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Foothold   Listen
noun
Foothold  n.  A holding with the feet; firm standing; that on which one may tread or rest securely; footing.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Foothold" Quotes from Famous Books



... brought into Italy by the ambition of the Venetians, who desired to obtain half the state of Lombardy by his intervention. I will not blame the course taken by the king, because, wishing to get a foothold in Italy, and having no friends there—seeing rather that every door was shut to him owing to the conduct of Charles—he was forced to accept those friendships which he could get, and he would have succeeded very quickly in ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli

... side, the untrained instinct of President Lincoln was always turning in the same direction. In perusing the field of operations his finger would always stray to the eastern coast of North Carolina as the vital point, and no persuasions could induce him to give up the apparently useless foothold which we kept there for more than three years without material advantage. It was a matter of constant surprise to the Confederate military authorities that this course was not adopted, and the final result showed the ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee

... on their shoulders, the column pushed cheerfully into the rushing current. The men as they entered the water joined each other in sets of four in a close embrace, which enabled them to retain a foothold and successfully resist the force of the flood. When they were across I turned the column down the left bank of Elk River, and driving the enemy from some slight works near Estelle Springs, regained ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan

... itself. From that height you could see across the tops of the trees down to the plain below; but what Mowgli looked at was the sides of the ravine, and he saw with a great deal of satisfaction that they ran nearly straight up and down, while the vines and creepers that hung over them would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to ...
— The Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling

... of Islam had carried the crescent throughout Asia west of the Hindu Kush, and through Africa and Southern Europe, to distant Spain and France, before they obtained a foothold in the Punjab. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various

... sometimes with a hand outstretched to help his foothold, standing for a space to think ere he jumped to a further rock, balancing himself for a moment ere he leaped again. So he would come to stand and stare gloomily upon ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens

... Cotswolds to the sea. But the men had been but the shapes of men, creatures of darkness and ignorance, victims of beasts and floods, storms and pestilence and incessant hunger. They had held a precarious foothold amidst bears and lions and all the monstrous violence of the past. Already some at least of these ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells

... went by after Spain had lost her foothold on the American continent, and she still held her West Indian empire. She misgoverned the islands as she had misgoverned the continent; and in the islands, as once upon the continent, her own children became her deadliest foes. ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt

... Smoot in the Senate is one expression, was not made yesterday. It had its birth in the year of the Edmunds law and its drastic enforcement. In that day, black for Mormons, it was resolved to secure such foothold, such representation in the Congress at Washington, that, holding a balance of power in the Senate or House, or both, the Congressional Democrats or Republicans would grant the Mormons safety for ...
— The Mormon Menace - The Confessions of John Doyle Lee, Danite • John Doyle Lee

... All six, getting foothold on the stump of the mast, threw their weight on the spar projecting over the side, straight as a lance towards a projection of ...
— The Man Who Laughs • Victor Hugo

... too, have achieved an important success to-day," went on Mr. Farrington; "we have secured a foothold in this somewhat uncertain city, and we shall soon have a roof over our heads that we can call our own, for ...
— Patty in Paris • Carolyn Wells

... encountering them; he dreaded far more falling into the hands of the Arabs. He expected every moment to reach the shore, when one of his feet stuck fast in the mud. He endeavoured to obtain a firmer foothold by pressing down the reeds so that he might stand upon them, but this caused considerable delay, and in his efforts he was nearly falling on his face into the water. At length he succeeded in drawing ...
— Ned Garth - Made Prisoner in Africa. A Tale of the Slave Trade • W. H. G. Kingston

... system, gave tangible expression to the growth of the new movement in 1874; and four years later, with the opening of his laboratory of physiological psychology at the University of Leipzig, the new psychology may be said to have gained a permanent foothold and to have forced itself into official recognition. From then on its conquest of the world was but a matter ...
— A History of Science, Volume 4(of 5) • Henry Smith Williams

... they would all be eliminated by selection, and that no mammals would be able to live there at all. But in most cases a certain percentage of animals resists these strong influences, and thus selection secures a foothold on which to work, eliminating the unfavourable variation, and establishing a useful colouring, consistent with what is required for the maintenance ...
— Evolution in Modern Thought • Ernst Haeckel

... fire. This momentarily paralyzed the defence. The insurgents, led by the provincial federes, were not yet beaten, but flowed back once more to the attack. Some field pieces which they had, breached the palace doors, a sharp struggle followed, and soon the insurgents had got a foothold. What followed was a massacre. Many of the Swiss were cut down in the corridors and rooms of the palace. Others were mown down by musketry trying to escape across the Tuileries gardens. A few got away and sought refuge in a ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston

... had gone down stairs, "I really feel as if I had a foothold on British soil. It doesn't seem as if it was quite right, but ...
— The Rudder Grangers Abroad and Other Stories • Frank R. Stockton

... Thaddeus was grumpy. One premise only was necessary for the conclusion—in fact, it was the only premise upon which a conclusion involving Thaddeus's grumpiness could find a foothold. If Thaddeus felt rested, everything in the world could go wrong and he would smile as sweetly as ever; but with the slightest trace of weariness in his system the smile would fade, wrinkles would gather on his forehead, and grumpiness set in whether things were right or wrong. On this special ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs

... the help of Egypt that we gained terms which were remarkably favourable, and especially that we caused the English to consent to give up the Cape of Good Hope. We did not wish your people, monsieur, to have any foothold in South Africa, for history has taught us that the British foothold of one half-century is the British Empire of the next. It is not your army or your navy against which we have to guard, but it is your terrible ...
— The Green Flag • Arthur Conan Doyle

... of howling archers and men-at-arms, like a flood which has broken its dam. Down they slipped into the ditch, rushed across it, and clambered on each other's backs up the opposite side. Nigel, Raoul and two archers gained a foothold in front of the burning gate at the same moment. With blows and kicks they burst it to pieces, and dashed with a yell of triumph through the dark archway beyond. For a moment they thought with mad rapture that the castle was carried. A dark tunnel lay before them, down which they rushed. But alas! ...
— Sir Nigel • Arthur Conan Doyle

... permitted to come in and search for minerals, for the policy of the authorities has been to keep the country for the natives; and nothing alarms the chiefs so much as the occasional appearance of these speculative gentry, who, if allowed a foothold, would soon dispossess them. Thus it remains doubtful whether either gold or silver or diamonds exist ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce

... none of the vital quality of illusion which would make them wonder or speculate, else a religion might have grown up around these mysterious visitations. But the men of Fish were beyond all religion—the barest and most savage tenets of even Christianity could gain no foothold on that barren rock—so there was no altar, no priest, no sacrifice; only each night at seven the silent concourse by the shanty depot, a congregation who lifted up a prayer ...
— Tales of the Jazz Age • F. Scott Fitzgerald

... now I wake in such decrepitude As I had slidden down and fallen afar, Past even the presence of my former self, Grasping the while for stay at facts which snap, Till I am found away from my own world, Feeling for foothold through ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 85, November, 1864 • Various

... stood by President Cleveland, though sincerely friendly to Great Britain; the truth being that they did not believe that war with England was seriously to be apprehended, while another Power was at the moment seeking to obtain a foothold in South America, for whose benefit a "vigorous assertion of the Monroe Doctrine" was much to be desired. The thunders of the famous message indeed were, in the minds of many excellent Americans in the East, directed not against ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson

... detail, especially that, according to the apparently well-grounded assertions of Mueller-Beeck, the going of the Chinese to the Philippines was developed about the end of the fourteenth century, and chiefly after the Spaniards had gotten a foothold and were using the Mexican silver in trade. At any rate, the apprehension of Semper, which rests on somewhat superficial physiognomic ground, is not confirmed by searching investigations. So the head-hunting of the mountain tribes, so far as it hints at relations with Borneo, gives ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.

... is fit for Europeans. Germany last year proposed joint intervention in Mexico to England. If successful Germany will try to get a foothold in the Western Hemisphere. The Monroe Doctrine is like a red rag to a bull to ...
— Face to Face with Kaiserism • James W. Gerard

... settlers in Virginia and the Carolinas were mostly English of the better class, who had been landed proprietors with considerable retinues of servants. As soon as these original colonists secured a firm foothold, large estates were developed on which the manners and customs of old England were followed as closely as possible. Each plantation became a self-supporting community, since nearly all the actual necessities were produced or manufactured thereon. The loom worked ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster

... remonstrated with him warmly, but without shaking his resolution. He had the sagacity to perceive that the steamboats were about to revolutionize the whole system of water transportation, and he meant to secure a foothold in the new order of affairs without delay. The result vindicated ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe

... of the district; for his childish life had been singularly solitary, giving to books the part which half a century ago would have been taken by tradition; and, moreover, the witch-belief in general had now little foothold among the younger generation of the Scout, and was only spoken of with reserve and discretion ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... might distract his attention and so add illimitably to his danger, she forced herself by an almost superhuman effort to remain where she was. Motionless, with straining eyes, she watched while he slowly edged himself up. That his foothold was precarious was evident from the careful precision of his movements, ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... toward Italy. If we are to believe Crispi, the Chancellor was ready then to draw up a treaty with her, and went so far as to hint that he approved of Italy's aspirations. Among these were the possession of Tunis and a foothold on the east coast of the Adriatic. The next year, at the Berlin Congress, however, Italy's interests were ignored, and, instead, Austria was encouraged to extend her dominion south of the Balkans, and the French were at least not discouraged from coveting ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times

... leaped. Hippy lost his foothold on the edge of the doorsill, and the pony, unable to bear the additional weight on its neck, stumbled and went down on the gangway. The animal's hips struck the railing, burst through it, and man and horse rolled off to the ground, ...
— Grace Harlowe's Overland Riders in the Great North Woods • Jessie Graham Flower

... an air of confidence about those letters of Clapp's," said Harry, "as if he felt himself on a firm foothold. It is very extraordinary!" ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... servant, who almost immediately became his mistress. A child was born of this connection, and the father, in his cynical indifference, was shameless enough to have it brought up under his daughter's eyes. As the years rolled on the woman acquired a firm foothold in the house. She ended by ruling the household, father and daughter alike. The day came when Monsieur de Varandeuil chose to have her sit at his table and be served by Sempronie. That was too much. Mademoiselle de Varandeuil rebelled under the insult, ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt

... have fallen from the cliff, and well-nigh block the way, and just ahead a landslip has carried off part of our course. The road is indescribably difficult because it is so slippery and one can get no foothold. My pony, carrying nothing but the little flesh which bad food has enabled him to keep, has been down on his knees four times, and once he rolled so much that I thought that he must surely go over the ravine.... Rocks overhang ...
— Across China on Foot • Edwin Dingle

... thus be seen that all the mental processes which came before the reversion to the animal standard in men, are unknown to animals, and are the outcome of the purely human faculty of reason. However, if reason can by any means retain its foothold and its entirety, there will neither be fear nor the consequent breakdown of reason and the domination of panic. Now this is the position in the other case, the case in which reason finds the danger unavoidable. In the case of a danger which is unavoidable there will be no panic. ...
— The School and the World • Victor Gollancz and David Somervell

... beneath the blow, and when I rallied my business was swept away, and the firm of Critchet was known only by its debts. I struggled for a time against the stream, but I could not gain a foothold, and at last yielded and gave up all thoughts of resuming business. My family was supported by a small settlement of one hundred pounds which had been left to my wife by an aunt, and by music lessons ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes

... itself, and its orbit evidently would intersect our foothold. It came nearer out of the night, till I could see plainly that it appeared to be a long section of a well-lighted street, say, like a length of Piccadilly. It approached end-on to where I stood, and at last impinged. It actually was a length of street, and I could continue my walk. ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson

... allay any combative or excited mood concerning that or any other subject; "but even their moral support has been a wonderful help, my dear sir, and the securing of an important addition to our navy from them just now means a very great deal I assure you; once let us gain a foothold in the North—get into Washington—and she will be the first to acknowledge us as a power—a sovereign ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan

... was no other means of reaching Quill's Window save from the top of the rock. These niches or "hand-holds" were about two feet apart. He examined the lower ones. They were deeply chiselled, affording a substantial foothold as well as a grip for a strong, resolute climber. Most of them were packed with dirty, wind blown leaves from the trees nearby,—so tightly packed by the furious rains that beat against the rock that he had difficulty in removing the substance. ...
— Quill's Window • George Barr McCutcheon

... clouds, now solid, dark, and still, An aspect wear of calm eternity. Each seems the other, as our fancies will— The cloud a mount, the mount a cloud, and we Gaze doubtfully. So everywhere on earth, This foothold where we stand with slipping feet, The unsubstantial and substantial meet, And we are fooled until made wise by Time. Is not the obvious lesson something worth, Lady? or have I wov'n ...
— Poems of Henry Timrod • Henry Timrod

