Invincibles

“ What though I die upon the field of battle, it will be as brave men die; making thy triumph but an empty one with my never-failing challenge, "Thou hast not vanquished me yet, nor wilt thou ever!" In very truth it will be I who will have gained the victory, thou bitter foe of mine: for until my last faint breath shall have been drawn I shall have refused to own thy power! ”

“ Ah! how impetuously youth springs to the battlefield of life! Hope exorcises the gaunt spectre of defeat, and fancy fingers unwon trophies and fadeless bays; but slow-stepping experience, pallid, blood-stained, spent with toil, lays her icy hand on the rosy veil that floats before bright, brave, young eyes, and lo' the hideous wreck, the bleaching bones, the grinning, ghastly horrors that strew the scene of combat! No burnished eagles nor streaming banners, neither spoils of victory nor paeans of triumph, only silence and gloom and death—slow-sailing vultures—and a voiceless desolation! ”

“ See thou, whatsoever be thy name—whether Fate, Life, or Devil! I cast thee down my gauntlet, I challenge thee to battle! Men of faint heart may bow before thy mysterious power, thy face of stone may inspire them with dread, in thy unbroken silence they may discern the birth of calamity and an impending avalanche of woe. But I am daring and strong, and I challenge thee to battle! Let us draw our swords, and join our bucklers, and rain such blows upon each other's crests as shall cause the very earth to shake again! ”

“ Victory I can guarantee: I am invincible. But the cost of victory is the demoralization, the depopulation, the ruin of the victors no less than of the vanquished. How am I to satisfy my genius by fighting until I die? ”

“ What if this moment of despair be but the beginning, or the fragment, of your whole life as this winning of the object that you now seek? Our theory maintains that, in fact, this is the case. That the fulfilment of the whole of a purpose may involve the defeat of a part of this very purpose, every experience of the beauty of tragedy, of the glory of courage, of the nobility of endurance, of the triumph over our own selves, empirically illustrates. ”

“ They had been carrying so much for so long that some thought they were still fighting on, when as a matter of fact, they had won through with the triumph of brave souls that never know when they are whipped, and to whom the thrill of victory is so rare, or unknown, that it comes unsuspected, unlooked for—as an exuberance of immeasurable joy. ”

“ Through peril, toil, and pain:
O God, to us may grace be given
To follow in their train!_
REGINALD HEBER The universe is not awry. Fate and man are not altogether at odds. Yet there is a perpetual combat going on between man and nature, and between the power of character and the tyranny of circumstance, death, and sin. The great soul is tossed into the midst of the strife, the longing, and the aspirations of the world. He rises Victor who is triumphant in some great experience of the race.
The first energy is combative: the Warrior is the primitive hero. ”

“ The battling, battling, and the steep ascent,
The fight to hold the little gained,
The loss, the doubt, the shaken heart,
The stubborn, groping slow recovery!—
But looking backward toward the dim beginnings,
You that despair,
Hath he not climbed and conquered?
Look backward and all's Victory!
What coward looks forward and foresees defeat? ”

“ But you take those thirty-two mighty minds, let them concentrate on winning that wonderful battle, greater than any peaceful one yet fought on any water; not excluding that between Mnestheus and Cloanthus, and all their famous triremes—get all that intellect, all that force, all that resistless will-power, and fighting-power incarnate, packed into those dainty, glistening racing-shells—thirty-two men with the racing spirit of thirty-two thousand coiled up in their great brains—and name the winner if you can! ”

“ I have either got to overcome the world, or the world is going to overcome me. I have either got to conquer sin in me—or sin about me—and get it under my feet, or it is going to conquer me. A good many people are satisfied with one or two victories, and think that is all. I tell you, my dear friends, we have got to do something more than that. It is a battle all the time. We have this to encourage us: we are assured of victory at the end. ”

“ Every victory shows a more difficult height to scale, a steeper pinnacle of god-like hardship—that's the reward of victory: it provides the hero with ever-new battle-fields: no rest for him this side the grave. ”

