"Vantage point" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... streets—bordered by buildings which could provide hundreds of lurking places for attackers—which he had threaded with the confidence of ignorance earlier that day, began to realize why the aliens had been so nervous. Had a sniper with a blast rifle been stationed at a vantage point somewhere on the roofs today none of them would ever have returned to this field. And even a few spacemen with good cover and accurate throwing aim could have cut down their number a quarter or a third. He was developing a strong distaste for those structures. And he had no intention of returning ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... logging teams, breaking a path up the road to the logging camp! By night the whole country round was out. Dan was there riding the leader, and reaching out to get snowballs from the high bank to throw at Jane, who had clambered up on the vantage point of an old shed and was watching the queer procession, with its shouts and rattle of bells and chains, push ...
— The Transformation of Job - A Tale of the High Sierras • Frederick Vining Fisher
... white and sullen upward obscured the moon, and the canyon air, salt and sick with gases, poured over the high point on which the Pittsburgers stood. Below, torches were shooting like fireflies out of the rock. From every vantage point headlights flashed one after another unhooded on the scene, and the song of the river mingled again with the calling of ...
— The Daughter of a Magnate • Frank H. Spearman
... vantage point he saw what he had not seen before—the amazing size of the construction project. This was no piffling little Gizeh pyramid, no simple tomb for a king. Its base was measured in kilometers instead of yards, and its top was going to be proportionally high, apparently. It hardly seemed that there ...
— The Sky Is Falling • Lester del Rey
... From the vantage point of this high ground we could see a goodly prospect, and on the one side the river, here called the Hindeyeh canal, with its green shore and on the other a belt of date palms and beyond the illimitable desert. Some five or six miles away there appeared a mound surmounted by a tower, a curious ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... with a look at Wallace that was full of meaning, he retired to the hearth, planted his shoulders against the mantel at Tottie's favorite vantage point, and surveyed Clare. "We thought you were gone," he remarked good-naturedly. He bobbed at her, with a flop of the big ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... we left the carrier, toiling over the rocks with Tako's little cortege to this vantage point on the ledge, that Jane found an opportunity of communicating secretly ...
— The White Invaders • Raymond King Cummings
... Then, turning complacently to the Director of Mines, he asked, simply: "Is there gold beneath it?" And interpreter and guide, and later, even more important officials, were stupefied to learn that the wonderful imported man who knew all about gold could not say offhand, from his vantage point, miles away, whether there was gold under the Park or not. And, more disturbing still, that he probably could not say anything about it at all without actually tramping over the sacred soil and perhaps ...
— Herbert Hoover - The Man and His Work • Vernon Kellogg
... continuous lines, hour after hour, a procession that seemed as though it would never stop. At last all are on board, and the bell rings for visitors to go ashore. The troops crowd the bulwarks of the ship, they climb the rigging, many of them like sailors. They seize every vantage point from which they can wave a long farewell to those they are leaving behind them, and then some one with a cornet strikes up 'Soldiers of the Queen' and 'Rule Britannia,' and fifteen hundred voices echoed by those on shore join in the patriotic songs. ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers
... though he had sprung from a long line of Vikings. In his boyhood his choice of games had always been pirate. You saw him, a red handkerchief binding his brow, one foot advanced, knee bent, scanning the horizon for the treasure island from the vantage point of the woodshed roof, while the crew, gone mad with thirst, snarled and shrieked all about him, and the dirt yard below became a hungry, roaring sea. His twelve-year-old vocabulary boasted such compound difficulties ...
— Cheerful—By Request • Edna Ferber
... was a moving element in his nature. From a vantage point behind a table, however, he ventured: "Then what ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... especially by men and women of broad, liberal culture, men and women whose lives have been enriched by the best there is in literature, history, art, science, and philosophy, and who know life, and are in warm sympathy with young life. Teachers thus equipt are able, from their high vantage point, to reach out here and there and take as educative material that which will contribute to the beautiful and strong development of each case at hand. And such an equipment, on its academic side, comes not short of the master's degree, ...
— On the Firing Line in Education • Adoniram Judson Ladd
... shaking her curly head vigorously, as she reluctantly abandoned her vantage point and came slowly toward Mollie. "No mischief 'tall. ...