... religious rule of Queen Mary we might suppose that ecclesiastical embroidery would have somewhat regained a foothold. But the landmarks had been entirely swept away, and we have little to record of the reign, except that Mary herself was a clever needlewoman and worked much of her heartache, at the neglect of her Spanish husband, ...
— Chats on Old Lace and Needlework • Emily Leigh Lowes

... stride—you know, my legs are long—and I somehow overbalanced myself. But I didn't exactly fall—if I had fallen, I must have been killed; I rolled and slid down, clutching at the weeds in the crannies as I slipped, and stumbling over the projections, without quite losing my foothold on the ledges, till I found myself brought up short with a bump at the end ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen

... and that they would cause from there so great anxiety and danger to India, that they would oblige its citizens to spend on its defense a greater sum than is now spent on the conservation of the Filipinas. And now, when the Dutch have been unable to gain a foothold in any of the islands because the arms of your Majesty sustain that country with the same reputation as in Flandes, the enemy maintain themselves by aggressive measures against the Spaniards—usually ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various

... reality at all, and no materials out of which to construct so gratuitous an idea. In the same way present demands are the only materials and occasions for any ideal: without demands the ideal would have no locus standi or foothold in the world, no power, no charm, and no prerogative. If the ideal can confront particular desires and put them to shame, that happens only because the ideal is the object of a more profound and voluminous desire and embodies the good which they blindly and perhaps deviously pursue. ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana

... of cord, the which made fast About a stanchion, about him next she cast, About and about until the whole was round His body, and the end to his arm she bound: Then showed him in the wall where best foothold Might be, and watcht him down as fold by fold He paid the cable out; and as he paid So did she twist it, till the coil was made As it had been at first. Then watcht she him Stride o'er the plain until he twinkled dim And sank into the mist. That day came not King Menelaus to ...
— Helen Redeemed and Other Poems • Maurice Hewlett

... schools, while he takes of their money to help educate his own sons. They have no ambition,—then closes upon them every door of honorable advancement, and cries through the key-hole, Serve, or starve. They cannot stand alone, they have no faculty for rising,—then, if one of them finds foothold, the ground is undermined beneath him. If a head is seen above the crowd, the ladder is jerked away, and he is trampled into the dust where he is fallen. If he stays in the position to which Anglo-Saxon assigns him, he is a worthless nigger; ...
— What Answer? • Anna E. Dickinson

... Once his foothold gave way, and he dropped to his full length, retaining only his hand-grip of the thin cords, which nearly cut his fingers in two under the strain of his whole weight. I thought he was gone; I thought ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 26, February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various

... them, the time has been when the natives were rather proud than otherwise of their pebbly paths, for, according to Bisset, when one returned from visiting the metropolis, he said he liked everything in London very much "except the pavement, for the stones were all so smooth, there was no foothold!" ...
— Showell's Dictionary of Birmingham - A History And Guide Arranged Alphabetically • Thomas T. Harman and Walter Showell

... open question whether she would ever come up or not. It was at this time that Tip O'Neill, a daring young buck of Freekirk Head, performed the highly dangerous feat of walking from her main to her forerigging along the weather run, which fact shows there was foothold on her uppermost side for a man ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams

... a foothold among the Saxons its progress was rapid. In no country were monastic institutions more firmly planted. Monasteries and churches were erected in the principal settlements and liberally endowed by the Saxon kings. In Kent ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord

... man and woman were concerned, the game was played. They had lost handhold and foothold, and were falling into the pit. But what of the daughters? Living like swine, enfeebled by chronic innutrition, being sapped mentally, morally, and physically, what chance have they to crawl up and out of the Abyss into which ...
— The People of the Abyss • Jack London

... did not look as if the dust of documents had injured their health. The moustaches and beards on the lips of each, gave them also a manly appearance. They were all joyously ready to sacrifice themselves and their property for a great spiritual prize, yet looked as if they had a firm foothold in the midst of life; their hale, sensible faces showed no traces of enthusiasm; only the young Seigneur of Warmond's eyes sparkled with a touch of this feeling, while Janus Dousa's glance often seemed turned within, to ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... almost in contact with him, what the real Satanas, the soul-devouring, world-devouring devils are." I have tried, however imperfectly, yet faithfully, to talk to you about three of these "soul-devouring, world-devouring devils." Give them no inch of foothold in your life, and do a brother's part for others who, perhaps weaker than you, are waging the same conflict in the interest of the things that are sacred, and kingly, and divine. And when your brief mortal life is over you shall have the noble satisfaction ...
— Men in the Making • Ambrose Shepherd

... was also present. The discussion of the steps to be taken within the next two or three days lasted an hour and a half. Every one who spoke had studied the data and the ground and there was no divergence of view, which was a comfort. Our attack will have as its objective the seizure of a foothold on the high ground. Anzacs will co-operate. As I explained to the Generals, we hardly dare hope to make a clean break through till drafts and fresh munitions arrive as the Turks now have had too long to dig in. But if we can seize and keep a point upon the watershed (however small) ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume 2 • Ian Hamilton

... is very curious, a series of natural canals run in all directions through vast swamps which only afford foothold in the height of summer. The thrifty peasants utilise the dry season to plant fields of maize, for the scorching sun dries these swamps in a very short space of time. In the winter or early spring, they are nearly or quite under water. As the lake is reached, small islands ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... conceal the danger or to reconcile the fickle people to a change that promised fine rewards for the sale of their liberty. Then he began to trim off one by one the outlying colonies and dependencies of the Greek States. His next step was to be the obtaining of a foothold in ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... he might till he had laid his hands on the edge of the orifice. As he hung there, Masin had held up the handle of a pickaxe as high as he could reach against the smooth wall, as a crossbar on which Malipieri had succeeded in getting a slight foothold, enough for a man who was not heavy and was extraordinarily active. A moment later he had drawn himself up and inward. At the imminent risk of his life, as he afterwards found, he had crawled on in total darkness till the way widened enough for him to turn round ...
— The Heart of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... around the ship. After beating off the launch, Captain Hamilton, at the head of fifty chosen men, armed chiefly with cutlasses, boarded the Hermione on the bows. As soon as he and his bold companions obtained foothold, the boat's crews cut the cables and commenced towing the Hermione into the offing. Thus, while the battle was raging on the ship's decks, she was rapidly towed further from the batteries which ...
— Jack in the Forecastle • John Sherburne Sleeper

