelity of character, his eminent scholarship, his unswerving integrity, and his command of tongue, rendered him alike invulnerable to politicians and to royal minions. He was with Raleigh at Winchester and in the Tower, off and on, as required, from 1604 to 1618, except during the last voyage to Guiana. He was at the same time a pensioner, a companion, ...
— Thomas Hariot • Henry Stevens
... fisherman, instead of pulling away he raised an oar with the intention of striking Flaggan when he should rise. It was a fatal mistake. He did indeed strike him, and on the head too; but that was the most invulnerable part of the Irishman's body. Ted grasped the oar, caught the gunwale of the boat, and in a moment overturned it and ...
— The Pirate City - An Algerine Tale • R.M. Ballantyne
... communication does not seem to have produced any immediate result. Later, however, when the Board made its report dated September 16, they registered the opinion that the present demand called for "vessels invulnerable to shot, of light draft of water, before going into a more perfect system of large iron-clad seagoing vessels of war." In pursuance of this idea they recommended the construction of three vessels,—Ericsson's floating battery, a broadside ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... the dull, humiliated night, he felt that he had been put in his place. Women in her situation, women who after having really loved and lost, usually lived on into the new dawns in which old ghosts steal away. But there was something in his whimsical neighbour that struck him as terribly invulnerable. ...
— Sir Dominick Ferrand • Henry James
... was made of bronze and in these he was invulnerable. But beneath a sinew in his ankle there was a vein that ran up to his neck and that was covered by a thin skin. If that vein were broken Talos ...
— The Golden Fleece and the Heroes who Lived Before Achilles • Padraic Colum
... democracy, would like to lend Nick a hand to unfix himself, but the hitherto dormant power of the nation quickens to action, and says, 'It won't do, Mr. General Pierce!' Forced to submit, the General consoles himself with the fact that his friend Nicholas will draw himself into his invulnerable shell, sing the Te Deums, and trust the fate of war, for a dozen years or ...
— The Adventures of My Cousin Smooth • Timothy Templeton
... considerable disturbance in all this matter; and I was as perfectly easy as to the lawfulness of it as if I had been married to the prince and had had no other husband; so possible is it for us to roll ourselves up in wickedness, till we grow invulnerable by conscience; and that sentinel, once dozed, sleeps fast, not to be awakened while the tide of pleasure continues to flow, or till something dark and dreadful ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... countenance. At the foot, was a tall young gentleman, with high cheekbones and a Celtic nose, who had lately joined from Tipperary. The colonel sat in the centre of one side of the table, stiff in attitude, sententious in discourse, invulnerable in vanity; a fierce-looking navy captain, and the meek mayor of the town, supported him to the right and left. A few diners out, fathers of families, and men who played a good game of billiards, and preferred the society of ensigns, were the remainder of the guests; the other gentlemen ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... mysterious faith!" observed Lycidas; "one which makes the souls of those who hold it invulnerable as was the body of Achilles, and without the one weak point. It inspires even women and children with the courage of heroes, as I witnessed this day. The seventh of the Hebrew brethren was of tender years, and goodly. Even the king pitied his youth, and offered ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... "Are your ears deaf that ye obey me not, or are ye sated with life, and desire that your shrouds should be prepared? Obey me, or I will slay ye all, as a kite swoops upon little chickens! What is your power, and what are your stratagems, and how can ye prevail against me? I who am invulnerable, I whom even the fire ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... line it was that made such work possible. Chesney, with his six feet four and a half inches of muscle, and his two hundred and twenty-nine pounds of weight, stood like a veritable Gibraltar of strength. Beside him Rutland was scarcely less invulnerable, and Murdoch, on the other side, played like a veteran, which he was not, being only a nineteen-year-old sophomore, with but one hundred and sixty-seven pounds to ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... adjoining dressing-room issued a prolonged "Y-ah!"—not the howl of a spoiled child, nor the protest of a captive gorilla, but the whole-souled utterance of a mighty son of Anak, whose amiability is invulnerable to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 83, September, 1864 • Various