— The Outdoor Girls at Bluff Point - Or a Wreck and a Rescue • Laura Lee Hope
... client as well as the fee of the wealthy. He had risen from hospitals to police courts, coroner's court, and criminal courts, at last attaining the dignity of offices opposite an entrance to the criminal courts building, from which vantage point his underlings surveyed the scene of operations like ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... to give him a just hearing. It is all a matter of their confidence in him. Whether the speaker finds it already in the warm, expectant look of his hearers, or must win to it against opposition or coldness, he must gain that one great vantage point before his suggestions take on power in the hearts of his listeners. Confidence ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... bird-like eyes condescended to dwell for a few seconds in silence on the splendid panorama in front. The Lusitania had passed through the Narrows before the two young men had strolled along the upper deck of the great steamship to the 'vantage point of a gangway which made a half-circle around the commander's quarters. Already the Statue of Liberty loomed majestically over the port bow, and the wide expanse of the Hudson River was framed by the wooded slopes of Staten Island, the low shores of New Jersey, and the heights of ...
— One Wonderful Night - A Romance of New York • Louis Tracy
... Montcalm, "but that is a matter which rests with the Governor. I have no concern in it; and when such is the case, I offer no advice and take no part in the arrangements. Doubtless I shall see what is going on from some vantage point; but Monsieur de Vaudreuil will not take counsel with ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... ninth century after Christ, and in reality is not a temple, but a so-called dagoba, dedicated to the keeping of some Buddhist sacred relic which was deposited in the dome, its principal part. In the beautiful light of afternoon the walk through the galleries was especially impressive. From that vantage point there is presented a fine, extensive view of a peaceful landscape, and at the time of my visit an actively smoking volcano in the far distance added a picturesque feature. In the vicinity is another noble Hindu structure, ...
— Through Central Borneo: - An Account of Two Years' Travel in the Land of Head-Hunters - Between the Years 1913 and 1917 • Carl Lumholtz
... relations came from all over the Province of Ontario to see the regiment off for the front. I have seen many crowds in my life, and excited ones at that, but the crowd that covered the Don Bridge above the station and every available vantage point and avenue that led to our train that afternoon was by long odds the largest. It was estimated that 100,000 gathered to see us off. The farewell the people gave us was very touching. There were no tears, no wailing, but cheers, earnestness and good will, and a hearty send-off. ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... the vantage point gained by a few hours' toil on a bare Colorado mountain-side, that ninth of March seemed to have withdrawn into a fathomless past. I was no longer a hunted vagabond; I was breathing the free clean air of a new environment, and in the narrow pit beside me a fortune ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... many minutes studying the empty prairie from the vantage point of that ridge, however. The keynote of Irish's nature was action. He sent his horse down the southern slope to the level, and began looking for tracks, which is the range man's guide-book. He was not long in finding a broad trail, in the grass where ...
— The Flying U's Last Stand • B. M. Bower
... around the corner of the stockade, out of sight, and from that vantage point he took scores of pictures, as the tame animals led the wild ones into the fenced enclosure. Then began another wild scene as the gate ...
— Tom Swift and his Wizard Camera - or, Thrilling Adventures while taking Moving Pictures • Victor Appleton
... which we stood was as soft as a sponge, so no harm could befall either of us should we be thrown. At any rate, such was my thought. So becoming a little exasperated at Wilfred's clever strategems, I became somewhat rough, and taking him from a vantage point I had gained I threw him down with ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... from his quiet vantage point of observation says—"The present civilization arms us with the forces of earth, air and water, while it weakens our hold upon the sources ...
— Home Missions In Action • Edith H. Allen
... From this vantage point we could see the entire length of the line of battle. The attack began shortly after daylight. Near Caloocan the Insurgent works were close in, but further off toward La Loma they were in some places distant a mile or more from ...