... think, be that of keeping Americans and Europeans as much as possible at arm's length. In presence of the more powerful races your position is one of chronic danger, and you should take every precaution to give as little foothold as possible ...
— Japan: An Attempt at Interpretation • Lafcadio Hearn

... alternations of the type fot: fet and mus: mis might not have become established as a productive type of number distinction in the noun. As a matter of fact, it did not so become established. The fot: fet type of plural secured but a momentary foothold. It was swept into being by one of the surface drifts of the language, to be swept aside in the Middle English period by the more powerful drift toward the use of simple distinctive forms. It was too late in the day for our language to be seriously interested in such pretty ...
— Language - An Introduction to the Study of Speech • Edward Sapir

... for them only in general. But if you know anything at all about them it will be worth while to individualize your prayer, however briefly. Special, detailed prayer is a power with God. And it is a power with man too. To be dealing with one for whom you know you have prayed is already to have a foothold there. Perhaps you may have an opportunity to say, quite naturally, that you have been praying for him; and this may very possibly be a ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule

... marching—marching—down the colossal bridge. It moved swiftly, in some unthinkable way intelligently. It swathed the Akka, and closer, ever closer it swept toward the approach upon which Yolara's men had now gained foothold. ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt

... This guinea pig's name was Jeff, and he and I became good friends. A long-haired French rabbit was hopping about, and a tame white rat was perched on the shoulder of one of the boys, and kept his foothold there, no matter how suddenly the boy moved. There were so many boys, and the stable was so small, that I suppose he was afraid he would get stepped on if he went on the floor. He stared hard at me with his little, red ...
— Beautiful Joe • Marshall Saunders

... belief gains a foothold, it's hard to wipe it out, even among humans. Among Nipes, it would be well-nigh impossible. Once a code of ritual and social behavior was set up, it ...
— Anything You Can Do ... • Gordon Randall Garrett

... against the jealousy of that austere "other" one. That he had loved her, at any rate that evening under the trees, she obstinately maintained in her own mind; to that conviction she must cling desperately, or lose her last foothold. Her whole being was a prey to a frightful turmoil of feeling. Her hands shook; her mouth was parched as by the midday heat; she knew that there were withered leaves between her feet and the sandals she wore, that twigs had got caught in her hair; but ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... my own heart and the mournful sound of the pines whose loftier branches were stirring in the still air. Grasping the heavy bars I tried to climb the gate, but, as there were no projections on which it was possible to get a foothold, I found this an exhausting and difficult task. I climbed repeatedly several feet above the earth, only to lose my foothold and slide down again. Finally, by exerting all my strength, I succeeded in supporting myself with the edge of my boot upon a crossbar about half way up; ...
— The Master of Silence • Irving Bacheller

... that divine fire. Instinct did now and then warn her that some time it would wrap her like a flame. But in the meantime—Life had her in midstream of its remorseless, drab current, sweeping her along. A foothold offered. Half a loaf, a single slice of bread even, is ...
— Big Timber - A Story of the Northwest • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... related in a preceding chapter. He had, however, postponed the execution of his plans, in order first to conquer the Scythian countries north of Greece, thinking, probably, that this would make the subsequent conquest of Greece itself more easy. By getting a firm foothold in Scythia, he would, as it were, turn the flank of the Grecian territories, which would tend to make his final descent upon them more effectual ...
— Darius the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... and wildly happy. She could have sung for joy, a song of triumph, and losing her head a little she lost her scant foothold as well, slipped, tried to hold on, failed, and slid down the ...
— The Princess Virginia • C. N. Williamson

... that such an idea of marriage should be gaining foothold in America. It has its root in an ignoble view of life,—an utter and pagan darkness as to all that man and woman are called to do in that highest relation where they act as one. It is a mean and low contrivance on both sides, by which ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 77, March, 1864 • Various

... evil become part and parcel of our mental vision forever. She gives the reader the impression that she never declined a fancy, just as some gentlemen of the eighteenth century never declined a duel. When she fell it was always because she missed the foothold, never because she ...
— Varied Types • G. K. Chesterton

... chimneys; the rain dashed on the window-panes with a rattle as of musketry; far below she could hear the awful booming of the Atlantic breakers. The gusts that drove against the high house seemed ready to tear it from its foothold of rock and whirl it inland; or was it the sea itself that was rising in its thunderous power to sweep away this bauble from the face of the mighty cliffs? And then the wild and desolate morning that followed! Through the bewilderment ...
— Macleod of Dare • William Black

... of The Hollies was not visible from the upper story of the Hare and Hounds owing to a clump of pines which had found foothold on the cliff, but, through the gap formed by the end of the post office garden, the entrance to the house from the Knoleworth road ...
— The Postmaster's Daughter • Louis Tracy

... were pushing on toward Jerusalem and it seemed that it was only the question of time until the Holy City would fall. Once Turkish rule there had been broken, it was a foregone conclusion that the Ottomans would never regain a foothold. ...
— The Boy Allies with Haig in Flanders • Clair W. Hayes

... water—a small and comparatively innocuous sea broke over the hull, which, harmless as it was compared with most of its predecessors, had still enough of weight and spite in it to sweep one of the poor fellows from his precarious foothold into the seething, hissing swirl to leeward. The man tossed his arms over his head, with a wild shriek for help, as the smother carried him along in its suffocating embrace, and Joe promptly made a spring for a spare life-buoy that we had provided for such an emergency; but before ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood

... the anus and rectum do not cease with the period of infancy. The child is left pretty much to shift for itself as to regularity of eating and the evacuation of the contents of its bowels, wherein disease has already obtained a foothold. All kinds of foodstuffs, at all hours, with seeds, stones, etc., are poked into its stomach, followed by constipating remedies to quiet inevitable troubles, or brisk purgatives given with the hope of expelling the arrested contents of the bowels. Is it any wonder that ninety-eight persons of adult ...
— Intestinal Ills • Alcinous Burton Jamison

... destroy the enemy's transports in that stream and some gunboats which I knew he was building. The navigation, however, proved so much better than had been expected that I thought for a time of the possibility of making this the route for obtaining a foothold on high land above Haines Bluff, Mississippi, and small class steamers were accordingly ordered for transporting an army that way. Major-General J. B. McPherson, commanding seventeenth army corps, was directed ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat

... often accompanies it) the most humorous geniality in company; shrewd and childish; passionately attached, passionately prejudiced; a man of many extremes, many faults of temper, and no very stable foothold for himself among life's troubles. Yet he was a wise adviser; many men, and these not inconsiderable, took counsel with him habitually. "I sat at his feet," writes one of these, "when I asked his advice, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson

... good thought," said Pauline. She looked back again at the rocks. They were smooth as marble; there did not seem to be a possible foothold. She felt a sense of regret that they had not gone to the farther end of the bay, where the rocks were lower and more indented, and where it might be possible for a brave boy and girl to get temporary foothold; but the sea had already reached ...
— Girls of the Forest • L. T. Meade

... us that once this earth was entirely submerged in water, and during this period for many days a busy little muskrat swam about vainly looking for a foothold of earth wherein to build his house. In his search he encountered a turtle also leisurely swimming, so they had speech together, and the muskrat complained of weariness; he could find no foothold; ...
— Legends of Vancouver • E. Pauline Johnson

... the bridge. One said that it was another priest that was come in disguise; another, that once a Popish priest got a foothold in a place he was never content till he got the whole for himself; a third, that the fellow had simply lied, and that he was turned out because he had been caught by Sir Amyas making love to one of the maids. Each was positive of his own thesis, ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson

... shadows, a roof of white-pine shingles, bleached lighter through sun and wind, and covered with low, white-capped chimneys, it looked even more stark and chilly than the drifts which had climbed its low roadside fence, and yet seemed hopeless of gaining a foothold on the glancing walls, or slippery, wind-swept roof. The storm, which had already heaped the hollows of the road with snow, hurled its finely-granulated flakes against the building, but they were whirled along the gutters and ridges, and disappeared ...
— Colonel Starbottle's Client and Other Stories • Bret Harte

... which found little favour with the populace. Accordingly, the procedure at the trial, as also the final verdict, turned largely on the desperate efforts of the Jacobins to discredit their rivals, who sought by all means to keep their foothold in the revolutionary torrent. One of the most obvious devices was to represent the Executive Council as the champion of ultra-democratic ideas as against envious and reactionary England. If this notion gained currency, Lebrun and his colleagues might ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose

... It was immediately after the treaty of Utrecht, in 1713. Very soon afterwards the nascent spirit of fanaticism began to obtain a foothold in England; and although large numbers of negro slaves were owned in Great Britain, and, as I said before, were daily sold on the public exchange in Lon-don, questions arose as to the right of the owners to retain property in their slaves; and ...
— American Eloquence, Volume III. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1897) • Various

... and surrounded by high walls. I could see that, even if I were able to squeeze my way out between the bars, I should be powerless to scale the walls. At a rough guess these were at least twelve feet high, and without a foothold of any sort or description. This being so I was completely at the mercy of the men in the house. Indeed, a rat caught in a trap, was never more firmly laid by the heels than I. At about half-past seven o'clock a small trap-door, which ...
— My Strangest Case • Guy Boothby

... struggled since 1822 against the Touchards, usually found a strong foothold in the good-will and sympathy of the inhabitants of the districts which they served. The person undertaking the business as proprietor and conductor was nearly always an inn-keeper along the route, to whom the beings, things, and interests with which he had to do were all familiar. ...
— A Start in Life • Honore de Balzac

... out around the little valley, calling them to come closer. They came flying toward us and crowded upon the nearer crags just beyond the pool, clutching the precipitous sides, and scrambling for a foothold wherever they could. A hundred or more found place on the ledge with us, or above or below it wherever a slight footing could be found on the wall ...
— The Fire People • Ray Cummings

... all things of this earth. One factor has ever been potent in its success and that is honesty. The honesty of the game has always been its motto, and though often assailed has still remained intact. This, alone, has gained for baseball a foothold in the hearts of the American people that nothing can dislodge. Americans are known the world over as lovers of fair and honest sport, and to base ball they have given their unswerving allegiance." Here is a merited compliment to the National League ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick

... properly to repel them. With such experience on our part, after two years of constant efforts to invade our territories successfully met and more than merely repelled, it would be evidence of gross inefficiency and weakness in us, to permit the enemy to gain even a temporary foothold in any one of the loyal States, or even to attempt it, without the complete overthrow and destruction of the invading force. Our manifest policy is to attack them in their own country, and to hold them there, until we can annihilate ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 4, No. 1, July, 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various

... distance of the combatants, however, made the action unimportant; and the patriots retired down the river, after achieving a complete victory. The Grand Commander was farther than ever from obtaining that foothold on the sea, which as he had informed his sovereign, was the only means by which ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley

... Years' War, when the French neglected to secure their foothold in Germany, by placing in a state of defence the fortifications that fell into their power, the first defeat rendered their ground untenable, and threw them from the Elbe back upon the Rhine and the Mayne. They afterwards took the ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... world, thought I. Then the foot descended as a steam-hammer does, but also as a steam-hammer sometimes does when used to crack nuts, stopped as it touched my back, and presently came to earth again alongside of me, perhaps because Jana thought the foothold dangerous. At any rate, he took another and better way. Depositing the remains of Marut with the most tender care beside me, as though the nurse were putting the child to bed, he unwound his yards ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard

... Professor Maxon had said. "It will be but a matter of a day or so when I can introduce him to Virginia, but we must be careful that she has no inkling of his origin until mutual affection has gained a sure foothold between them." ...
— The Monster Men • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... to the attack. Their dense masses charged down the streets leading toward the river. They sang as they advanced. The orders, as revealed in documents captured later, came straight from the high command and demanded the acquisition of a foothold on the south bank at all costs. They paid the costs, but never reached the ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons

... has obtained a foothold in the body its course, like one of Napoleon's campaigns, is short, sharp, and decisive. Beginning typically with a vigorous chill, sometimes so suddenly as to wake the patient out of a sound sleep, followed by a stabbing pain in the side, cough, high fever, rapid respiration, the sputum ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson

... found very soon that his gangway of oars was by no means satisfactory, because while his men were crossing they became so fully exposed to King Olaf's marksmen that of every three who started only one succeeded in gaining a foothold on the Serpent's deck. Many hundreds of men—vikings, Swedes, and Danes — lost their lives on this bridge. So when Erik saw that King Olaf was gaining the upper hand of him he got his berserks to take down the oars and ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton

... numbers at once became a source of serious anxiety. While planning the expedition, it had seemed so important to get the men a foothold in Florida that I was willing to risk everything for it. But this important post once in our possession, it began to show some analogies to the proverbial elephant in the lottery. To hold it permanently with nine hundred men was not, perhaps, impossible, with the aid of a gunboat ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson

... Europe we have few occasions of collision, and these, with a little prudence and forbearance, may be generally accommodated. Of the brethren of our own hemisphere, none are yet, or for an age to come will be, in a shape, condition, or disposition to war against us. And the foothold, which the nations of Europe had in either America, is slipping from under them, so that we shall soon be rid of their neighborhood. Cuba alone seems at present to hold up a speck of war to us. Its possession by Great Britain would indeed be a great calamity to us. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson

... Prince Buelow, and as the month closes we hear of the landing of the Allies in Gallipoli, just two months after the unsupported naval attempt to force the Dardanelles. British and Australian and New Zealand troops have achieved the impossible by incredible valour in face of murderous fire, and a foothold has been won at tremendous cost of heroic lives. Letters from the Western front continue cheerful, but it does not need much reading between the lines to realise the odds with which our officers and men have to contend, ...
— Mr. Punch's History of the Great War • Punch

... like a wounded bull, while a bedraggled Nobby scrambled and blew and slipped and scratched, caring not at all what was his understanding, so long as it provided a foothold and kept his ...
— Berry And Co. • Dornford Yates

... death. Four foot out, broadwise, along the side of the Spit, there's a shelf of rock, about half fathom down under the sand. My question is—why didn't she strike that? If she slipped, by accident, from off the Spit, she fell in where there's foothold at the bottom, at a depth that would barely cover her to the waist. She must have waded out, or jumped out, into the Deeps beyond—or she wouldn't be missing now. No accident, sir! The Deeps of the Quicksand have got her. And they have ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins

... potatoes decided me. It was a matter of history that famine, neither wide-spread nor local, ever gained a foothold where "Satsuma Emo" flourished. This year they were fatter and cheaper than ever before. I knew dozens of ways to fix them, natural and disguised; so I bought an extra supply and made up my mind to keep ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay

... the neighboring Vice-Royalty,—when, quicker than thought, Paez was once more over the mountains, and recovered by a sudden swoop the Llanos of Barinas. Thenceforward, this region remained the surest foothold of the revolution in Venezuela. Encircled with Spanish troops, it remained, nevertheless, a practical republic in itself, and the vast basin of the Orinoco was the cradle of Venezuelan freedom. The Provisional Government consisted of a mere council of generals, who, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Vol. 3, No. 16, February, 1859 • Various

... to do with those who pretend to have dealings with the supernatural. If you allow supernaturalism to get a foothold in your country the result ...
— Communism and Christianism - Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View • William Montgomery Brown

... has no place in the future state excepting as she enters under the protection of her husband, so this last marriage or sealing for eternity was instituted to enable all unmarried women, or those who were only married for this world, to gain a foothold in the life to come. The motto of the Mormon church is, the greater the family, the greater the reward. Brigham Young with his nineteen families excelled in this respect, and he will be awarded the highest seat in Heaven. ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 5 • Various

... foresee the future, Sufder. Now, doubtless, they are sorry; but if in the future the British become masters of India, the Mahrattas will have no reason to regret having given them a foothold. Wherever their powers extend, the natives are far better off than they were under the rule of their own princes. Were the British masters, there would be no more wars, no more jealousies, and no more intrigues; ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty

... Bakounine has no longer that immutable faith in the genius of the "master" Proudhon, which Tolain seems to have preserved intact. According to Bakounine "Proudhon, in spite of all his efforts to get a foothold upon the firm ground of reality, remained an idealist and metaphysician. His starting point is the abstract side of law; it is from this that he starts in order to arrive at economic facts, while Marx, on the contrary, has enunciated and proved the truth, demonstrated by the whole of the ancient ...
— Anarchism and Socialism • George Plechanoff

... which they had in part ascended, and attacked the army in the defile. An awful scene of struggle and confusion ensued. Some were killed by weapons or by rocks rolled down upon them. Others, contending together, and struggling desperately in places of very narrow foothold, tumbled headlong down the rugged rocks into the torrent below; and horses, laden with baggage and stores, became frightened and unmanageable, and crowded each other over the most frightful precipices. ...
— Hannibal - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott

... as it teaches what is necessary for obedience and salvation, cannot have been corrupted. (14) From these considerations everyone will be able to judge that I have neither said anything against the Word of God nor given any foothold ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part III] • Benedict de Spinoza

... affected by what he had drank. As he and his companion stood beneath an old tree that grew in front of the liquor store, Chester came forth, reeling in his walk, and after a vain effort to maintain his foothold, fell upon the pavement wholly intoxicated. Several other persons saw him in this position, but the witness and his friend led him home, and consigned him to the care ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens

... unlaced and kicked off his boots she had already grasped the iron bar and swung herself out over the abyss, feeling with her toes for a rung and a good foothold. ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch

... long time see. These men were not Arians, for they recoiled in genuine horror from the polytheistic tendencies of Arianism; but they had no logical defence against Arianism, and were willing to see if some modification of it would not give them a foothold of some kind. To men who dreaded the return of Sabellian confusion, Arianism was at least an error in the right direction. It upheld the same truth as they—the separate personality of the Son of God—and if it went further than they could follow, it might still do service against ...
— The Arian Controversy • H. M. Gwatkin

... Another window faced on the same space, not five feet away. If it were but opened I might swing myself over and through it; but it was closed, and a curtain hid the unknown possibilities and dangers of the interior. A dozen feet above was the roof, with no projection or foothold by which it might be reached. Below, the light-well ended in a tinned floor, about four feet from the ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott

... the sale of Tolstoy's works is on the increase in America, but certainly the principles of Tolstoy are gaining no foothold here. We are not a nation of non-resistants. We believe in defending our homes. Nothing can exceed the insanity of non- resistance. This doctrine leaves virtue naked and clothes vice in armor; it gives every weapon to the wrong and takes every ...
— The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII. - Interviews • Robert Green Ingersoll

... 1450 and 1500, half the western termini of the trade-routes with the East. It crushed out all semblance of independence in the settlements of the European merchants in Asia Minor and on the Black Sea, and left to them a bare foothold for purposes of trade under the most burdensome restrictions. These conquests were very destructive to life and property. Mercantile firms failed, old families died out, the mother-states were exhausted, and the flow of merchandise ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney

... does possess some "secret virtue," for if the plant be immersed in glycerine the preservative takes the hue of the flower. Nature having ordained that the plants should be elusive, they appear in remote spots and unlikely situations with foothold among loose and gritty fragments of rock, and with cessation of the sustaining rains disappear, each having borne but a single leaf and produced but a solitary flower. The leaf does not seem to be attractive to insects, nor is the ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield

... smaller traders aren't encouraged to flourish unduly; and the German firm itself is too well fed to bother about extending. The Samoans, therefore, aren't exploited, spiritually or commercially, as much as they might be. By such slight chances beauty keeps a foothold in the world. The missionary's peace of mind may require that the Samoan should wear trousers, or the trader's pocket that he should drink gin and live under corrugated iron. But the Government has discovered that these things are not good for the health of the Polynesian, so the Samoan ...
— Letters from America • Rupert Brooke

... seem necessary and requisite for the [preservation of the] Japanese trade to transport some or the greater part of those people [of Macao] to the province of Nueva Segovia, or to the island of Hermosa, getting a foothold there whence we might better continue and carry on the navigation from China to that place and from there to Xapon, and not from here; for silks are already as high in this city as in Nangasaqui, on account of the danger from enemies which the Chinese risk in coming ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898, Volume XX, 1621-1624 • Various

... dropped over her burning eyes. She tried to force herself not to listen. This was the kind of thing which made her sick with humiliation. Howsoever rudimentary these people were, they could not fail to comprehend that a foothold in the house was being bid for. They should at least see that she did not join in the bidding. Her own visit had been filled with feelings at war with one another. There had been hours too many in which she would have been glad—even with ...
— T. Tembarom • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... many people that Number Five's affections were a kind of Gibraltar or Ehrenbreitstein, say rather a high table-land in the region of perpetual, unmelting snow. It was hard for these people to believe that any man of mortal mould could find a foothold in that impregnable fortress,—could climb to that height and find the flower of love among its glaciers. The Tutor and Number Five were both quiet, thoughtful: he, evidently captivated; she, what was the meaning of her manner to him? Say that she seemed ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

... surface upon which a constant steady balance demanded no little skill. Marching encumbered with a full pack, clumsy Army-shod feet, one arm only free for a much hampered swing, increased the difficulties of maintaining a secure foothold. ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq

... our Alsatian driver helped me to the platform, I looked around with dread at the throng, being too weak to battle for a foothold; but the brave Alsatian elbowed a path for me, and the Countess warded off the plunging human cattle, and at length I found myself beside the cars where line-soldiers stood guard at every ten paces and gendarmes stalked about, shoving the ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers

... way out of this predicament, he scrambled on, handing himself from branch to branch, and once losing his foothold and hanging by ...
— Tom Slade on Mystery Trail • Percy Keese Fitzhugh

... man came down and had to wait a few minutes for his men. This caused him to become abusive, which the oldest apprentice, James Leigh, resented by using some longshore adjectives. The master seized the foothold of the stroke oar and threw it at the lad, and when they got aboard the captain again attempted to strike him, but the lad let fly, and did considerable damage in a rough and tumble way to the bully, who was now like a wild beast. James was ultimately overpowered and got a bad beating. ...
— Looking Seaward Again • Walter Runciman

... Tapolo, opened the gate of the town to the warriors of Walpi and Mishoninovi, who slaughtered the liberals, thus effectually rooting out the new faith from Tusayan, for after that time it never again obtained a foothold. ...
— Archeological Expedition to Arizona in 1895 • Jesse Walter Fewkes

... only when he landed in the snow, that he was conscious of any of the supposed natural excitement of a man meeting a violent end. It was then, before he even got his breath back, that he began to struggle frantically to get a foothold; but he only broke down more of the thin ice-wall that kept him from the sheer drop to the river, sixty or seventy feet below. He lay quite still. Would the Colonel come after him? If he did come, would he ...
— The Magnetic North • Elizabeth Robins (C. E. Raimond)

... decisive cast. From the farther side of the hill, he heard a sudden terrified snort from one of the Boer ponies, then the thud of feet, as they charged up the approaches of the long slope. From behind him, there arose a groan, as one of the men, missing his foothold in the deepening dusk, crashed back against the loose rocks at the bottom of the hill. Then a shot and a whinnying moan told him that Carew and his three comrades had edged around the base of the hill into range of the enemy above them. The man might ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller

... on wooden posts driven firmly into the ground, and ranging from thirty to forty feet high, according to the size of the dwelling. They are entered by a wooden pole, placed in a slanting position, at one end of the building, having notches cut into it to afford firmer foothold. This pole can be drawn into the house on occasion, thus cutting off all communication with the outside. The interior of the house (which in this case was over seventy yards long, by about thirty yards broad) was divided by a thin ...
— On the Equator • Harry de Windt

... his fighting blood rose, and forgetting the spectators, and even forgetting Bobby, he doggedly grappled with those yielding ropes until he got a foothold, swung himself over the top, cleared the entanglement below, and made a flying dash for the yawning mouth of canvas at the far end of the deck. It was incredibly hot and suffocating inside, but he wriggled frantically forward, clawing ...
— The Honorable Percival • Alice Hegan Rice

... jolting us hard against the hill, and well-nigh jolting himself down the craggy descent into the abyss below. One leg hung a moment over the precipice, but the poor beast suddenly threw his whole weight forward, and by a desperate leap, obtained sure foothold in the path, and again trudged along with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society

... The lumber workers contend that they are entitled by law to do these things and the employers assert that, law or no law, they shall not do so. In other words, it is a question of whether labor organization shall retain its foothold in the lumber industry or be "driven from ...
— The Centralia Conspiracy • Ralph Chaplin

... in these reaching fingers, Urges a sunward way! Hold here and climb, and halt not, that there lingers So far outstripped, my halting, wistful clay. Make here thy foothold of my rapturous heart,— Yea, though the tendrils start To hold and twine! I am the heart that nursed Thy sunward thirst.— A little while, a little while, O Vine, My own and never mine, Feed thy sweet roots with me Abundantly. O wonder-wildness of the pushing ...
— The Singing Man • Josephine Preston Peabody

... while he in his turn accepted their resignations from the army. The fiasco was a costly one in quite another direction, for the Niagara sector had been overlooked in the elaborate attempt to capture Montreal. The few American troops who had gained a foothold on the Canadian side, at Fort George and the village of Niagara, were left unsupported while all the available regulars were sent to the armies of Wilkinson and Hampton. As soon as the British comprehended that the grand invasion ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine

... they were alongside the oars were cast aside, and the men, drawing their cutlasses, leapt to their feet and endeavoured to climb up. They were thrust back with boarding-pikes, axes, and weapons of all kinds, but at last managed to get a foothold aft. ...
— By Conduct and Courage • G. A. Henty

... in these dark, damp, northern slopes. Now we struggled and hopped, horse and man, down and round a corner, at the head of a glen, where a few flagstones fallen across a gully gave an uncertain foothold, and paused, under damp rocks covered with white and pink Begonias and ferns of innumerable forms, to drink the clear mountain water out of cups extemporised from a Calathea leaf; and then struggled up again over roots and ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... in the country, What can a man's amusements be? Walk? And but more of empty highway And of deserted village see? Or let him through the far Steppes gallop, His horse can scarcely stand at all— His stamping hoofs in vain seek foothold, The rider dreading lest he fall! So then remain within thy paling, Read thou in Pradt or Walter Scott, Compare thy varying editions, Drink, and thy scoffing mood spare not! As the long evenings drag away So doth the Winter ...
— Russian Lyrics • Translated by Martha Gilbert Dickinson Bianchi

... its bottom. And I was still almost that far from the top. With the stature I had then attained, I could have climbed the remaining distance easily, but for the fact that the wall above had grown too smooth to afford a foothold. The effects of the drug had again worn off, and I sat down and prepared to take another dose. I did so—the smallest amount I could—and held ready in my hand a pill of the other kind in case of emergency. Steadily the ...
— The Girl in the Golden Atom • Raymond King Cummings

... sea to break the vessel to pieces, and she was too substantial to go to pieces of her own account. The nearest island was little more than a barren rock. A few birds wheeled about over it, or sat perched upon its rugged points, but with that exception I doubt if it furnished a foothold for ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... up, above the quagmire. It was less than a foot wide at first, but widened toward the left, and seedling trees had formed a growth which appeared to merge into the densely wooded hill beyond. He pushed his way along this insecure foothold until the trees began to thin as if there were an open space beyond. Then directly in front of him sounded the ...
— Masters of the Guild • L. Lamprey

... more time for covering the distance than an experienced person would require and must count upon the expenditure of more strength, because your feet are not trained to the wilderness paths with their pitfalls and traps for the unwary, and every nerve and muscle will be strained to secure a safe foothold amid the tangled roots, on the slippery, moss-covered logs, over precipitous rocks that lie in your path. It will take time to pick your way over boggy places where the water oozes up through the thin, loamy soil as through a sponge; and experience alone will teach you ...
— On the Trail - An Outdoor Book for Girls • Lina Beard and Adelia Belle Beard

... Teddy's feet, and, with the heavy burden bearing down upon him, he was unable to get sufficient foothold to save himself. ...
— The Circus Boys In Dixie Land • Edgar B. P. Darlington

... him with open arms, into which he could fall, with his childlike confidence, and be carried up the ladder. Here, apparently, one did not talk about the heroic deeds which elsewhere gave a man foothold; here such things merely aroused scornful laughter. He tried it again and again, always with something new, but the answer was always the same—"Farmer!" His whole little person was overflowing with good-will, and ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo

... he is asking for men enough to deal with the new order of things so as to prevent trouble in the future. "Once," says he, "get the new-comers within our gates imbued with the proper respect for British law and British justice, and prevent the criminal element getting a foothold, and a work will be accomplished of ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth

... interior of this vast cave, finding everywhere the walls rising sheer from the silent, dark waters, not a ledge or a crevice where one might gain foothold. Indeed, in some places there was a considerable overhang from above, as if a great dome whose top was invisible sprang from some level below the water. We pushed ahead until the tiny semi-circle of light through which we had entered was only faintly visible; and then, ...
— The Ontario Readers: Fourth Book • Various

... again started and, after travelling several miles, entered a narrow valley with very steep sides, with trees and brushwood growing wherever they could get a foothold. He now adopted a careless and indifferent carriage and, although he kept a sharp lookout, no one who saw him would have supposed that he had any ...
— A Final Reckoning - A Tale of Bush Life in Australia • G. A. Henty

... says Mr. Robert. "It would mean letting that crowd get a foothold in Corrugated, and a loss of thousands to her. See if the ...
— Torchy, Private Sec. • Sewell Ford

... too)—well, then, even the vagaries of the West African market are a simple matter compared with the vagaries of the Exchange. The mystery of the mark, for instance, is so utterly beyond that, in trying to understand it, I do not even know where to begin. I see no mental foothold anywhere. ...
— If I May • A. A. Milne

... undoubted yet doubtful honour of having had regular yellow fever. In 1862 and 1866 this disease was imported by a ship that had come from Havana. Since then it has not appeared in the definite South American form, and therefore does not seem to have obtained the foothold it has in Senegal, where a few years ago all the money voted for the keeping of the Fete Nationale was in one district devoted by public consent to the purchase of coffins, required by an overwhelming ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley

... singularly painful position for so fervent a daughter of Rome; while the English refugees checkmated their own party at home by their readiness to pay any price-even to the betrayal of Calais-for French support. But for timely reinforcements, the English foothold in France would probably have been captured by a coup de main before the close of 1556. Meantime in England the severity of the persecutions ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes

... broom and get all the dishes and things together," she answered, "and then leave the rest to me. In a week from now you won't know this place. Once we clear out a little foothold here we can go back to the tower and fetch up a few loads of ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England

... without a rope, or, which comes to the same thing, alone, and he was not less severe on those who are so foolhardy, or so ignorant, as to cross steep slopes of ice on new-fallen snow. Nothing is easier, the new snow affording such good foothold, as you told us the other day when describing your adventures under the cliffs of Monte Rosa, and yet nothing is more dangerous, says Antoine, for if the snow were to slip, as it is very apt to do, you would be smothered in it, or swept into a crevasse by it. Lives are lost in the Alps every year, ...
— Rivers of Ice • R.M. Ballantyne

... early history of America, the settlers in the new country were too busily employed in fighting for a foothold, in getting food and clothing, in keeping body and soul together, to have any time for the fine arts. Most of the New England divines tried their hands at limping and hob-nail verse, but prior to the Revolution, American literature is remarkable only for its aridity, its lack of inspiration ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson



Words linked to "Foothold" :   footing, toehold, accomplishment, airhead, combat zone, beachhead, bridgehead, combat area



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