“ Its greatest victory is when it is most agonized. When all is lost, when the dark tower is reached, then Childe Roland dauntless winds his blast upon the slug-horn. Its arms scattered, its armor torn away, the soul, "the victor-victim," slips from mortal encumbrance and soars freer than ever. ”

“ Yes, it would be more luck than skill which should proclaim the winner.
Not a flicker of an eyelid, not a smile to part stern lips. A cruel fight, with Death to guide the quick thrusts which each parried in turn.
To and fro, to and fro. As near the window as possible to gain the advantage of every glimmer of light.
And by the hearth the gloom deepened into darkness.
The breathing of the antagonists was getting more laboured now. But the eyes were hard and unflinching as ever beneath sweating brows. ”

“ Odds bobs, hammer and tongs, long as I've been to sea,
I've fought 'gainst every odds—and I've gained the victory.
Our Captain sent for all of us; my merry men said he,
I haven't the gift of the gab, my lads, but yet I thankful be:
You've done your duty handsomely, each man stood to his gun;
If you hadn't, you villains, as sure as day, I'd have flogged each
mother's son.
Odds bobs, hammer and tongs, as long as I'm at sea,
I'll fight 'gainst every odds—and I'll gain the victory. ”

“ At that very moment when you think that victory lies within your grasp, it will escape you—there will be something of which you have not thought—a trifle—a grain of sand which I shall have put in the right place, unknown to you. ”

“ A fight is begun, then, for the sake of shining, for the glory of victory, for the love of fame. A close ring is made around the combatants, and excited and eager eyes follow the glitter of the knives which do not cease to move. ”

“ He may fail in his career, but, if successful, his success will be great, divine. It will be heavenly, if he must die, to fall on the field of battle amid the roar of artillery, and the clash of arms. ”

“ Where'er I turn, majestic traces meet,
In thy past perils, of thy constancy!
Doth not brave suffering more than triumph shine?
Yes! and bright vengeance on the foe is thine,
While thy strong spirit thus unbound remains! ”

“ Here everything is mingled in a raging turmoil, so that there is not a hand's breadth between--here is the very instant of highest conflict, the climax of struggle and defense, fury and death--every muscle strained to its utmost, and everything in such deadly yet triumphant earnest that one trembles and yet is filled with the spirit of victory. For all true strength is full of a certain triumphant joy. ”

“ If the battle has ended in a victory, there will be a tone of joy, of exultation, and of scorn, in what men think and write after it; if it has ended in a defeat, all that is thought and written will be tinged by a deeper and finer sorrow. ”

“ Win, through thy truth, the sphere where those
Who die by hostile darts repose.
Seek the blest home prepared for all
The valiant who in battle fall,
Who face the foe and scorn to yield,
In glory dying on the field. ”

“ Where is the sense or consistency of a tale in which a youth of sixteen hews down a giant as tall as a steeple, and splits him in two as if he were made of paste? Or how are we to be interested in the detail of a battle, when we are told that a hero contends alone against a million of adversaries, and obtains the victory by his single arm? ”

“ Noble and mysterious triumphs which no eye beholds, which are requited with no renown, which are saluted with no trumpet blast. Life, misfortune, isolation, abandonment, poverty, are the fields of battle which have their heroes; obscure heroes, who are, sometimes, grander than the heroes who win renown. ”

“ Who knew how to win.
Crowned with glory live...
Or swear to die gloriously!
Of the new champions' faces
Mars himself seems to animate
Greatness nestles in their bodies:
Up to make everything tremble. ”

“ I see behind it the world's battlefields—'way back from the first I see them all, and I see that the thing which has shaped the world is not the success or failure of individual battles one-half so much as it is this wresting of victory from defeat by simply breathing victory even after the sword has been broken in the hand. ”

“ For as you all accounted both the victor and the fallen fortunate and pitied the survivors, so now should you think about yourselves and go all of you to battle resolved to conquer if you can, and if this be impossible, to die. ”

“ Who fell in the great victory.
I find them in the garden, for
There's many here about;
And often when I go to plough,
The ploughshare turns them out;
For many thousand men, said he,
Were slain in the great victory. ”