— The Philippines: Past and Present (vol. 1 of 2) • Dean C. Worcester
... plane, he now gazes back over the path from the spiritual heights and sees the winding road that led upward to the elevation, much as a traveller on the mountain top looks back and for the first time sees all of the devious trail over which he has, climbed to his present vantage point. During the journey there had been many times when he could only see the next step ahead, and nothing but his faith in the assurance of his fellow men who had attained the summit of that mountain, could ever have sustained him through the perils of the climb, but ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... stand to the town, and from the stand again around the promontory on the south, was thronged with spectators, while every vantage point fairly in view was occupied by them; even the ships were pressed into the service; and somehow the air over and about the bay seemed to give back and tremble with the eagerness of ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... inscription on his temple is dated 23 February, 1825, A.D. 'I suppose', remarks Cunningham, 'that the vagrant instinct of the old Banjara preferred a jungle site. No doubt he got the ground cheap; and from this vantage point he was able to supply Mirzapur with both wood and charcoal.' (A.S.R., vol. xxi, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... From the vantage point of a huge pair of sheer-legs Barry reconnoitered. He saw the last muddy toiler crawl from beneath the keel and scramble ashore. It was getting rapidly dusk as the sun dipped, and a lone figure high ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... rose quietly, soundlessly. The ground dropped slowly away, then faster; and as we swung about I saw the hilltop beneath us. Its sides were lined with waving spectators; stricken momentarily with awe at the apparition of Tarrano, they had already forgotten it; from every vantage point of Industriana ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... to see a detachment of the troopers making their way on hands and knees out among the rocks. Their object was what Bud had stated—to get in the rear of the Indians and not only attack them from that vantage point but also to prevent a retreat with the captives, in case Rosemary and Floyd were ...
— The Boy Ranchers Among the Indians - or, Trailing the Yaquis • Willard F. Baker
... in the trenches, digging the flying sap by night and deepening it by day, for officers and men alike. From heaven a host of blue ants could be seen toiling in zigzags forward, ever forward, along the rude water-cuts and through the hills. A waiting carrion from her vantage point on high marked one spot then another where the blue ants disappeared, and again one by one came out of the burrow to hurry down the trench,—each with ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Even as President, with the most fascinating possible vantage point, there were times when I was so busy helping to manage progress and lead change that I didn't always show the joy that was in my heart But the biggest thing that has happened in the world in my life, ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Mary, from her vantage point at the desk across from him, smiled a smile that would have been very engaging to any man under more favorable circumstances, and she pushed in his direction ...
— Within the Law - From the Play of Bayard Veiller • Marvin Dana
... home at lunchtime a bit late and called Allison from the table to give him an excited account in a low tone of something that had happened that morning. Julia Cloud, from her vantage point at the head of the table, could see the flash in her eye and the brilliant flush of the soft cheeks as she talked and wondered what new trouble had come to the dear child. Then she noted the sudden stern set of Allison's jaw and the squaring of shoulder as he listened ...
— Cloudy Jewel • Grace Livingston Hill
... way. In the early sixties a score or so of refineries had started in this town, many of which were making large profits. It is not surprising that Rockefeller, gazing at these black and evil-smelling buildings from the vantage point of his commission office, should have felt an impulse to join in the gamble. He plunged into this new activity at the age of twenty-three. He possessed two great advantages over most of his adventurous competitors; ...
— The Age of Big Business - Volume 39 in The Chronicles of America Series • Burton J. Hendrick
... how early you could be ready. We must get up the course in good season this afternoon in order to secure a vantage point. Mrs. Boynton wants you all—yes—the whole bunch, to come over to the Griswold for an early luncheon. Mrs. Star will be with her and we'll shove off right afterward. Now NO protests," as Captain Stewart seemed ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... gratification of lust and greed came, only when the Sudan lost its independence and passed under English rule. Yet this well-meaning little sonneteer sincerely felt that his verses were issued in the cause of humanity. Looking back from the vantage point of a score of years, probably every one will agree that he was an absurd person. But he was not one whit more absurd than most of the more prominent persons who advocate disarmament by the United States, the ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... appeals to the men of to-day from the vantage point of extreme old age. Age is so frequently dotage, that when a veteran appears who preserves the heart of a boy and the happy audacity of youth, under the 'lyart haffets wearing thin and bare' of aged manhood, it seems as if there is something supernatural about it, and ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... is connected so intimately with that of Loaisa, it is thought better to present it separately therefrom, as a whole, inasmuch as this was the first expedition fitted out in the New World for the islands in the far East. It is evident thus early that the vantage point of New Spain's position as regards these islands was clearly recognized. The letter from Cortes to the king of Cebu is given entire, as being somewhat more closely within the scope of this work ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... along the ledge and, rounding a corner, faced the end of one of the slender bridges. From this vantage point the oddly shaped vehicles were plain, and we could see they were, indeed, like the shell of the Nautilus and elfinly beautiful. Their drivers sat high upon the forward whorl. Their bodies were piled high with cushions, upon which lay women half-swathed in gay silken webs. From ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... be a picturesque, spacious house artistically situated at the vantage point of a domain of twenty acres and furnished with the soothing elegancies of modern ingenuity and taste. Among the attractions were a terrace garden, a well-accoutred stable, a tennis court, and a steam yacht. Mrs. Dale, who had prefaced her invitation by informing her husband that she ...