... can hardly tell you, my dear. Perhaps I am rather difficult to please—just a little stony-hearted and invulnerable. I know that since I was a boy, and got over my schoolboy love affairs, I have never seen the woman who could touch my heart. I have met plenty of pretty women, and plenty of brilliant women, of course, in society; and have ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... is, in short, INVULNERABLE, and must be left, whether we relish it or not, in undisturbed enjoyment of his creed. Faith, says Tolstoy, is that by which men live. And faith-state and mystic state are ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... in guarded coldness, he had mixed Again in fancied safety with his kind, And deemed his spirit now so firmly fixed And sheathed with an invulnerable mind, That, if no joy, no sorrow lurked behind; And he, as one, might midst the many stand Unheeded, searching through the crowd to find Fit speculation; such as in strange land He found in wonder-works of God ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... "He is invulnerable—and implacable," said Calabressa. "But he is a good friend when he has his own way. Why not be friends? You will have to ask him for his daughter. Consider, ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... it?—that we are invulnerable! The world cannot hurt us: it cannot touch us. Felicity is ours, and we are impervious in the enjoyment of it. Something divine! surely something divine on earth? Clara!—being to one another that between which the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... of the brave were foiled by the armour of Hobaddan; for the enchantress Hapacuson, studious of diverting the attention of the Sultan Misnar, had assisted Hobaddan with her counsel and with invulnerable arms; wherefore, seeing their labour vain and fruitless against the pretended and unconquerable Sultan, the hearts of Horam's warriors melted within them, and they fell away from the field of battle; and Hobaddan, ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... old stories, succeeded in carrying a vote against the Preceptor, it was by no means unlikely that some malicious Whig might retaliate on the Governor. The Governor must have been conscious that he was not invulnerable; nor could he absolutely rely on the support of the whole body of Tories; for it was believed that their favourite leader, Rochester, thought himself the fittest person to superintend the education of his ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... were on a par with his own. Bujang was a quiet creature enough, drawn into the wicked plots of his brother and father-in-law, but they were bad to the core. A Seriff is supposed to be a descendant of the Prophet Mahomet, at any rate he is an Arab, and Messahore was said to be invulnerable and sacred in his person. He was a fine, handsome creature, with insinuating manners, but there was nothing more to say in his favour. He was at the bottom of every disturbance in the country, but was cunning enough to keep ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... Prometheus as a man who should far outstrip his own father in glory and greatness. Years had passed since the marriage of Thetis to King Peleus, and their son Achilles was now grown to manhood, a wonder of strength indeed, and, moreover, invulnerable. For his mother, forewarned of his death in the Trojan War, had dipped him in the sacred river Styx when he was a baby, so that he could take no hurt from any weapon. From head to foot she had plunged ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... fatigues of a day of battle. The doctrine of predestination, so favorable to martial virtue, was carefully inculcated by the king of the Huns, who assured his subjects that the warriors, protected by heaven, were safe and invulnerable amid the darts of the enemy, but that the unerring Fates would strike their victims in the bosom of inglorious peace. "I myself," continued Attila, "will throw the first javelin, and the wretch who refuses ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... won't," said Nora; "there's not a person in this place I could not get to help me in a cause like this. The one who is absolutely invulnerable, who cannot be moved, because she imagines herself to be right, ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... icy regions of Europe, he was precipitated from their very summit. The North, victorious over the South in her defensive war, as she had been in the middle ages in her offensive one, now believes herself invulnerable and irresistible. ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... " However," she said calmly, "I have consulted Mr. Osmond and Dr. Short; but have not relied on them alone. I have taken her to Sir William Best. And to Dr. Chalmers. And to Dr. Kenyon." And she felt invulnerable behind her phalanx of ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... by the agitations he had gone through since the last evening, made him feel abjectly in the power of this loud invulnerable man. At that moment he snatched at a temporary repose to be won on any terms. He was rising to do what Raffles suggested, when the latter said, lifting up his finger as if with a ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... by his bodyguard, went outside the city gates to the place where the Boxers were practising their rites with the intention of burning incense in their presence, by which act he would acknowledge them as invulnerable and holy men. At the critical moment, however, one of them was said to have made a move as if to attack the official, who instantly called upon his bodyguard to seize the men, exclaiming: "These are insurgents, and no holy men; bind them, they are prisoners." ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... rout! Let thunder break, Let lightning blast me by the way! Invulnerable Love shall shake His aegis o'er my ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Edwards' troop, which was in the van. This gave the soldiers their chance. They instantly responded with a volley, and Captain Edwards' troop charged. The fight lasted but a minute or two, for Sword-Bearer was struck by a bullet and fell, and as he had boasted himself invulnerable, and promised that his warriors should be invulnerable also if they would follow him, the hearts of the latter became as water and they broke in every direction. One of the amusing, though irritating, incidents of the affair was to see the ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... fallen about us as thick as hail. We could not account for this. Many of us had been hit by the balls, but a bruise or a graze of the skin was the worst consequence that had ensued. We were in a fair way to deem ourselves invulnerable. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... they looked back at their work. No longer was the mighty plane unscathed, invulnerable, for now in its top gaped six great craters of incandescent metal that almost touched and coalesced. The great plane itself reeled, staggering, plunging downward; but long before it reached the hard soil below, it ...
— The Black Star Passes • John W Campbell
... tries in vain to seduce him from the right path. "The house where swings the tempting sign," the smiles of damsels, have no power over him. He "shuns a flowing bowl and rosy lip," but he is not invulnerable after all. Want and avarice take possession of his soul. He begins to take by stealth the money collected in church, putting bran in his pockets so that the coin shall not jingle. He offends with terror, repeats ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... the sea of humiliation broke—wave crashing on wave so close that the moral shame was one with the physical dread. It seemed to her that self-esteem would have made her invulnerable—that it was her own dishonour which put a ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton
... you come from a well-sheltered home, if you have been properly brought up, if you have a good and wise mother who knows how to take care of you. A mother's wise counsel given at the proper time, and her comradeship all the time, are more invulnerable than an armor of bronze and more secure than locked doors and barred windows. But if you have lost your mother at an early age, or if your mother is not of the right sort—it is no use hiding the fact that some mothers are not what they should be—if you have to shift ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson
... candles of the holy-week matins, holy water, pieces of consecrated stones; of vestments belonging to a miraculous Saint or with some other Anting-Anting or talisman or amuletos, will make themselves invulnerable to bullets; also have power to convert into any of the four elements, like those personages of the Philippine legends and comedies,—Ygmidio, Tenoso, Florante, ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... bleeding from a dozen wounds and yet his activity was unabated. He was like a grizzly bear at bay. His men began to believe that his league with Satan, of which he obscenely boasted, had made him invulnerable. He was all that he had proclaimed himself to be, the wickedest and most fearsome pirate of the Western Ocean. And all the while, the slender, boyish Lieutenant Maynard, sailor and gentleman, had one aim in mind, and that was to slay Captain Edward Teach with ...
— Blackbeard: Buccaneer • Ralph D. Paine
... a Moorish king, mentioned in some of the romantic poems which Don Quixote is intended to burlesque. He possessed an enchanted golden helmet which rendered the wearer invulnerable, and which was naturally much sought after by all the knights. Rinaldo finally obtained possession of it. Don Quixote, whose helmet had been destroyed, had sworn that he would lead a life of particular hardship until he had made himself master ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 7 • Charles H. Sylvester
... speaker proceeded, "that shows you. These damned Mercutians are not invulnerable. They can be overcome, chased off the Earth. But we've got to ...