“ While Steven had listened to the story of one man's defeat in life, a combat, where the fate of hundreds had been decided, had been fought and won. And now they were picking up the dead yonder, in the evening calm of the plain. ”

“ Avoid a fight if you can, of course; but, as Charlie Dickens says in that play of his, Jim the Penman, ‘once in a fight so carry yourself that the enemy shall be sorry for himself.’ Good-bye, my boy, and take care of yourself! ”

“ What a vexing paradox is this young man who sits and glowers and gnaws his lips in the very moment of his victory, while I, his victim, tranquil and happy in defeat, sit calmly telling my thoughts like holy beads to salve my new-born soul. ”

“ I seem to see them in battle-line—
⁠Heroes with hearts of gold,
But of their victory a sign
⁠The Fates withhold;
And the hours too tardy-footed pass,
⁠The voiceless hush grows dense
Mid the imaginings, alas!
⁠That feed suspense. ”

“ Fate and his legions are ready to rout you—
Give 'em both barrels—and aim for their eyes.
Life's not a rose bed, a dream or a bubble,
A living in clover beneath cloudless skies;
And Fate hates a fighter who's looking for trouble,
So give 'im both barrels—and shoot for the eyes.
Fame never comes to the loafers and sitters,
Life's full of knots in a shifting disguise ”

“ Those who are conquered are forced into their army; what is more, they are put in the forefront of the battle, in the place of greatest danger, and they are driven forward, or [Pg 112] murdered if they attempt to escape! So, with danger before and behind, the miserable wretches fight with all the strength of despair; the victors share the spoil, and those who are defeated have nothing to expect but death any way, and sometimes a death of fearful torture too. ”

“ Trophies, ere long, to deck that lordly grave,
And the pale image of a youth, arrayed
As warriors are for fight, but calmly laid,
In slumber, on his shield. Then all was done,
All still, around the dead. ”

“ There is plenty of room, there, for a different sounding of the phrase: for making it ring of challenge, and strife, and victory—also of honourable defeat, after lusty strokes have been dealt and taken: the next best thing to a win—sometimes even a better thing. ”

“ Victory or death!” said Death-wing. “Comrades, swear!”
Each and all raised a goblet, filled to the brim, and swore, “For victory or death!”
At that moment, however, and as if by magic, all assembled dropped their goblets, and started from their seats. ”

“ The taunt is coupled with the triumph—the spoil follows the victory—and the captive is chained to the chariot-wheel of his conqueror, and must adorn the march of his superior by his own shame and sorrows. ”

“ Death won every one till they came to the last, the ancient Mariner himself, and the woman, a sort of live Death, wins him. That is why she cries, 'I've won, I've won!' and whistles thrice—though she has won only one out of two hundred. ”

“ When asked if he had any message to send home before he died, he wrote upon the paper, "Did we win?" In those words lives the very spirit of that enviable death which all men think they long for—the death which takes no thought of self, and swallows up fear in victory. ”

“ For, as in their case, all congratulated the dead as much as the victor, and commiserated the survivors; so they should think of the alternatives before themselves, and should, one and all, come upon the field of battle resolved, if possible, to conquer, and, if not, to die. ”

“ But, if I should be led in the paths of grubbing men, 'mid bustle, strife and quarrel, where the strong and the crafty alone survived, where the weaklings were thrust aside, I was ready and willing to take my place, to take my chance, to pit brawn against brawn, brain against brain, to strike blow for blow, to fail or to succeed, to live or die, as the gods might decree. ”

“ But one thing is seen—the foe;—but one object exists—to conquer. When all these have passed away, and there is no longer aught to excite, then the eye opens on stern and dread reality, and we realize what we have escaped, and the pain and suffering ever attendant on such scenes. ”

“ She was considering the last but most telling point in her argument "You cannot win against us," she said, watching him narrowly for the effect of her words. "We have a weapon that is irresistible. We have immortality." ”

“ The first decisive, advantage to either would give a prestige and fillip to that cause which might be absolutely fatal to the hopes of the other. If it were true that some battle were being fought or about to be fought that very day, such a battle might be either the death blow to all their hopes or the earnest of a final triumph nigh at hand. ”