— The Law-Breakers and Other Stories • Robert Grant
... some workmen were living who could not, and did not feel it necessary to, leave. They went up on a hill from which they could scan the whole country up to the range from behind which the Red detachment must appear. From this vantage point in the forest one of the workmen came running in and ...
— Beasts, Men and Gods • Ferdinand Ossendowski
... decreased noticeably once they became fat. About two days after any new fly colony was placed in the terrarium, a salamander would take up a position just inside the lip of the milk bottle, which was placed on its side. From this vantage point the salamanders took heavy toll of the fly populations, ...
— Natural History of the Salamander, Aneides hardii • Richard F. Johnston
... vantage point, before he slipped townward to his monotonous duties, Starratt stood, shading his eyes, watching the stately exit of this maritime giant. This was a morning for starting adventure...for setting out upon a quest!... He had been stirred before to such Homeric longings ... ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... with the enemy's main force. Other patrols are sometimes sent out to prevent hostile detachments from approaching the outposts; they endeavor to locate the hostile patrols, drive them back, preventing them from gaining any vantage point from which they can observe the outpost line. These are called combat patrols and have an entirely different ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... and Everley had been witnesses from the vantage point of a soap box. Now suddenly the boy caught his friend's arm and ...
— Samuel the Seeker • Upton Sinclair
... follow. Then he spun around, ran again to his former vantage point, and sent a couple of bullets towards the ...
— The Radio Boys with the Revenue Guards • Gerald Breckenridge
... pay plenty well enough," replied Newmark decidedly, "and it gives us a vantage point to work from. You don't suppose we are going to quit at river driving, do you? We want to look around for some timber of our own; there's where the big money is. And perhaps we can buy a schooner or two and go ...
— The Riverman • Stewart Edward White
... or as a group, they were an absorbing study to the man who had seen so little of their kind for so long past, yet knew that kind by the wontedness of his lifetime. He seemed to himself somehow to be viewing them all, for the first time, from a vantage point he had never before occupied. Every word they said in their pleasantly modulated, well-bred voices, with the familiar accent of the educated environment from which they came, and from which he came—it was his accent, too, but somehow it sounded a bit ...
— The Brown Study • Grace S. Richmond
... this vantage point could pick out the intricate succession of lanes and highroad that he must take to cross the river and reach John Massey's place, showing from here as only a dot of a gray house at the angle of the stream. The sunshine was very clear and hot over the valley below, ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... possibility, he noticed that at the spot where the path, having serpentined down the little hillside, rejoined the main footway there was a bench so placed that its occupant would have a view along several avenues at once. Since it was obviously a vantage point for such strategy as his, he had taken the first steps down toward it when a little gray figure emerged from behind a group of blue Norway spruces. She went dejectedly to the bench, sitting down at an extreme ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... to the east as they looked down upon it, a great sweep of rolling hills sprinkled with big oaks looking like shrubs from their vantage point, cut in two by the Big Little River, along the banks of which and out in the meadow lands many herds of cattle ranged free. Rising in his stirrup Smith pointed out to her the spot near the centre of the big range where Buck Thornton's "range house" was, ...
— Six Feet Four • Jackson Gregory
... had been transferred into the city hall, and the officer volunteered to see to it that Joe and his friends would find a good vantage point from where they could watch a Canadian court trial. Joe accepted the officer's kind offer, and the latter opened a path through the densely crowded court room for the McDonalds, who were soon standing at the railing that separated the ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... From the vantage point of Presidio Heights, one may see this panorama of the Exposition and catch the symmetry of arrangement in the walls of the palaces, in the graceful lines of the towers and in the impressive contour of the domes. The effect is largely due to the ground plan, distinguished for its balance and poise, ...