— Slaves of Mercury • Nat Schachner
... valour bears him forward, With ardour too heroic, on his foes, Fall down, as she would do, before his feet; Lie in his way, and stop the paths of death; Tell him, this god is not invulnerable; That absent Cleopatra bleeds in him; And, that you may remember her petition, She begs you wear these trifles, as a pawn, Which, at your wisht return, she will redeem [Gives jewels to the Commanders. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Volume 5 (of 18) - Amboyna; The state of Innocence; Aureng-Zebe; All for Love • John Dryden
... the losses were, the Confederates took but one prisoner. At the third charge a tall, broad-shouldered captain, who seemed, like another son of Thetis, almost invulnerable, darted impetuously ahead of his men and reached the summit of the defence. Useless bravery! In an instant a volley point blank swept away the charging men behind him, and a gunner's sabrethrust bore him to the ground within the works, where he lay stunned and bleeding ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 11, - No. 22, January, 1873 • Various
... Invulnerable Fool! Thy mind Is deaf and blind; Impervious to sense of taste and smell And touch as well. Thought from without may vainly seek to press Thy consciousness; Man's hard-won knowledge which the ages pile ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... that provinces are involved in mourning and tears, your armies are in mutiny, your senate full of suspicion and alarms, and the islands are crowded with exiles. It is not for myself that I speak, my soul is invulnerable to your enmity; and it is not given to you by the Gods to become master of my body." And, having thus given utterance to the virtuous anguish of his spirit, he suddenly became invisible in the midst of a full assembly, and was immediately after seen at ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... without a tremor. He felt himself invulnerable—raised far above the shallowness of common judgment. Though he saw the Prince looking at him with black displeasure, the lucidity of his mind, of which he was very conscious, gave him an extraordinary assurance. He was not ...
— Under Western Eyes • Joseph Conrad
... was intrusted to fifty guards, of approved valor and fidelity; their station was marked by honors and emoluments; and some fortunate accidents soon introduced an opinion, that as long as the guards of the labarum were engaged in the execution of their office, they were secure and invulnerable amidst the darts of the enemy. In the second civil war, Licinius felt and dreaded the power of this consecrated banner, the sight of which, in the distress of battle, animated the soldiers of Constantine with an invincible ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... down the stream in company with the earthen one, it was the object of her choice. Poor pipkin that Gilbert was, the contact had cost him a smashing blow, and for all clay of the more fragile mould, the best hope was to give the invulnerable material a wide berth. Talk of influence! Mr. Dusautoy might as well hope that a Wedgwood cream-jug would guide a copper ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... hereditary, but is a pure gift from warlike spirits, who select certain mortals for favorites, constantly guard them against the attacks of their enemies, teach them the use of various secret herbs whereby to render themselves invisible and invulnerable, bestow upon them an additional number of soul companions that in some indefinable way protect them against the ire of the resentful slain, and in general afford them an immunity from all dangers, material ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... Eighteenth Century" Mr. Lecky has done for the Ireland of one century what it is much to be desired some one would hasten to do for the Ireland of all. He has broken down a barrier of prejudice so solid and of such long standing that it seemed to be invulnerable, and has proved that it is actually possible to be just in two directions at once—a feat no previous historian of Ireland can be said to have even attempted. This work, the final volume of which has not yet appeared, so completely covers the whole ground that it seems to afford an excuse ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... brave until midnight, when he was awakened by hideous howls heralding the approach of the spectre. When it appeared, the Marshal first discharged his pistol point-blank at it without effect, and then struck it with his sabre, which was shivered in his hand. The invulnerable spectre then beckoned the amazed Marshal to follow, and preceded him to a spot where the floor of the gallery suddenly yawned, and they sank together through it to sepulchral depths. Here he was surrounded by a band of desperate coiners who would forthwith have made ...