— The Architecture and Landscape Gardening of the Exposition • Louis Christian Mullgardt
... no strategic reason that demanded the Philippines unless the United States desired to have an operating base near to the vast resources and the developing markets of China. As a vantage point from which to wage commercial and military aggression in the Far East, the Philippines may possess certain advantages. There is no other excuse for their conquest and retention by the United States save the economic excuse of advantages ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... a stunning green automobile!" I exclaimed. From my vantage point on the steps I could look down on him, and there came over me a great longing to run my fingers gently through that crisp blond hair, and to bring his head down close against my breast for one exquisite moment. So—"Landladies and oitermobiles!" ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber
... the men at the braces in mournful monotone. Bang went the wet sail against the mast, and the second mate from his vantage point watched her slowly come up to wind. Slowly—slowly—the towering seas came pouring aboard—she took it in by the deck-house by ton loads, and the men all hung on to the nearest thing handy for dear life. Slowly, slowly her nose ...
— The Moving Finger • Mary Gaunt
... house was on the same side of the street with the boys, and as Lena came opposite it she crossed over. Bob and Hugh stopped short under a large maple tree whose trunk cast a shadow affording ample protection from a nearby arclight. From this vantage point they watched ...
— Bob Cook and the German Spy • Tomlinson, Paul Greene
... ducks . . . "because they were such untidy birds". . . and the house had not been in use for some years, save as an abode of correction for setting hens. Although scrupulously whitewashed it had become somewhat shaky, and Anne felt rather dubious as she scrambled up from the vantage point of a keg placed on ...
— Anne Of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... balcony looking longingly toward the rose-colored palace where his every ambition centred; but he felt the glittering, jeweled eyes of the patron saint of Venice glare upon him mockingly from his vantage point upon the column, while the very twist of the out-thrust tongue insinuated a personal message of ...
— A Golden Book of Venice • Mrs. Lawrence Turnbull
... notorious. The roughly-shod New England soldiers tramped through the rooms and up the noble staircases on which ladies of fashion had glided when the infamous Intendant Bigot had disgraced his King and office by his profligacies. These men, establishing themselves in the cupola, found it an excellent vantage point to fire upon and ...
— Famous Firesides of French Canada • Mary Wilson Alloway
... the angle at Bar-le-Duc. General Langle held on desperately against the repeated attacks of the Duke of Wuerttemberg. Ground was lost and recovered, lost again and recovered, and every trifling vantage point of ground was fought for with a bitter intensity. Though active, with all the other armies, on September 5 and 6, 1914, it was not until September 7 that General Langle found himself strained to his utmost ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... up to amusement. From early morning the current sets towards the charming corner of the Bois where the Longchamps race-course lies, picturesquely encircled by the Seine (alive with a thousand boats), and backed by the woody slopes of Suresnes and St. Cloud. By noon every corner and vantage point of the landscape is seized upon, when, with a blare of trumpets and the rattle of cavalry, the President arrives in his turnout a la Daumont, two postilions in blue and gold, and a piqueur, preceded ...
— Worldly Ways and Byways • Eliot Gregory
... patiently from a vantage point of an old shed near both the house and the decayed pier. It was weird in the extreme, especially as we had no idea what might happen if we had success and saw something. But there was no reward for our patience. Absolutely nothing happened. ...
— The Dream Doctor • Arthur B. Reeve
... study, one could see a good Zorn, a Venom portrait, and some prints. This nook, formerly the library, had been given over to the energetic Miss Hitchcock. It was done in Shereton,—imitation, but good imitation. From this vantage point the younger generation planned an extended attack ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick
... "Sakr-el-Bahr knows them as well as I do. He has used this vantage point afore-time. It was himself who suggested that this would be the very place in which to await this ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... Juniata Valley in Pennsylvania, he can survey near Newport a scene full of meaning to one who has a taste for history. Traveling along the heights on the highway that was once the red man's trail, he can enjoy a wide prospect from this vantage point. Deep in the valley glitters the little Juniata, route of the ancient canoe and the blundering barge. Beside it lies a long lagoon, an abandoned portion of the Pennsylvania Canal. Beside this again, as though some monster had passed leaving ...
— The Paths of Inland Commerce - A Chronicle of Trail, Road, and Waterway, Volume 21 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Archer B. Hulbert |