— The Reminiscences of an Irish Land Agent • S.M. Hussey
... attempt, you cannot flatter yourself that you have been successful to the measure of your desire. A person interests, or piques, or tantalises you, you do your best to make him out; yet strive as you will, you cannot read the riddle of his personality. From the invulnerable fortress of his own nature he smiles contemptuously on the beleaguering armies of your curiosity and analysis. And it is not only the stranger that thus defeats you; it may be the brother brought up by the same fireside with you, the best friend whom you have known ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... days, a few fanatics from among the Fifth Monarchy men conceived that the millennium had arrived, and that it was their duty to take possession of the kingdom for Jesus. They were mad enough, like the late Mr. Courtnay, to imagine that their bodies were invulnerable, and they marched out to seize London. A few of the trained bands soon encountered them, some were shot and the rest were punished, and this absurd attempt was at an end in a few hours. This gave the enemies of true religion ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... period in the career of youth, the financial condition of whose parents or sponsors is unequal to their further pursuit of scholastic studies, it is not without an anxious solicitude they depart from the parental roof. For the correct example and prudent advice may not be invulnerable to the temptation for illicit pleasures or ruinous conduct. Happy will he be who listens to the admonitions of age. Unfortunately by the action of response, sad in its humor, too often is: I like the advice but ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs
... disgraceful to be worsted by these men, for I am not the less brave because you pit me against an invulnerable enemy, nor does fire not burn because you throw into it something over which flames have no power, nor does iron lose its power of cutting, though you may wish to cut up a stone which is hard, impervious to blows, and of such a nature that hard tools are blunted upon it. I give ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca
... could see that it pained him to urge the tired animals forward, to lash them up the stream banks and drive them past the springs. And only half understanding his character—fine where she was obtuse, sensitive where she was invulnerable, she felt the continued withdrawal from him, the instinctive shrinking from the man ...
— The Emigrant Trail • Geraldine Bonner
... near it I shall certainly take a close look at it," Harry said with a laugh. "I don't fancy we should see anything that our rifles and pistols would find invulnerable." ...
— The Treasure of the Incas • G. A. Henty
... human sense of aggrievedness that the eldest-born should cross their plans and wishes; that, after the year-long care and thought they had bestowed on him, he should demand fresh efforts from them; and, again, most harassing of all and most invulnerable, such an entire want of faith in the powers he was yearning to test—the prophet's lot in the mean blindness of the family—that, at times, it threatened to shake his hard-won faith in himself.—But before the winter drew to a ...
— Maurice Guest • Henry Handel Richardson
... She will successively fight him at every important point with a strong army, supported by large reserves, tire him out, and ruin him in detail. This plan she will adhere to until her great ally approaches from Siberia—grim Winter, covering Russia with an invulnerable defence, so that her sons may at last take the offensive, and ...
— NAPOLEON AND BLUCHER • L. Muhlbach
... Achilles. No one is. There is bound to be a spot. The Somebody-or-Other must take hold of us somewhere when she dips us in the Something-or-Other that makes us invulnerable. He read aloud ...
— The Voice of the City • O. Henry
... deterrent will remain strong after SALT II. For example, just one of our relatively invulnerable Poseidon submarines—comprising less than 2 percent of our total nuclear force of submarines, aircraft, and land-based missiles—carries enough warheads to destroy every large- and medium-sized city in the Soviet Union. ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Jimmy Carter • Jimmy Carter
... moment all happiness is lost to her. Telramund enters to slay his enemy, but Lohengrin, taking his sword, kills him with one stroke. Then he leads Elsa before the King and loudly announces his secret. He tells the astounded hearers, that he is the Keeper of the Holy-Grail. Sacred and invulnerable to the villain, a defender of right and virtue, he may stay with mankind as long as his name is unknown. But now he is obliged to reveal it. He is Lohengrin, son of Percival, King of the Grail, and is now compelled to leave his wife and return ...
— The Standard Operaglass - Detailed Plots of One Hundred and Fifty-one Celebrated Operas • Charles Annesley
... times the Indians made use of the Pazhikewash, or buffalo-weed, which is still used by some of them to this day, especially on war excursions. This made them invulnerable to balls. They made a liquor from it, and sprinkled themselves and their implements, and carried it in their meda bags. They are under the belief that this medicine not only wards off the balls and missiles, but tends to make them invisible. This, with their reliance ...
— Personal Memoirs Of A Residence Of Thirty Years With The Indian Tribes On The American Frontiers • Henry Rowe Schoolcraft
... up to France, as a squalid bloodthirsty Portent, inciting to the pillage of shops; of whom let the Mountain have the credit! The Mountain murmurs, ill at ease: this 'Maximum of Patriotism,' how shall they either own him or disown him? As for Marat personally, he, with his fixed-idea, remains invulnerable to such things: nay the People's-friend is very evidently rising in importance, as his befriended People rises. No shrieks now, when he goes to speak; occasional applauses rather, furtherance which breeds confidence. The day ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... 9th to 13th, 1917, the Canadian corps, with some British support, captured Vimy Ridge, a point which had hitherto proved invulnerable. When a year later, the Germans, north and south, swept the British line to one side in gigantic thrusts they were unable to disturb this key point, Vimy Ridge, which served as an anchor to the sagging line. The Canadian ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... have taken not to be so. On the other hand, there is a carelessness as to dress and diet, to which the strongest constitution must at length yield; and the intense consciousness of strength and vigor, which tempts one to deem himself invulnerable, not infrequently is the cause of life-long infirmity and disability. Of the cases of prolonged and enfeebling disease, probably more are the result of avoidable than of unavoidable causes, and if we add to these the numerous instances in ...
— A Manual of Moral Philosophy • Andrew Preston Peabody
... philosopher. To be wise is to be invulnerable. You see what I am, I have never shed a tears. This is the result of my wisdom. Do you think that occasion for tears has been wanting, had ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo
... though old enough to be invulnerable to Cupid's arrows, showed by her warm praises, after he had left that evening, that she was not proof against ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... about death, though he was extremely apprehensive of it; but his excellent health and his royal dignity probably made him imagine himself invulnerable. He often said to people who had very bad colds, 'You've a churchyard cough there.' Hunting one day in the forest of Senard, in a year in which bread was extremely dear, he met a man on horseback carrying a coffin. 'Whither ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... remaining on their feet still ran up the slope, screaming their defiance. A handful reached the breastworks. Drew saw one man by some strange fortune scramble to the top of that timber wall, stand balanced for a moment in triumph to take aim at a target below as if he himself were invulnerable, and then plunge, as might a diver cleaving a pool, out of ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... on the bench as proudly as a queen upon her throne, with shining eyes, scornful lips, and arms tightly folded under her cashmere shawl, with that haughty gesture familiar to her, the young woman looked as invulnerable under this light wrap as if she had been covered with Ajax's shield, formed, if we can credit Homer, of seven bulls' hides ...
— Gerfaut, Complete • Charles de Bernard
... make the ground of abolitionists invulnerable. In no single instance where their principles have been adopted, has the result been disastrous or violent, but beneficial and peaceful even beyond their most sanguine expectations. The immediate abolition of slavery in Mexico, in Colombia, and in St. Domingo,[O] was eminently ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... reality. A sentiment for universal peace is sweeping the world, and behind the defenses of advancing civilization, armed with the strength of a lofty and unselfish purpose, stands an army of America's young men, mustered from the nation's colleges, enlisted to serve for an eternity, and invulnerable in the protection of a new ...
— Prize Orations of the Intercollegiate Peace Association • Intercollegiate Peace Association
... from the rest. Achilles was one. He was fiery, impetuous, and implacable in character, fierce and merciless; and, though perfectly undaunted and fearless, entirely destitute of magnanimity. There was a river called the Styx, the waters of which were said to have the property of making any one invulnerable. The mother of Achilles dipped him into it in his infancy, holding him by the heel. The heel, not having been immersed, was the only part which could be wounded. Thus he was safe in battle, and was a terrible warrior. He, however, quarreled ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... as ever went forth armed and determined for premeditated crime; stout in frame, stout of heart, invulnerable by any physical apprehension, unassailable by any touch of conscience, ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... slow cold strength pouring into all his veins. It was as though his enemies, in thinking to mix a mortal poison, had rendered him invulnerable. He bent ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... shuddered, shot out their tons of high-explosive shell. But the pirate commander had known accurately the strength of the liner, and knew that her armament was impotent against the forces at his command. His screens were invulnerable, the giant shells were exploded harmlessly in mid-space, miles from their objective. And suddenly a frightened pencil of flame stabbed brilliantly from the black hulk of the enemy. Through the empty ether it tore, through the mighty defensive screens, through the tough metal of ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... friendship. He was eager to learn of his critics and could not long cherish resentment over an honest expression of opinion. Besides this he had now come to feel that his early writings were anything but invulnerable. ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... them. Through the closed doors resounded the tempestuous roar of the multitudes assembled around the Seraglio. Those within it trembled, and Halil Patrona stood there among them like an enchanter who knows that he is invulnerable, immortal. ...
— Halil the Pedlar - A Tale of Old Stambul • Mr Jkai
... the robe of justice outrages his garment is it to remain an invulnerable shield against our righteous condemnation? He who doles justice, must ...
— The Transgressors - Story of a Great Sin • Francis A. Adams
... fathers, by a very singular condescension, have imprudently admitted the sophistry of the Gnostics. [291] Acknowledging that the literal sense is repugnant to every principle of faith as well as reason, they deem themselves secure and invulnerable behind the ample veil of allegory, which they carefully spread over every tender part of the Mosaic ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... always an indication of great abilities. An indifferent poet is invulnerable to a repulse, the want of sensibility in him being what a noble self-confidence was in Milton. These excluded suitors continue, nevertheless, to hang their garlands at the gate, to anoint the door-post, and even kiss the ...
— Pearls of Thought • Maturin M. Ballou
... made no comment, nor altered in the minutest detail his manner. If ever a human being played the game, it was How Landor. With a blindness that was masterly, that was all but fatuous, he ignored the obvious. His equanimity and patience were invulnerable. Silent by nature, he grew fairly loquacious in an effort to be companionable. Probably no white man alive would have done as he did, would have borne what he did; perhaps it would have been better had he done differently; but he was as he was. Day ...
— Where the Trail Divides • Will Lillibridge
... antipathy. Indeed, she had done so from the first days she had seen Krool, and had endeavoured, without success, to induce Byng to send the man back to South Africa, and to leave him there last year when he went again to Johannesburg. It was the only thing in which Byng had proved invulnerable, and Krool had remained a menace which she vaguely felt and tried to conquer, which, in vain, Adrian Fellowes had endeavoured to remove. For in the years in which Fellowes had been Byng's secretary his relations with Krool seemed amiable and he had ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... in advance of all. I rode with him, and we kept on through the darkness. There was not resistance enough to deploy infantry. A flash, a report, and a whistling bullet from some covert met us, but there were few casualties. I quite remember thinking at the time that Jackson was invulnerable, and that persons near him shared that quality. An officer, riding hard, overtook us, who proved to be the chief quartermaster of the army. He reported the wagon trains far behind, impeded by a bad road in Luray ...
— Destruction and Reconstruction: - Personal Experiences of the Late War • Richard Taylor
... empress, as well as Takenouchi, wished the imperial infant Ojin to live long, be wise and powerful, become a mighty warrior, be invulnerable in battle, and to have control over the tides and the ocean as his mother once had. To do this it was necessary to get ...
— Japanese Fairy World - Stories from the Wonder-Lore of Japan • William Elliot Griffis
... circle" of the drama, not a word or an act that is not indissolubly linked with before and after. Thus the unity of a work of art makes of the system of suggested energies which form the foreground of attention an impregnable, an invulnerable circle. ...
— The Psychology of Beauty • Ethel D. Puffer
... to come, some wild freak of destiny may guide the feet of my son to the secret of the candlestick. I shall live and pray and likely die a childless, unhappy old man, whose Fate lies buried profoundly in the sealed, invulnerable heart of a Spanish ...
— Diane of the Green Van • Leona Dalrymple
... discretion! Poor Hanover indeed; she reaps little profit from her English honors: what has she had to do with these Transatlantic Colonies of England? An unfortunate Country, if the English would but think; liable to be strangled at any time, for England's quarrels: the Achilles'-heel to invulnerable England; a sad function for Hanover, if it be a proud one, and amazingly lucrative to some Hanoverians. The Country is very dear to his Britannic Majesty in one sense, very dear to Britain in another! Nay Germany itself, through Hanover, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—The Seven-Years War: First Campaign—1756-1757. • Thomas Carlyle
... and before it could move in defence struck it a second blow, pressing the spear until it pierced through the monster's body. So fiercely did the snake struggle that the spear broke in two, and it would have destroyed Ragnar with the venom it poured out if he had not worn his invulnerable coat. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... heard, not only that ye breathed smoke and carried flames in your limbs, but that your flesh was of iron, invulnerable to arrows; that ye were stronger than birds, and carried the thunder and lightnings of the gods with which to kill; and that ye were able to walk through the air as well ...
— Pharaoh's Broker - Being the Very Remarkable Experiences in Another World of Isidor Werner • Ellsworth Douglass
... easy to conceive the terrorism, and the exactions in the shape of fowls, plantains, rum, and so forth, which are at the command of an Obeah practitioner, who is believed by the Negro to be invulnerable himself, while he is both able and willing to destroy them. Nothing but the strong arm of English law can put down the sorcerer; and that seldom enough, owing to the poor folks' dread of giving evidence. Thus a ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... of water could be conveyed to every part of the structure, a number of pumps being adapted to afford an unlimited supply. It was thus believed that these terrible machines, capable of inflicting destruction, would themselves be invulnerable. The largest carried 21 guns, and their complement of men was 36 for each gun in use, exclusive of officers and mariners for working ...
— How Britannia Came to Rule the Waves - Updated to 1900 • W.H.G. Kingston
... go into a church, fall down on your knees before the priest, he will make you invulnerable by a sign of the cross; then, come storms that pulverize the body or crush the mind, you are ...
— Willis the Pilot • Paul Adrien
... were hurled from the walls. The Christian towers did their work in the midst of flames, particularly the Tower of Godfrey, on whose roof a golden cross shone. The leaders fought amidst piles of their dead and seemed to be invulnerable themselves. Breaches were made in the walls behind which stood a living barricade of Saracens. An Egyptian emissary was caught, his message to the besieged squeezed from him, and his body was then hurled ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... expectation, then came and congratulated us on our success. They thought us most wonderful men, and possessed of supernatural powers; for the thief in question was a magician, who until now was thought to be invulnerable. Indeed, they said Arabs with enormous caravans had often been plundered by these people; but though they had so many more guns than ourselves, they ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... urged each other to strike the first blow, but the Invisible One restrained them. I stood invulnerable beneath His invisible shield, and succeeded in rolling back the tide ...
— The Story of John G. Paton - Or Thirty Years Among South Sea Cannibals • James Paton
... States, or in any department or officer thereof. ''Few parts of the Constitution have been assailed with more intemperance than this; yet on a fair investigation of it, no part can appear more completely invulnerable. Without the SUBSTANCE of this power, the whole Constitution would be a dead letter. Those who object to the article, therefore, as a part of the Constitution, can only mean that the FORM of the provision is improper. But have ...
— The Federalist Papers
... the attitude assumed by the Empress Dowager towards the Boxer superstitions of 1900, and their pretentions to be able at will to call to their aid legions of spirit-soldiers, while at the same time they were themselves invulnerable to ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland |
