|
|
|
More "Defy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... sorcerer! base son of a base mother! dog of dogs! dost thou defy us? Does thy master Eblis whisper hope? Dost thou laugh at our punishments? Wilt thou fly into the air? wilt thou sink into the earth? eh, eh? Is it so, is it so?' The breathless monarch ceased, from the exhaustion of ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... defy thee! with a calm, fixed mind, All that thou canst inflict I bid thee do; Foul Tyrant both of Gods and Humankind, One only being shalt thou not subdue. 265 Rain then thy plagues upon me here, Ghastly disease, and frenzying fear; And let alternate frost and fire Eat into me, and be ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... oath the man drew his sword; but the youth laughed him to scorn as he stepped back out of reach of the formidable weapon. He well knew his advantage. Light of foot, though all unarmed, he could defy any horseman in this wooded spot. No horse could penetrate to the right or left of the narrow track. Even if the knight dismounted, the twin brothers, who knew every turn and winding of these dim forest paths, could lead him a fine dance, and then break away and ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... in Saginaw; She lives with her mother; I defy all Michigan To find such another. She's tall and fat, her hair is red, Her face is plump and pretty, She's my daisy, Sunday-best-day girl,— And her front name ...
— Cowboy Songs - and Other Frontier Ballads • Various
... lifelong experience in Wall Street, I defy any broker to produce one customer who can show a profit after three consecutive ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... There, we defy ye still, With sworn and resolute will; Courage ye cannot kill While we have breath! Stone walls your bolts may break, But, ere our souls ye shake, Of the whole land we'll make One ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... appalling temerity he clutched Tim's great miry boots to help him up and on his way round. Occasionally he swayed to and fro, with his teeth on exhibition, laughing and babbling and shrilly exclaiming, inarticulately bragging of his agile prowess, as if he were able to defy all the Quimbeys, who would not notice him. And when it was all over he went in his wriggling ursine gait back to the hearth-stone, and there he was sitting, demurely enough, and as if he had never moved, when his mother ...
— His "Day In Court" - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... long trail of fire he boasting goes, Dancing a war dance to defy his foes. His flesh is scorched, his muscles burn and shrink, But still he ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... Sprot keep it back so long, and why, having kept it back, did he, almost in his last hour, produce it, and say (if he did) that it was genuine, and his model, as it certainly was? This is the last enigma of Sprot. His motives defy my poor efforts to decipher them. Even if the substance of IV is genuine, what were Sprot's motives? I do not feel assured that Sprot really maintained the genuineness of the handwriting of Letter IV. His remark that he kept Logan's letter only till ...
— James VI and the Gowrie Mystery • Andrew Lang
... you asked me if it was a family jewel; lied but did not take it off, perhaps because it clung so tightly, as if in remembrance of the vows it symbolized. But now the very sight of it gave me a fright. With his ring on my finger I could not defy him and swear his claim to be false the dream of a man maddened by his experiences in the Klondike. It must come off. Then, perhaps, I should feel myself a free woman. But it would not come off. I struggled with it and tugged in vain; ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... oft-times affirm, there was not an oath from the great and tremendous oath of William the conqueror (By the splendour of God) down to the lowest oath of a scavenger (Damn your eyes) which was not to be found in Ernulphus.—In short, he would add—I defy a man to ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... too strong. What do you want?—It is not even moral, but it has character! And in art, after the moral idea comes character! Ah! bless me! character, that is something!—Otherwise, I disapprove. It is brutal, vulgar, that lack of ideal. I defy you to symbolize that. Love Avenging Itself Against Love—Jealousy Calling the Police to Its Aid in Order to Triumph over Dead Love! It is old, it lacks originality, it smacks of Prud'hon!—The Correggio of the decollete!—It is like Tassaert, ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Saturday night. You and her brother will be under it ready to receive her; and when you have got the lady, you will bring her aboard the ship, which shall be ready to cut and run, I tell you; up killock, sheet home, and I'll defy all the cutters in Havana to overhaul us with an hour's start! Those chaps in Stockholm are almighty particular about your health, if your papers show that you left Havana after the first of June, and so, to pull the wool over their eyes, and save myself ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... due to nervousness are entirely purposeless; they even defy the most earnest efforts at inhibition. A marked feature of this type of involuntary action is the contraction of antagonist groups of muscles, productive of ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... they do not turn deadly dangerous all in a moment, as do bears and elephants, and occasionally deer. The ape who is falling from grace goes gradually, and gives warning signs that wise men recognize. They first become strong and boisterous, then they playfully resist and defy the keeper's restraining hand. Next in order they openly become angry at their keepers over trifles, and bristle up, stamp on the floor and savagely yell. It is then that the whip and the stick become not only useless but dangerous to the user, ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... reasons which none but the Buttons of this world can appreciate, Paul was forbidden, under pain of ghastly tortures, to go near the Sunday school again, and, lest he should defy authority, he was told off on Sunday afternoons to mind the baby, either in the street or the scullery, according to the weather, while the other little Buttons were not allowed to approach him. The defection of the brilliant scholar ...
— The Fortunate Youth • William J. Locke
... of Millie! How could one so shy, so gentle, so fond of showing her dimples, cast off all timidity and set herself in opposition to her father's authority and pride? I could but argue that she was wrong, that she had forgotten her duty, thus to stand out and violently defy him, and yet I admired her for the spirit she had shown. And I believed that Guinea was just as determined, just as passionate. ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... consecrated lays, Nor meanly blush to sing Jehovah's praise. Oh! did, like thee, each laurel'd bard delight, To paint Religion in her native light, Not then with Plays the lab'ring' press would groan, Nor Vice defy the Pulpit and the Throne; No impious rhymer charm a vicious age, Nor prostrate Virtue groan beneath their rage: But themes divine in lofty numbers rise, Fill the wide earth, and echo ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... sir! You're a faithful comrade! And so hand-in-hand with you Philip, I defy the Capulet ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... practices, in order to get deliverance from the malignant spirit which he still believes has power to torment him. Many a convert has fallen on the occasion of a funeral. It takes more faith than a Westerner can realise, to defy the legions of gwei which at that time threaten your home and its inhabitants with numberless ills; and strength of mind is required to resist heathen relatives who accuse you of slighting ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... technical skill and scientific daring for its solution, while to raise the edifice, to seize the infrequent moments of low calm water for thrusting in the steel anchors and laying the heavy granite substructure on which shall rise the slender stone column that shall defy the assaults of wind and wave, demands coolness, determination, and reckless courage. Many lights have been built at such points on our coast, but the ponderous tower of Minot's Ledge, at the entrance to Boston Harbor, may well be taken ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... the police authorities have lately provided, that, in an out-of-the-way room, on a back street, the honest men of New York city may scan the faces of its thieves, and hold silent communion with that interesting part of the population which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right, or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in putting on the walls this terrible bill of attainder ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... men accepted the custom of branding cattle and horses as a matter of course. There was, in fact, nothing to do save accept it, for there was no other method of indicating the ownership of animals which could be reasonably relied on to defy the ingenuity of the thieves. Attempts to create opinion against it were regarded as sentimental and pernicious and ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... You, who dared in the dark eclipse,— When the pygmy heir of a giant name Dimmed the face of the land with shame,— Speak the truth with indignant lips, Call him little whom men called great, Scoff at him, scorn him, deny him, Point to the blood on his robe of state, Fling back his bribes and defy him! ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... The republic of America; may her administration have virtue enough to defy the ordeal of patriotic societies, and patriotism enough to cherish instead ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... was ever in such a dreadful position in the world before, Dick!" she declared. "To tolerate it seems impossible, seems wrong. But to defy Rohscheimer, with your affairs as they are, ...
— The Sins of Severac Bablon • Sax Rohmer
... come to argue right and wrong?— Why lingers Dorax thus? Where are my guards, [BENDUCAR goes out for the Guards, and returns. To drag that slave to death?— [Pointing to SEB. Now storm and rage; Call vainly on thy prophet, then defy him For wanting power ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Vol. 7 (of 18) - The Duke of Guise; Albion and Albanius; Don Sebastian • John Dryden
... noise was repeated, and a second observation laid bare the real cause thereof. The scratching of the dog had caused the bolt to fall into the socket, and this produced the noise which had disquieted him. He writes in conclusion: "Thus many events which seem to defy all explanation have really come to pass by accident, or in the course of nature. Out of such manifestations as these the unlettered, the superstitious, the timorous, and the over-hasty make for themselves miracles."[274] Again, after telling a strange story of a boy who ...
— Jerome Cardan - A Biographical Study • William George Waters
... answered with a sneer, I like the blue no better than the black, My faith consists alone in savoury cheer, In roasted capons, and in potent sack; But above all, in famous gin and clear, Which often lays the Briton on his back; With lump of sugar, and with lymph from well, I drink it, and defy the fiends of hell.' ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... here," observed the captain, as his son appeased his hunger, with the keen relish of a traveller. "Even Woods might stand a siege in a house built and stockaded like this. Every window has solid bullet-proof shutters, with fastenings not easily broken; and the logs of the buildings might almost defy round-shot. The gates are all up, one leaf excepted, and that leaf stands nearly in its place, well propped and supported. In the morning it shall be hung like the others. Then the stockade is complete, and has not a speck of decay about it yet. We shall keep a guard of twelve ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... of Scottish independence, born in Renfrewshire, second son of Sir Malcolm Wallace of Elderslie; was early seized with a desire to free his country from foreign oppressors, and ere long began to figure as chief of a band of outlaws combined to defy the authority of Edward I., who had declared himself Lord of Scotland, till at length the sense of the oppression became wide-spread, and he was appointed to lead in a general revolt, while many of the nobles held aloof or succumbed ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... would prevail; to which he responded in a strain of insolent invective against France and her designs, saying that her object was to extort concessions from us which we should never make, and that now we were strong in our alliance with the other Powers we might defy her to injure us. This letter Clarendon showed to Melbourne, who had asked him if he knew what Palmerston's feelings were (he himself knowing nothing), and he was, of course, struck with the bitterness and asperity of his ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... a lawful adventure, and for some it is an absolute duty, to follow and challenge the Presence in word and deed. Englishmen who live in her shadow have sometimes for their honour to grasp and defy her; to assume that they are bound to question her authority. India for all her unknown terror has to be wrestled with for the blessing that England requires upon the labour of the English. Though the ...
— Rudyard Kipling • John Palmer
... pet forms of the longer names, though it is not always possible to establish the connection. Many of them have double forms with a long and short vowel respectively. It is to this class that we must refer the large number of our monosyllabic surnames, which would otherwise defy interpretation. Anglo-Sax. Dodds gave Dodd, while Dodson's partner Fogg had an ancestor Focga. Other examples are Bacga, Bagg, Benna, Benn, Bota, Boot and dim. Booty, Botts, Bolt, whence Bolting, Bubba, Bubb, Budda, Budd, Bynna, Binns, Cada, Cade, Cobbs, Cobb, Coda, Coad, ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... abundance." The family, as at present arranged by Mr. J. G. Baker, of the Kew Herbarium, consists of twenty-one species, with several sub-species and varieties; all of which should be grown. They are all, with the exception of the Algerian species, which almost defy cultivation in England, most easy of cultivation—"Magna cura non indigent Narcissi." They only require after the first planting to be let alone, and then they will give us their graceful flowers in varied beauty from February to May. The first will usually be the grand N. maximus, ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... the heath, with withering brake grown o'er, Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor; From thence a length of burning sand appears, Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears; Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye; There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, And to the ragged infant threaten war; There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil; There the blue bugloss paints the sterile soil; Hardy and high, above the slender ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... England. For a meagre, powdered figure, hung with tatters, a-la-mode de Paris, to affect the airs of a coxcomb, and the importance of a sovereign, is ridiculous enough; but if it makes a man happy, why should he be laughed at? It must blunt the edge of ridicule, to see natural hilarity defy depression; and a whole nation laugh, sing, and dance, under burthens that would nearly break the firm-knit sinews of a Briton. Such was the picture of France at that period, but it was a picture which our English satirist ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... irreparable—breach between the thought and the religion of England. A comprehensive, all-embracing, truly Catholic Christianity which knows what is essential to religion, what is temporary and extraneous to it, may defy the world.' ...
— Historical and Political Essays • William Edward Hartpole Lecky
... nearly finished their work; the grave was filled up, and they were carefully replacing the turf. This done, they scattered dry leaves over the place. "And now," said the leader, "I defy the devil ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... Series, i. 365), says: "Altogether I have long since arrived at the conclusion that there are more 'devils' in a printing office than are dreamt of in our philosophy— the blunder fiends to wit—ever busy in peppering the 'formes' with errors which defy the minutest revisions of reader, author, sub-editor, and editor.'' Mr. Sala gives an instance which occurred to himself. He wrote that Dr. Livingstone wore a cap with a tarnished gold lace band; but ...
— Literary Blunders • Henry B. Wheatley
... them," she said passionately. "Send them if you like; but he wouldn't read them——" She was not conscious of the admission in her words—she only knew that the knowledge that Micky was there somewhere in the background gave her the strength to defy Ashton. ...
— The Phantom Lover • Ruby M. Ayres
... I repeated angrily. "I have done nothing of the kind. I defy you to prove it. When have you known me forget that I ...
— In the Days of My Youth • Amelia Ann Blandford Edwards
... I say, as for conclusion, That I shall have of this avision Adversity; and I say furthermore, That I ne *tell of laxatives no store,* *hold laxatives For they be venomous, I wot it well; of no value* I them defy,* I love them never ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... is over, and I have nothing to do now but to be happy. But being engaged is not half so nice as I expected it would be. I suppose it is owing to my being obliged to defy mother's judgment in order to gratify my own. People say she has great insight into character, and sees, at a glance, what others only learn after ...
— Stepping Heavenward • Mrs. E. Prentiss
... with any special equipment. A brief glance over our own records for only a few months past enables me to classify them roughly as athletic or outdoor, purely social, educational, debating, political, labor, musical, religious, charitable or civic, and expository, besides many that defy ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... on the verge of Europe and Asia. Inaccessible to the menaces of their enemies, and perhaps to the complaints of their people, they received, with each wind, the tributary productions of every climate; while the impregnable strength of their capital continued for ages to defy the hostile attempts of the Barbarians. Their dominions were bounded by the Adriatic and the Tigris; and the whole interval of twenty-five days' navigation, which separated the extreme cold of Scythia from the torrid zone of Aethiopia, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... domain. Something like this must have come into his mind—if I only can get man ruined and turn him against God, if I can make of man a rebel and lay hold on him, I shall get back the place which once was mine and then defy God. ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... clothys how euyll he was arayed, whych causyd many that stode therby to laughe apace. Than quod Skelton: yf it lyke your lordeshyp, I haue brought you a dyshe to your super, a cople of Fesantes. Nay, quod the byshop, I defy the and thy Fesantys also, and, wrech as thou art, pyke the out of my howse, for I wyll none of thy gyft how * * * * Skelton, than consyderynge that the bysshoppe called hym fole so ofte, sayd to one of hys famylyers therby that, thoughe it were euyll to be christened a fole, ...
— Shakespeare Jest-Books; - Reprints of the Early and Very Rare Jest-Books Supposed - to Have Been Used by Shakespeare • Unknown
... to prepare me for what you think will be a shock, uncle!" I answered; "but I want no preparing. Out with your worst! I defy you!" ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... be possible to achieve the aims of their policy without the risk of a conflict in arms. The Republics were "playing for time," but in another sense. They were waiting until their military preparations were sufficiently complete to allow them to defy the ...
— Lord Milner's Work in South Africa - From its Commencement in 1897 to the Peace of Vereeniging in 1902 • W. Basil Worsfold
... struggle; to accept from Dissent any rebuff, persecution, spoliation—while steadily ignoring it. In every parish my Church's attitude should be this: 'You may deny me, hate me, persecute me, strip me: but you are a Christian of this parish and therefore my parishioner; and therefore I absolutely defy you to escape my forgiveness or my love. Though you flee to the uttermost parts of the earth, you shall not escape these: by these, as surely as I am the Church, you shall be mine in the end.' . . . And do you think, Mr. Simeon, any man in England could ...
— Brother Copas • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... magic in my fairyland than I dreamed of," remarked the beautiful Ozma, with a sigh of regret. "It seems that my laws have not been obeyed, for even these monstrous spiders defy me ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... noise and more refinement. Out of the mechanical grinding of the hand organ, with the accompaniment of city omnibuses, we get the very breath of spring in almost intolerable sweetness. This poem affects the head, the heart, and the feet. I defy any man or woman to read it without surrendering to the magic of the lilacs, the magic of old memories, the magic of the poet. Nor has one ever read this poem without going immediately back to the first line, and reading ...
— The Advance of English Poetry in the Twentieth Century • William Lyon Phelps
... Missouri Synod Dr. Mann wrote in 1866: "These theological scratchbrushes (Kratzbuersten) of the West do an important work. They discipline thousands of Germans ecclesiastically, as otherwise only Catholic priests are able to do. Most of them lead a rough, self-denying life. They defy effeminate, sentimental, hazy ecclesiastical Americanism. There is a firm character here. They will not always remain as rugged as they are now. The coming generation will be English and milder in many respects. The Missourians are a power in the West, where the Germans generally are becoming ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente
... love, you are like those unpleasant persons who are resolved to torture themselves. In the first place, you have looked into medical books, which is the very height of imprudence. I defy you to read a description of any sort of disease without fancying that either you or some friends of yours have the symptoms of it. In the next place, you are mixing up things; the effects of fear and of a chronic ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... him and receive fresh books—he stayed either with Dalaber, or with Radley, the singing man; and in both their lodgings were cleverly-concealed hiding-places, where books could be stowed, that would defy all search, save that of ...
— For the Faith • Evelyn Everett-Green
... what they were told respecting the cause in which they fought: it would have been a high breach of discipline to doubt it; and they, I conceive, are men better skilled in handling a musket, than in sifting evidence, and detecting imposture. But I defy any one of them to come forward and declare, on his own knowledge, what was the cause in which he fought,—under whose commands the opposed generals acted,—and whether the person who issued those commands did really perform the mighty achievements ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... rest, and tried to defy sickness for a time, but it would not do. The strong man was obliged to succumb to a stronger than he—not, however, until he had assisted as best as he could ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... Hayne and Webster debated in Eighteen Hundred Thirty, and Grover Cleveland and John P. Altgeld fought over in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-four. The Elector Frederick prepared for a legal battle, and would defy the "Federal Arm" by force if ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... himself until he was able to puff up the cold-air flue in the stilly reaches of the night without having to grope his way back to the bed and watch the room careen about him. He did not inhale, but he had learned to imitate the process so as to defy detection, as ...
— Skippy Bedelle - His Sentimental Progress From the Urchin to the Complete - Man of the World • Owen Johnson
... consideration to be taken into account. If an article had to be bought, Mrs Webster gave consideration to strength and durability, and to strength and durability alone. In buying curtains, for instance, she sought for a nondescript colour which would defy the sun's rays, a material that would stand repeated washings, and a pattern which would conceal possible stains. A discovery that the cloth would ultimately cut up into desirable dusters was sufficient to ...
— Etheldreda the Ready - A School Story • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... turn, the change in his fellows' eyes. He knew the stern law of the pack—the instant and inevitable doom of its hurt member. The average gray wolf knows how to accept the inevitable. Fate itself—the law of the pack—he does not presume to defy. He will fight—to justify his blood, and, perhaps, to drug his despair and die in the heat of the struggle. But he does not dream of ...
— The Watchers of the Trails - A Book of Animal Life • Charles G. D. Roberts
... way. So Canada gained from the embargo much of what the Americans were losing. Quebec and Halifax swarmed with contrabandists, who smuggled back return cargoes into the New England ports, which were Federalist in party allegiance, and only too ready to evade or defy the edicts of the Democratic administration. Jefferson had, it is true, the satisfaction of inflicting much temporary hardship on cotton-spinning Manchester. But the American cotton-growing South suffered ...
— The War With the United States - A Chronicle of 1812 - Volume 14 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • William Wood
... and will rest the case mainly on the effect of an exclusively masculine handling of the two fields of history and fiction. In poetry and the drama the same influence is easily traced, but in the first two it is so baldly prominent as to defy objection. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... liquor born on my birthday, a twin to me, Whether ordained wit and mirth to put into me, Or passions that witch and defy us, Or, peradventure, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 26, 1892 • Various
... steps have been made. Scrawny firs are trying to grow where they ought not to. Quasi-natural urns overflow with captive flowers, geraniums and nasturtiums predominating. Ferns hang as gracefully as shirtings displayed in a department store window. Stone lions defy, and terra cotta stags run away from, porcelain dogs. There are bowers and ...
— Riviera Towns • Herbert Adams Gibbons
... I could stand it—I thought I could defy him; I had no idea being imprisoned was so awful. I wish I could die and make an end of it! I'd starve myself to death, only I get so dreadful hungry, and I daren't cut my throat, because the sight of blood makes me sick, and I know it must hurt. Oh, Mollie Dane, you miserable little ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... her for this, and yet it made him uneasy. A woman who could defy an edict of fashion was a new thing under the sun, and it ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... off, tick off; register, enroll, inscroll[obs3]; file &c. (store) 636. burn into memory; carve in stone. Adv. on record. Phr. exegi monumentum aere perennium [Lat][obs3][Horace]; "read their history in a nation's eyes" [Gray]; " records that defy the tooth of time ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... end must have been somewhat discreditable, for in the reports sent to the Emperor, who was daily informed of the progress of the affair, things were manifestly misrepresented. The following facts cannot be questioned: Le Chevalier had found in Paris "an impenetrable retreat where he could boldly defy all the efforts of the police;" Fouche, guessing at the feelings of the fugitive, issued a warrant against Mme. Thiboust. By whom was Le Chevalier informed in his hiding-place of his sister-in-law's arrest? It is here, evidently, that a third person intervened. However that ...
— The House of the Combrays • G. le Notre
... are told that now and then the most respectable father of a family will "side track," and go off on a jaunt with a glaringly golden-haired chorus lady! But one thing is better than with us, the eldest sons don't defy fate and marry them! When he gets to fifteen I shall begin to have nightmares in case Hurstbridge should bring me home a Gaiety daughter-in-law, though probably by then there will be such numbers of Birdie and Tottie and Rosie Peeresses, that I shall have ...
— Elizabeth Visits America • Elinor Glyn
... Shall burst its bag; and, fighting out their way, The various venoms on each other prey. The presbyter, puff'd up with spiritual pride, Shall on the necks of the lewd nobles ride: His brethren damn, the civil power defy; 300 And parcel out republic prelacy. But short shall be his reign: his rigid yoke And tyrant power will puny sects provoke; And frogs and toads, and all the tadpole train, Will croak to heaven for help, from this devouring crane. The cut-throat sword and clamorous gown ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... by Orestes, son of Agamemnon, was sent to Epirus to demand the death of Astyanax, lest in manhood he might seek to avenge his father's death. Pyrrhus told Andromache he would protect her son, and defy all Greece, if she would consent to marry him; and she yielded. While the marriage rites were going on, the Greek ambassadors fell on Pyrrhus and murdered him. As he fell he placed the crown on the head of Andromache, who ...
— Character Sketches of Romance, Fiction and the Drama, Vol 1 - A Revised American Edition of the Reader's Handbook • The Rev. E. Cobham Brewer, LL.D.
... Parlements partaking of the nature of high courts of justice, and in Germany by the local Diets (Landtag) of the larger states, exercised a very real and in some cases a decisive influence on public policy. The monarch of half the world dared not openly defy the Cortes of Aragon or of Castile; the imperious Tudors diligently labored to get parliamentary sanction for their tyrannical acts, and, on the few occasions when they could not do so, hastened to abandon as gracefully as possible their previous intentions. In Germany ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... not two eunuchs, with a few miserable women clinging about them, that they had to seize, but that they had to break through all the guards which we see lovers sometimes breaking through, when they want to get at their ladies. Hardly ever did the beauty of a young lady excite such rapture; I defy all the charms this country can furnish to produce a more wonderful effect than was produced by the hoards of these two old women, in the bosoms of Sir Elijah Impey and Mr. Middleton. "We have got," he exultingly says, "we have got to the secret hoards ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XII. (of XII.) • Edmund Burke
... home, and all the family were acquainted with a certain secret hiding place that existed, cleverly contrived in the rambling old building, which, with its various levels and its wilderness of chimneys, might well defy detection, even with the most skilled search. But the boy knew of no such passage or chamber in connection with their sleeping room, and he was sure his parents did not know of one either, or any member of the household. Therefore it was immensely surprising ...
— The Secret Chamber at Chad • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Gabriel fought, And with fierce Ensigns pierc'd the deep array Of Moloc, furious King, who him defy'd, And at his chariot wheels to drag him bound Threatened, nor from the Holy one of Heavn Refrain'd his tongue blasphemous; but anon Down cloven to the waste, with shatter'd arms ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... learn that they were to be sisters. But her own papa, how would he feel—what would he say? Only the other day he had reminded her how entirely she belonged to him—that no other had the slightest claim upon her, and as he spoke, the clasp of his arms seemed to say that he would defy the whole world to take her from him. No, he would never give her up; and somehow she was not at all miserable at the thought; but on the contrary it sent a thrill of joy to her heart; it was so sweet to be so loved and cherished by him, "her ...
— Elsie's Girlhood • Martha Finley
... Fielding. Nay, the French, from whom they were borrowed, did not talk of le sentiment in that sense till long after Louis XIV.'s reign. No such thing is to be found in Madame de Sevigne, la Bruyere, etc., etc., etc. At home or abroad I defy Lord Dundee ever to have met with the expression. Mr. Peter Pattieson had been reading the Man of Feeling, and it was a slip of his tongue, which I am less inclined to excuse than Mause's abstruse Scotch, which I duly reverence, as she did Kettledrummle's sermons, because I do not understand ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... Mexico, Where the barren volcanoes throw Their fierce peaks high to the sky, With the strength of a tawny brute That sees heaven but to defy, And the soft, white hand of the snow Touches and ...
— Dreams and Days: Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... ye servants to Saul? Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us. And the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may fight together. When Saul and all Israel heard those words of the Philistine, they were dismayed, and ...
— The Ontario Readers - Third Book • Ontario Ministry of Education
... fragments of modems (his friends with tails, wings, etc.), hastily wash his hands, trot along in front of them to his place of business, and in a brief space of time turn out some complicated legal instrument with which it would defy the sharpest critic ...
— Weird Tales, Vol. II. • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... pictures. Our object has been to take the Bible text always as our basis, to include no feature which is contradicted by it, and to introduce as many comicalities and anachronisms as possible consistently with this rule. We are therefore able to defy criticism. Bibliolators may vituperate us, persecute us, or imprison us, but they cannot refute us.. We can safely challenge them to prove that a single incident happened otherwise than we have depicted it. We can candidly say to them—"The thing must ...
— Comic Bible Sketches - Reprinted from "The Freethinker" • George W. Foote
... holders, to the remark that this event hushed the old slander about inferior natures in the negro, thence to the philosophy of slavery, and so through many detached thoughts to the end. It was nearly two hours long, but was very commanding. He looked genial and benevolent, as who should smilingly defy the world, the flesh, and the devil to ensnare him. The address will be published by the society; and he will probably write it more fully, and chisel it into fitter grace for the public criticism. He spoke of ...
— Early Letters of George Wm. Curtis • G. W. Curtis, ed. George Willis Cooke
... agreed. Paulsberg very seldom said that much; usually he sat, distant and unfathomable, and listened without speaking; he was respected by all. Only Irgens thought he could defy him; he was always ready ...
— Shallow Soil • Knut Hamsun
... seems before a hallowed shrine; Yet not the majesty of Art it feels, But Nature's law divine— The presence of her mighty Architect! Who piled these pyramidal hills sublime, That still, pure moon, thy radiance will reflect, And still defy the crumbling touch of Time: Who built this temple of gigantic trees, Where Nature's worshipers repair To pray the heart's unuttered prayer, Whose veiled thought the great ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 5 November 1848 • Various
... which he and the cause finally went down together, had not yet done their work. There were many murmurers at real, many growlers at supposed, errors; but no opposition party—truer to itself and its interests than to the cause—had yet been organized on a basis strong enough to defy and ...
— Four Years in Rebel Capitals - An Inside View of Life in the Southern Confederacy from Birth to Death • T. C. DeLeon
... your knowledge places at the command of your art, what would you give for one which would enable you to defy and to deride a rival where you place your affections, which could lock to yourself, and imperiously control, the will of the being whom you desire to fascinate, by an ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... a sharp upward look, his eyes seemed to push away that fat chap's curiosity, and defy him to see the bitter ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... understand it. It all seems impossible. You resolve to believe that a widow never burnt herself willingly, but went to her death because she was afraid to defy public opinion. But you are not able to keep that position. History drives you from it. Major Sleeman has a convincing case in one of his books. In his government on the Nerbudda he made a brave attempt on the 28th of March, 1828, to put down Suttee on his own ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... Here springs the temple grand, Whose mighty arches take in all the land! Its twilight aisles stretch far away and reach 'Mid lights and shadows which defy my speech: And near its portal which Morn opened wide— Grey Janitor!—to let in all this tide Of prayerful men, most solemnly there stands One recollection, which, for pious hands Is ready like the Minster's sculptured vase, With holy ...
— A Wreath of Virginia Bay Leaves • James Barron Hope
... asked himself that perplexing question! All the pursuing demons seemed to shout it in his ears, and defy him to answer. If she had escaped the perils he most dreaded, where had she hidden herself? Perhaps she had only taken out a passport for England, with a view of throwing those who sought to track her steps, off the right scent. If she had gone to England, her passport must have been vised ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... lips curled into a more and more decided smile, till at last she took off her hat, leaned forward and kissed the cold glass which had looked so warm. How could she believe in sorrow? If it attacked her, she felt the force to crush it, to defy it, or run away from it, as she had done already. Anything seemed more possible than that she could go on bearing miseries, great ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... heaven is from hell between the conduct of the Divine Master who "went about healing all that were oppressed," and the man who prostitutes the healing art to the service of libertines, in making it healthier, if possible, for them to defy the commandments of that same Divine Master. Such doctors are the offscouring of ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... to believe that the bulk of the Democrats in both Houses of Congress, who had the virtue to defy the threats and cajolements of their party-leaders, when this great public crime was demanded at their hands, were sincere in the resistance they opposed to this subversion of all the principles in which they had been bred, and of which their party had always professed to be the special defence and ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... by his mother and sister on his return from Massachusetts. He had grown to a handsome young man, whose daring blue eye and bold, honest face seemed born to defy tyrants. Rebecca, his sister, was a beautiful maiden, just budding into womanhood. She possessed her father's quiet, gentle, modest demeanor with her mother's beauty. Her great dark eyes were softer than her mother's, ...
— The Real America in Romance, Volume 6; A Century Too Soon (A Story - of Bacon's Rebellion) • John R. Musick
... have been central and southern Italy and the worst-administered parts of Spain, except those which fell into the hands of the Turks. "Whenever numerous troops of banditti, multiplied by success and impunity, publicly defy, instead of eluding, the justice of their country, we may safely infer that the excessive weakness of the government is felt and abused by the lowest ranks of the community," is the judgment passed by Gibbon on the disorders of Sicily in ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... spiritual tyrannies, weak men repine at them, and great men break them down. But to defy the world is a serious business, and requires the greatest courage, even if the defiance touch in the first place only the world's ideals. Most men's conscience, habits, and opinions are borrowed from convention and gather continual comforting ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... men-at-arms the most desperate ruffians, outlaws and outcasts whom he could collect, mostly men under sentence of banishment or death for highway robbery and murder, whose only chance of escaping torture and death lay in risking life and limb for a master strong enough to defy the law, the 'bargello' and the executioner, in his own house or castle, where such henchmen were lodged and fed, and were controlled by nothing but fear of the Baron himself, of his sons, when they were ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... fairly well, sir, in our youth; but you will allow me to observe that neither I nor any friend of yours ever heard of a wife or a son. I defy Sir Charles Tregellis to say that he ever dreamed that there ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Mr. Steadman harshly, "you defy me then, and when you defy me, you defy the Government of the Province, the arm of the Government reaches far—Driggs, and you know that before you are done, I'll put you out of business before two weeks have gone by. You owe every one—you owe the paper people—you owe on your printing press. ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... passion is this? Why, Nigel, this is King Cambyses' vein!—You have frequented the theatres too much lately—Away with this folly, man; go, dine upon soup and salad, drink succory-water to cool your blood, go to bed at sun-down, and defy those foul fiends, Wrath ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... "I defy you to find one that isn't improved and finished and rounded off by an Amen at the end." He selected a hymn at random, and sang a stanza in his rich voice that poured itself out gloriously ...
— The End of the Rainbow • Marian Keith
... and again his wild demoniac laugh pealed out through the black loneliness of the night. "No, I don't intend to kill you. I want to see you suffer and die by inches. I want you to call upon God to help you, so that I can mock at you, and defy Him to ...
— The Ebbing Of The Tide - South Sea Stories - 1896 • Louis Becke
... traitor brood. Whose patriot arm hurl'd down Hbert and Rousin, and the villain friends 25 Of Danton, foul apostate! those, who long Mask'd treason's form in liberty's fair garb, Long deluged France with blood, and durst defy Omnipotence! but I it seems am false! I am a traitor too! I—Robespierre! 30 I—at whose name the dastard despot brood Look pale with fear, and call on saints to help them! Who dares accuse me? who shall dare belie My spotless name? ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Samuel Taylor Coleridge - Vol I and II • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... drunkard frae his whusky, the deboshed frae his debosh, the sweirer frae his aiths, the leear frae his lees; and giena ony o' them ower muckle o' yer siller at ance, for fear 'at they grow fat an' kick an' defy God and you. That's my advice ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... come, and bid them welcome, and you will see them pouring in from the north, from the south, from the east, and from the west; your wildernesses will be cleared and settled, your deserts will smile, your ranks will be filled, and you will soon be in a condition to defy ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... the astonishment of all. "We spent our youth together. I see him in my mind's eye, Sire, throw down the gauntlet in Nell's name and defy the world for her. Fill the cups. We'll drink to my new-found hero! Fill! Fill! To Beau Adair, as you love me, gallants! Long ...
— Mistress Nell - A Merry Tale of a Merry Time • George C. Hazelton, Jr.
... shouldn't I draw up a chair before the fire for you, and another for myself, with the cigarettes and a world between us, to discuss conditions as they are, not as they might be if we were discovered? Shall I? Good! I defy any one's father to get me out of this chair until I am ready to relinquish ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... stood near—still maintaining a silence worthy of Eastern mutes; and Gascoyne, feeling that he was completely in their power, stepped quickly into the boat, and sat down beside the "individual" referred to by Dick, who was so completely enveloped in the folds of a large cloak as to defy recognition. But the pirate captain was too much occupied with his own conflicting thoughts and feelings to bestow more than a passing glance on the person who sat at his side. Indeed, it was not surprising that Gascoyne was greatly perplexed by all ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... the advancing army, which penetrated to his capital. Dhuspas was soon captured, but Sharduris took refuge in his rocky citadel which he and his predecessors had laboured to render impregnable. There he was able to defy the might of Assyria, for the fortress could be approached on the western side alone by a narrow path between high walls and towers, so that only a small force could find room to operate against ...
— Myths of Babylonia and Assyria • Donald A. Mackenzie
... find no easy task on't Alone; come both together, I defy you! Curse on this disguise, that has betrayed me Thus ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. II • Edited by Walter Scott
... northern continent into the Mediterranean, at least taken as a whole. Even there however—in the north and west of Spain, in the valleys of the Ligurian Apennines and the Alps, and in the mountains of Macedonia and Thrace—tribes wholly or partially free continued to defy the lax Roman government. Moreover the continental communication between Spain and Italy as well as between Italy and Macedonia was very superficially provided for, and the countries beyond the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Balkan chain—the great river basins of the Rhone, the Rhine, and ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... outlast them all, praise God!" replied the Doctor. "As a 'Government of the people, for the people, and by the people shall not perish from the earth,' so shall our flag and staff defy all the Arctic storms that ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... especially Louis and I, and many times we had been punished for it, for disobedience in my father's eyes was the greatest of all crimes; but never had we dared to defy him openly. ...
— Paula the Waldensian • Eva Lecomte
... will may dictate? Have you come to join yourself to those miserable spectres who go shrinking through the world, afraid of their own past, and anxious to hide it from those they hold dear; or do you propose to defy the world, to help form within it the community of outcasts with whom shame is not shame, nor dishonor, dishonor? How will you like the society of those uncertain men, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... our drawings. If the variations from strict accuracy made under the influence of feeling are too great, the result will be a caricature. The variations in a beautiful drawing are so subtle as often to defy detection. The studies of Ingres are an instance of what I mean. How true and instinct with life are his lines, and how easily one might assume that they were merely accurate. But no merely accurate work would have the impelling quality these drawings possess. ...
— The Practice and Science Of Drawing • Harold Speed
... genial was the weather that certain lads, imbued with that spirit of lawlessness and adventure which seems inherent in the nature of the young Briton, had conspired together to defy the authority of their schoolmaster by playing truant from afternoon school and going to bathe in Firestone Bay. And it was while these lads were dressing, after revelling in their stolen enjoyment, that their attention was attracted by the appearance of a tall ship gliding up the Sound before ...
— The Cruise of the Nonsuch Buccaneer • Harry Collingwood
... saide thus; "By God that sitt'th above, *N'ere it* that thou art sick, and wood for love, *were it not* And eke that thou no weap'n hast in this place, Thou should'st never out of this grove pace, That thou ne shouldest dien of mine hand. For I defy the surety and the band, Which that thou sayest I have made to thee. What? very fool, think well that love is free; And I will love her maugre* all thy might. *despite But, for thou art a worthy gentle knight, And *wilnest to darraine her by bataille*, ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... nations, desperate in their greed, banded together to defy our old German God, and destroy His chosen people. But this was only a divine trial of our worth, for the plans of God are for eternity. His days to us are centuries. And we did well to patiently abide the complete unfoldment of ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... more or less, equal and free. Equal because a man on a horse would feel himself a man indeed; because the art of riding called out an independence, a self-help, a skill, a consciousness of power, a personal pride and vanity, which would defy slavery. Free, because a tribe of riders might be defeated, exterminated, but never enchained. They could never become gleboe adscripti, bound to the soil, as long as they could take horse and saddle, and away. History ...
— The Ancien Regime • Charles Kingsley
... misunderstand the position of Virginia. She is armed to the teeth, and she now proposes to step in between the Government and the States. I understand her attitude. It is an attitude of menace. It gives aid and comfort to those who trample upon the laws and defy the authority ...
— A Report of the Debates and Proceedings in the Secret Sessions of the Conference Convention • Lucius Eugene Chittenden
... I. "I defy you or any man to remain unchanged by it. The world is just catching up to this brave pioneer. At that time there were very few scientific men in the metapsychical field. Sir William stood almost alone. ...
— The Shadow World • Hamlin Garland
... was familiar to each one present, and Father Cuthbert intoned it in a stentorian voice, particularly those portions of the 91st Psalm which seemed to defy the Evil One, and he recited just as if he ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... had been done, and no one knew that the Six-Cross-Roads people had done it—even if something had happened to Mr. Harkless. He declared that he spoke in Harkless's name. Nothing could distress him so much as for them to defy the law, to take it out of the proper hands. ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... shoulders, but did not commit himself by acknowledging that he had, more than once, regretted his omission to claim the property while legally in his hands, and defy Jasper to wrest ...
— True Riches - Or, Wealth Without Wings • T.S. Arthur
... determined to take the former course and to defy King Lud. Other manufacturers used steam, and why should not he? It was annoying to him in the extreme that his friends and acquaintances, knowing that he had fitted the mill with the new plant, were always asking him why he ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... injury lie for it, and rather resolve the contrary. And Francis I. of France, who first set on and stamped this disgrace so deep, is taxed by the judgment of all wise writers for beginning the vanity of it; for it was he, that when he had himself given the lie and defy to the Emperor, to make it current in the world, said in a solemn assembly, "that he was no honest man that would bear the lie," which was the fountain of ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... bit of change has taken place in me for the last thirty years. I defy any man to show the contrary. But that's neither here nor there; you are no young woman, Jack, that I need be boasting of my health and beauty before you. I want a bit of real sarvice from you, and want it done in old-times fashion; ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... Darrell, and wondered if I could defy her to her face, or whether I had better wait until I could speak to Mr. Hamilton. If Gladys were really taking her sleeping-draught, my presence in her room might excite her. If I could only know if she were ...
— Uncle Max • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... the house or furniture but I have heard her at her return home make sport and jeer at whatever she had before commended; and I have been told by other gentlemen in livery that it is the same in their families: but I defy the wisest man in the world to turn a true good action into ridicule. I defy him to do it. He who should endeavour it would be laughed at himself, instead of making others laugh. Nobody scarce doth any good, yet they all agree in praising those who do. Indeed, it is strange that all men ...
— Joseph Andrews, Vol. 2 • Henry Fielding
... type,—something like that of a faithful dog that refuses to leave the grave of its master,—he could contemplate death for himself with absolute indifference,—but not for the bonde, whose sturdy strength and splendid physique had seemed to defy all danger. ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... me, and be secure from all kinds of incursions and interruptions. Antoinette's one-eyed cat could not scratch for admittance; Antoinette herself could not enter under pretext of domestic economics and lure me into profitless gossip; and I could defy Carlotta, who is growing to be as pervasive as the smell of pickles over Crosse & Blackwell's factory. She comes in without knocking, looks at picture-books, sprawls about doing nothing, smokes my best cigarettes, hums tunes which she has picked up from barrel-organs, ...
— The Morals of Marcus Ordeyne • William J. Locke
... amount to five in the year. It has not been a question of property, but of feeling. It has been a political point; and the South has conceived—and probably conceived truly—that this resolution on the part of Northern States to defy the law with reference to slaves, even though in itself it might not be immediately injurious to Southern property, was an insertion of the narrow end of the wedge. It was an action taken against slavery—an ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... by a single argument, and which, by its very nature, lies beyond the experience of the human understanding. It is sufficiently easy, indeed, to form any proposition, concerning which we are ignorant, just not so absurd as not to be contradictory in itself, and defy refutation. The possibility of whatever enters into the wildest imagination to conceive is thus triumphantly vindicated. But it is enough that such assertions should be either contradictory to the ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the one on the other;—and perhaps, also—(Plato saw farther into that mystery than any one has since, that I know of),—on something a little way within the eyes; but we may stand quite safe, close behind the retina, and defy ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... would say to myself, 'There may or there may not be supernatural beings, who, from some physical derangement of the ordinary nature of things, make themselves obnoxious to living people; if there are, d—n them! There may be vampyres; and if there are, I defy them.' Let the imagination paint its very worst terrors; let fear do what it will and what it can in peopling the mind with horrors. Shrink from nothing, and even then I ...
— Varney the Vampire - Or the Feast of Blood • Thomas Preskett Prest
... Pathfinder," observed the old sailor, "this berth would be snug enough; for, to give the devil his due, you have got the canoes handsomely landlocked, and into moorings that would defy a monsoon. The only hardship is the denial of ...
— The Pathfinder - The Inland Sea • James Fenimore Cooper
... parent of a thousand unnamed anxieties? It will be difficult to answer. The heart of man is one of those strange creations, so various in its moods, so infinite in its ramifications, so subtle and sudden in its transitions, as to defy investigation as certainly as it refuses remedy and relief. It is enough to say that, with one schooled as mine had been, injuriously, and with injustice, there is little certainty in any of its movements. It becomes habitually capricious, feeds upon passions intensely, ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... our head are numbered, but those which emanate from your heart defy arithmetic. I would send longer thanks but your young man is blowing his ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb (Vol. 6) - Letters 1821-1842 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... you wish to put it in that form, I defy you to arrest me. I repeat that I should be very glad to have you ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... Feeling as we do, that though we have left the school, we still, in the truest sense, belong to it, we can but testify our gratitude to those whose courage and skill have carried it safely through such a crisis, and converted a great misfortune into a proof that it is strong enough to defy accidents. Our confidence in the Headmaster is, as always, entire and unabated, and we are sure that the school which he has so successfully led to Borth will come back under the same leadership, with its vigour undiminished, to its ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... guilty towards him and others during the preceding days. She grew restive occasionally, but on the whole she bore it well. Her arrogance was not of the small-minded sort; and the best chance with her was to defy her. ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... the racket in the library, other servants were now clamouring at the locked door, for Holden had slipped his left hand behind him and turned the key. Brett similarly closed the window. They were five to one, but the one seemed to defy them. ...
— The Stowmarket Mystery - Or, A Legacy of Hate • Louis Tracy
... open as he lifted it over the Squire's head. "God's church," he repeated. "In whose service, sir, I defy you. Go! or if you will, and have the courage, come and stand while I kneel amid the ruin you have done and pray God to ...
— The Ship of Stars • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... which is what no other bird can do, neither the rook, nor the hawk, nor the crow, nor could even the raven, when he lived in this country. This is a very great advantage to Kapchack, for he has thus a fortress to retreat to, into which no one can enter, and he can defy everybody; and this is a great help to him as king. It is also one reason why he lives so long, though perhaps there is another reason, which I cannot, really I dare not, even hint at; it is such a dreadful secret, I should have my ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... dancing step, and with a light grace and gaiety of heart, that would have subdued the goddess of spleen in her worst humour. After these came a group of fantastic figures, some dressed as gondolieri, others as minstrels, while others seemed to defy all description. They sung in parts, their voices accompanied by a few soft instruments. At a little distance from the portico they stopped, and Emily distinguished the verses of Ariosto. They sung of the wars of the Moors ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... voice went up Strongly and fervently. He prayed for those Whose love had been his shield; and his deep tones. Grew tremulous. But oh! for Absalom— For his estranged, misguided Absalom— The proud, bright being who had burst away In all his princely beauty, to defy The heart that cherished him—for him he poured, In agony that would not be controlled, Strong supplication, and forgave him there, Before his God, for his deep sinfulness. The pall was settled. He who slept beneath Was straightened for the grave; and ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... its importance or as to the fitness of sacrificing the lives of the lowlier creatures in any way that may be necessary for the advancement of knowledge. In the last half century there has been an improvement in the treatment and prevention of diseases so great as almost to defy adequate description. To take only the last of these precious gains, that in relation to the treatment of diphtheria, the gain has been such that although the process is not past its experimental stage the reduction of the mortality in hospitals where the remedy is used has lowered the death ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... judicial air, "it's a question whether it's worse to defy the fate that lurks in that unlucky number, or to accept the doubtful blessing of another twig to the already ...
— The Doctor - A Tale Of The Rockies • Ralph Connor
... sixpences and shillin's, in the way of small gifts; and last of all an Englishman. All these I despise; but let this Signore say but the word, in the way of trade, and he'll find me as ready and expairt as he can wish. I'd defy the devil ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... "Ah! you defy me, little one! Caramba! Listen, then! You do not know all! When you thought I was only helping you to fabricate your claim to the Arguellos' name, I was finding out WHO YOU REALLY WERE! Ah! It was not so difficult as you fondly hope, senora. We were not all brutes and fools ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... And Blackbird and Turtle with voice of pine; Ring-dove and Culver, and eke Hazar, * And Kata calling on Quail vicine; So fill with the mere and the cups make bright * With bestest liquor, that boon benign;— This site and sources and scents I espy * With Rizwan's garden compare defy." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... distinguishing the races are entirely transmitted by social heredity, it is maintained that this is very largely the case—far more largely than is usually perceived or admitted. Such inherent differences, if they exist, are so vague and intangible as practically to defy discovery and clear statement, and may be ...
— Evolution Of The Japanese, Social And Psychic • Sidney L. Gulick
... from their ancestors [c]. The small mixture of English which entered into this civil or military fabric (for it partook of both species) was so restrained by subordination under the foreigners, that the Norman dominion seemed now to be fixed on the most durable basis, and to defy all the efforts of its enemies. [FN [b] Order. Vital. p. 523. Secretum Abbatis, apud Selden, Titles of Honour, p. 573. Spellm. Gloss. in verbo FEODUM. Sir Robert Cotton. [c] M. West. p. 225. M. Paris, p. 4. Bracton, lib. 1. cap. ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume
... anger, in fury; yea, the heavens and the earth shall be burned up with the fire of that jealousy in which the great God will come, when He cometh to curse the souls of sinners, and when He cometh to defy the ungodly, (2 Thess ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sneeze, and this is only like it in that it is spontaneous, and a sort of nervous spasm (a sneeze is sometimes spoken of as an orgasm). A sexual orgasm is a nervous spasm, or a series of pulsating nervous explosions which defy description. The action is entirely beyond the control of the will, when it finally arrives, and the sensation it produces is delectable beyond telling. It is the topmost pinnacle of all human experiences. For a husband and wife to reach this climax, at exactly the same instant, is a consummation ...
— Sane Sex Life and Sane Sex Living • H.W. Long
... sight," Harry continued, reading from his brother's journal, "to see a long line of red coats threading through the woods or taking their ground after the march. The care against surprise is so great and constant that we defy prowling Indians to come unawares upon us, and our advanced sentries and savages have on the contrary fallen in with the enemy and taken a scalp or two from them. They are such cruel villains, these French and their painted allies, that we do not think ...
— Boys and girls from Thackeray • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... who will tell you that you are jealous, who will point out to you that she knows you better than you know yourself, who will prove to you the uselessness of your artifices and who perhaps will defy you. She triumphs in the excited consciousness of the superiority which she thinks she possesses over you; you of course are ennobled in her eyes; for she finds your conduct quite natural. The only thing she feels is that your want of confidence ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... drive them homewards at sunset. In the districts of Putlam and the Seven Corles, buffaloes are generally used for draught; and in carrying heavy loads of salt from the coast towards the interior, they drag a cart over roads which would defy the ...
— Ceylon; an Account of the Island Physical, Historical, and • James Emerson Tennent
... describe the loathsome and contagious disease which it engenders defy human language. The Rev. Wm. G. Eliot, of St. Louis, says of it: "Few know of the terrible nature of the disease in question and its fearful ravages, not only among the guilty, but the innocent. Since its first recognized ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... which would be found, not in the measures themselves, but in the natural pugnacity of the Opposition. In the fabrication of garments for the national wear, the great thing is to produce garments that shall, as far as possible, defy hole-picking. It may be, and sometimes is, the case, that garments so fabricated will be good also for wear. Lord Cantrip, at the present moment, was very anxious and very ingenious in the stopping of holes; and he thought that perhaps his Under-Secretary was too much prone to the indulgence ...
— Phineas Finn - The Irish Member • Anthony Trollope
... alone?" and how, when he had assured her that Freddy was well guarded by watch-dogs at night, she had said. "But dogs couldn't keep off this!" For Margaret they had not kept off "this," the spirit of Egypt; nothing can keep off Egypt; its power and mystery defy both time and science. ...
— There was a King in Egypt • Norma Lorimer
... voice rose with a triumphant swell in the climax, and "There," he said, "isn't it so? The cellar and the well—they can't be thrown down or burnt up; they are the human monuments that last longest and defy decay." He rejoiced openly in the sympathy that recognized with him the divination of a most pathetic, most signal fact, and he repeated the last couplet again at our entreaty, glad to be entreated for it. I do not know whether all will ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... moment the king's brow cleared, and the ghost of a smile flitted across his countenance: I would defy any man living, civilised or savage, to remain entirely indifferent to such a tremendous outburst of homage—all the more intense because of the imposing figure which His Majesty cut in his new rig-out. Then the ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... Germans broke in the door, they overpowered him, tied him and then brought back on deck. Said the German commander: 'I'll show you how we treat men who defy us.' He stepped back several paces, drew his revolver and fired. Then three of the enemy threw the body into the sea. That's when we jumped them, for it was more than we ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... self-dependent soul? We were formed to unite our sympathies—formed to breathe a new spirit into this hackneyed and gross world—formed for the mighty ends which my soul, sweeping down the gloom of time, foresees with a prophet's vision. With a resolution equal to thine own, I defy thy threats of an inglorious suicide. I hail thee as my own! Queen of climes undarkened by the eagle's wing, unravaged by his beak, I bow before thee in homage and in awe—but I claim thee in worship and in love! Together will we cross the ocean—together will we found our realm; and far distant ...
— The Last Days of Pompeii • Edward George Bulwer-Lytton
... warm, clear water. So it is not found in the cold depths of the sea, nor in the seas near our islands, but in the warm shallow waters near tropical lands it flourishes so well that it builds up most wonderful Coral walls. So strong are they that they can defy the terrific ...
— Within the Deep - Cassell's "Eyes And No Eyes" Series, Book VIII. • R. Cadwallader Smith
... ages, flourishing as widely among civilized and polished nations as among the early barbarians with whom they originated, — that of duelling, for instance, and the belief in omens and divination of the future, which seem to defy the progress of knowledge to eradicate entirely from the popular mind. Money, again, has often been a cause of the delusion of multitudes. Sober nations have all at once become desperate gamblers, and risked almost their existence upon the turn of a piece of paper. To trace the history of the ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions - Vol. I • Charles Mackay
... ten per cent of it by weight is sand. I washed the clay out of a large lump of it and found the sand a curious heterogeneous mixture of small and large, light and dark grains of all possible forms. The soil does not bake as do our clay soils, and keeps moist when ours would almost defy the plough. Under cultivation it works up into a good tillable condition. Its capacity to retain moisture is remarkable, as if it were made for a scant rainfall. As a crop-producing soil, it has virtues which I am at a loss to account for. Root vegetables grown here ...
— Under the Maples • John Burroughs
... Jerome. We have, doubtless, resigned to the ladies the most difficult and most vigorous of all human endeavours, and let us resign to them the glory too. This ought to encourage them to be obstinate in it; 'tis a brave thing for them to defy us, and to spurn under foot that vain pre-eminence of valour and virtue that we pretend to have over them; they will find if they do but observe it, that they will not only be much more esteemed for it, but also much more beloved. A gallant man ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... I defy any person possessing in the least a judicial and accurate mind, to investigate the records of this witchcraft delusion without coming to the conclusion that the "afflicted girls," who led off in this matter, and were ...
— Dulcibel - A Tale of Old Salem • Henry Peterson
... prevail; to which he responded in a strain of insolent invective against France and her designs, saying that her object was to extort concessions from us which we should never make, and that now we were strong in our alliance with the other Powers we might defy her to injure us. This letter Clarendon showed to Melbourne, who had asked him if he knew what Palmerston's feelings were (he himself knowing nothing), and he was, of course, struck with the bitterness and asperity of his tone. Melbourne told Clarendon ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... panegyric, and nearly as long a one, as that of Pliny's on the Emperor Trajan. Such a preface is ringing an alarum bell for an author. If we look closer into the characters of these masters of ceremony, who thus sport with and defy the judgment of their reader, and who, by their extravagant panegyric, do considerable injury to the cause of taste, we discover that some accidental occurrence has occasioned this vehement affection for the author, and which, like ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... scarcely ended when there came from the mother- country a demand for the raw fiber, which promised to be almost without limit. A few trials sufficed to show Southern planters that with their soil and their slaves they could supply this demand with a quality of cotton which would defy competition, and at a profit to themselves far exceeding that of any other product of agriculture. But an insurmountable obstacle yet seemed to interpose itself between them and their golden harvest. The ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... hollows where trees grew and seemed to defy the winds. There was no view here, only dead leaves scattered beneath their feet and chilly dampness; the narrow way, bordered on both sides by green reeds, seemed very dismal under the shadow of the branches; hemmed in by the walls of some ...
— An Iceland Fisherman • Pierre Loti
... possibly be more galling and repulsive to them. Doubtless, too, it would suit the books of our allies very well, who could impose on German goods any duty they thought fit, and deposit their surplus and inferior goods in Germany at a price which would defy competition. But these are questions which I must leave to those more conversant with the merits and demerits of free trade ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... were we to death brought nigh, For He whose presence came our hearts so near Hath taught us we can ne'er His Will defy, But evermore should live ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... police authorities have lately provided, that, in an out-of-the-way room, on a back street, the honest men of New York city may scan the faces of its thieves, and hold silent communion with that interesting part of the population which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right, or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in putting on the walls this terrible bill of attainder against ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... of the Maritime Alps, displaying in his setting the beautiful and varied succession of tints which characterise that glorious phenomenon of the refraction of light, asouthern sunset; when he imparts to the rugged mountains a softness of outline and a brilliancy of colouring which defy description. In the early stages of phthisis, and especially when the patient is young and active-minded, struck down by overwork or sudden exposure, this cheering influence is most beneficial. It is of great importance that, while taking the needful care of ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... Fortunately, no such radical methods are necessary. All we have to do is to take nature's hint of the anti-bodies and improve upon it. Healthy cells can grow fat on a diet of such germs, and, if we keep ourselves vigorous, clean, and well ventilated, we can practically defy the "cold" devil and all ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... Why, Nigel, this is King Cambyses' vein!—You have frequented the theatres too much lately—Away with this folly, man; go, dine upon soup and salad, drink succory-water to cool your blood, go to bed at sun-down, and defy those foul ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... city of. Colenso, J.W. Colonies, how founded, Comitia, Commendation, Commons, House of, Commons, origin of, Communal farming in England, Communal landholding, Competition, industrial, between Europe and America, Confederation, articles of, Connecticut, men of, defy James II., Constitution of the United States, Continentals and ...
— American Political Ideas Viewed From The Standpoint Of Universal History • John Fiske
... of God I defy you, and I go," Perpetua said, and turned to go out by the entrance ...
— The Proud Prince • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... greatness of his own power. And as the strongest citadel or fort in a town, when it is taken by an enemy, does then afford the same strength to the foe, as it had done to friends before; so Caesar, after Pompey's aid had made him strong enough to defy his country, ruined and overthrew at last the power which had availed him against the rest. The course of things was as follows. Lucullus, when he returned out of Asia, where he had been treated with insult by Pompey, was ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... of exhibiting their new steps. There was first an Operetta, then a supper, and afterwards an attempt at a dance; but the stupid English voted it not ton, and there were only about fifteen couples who ventured to defy this opinion—Marianne and Mr Macdonald one of them. Anne remained a spectator. As the dancing did not seem to be approved, Mr Greville said, for the future there should be none except upon ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... over London," said Leander, "and you won't find a coiffure, though I say it, to set closer and defy detection more naturally than the one you've got on; selected from the best imported foreign hair in the market, I ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... themselves they are an extraordinarily talkative company. They chatter at the traghetti, where they always have some sharp point under discussion; they bawl across the canals; they bespeak your commands as you approach; they defy each other from afar. If you happen to have a traghetto under your window, you are well aware that they are a vocal race. I should go even further than I went just now, and say that the voice of the gondolier is in fact for audibility the dominant or rather the ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... was one hundred and fifty dollars. This I paid at once, and they gave me some crackers and dried beef for lunch on the way. Davis said—"That is the quickest sale I ever made, and here the man is ready to go. I defy any one to beat it." Before sun down I was two or three miles on my way back where I found some grass and camped for the night, picketed the animals, ate some of Mr. Davis' grub for supper, and arranged a bed of saddle blankets. I arrived at camp ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... Millie! How could one so shy, so gentle, so fond of showing her dimples, cast off all timidity and set herself in opposition to her father's authority and pride? I could but argue that she was wrong, that she had forgotten her duty, thus to stand out and violently defy him, and yet I admired her for the spirit she had shown. And I believed that Guinea was just as determined, just as passionate. ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read
... would not have caused you to escape the suspicion of being an accomplice, while at the same time it would have attached to you the odium of dastardly treachery. Notwithstanding all I have just said, you can easily imagine that, in spite of my utter contempt for all gossiping fools, I cannot openly defy them. I therefore feel myself compelled to ask you not only to quit my service, but even to leave Rome. I undertake to supply you with an honourable pretext for your departure, so as to insure you the ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... about to remark that it is impossible to ruin a man who has nothing?' inquired the dandy. 'Why, I defy you to find a better stock in Paris!' he cried, swinging round ...
— Gobseck • Honore de Balzac
... Berenger, and the demolition of his castle; but the policy of the sagacious old warrior, and his long experience in all warlike practice, were such as, with the aid of his more powerful countrymen, enabled him to defy the attempts of his fiery neighbour. If there was a man, therefore, throughout England, whom Gwenwyn hated more than another, it was Raymond Berenger; and yet the good Archbishop Baldwin could prevail on the Welsh prince to meet him as a friend and ally in the cause of the Cross. ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... fact. We're both proud, resentful, reckless and affectionate. We hate our enemies and love our friends. We're rebellious, at times, and not afraid to defy the world." ...
— Mary Louise in the Country • L. Frank Baum (AKA Edith Van Dyne)
... crossed the bridge could not see over them; and thus the cavalry and the sumpter beasts passed from one continent to the other without a suspicion that they had ever had anything but terra firma under them. The structure served its purpose, but was not found strong enough to defy even for a year the forces of the winds and waves. Before the return of Xerxes, towards the close of B.C. 480, the autumnal gales had broken it up; and the army which accompanied him had to re-cross the strait in a number of ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... French and German are the only languages used. (Latterly the representatives of the United States of America, with the individualistic courage that becomes them, have shown a disposition to rebel against this custom and defy it; but the close of the Zurich meeting left it uncertain whether in this particular the New World will be able to prevail over the Old.) In the dignified speech-making of the General Assembly the recurrent changes of language, if a little ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... hope he will consent beforehand," sighed Zoe; "but I have not the courage to defy him; and if I had, we could not marry all in a moment, like that. We should have to be ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... have thus been your friends; and other beasts have fled with you into these caverns, as in the Navajo tradition, where you may be able, living upon them, to defy famine. ...
— Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel • Ignatius Donnelly
... her voice seeking to soothe the girl, Malcolm shuddered; but the next moment, from one of those freaks of suggestion which defy analysis, he burst into laughter: he had a glimpse of a she dog, in Mrs Catanach's Sunday bonnet, bringing up the rear of the preacher's canine company, and his horror of the woman found relief in an involuntary outbreak that did ...
— Malcolm • George MacDonald
... individual soul has been separated from the supreme soul, but this has not been from alienation but from the fullness of love. It is for that reason that untruths, sufferings, and evils are not at a standstill; the human soul can defy them, can overcome them, nay, can altogether transform them ...
— Sadhana - The Realisation of Life • Rabindranath Tagore
... make on a young man who had liked seeing her. I wished to buy something at her sale, and I bid higher and higher for this book out of mere obstinacy and to annoy some one else, who was equally keen to obtain it, and who seemed to defy me to the contest. I repeat, then, that the book is yours, and once more I beg you to accept it; do not treat me as if I were an auctioneer, and let it be the pledge between us of a longer and more ...
— Camille (La Dame aux Camilias) • Alexandre Dumas, fils
... No, you—you—you don't know anything! [Sharply.] Where the devil is Roper? If he can see a way out of this he's a better man than I take him for. I defy any one to see a way out of it. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... cleanliness. But all this is nothing in comparison with the courts and lanes which lie behind, to which access can be gained only through covered passages, in which no two human beings can pass at the same time. Of the irregular cramming together of dwellings in ways which defy all rational plan, of the tangle in which they are crowded literally one upon the other, it is impossible to convey an idea. And it is not the buildings surviving from the old times of Manchester which are to blame for this; the confusion has only ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels
... LEARNER.—The attitude of the typical learner must frequently be one of hesitancy and self-distrust if not of fear, though conditions were so varied as almost to defy classification. One type of apprentice was expected to learn merely by observation and imitation. Another was practically the chore boy of the worker who was assigned to teach him. A third was under no direct supervision at all, but was expected to "keep ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... gulls who follow in his train: for I am proud to say no similar undignified and antagonistic elements are at work here; and, if any attempt were made to introduce them, the good sense of the country would unite with one voice to cry them down. I defy all the educated, ignorant, or rabid population of the Republic to bring forward any instance where, either in the celebration of any ceremony, the orations of any senator, or the meetings of any corporation, such unworthy and contemptible animosity ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... But if we are to call it superstition, and if this were no devil in the form of a roaring lion, but a mere great seal or sea-lion, it is a more innocent superstition to impersonate so real a power, and it requires a bolder heart to rise up against it and defy it in its living terror, than to sublimate it away into a philosophical principle, and to forget to battle with it in speculating on its origin and nature. But to follow the brave Sir Humfrey, whose work of fighting with the devil was now over, and who was passing to his ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... son, My faith is bound to Guido; and if you Do not throw off your duty, and defy, Through sickly scruples, my express commands, You'll yield at once. No more: ...
— Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911: Francesca da Rimini • George Henry Boker
... tragedy.... Heine has glorified the appearance at Worms. The Catholic himself loves to contemplate that black gown in the presence of those lords and barons caparisoned in iron and armed with helmet and spear, and is moved by the voice of 'that young friar' who comes to defy all the powers of ...
— Luther and the Reformation: - The Life-Springs of Our Liberties • Joseph A. Seiss
... describe them. They hung across the arch that led to the glass conservatory attached to my friend's handsome dwelling. Three very thin sheets of glass were woven separately and then joined at the edges so ingeniously as to defy detection. The inside curtain was one solid color: crimson. Over this was a curtain of snow flakes, delicate as those aerial nothings of the sky, and more durable than any fabric known. Hung across the arched entrance to a conservatory, with a great globe of white fire shining through it, ...
— Mizora: A Prophecy - A MSS. Found Among the Private Papers of the Princess Vera Zarovitch • Mary E. Bradley
... in anger array'd, Once defy'd a proud monarch and built a new nation; 'Gainst their brothers of Britain unsheath'd the sharp blade That hath ne'er met defeat nor endur'd desecration; So must we in this hour Show our valour and pow'r, And dispel the black perils that over us low'r: Whilst the sons of Britannia, ...
— Writings in the United Amateur, 1915-1922 • Howard Phillips Lovecraft
... he said, while the mussels and shell-fish were being heaped up before him. "Good-by to Caillavet and his rules. Good-by, Terror and Pity. Good-by, dear French farce. Give me a pretty girl with a smile, an actor with charm, and I will defy our old friend Aristotle." ...
— Charles Frohman: Manager and Man • Isaac Frederick Marcosson and Daniel Frohman
... been looked after, and right now there's not a single item lacking," Lieutenant Beverly assured them. "Mention what you please, and I defy you to find I've overlooked it. I notice that you have brought your glasses along, Jack. I have a fine pair with me, but we can doubtless ...
— Air Service Boys Over the Atlantic • Charles Amory Beach
... tempest in my stubborn soul; Thy smile creates around the billows roll The blissful quiet of a halcyon hour. Then shed no tear—then heave no sorrowing sigh Since love like thine may time and toil defy. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 480, Saturday, March 12, 1831 • Various
... life, that is, the life of your creditor, because he asks you for a debt.—The publick shall soon be acquainted with this, to judge whether you are not fitter to be an Irish Evidence, than to be an Irish Peer.—I defy and despise you. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... of defense than they, for they had their sheath- knives; and he stood by the weather-braces, arrogant, tyrannical, overbearing, and commanded them. He seemed invulnerable, a thing too great to strike or defy, like the white squalls that swooped from the horizon and made of the vast Villingen a victim and a plaything. His full, boastful eye traveled over them absently, and they cringed ...
— The Second Class Passenger • Perceval Gibbon
... external tradition and rule; adhering to its own judgment, though priests falsely say the hosts of the everlasting are arrayed in battle against it, though they threaten the spirit with obscure torment for ever and ever: still to persist, still to defy, still to obey the orders of another captain, that Unknown Deity within whose trumpet-call sounds louder than all the cries of men. There is great comfort, my fellows, in flinging fear aside; an exultation and delight spring up welling ...
— AE in the Irish Theosophist • George William Russell
... felt that it was his own conscience that made these things torture him. That was his mother's idea, and he had a high respect for her moral opinions, also for her courage. Among other things, he had seen her one day defy a vicious devil of a Corsican—a common terror in the town-who was chasing his grown daughter with a heavy rope in his hand, declaring he would wear it out on her. Cautious citizens got out of her way, but Jane Clemens opened her door wide to the refugee, ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... is nothing a sailor hates so much as reefs and shoals," he replied; "and with good reason. We may see the larger reefs, but there are some come up almost like the point of a needle, and if there is a ripple on the water, I defy the sharpest eye to make them out." He was all this time looking sharply ahead, and urging the men stationed aloft to ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... but did not take it off, perhaps because it clung so tightly, as if in remembrance of the vows it symbolized. But now the very sight of it gave me a fright. With his ring on my finger I could not defy him and swear his claim to be false the dream of a man maddened by his experiences in the Klondike. It must come off. Then, perhaps, I should feel myself a free woman. But it would not come off. I struggled with it and tugged in vain; ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... great novelist of the nineteenth century, like that of Homer, might indeed defy time; but the setting of his pathetic tales, the misery of the poor, the wrongs of power, the pitiless cruelty of the system of society, had passed away as utterly as Circe and the ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... lets the panting spirit free, a hundred virtues rise, in shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations to defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... a lever to compel me to marry my daughter to you against her will—I can only tell you, you sneak, you're on the wrong tack. I will never consent to it. You may do your worst, but you will never bend me. I'm not a man to be bent or bullied—I won't be put down. I'll withstand you and defy you. You may ruin me, if you like, but you'll never break me. I stand here firm. Expose me, and I'll fight you to the bitter end: I'll fight you, ...
— What's Bred In the Bone • Grant Allen
... clever you'll get on fast," Peter returned, trying to think how he could most richly defy the injunction not ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... I tell you, madam, you're abused. Stick to you? Ay, like a leech, to suck your best blood; she'll drop off when she's full. Madam, you shan't pawn a bodkin, nor part with a brass counter, in composition for me. I defy 'em all. Let 'em prove their aspersions: I know my own innocence, and dare stand ...
— The Way of the World • William Congreve
... Out of the way! Confounded pack of gossips! Who sent for you? Go, send your husbands here, If they have courage to defy ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... Western Australia (Eucalyptus marginata) has a peculiar reputation for its power to defy decay when submerged and exposed to the attacks of the dreaded teredo, and has been largely ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... closing the book, "is no caricature by a writer of comedy, but a portrait by a man's own hand. We can see by it how easily, under certain circumstances, one may glide into habits of seclusion, and in a kind of undress, slipshod hardihood, with a pipe and a proof-sheet, defy the world. Into this state scholars have too often fallen; thus giving some ground for the prevalent opinion, that scholarship and rusticity are inseparable. To me, I confess, it is painful to see the scholar and the world assume so often a hostile attitude, and set each other at defiance. Surely, ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... Government was instituted have not been lost sight of. Intrusted only with certain limited powers, cautiously enumerated, distinctly specified, and defined with a precision and clearness which would seem to defy misconstruction, it has been my constant aim to confine myself within the limits so clearly marked out and so carefully guarded. Having always been of opinion that the best preservative of the union of the States is to be found in a total abstinence from ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... embracing, and evidently prepared to defy him. He stood for some moments silent before them, regarding them with an indescribable look of wrath, contempt, and sorrow. He looked upon the pale breathless Sara, and covered his eyes with his hand; the next moment, however, he ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... intending the eradicating and subverting of the ancient civil government of this nation, and being subservient to that usurper in his designs. The God of heaven knows that I am free of this charge, and I do defy all the world, allowing me justice and fair proceeding, which I hope your lordships will, to make out ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning
... the thirty-nine framers of the original Constitution and the seventy-six members of the Congress which framed the amendments thereto, taken together, do certainly include those who may be fairly called 'our fathers who framed the government under which we live.' And, so assuming, I defy any man to show that any one of them ever, in his whole life, declared that, in his understanding, any proper division of local from Federal authority, or any part of the Constitution, forbade the Federal government to control as to slavery ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... in all Tinkletown for marshal. If there's anybody here, male or female, who c'n deny that Mrs. Crow is the best cook alive I'd like to hear him say so. I've eat a hundred meals in her house an' I know what I'm talkin' about. I defy anybody—" ...
— Anderson Crow, Detective • George Barr McCutcheon
... visited Stamboul. In Stamboul there is with no exception the most conglomerate mixture of nondescript nationalities on the face of the earth. Not only are all nationalities represented but breeds of men that defy all pathological research, hideous in their conglomerate intermixtures. If an Albanian bandit, himself a mixture of Greek and Nubian mulatto, has issue by an Arab woman with French blood—find the genealogy. Can you imagine a more difficult ...
— The Secrets of the German War Office • Dr. Armgaard Karl Graves
... a very happy ten days with them in the glorious old mansion full of recollections and relics of bygone ages. Its very red brick peacefulness had a soothing effect upon me, and I will defy any one to experience greater comfort than we did coming in tired out after a day's tramp after the partridges—for St. Nivel was an advocate of "rough" shooting—and sitting round the great blazing fire of logs in the hall while Ethel ...
— A Queen's Error • Henry Curties
... up ourselves and defy the world's cork-screws—all save the Thoracic. He allows his associates to see much of what is passing in his mind all the time. Because we are all interested in the real individual and not in masks this type usually is ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... the old soldier, smiling at my warmth. "It's easy to defy danger when you don't know what the ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... away, "was ever anyone so changed in so short a time. This is Miss Tyrrell's doing. She is a spy upon me, and yet I defy her to know anything about me. She has filled you ...
— The Late Miss Hollingford • Rosa Mulholland
... of his body. He tells you of it unconsciously in every tone of his voice. You will always find in his cabin some newspaper, some book, some token of advance in education. When he questions you about the old country he astonishes you by the extent of his knowledge. I defy you not to feel that he is superior to the race from whence he has sprung ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... encored Mr. Sturge's song vociferously; and twice he had to repeat it before they would suffer him to turn again and defy ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... guard his wrist; For who could prime his gun, or pistol hold, Whose aching fingers were benumbed with cold. Prussia, a different scheme in war approves; Whose hardy veterans charge without their gloves. Defy the rigour of the chilling air, And fight, and conquer with their knuckles bare. Bourbon! if wreathes and triumphs are thy aim, Think of some wiser way to purchase fame: Some other arts thy rival to subdue, Soft muffs, without keen swords, ...
— Translations of German Poetry in American Magazines 1741-1810 • Edward Ziegler Davis
... some men could. You could. That's the advantage of having taken a good many hard blows. You learn to stand up against them," Dick answered slowly. "You know other people's opinion has always been a god to me. I haven't the strength to defy it now." ...
— Jewel Weed • Alice Ames Winter
... Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate, that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... calmness and something of sternness under his apparent serenity. In heart he was troubled, remembering the past and half fearing the future. How would she bear herself? Would she accept his relations pleasantly, or defy and reject as before? ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, April, 1876. • Various
... What do you want?—It is not even moral, but it has character! And in art, after the moral idea comes character! Ah! bless me! character, that is something!—Otherwise, I disapprove. It is brutal, vulgar, that lack of ideal. I defy you to symbolize that. Love Avenging Itself Against Love—Jealousy Calling the Police to Its Aid in Order to Triumph over Dead Love! It is old, it lacks originality, it smacks of Prud'hon!—The Correggio ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... had unexpectedly discovered an old Apex acquaintance in the protagonist of the great Ararat Trust fight. Moffatt's defeat had not wholly divested him of interest. As a factor in affairs he no longer inspired apprehension, but as the man who had dared to defy Harmon B. Driscoll he was a conspicuous and, to some ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... approached Mora, the capital of Mandara. This was another kingdom, which the energy of its present sultan had rescued from the yoke of the Fellata empire; and the strong position of its capital, enclosed by lofty ridges of hills, had enabled it to defy repeated attacks. It consists of a fine plain, bordered on the south by an immense and almost interminable range of mountains. The eminences directly in front were not quite so lofty as the hills of Cumberland, but ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... "Long Walls"—was constructed from the city to the port, a distance of four miles. These walls, some two hundred yards apart, left a grand highway between, the channel of a steady traffic which flowed from the sea to the city, and which for years enabled Athens to defy the cutting off its resources by attack from without. Through this broad avenue not only provisions and merchandise, but men in multitudes, made their way into Athens, until that city became fuller of bustle, energy, political ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... names of the buildings, she was not giving her whole attention; she was trying to guess, from the sounds behind, whether Mr. Ogilvie were accompanying them. They entered the meadows—Norman turned round, with a laugh, to defy the doctor to talk of the Cam, on the banks of the Isis. The party stood still—the other two gentlemen came up. They amalgamated again—all the Oxonians conspiring to say spiteful things of the Cam, and Dr. May making a spirited defence, in which Ethel ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... and prospective duty. But the high hopes which the administration placed in the general were not realized. The genius which could lead a few dozen or a few hundred Indian scouts and mountain trappers over desert plains and through the fastnesses of the Sierra Nevada, that could defy savage hostilities and outlive starvation amid imprisoning snows, failed signally before the task of animating and combining the patriotic enthusiasm of eight or ten great northwestern States, and organizing and leading an army of one hundred thousand ...
— A Short Life of Abraham Lincoln - Condensed from Nicolay & Hay's Abraham Lincoln: A History • John G. Nicolay
... mountains, and he did not even yet seem to have decided in his own mind how he should treat them. To be sure, according to some accounts, he looked upon them as belonging to the immortal gods, but there have been men brave enough in the defence of land and liberty to defy even the immortal gods! A vast deal of sympathy, indeed, has been wasted upon Atahualpa. Without doubt the Spaniards treated him abominably, and for that treatment the wretched monarch has claims to our consideration, but for his personal qualities or his past record, ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Hastings, on the Hudson River. Here he awaited events, hoping for employment; but it is one of the cruel circumstances attending civil strife that confidence is shaken, and the suspicions that arise, however unjust, defy reason and constrain the Government to defer to them. No man could have given stronger proof than Farragut had of his perfect loyalty; but all shades of opinion were known to exist among officers of Southern origin, even when they remained in the service, ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... hands. Twenty minutes after, you reach the summit of the Brevent, whence the view is very fine. The chain of Mont Blanc appears in all its majesty. The gigantic mountain, firmly established on its powerful strata, seems to defy the tempests which sweep across its icy shield without ever impairing it; whilst the crowd of icy needles, peaks, mountains, which form its cortege and rise everywhere around it, without equalling its noble height, carry the evident traces of a slow ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... the dim light of common speech would have offended or repelled those who sat before him. He knew the force of felix audacia as well as any rhetorician could have taught him. He addresses the reformer with one of those daring images which defy the critics. ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... It was not really in accordance with the limitations of his material to treat a bronze casting as Ghiberti treated it, and his example has led many men of inferior genius astray, although there is no use in denying that Ghiberti himself was clever enough to defy the usual ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... storm abated, and the Saxons prepared to make their way seaward again. The wind still blew, but lightly, from the same quarter, and the sails would therefore be of no use. With their great oar-power they were confident that, once through the Danish flotilla, they could defy pursuit. ...
— The Dragon and the Raven - or, The Days of King Alfred • G. A. Henty
... discourages us. Our spirit has desired the accomplishment of one thing, but our contrary flesh has silenced these better demands in gratifying its own caprice. It takes us a very long time to learn the danger of trusting our fallible natures too far. The man who goes forward to defy temptation, telling himself he will not fall, is running down towards a steep precipice, and has not the power of self-control when he reaches the ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... popular confidence, for Preston was already a highly democratic constituency, largely composed of ignorant "potwallopers". A similar but more emphatic warning came from Ireland, where O'Connell did his utmost to insult and defy Anglesey, the new lord-lieutenant, in spite of his sacrifices for catholic emancipation, and his well-known sympathy with the cause of reform. In the southern counties of England, too, violent disturbances had broken out, and were ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... British-Indian Government because there is no longer any plausible means of preventing it; but Maharajah Bubru Singh was a pioneer, who dared greatly, and had his way even against the objections of a high commissioner. In addition he had had to defy the Brahman priests who, all unwilling, are the strong supports of alien overrule; for they are armed with the iron-fanged laws of caste that forbid crossing the sea, ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... might be inferred from that as regarded the others. As the church accounts showed, no extensive repairs had been made to the church roof for eighty years. Even though the slate itself, if the material was good, might defy the elements for a long time yet, this was not true of the nails with which the slates were fastened to the lathing and planking. And wherever he had tested them he had found the nails either entirely destroyed or very ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... useless to waste his strength in any futile endeavour to baffle so hardy a scoundrel as Percival Nowell. At the last, when Marian was leaving the ship, it would be time for him to assert his right as her husband, and to defy the wretch who had ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... artist knows how different from the state of letting himself go, is his "most natural" condition, the free arranging, locating, disposing, and constructing in the moments of "inspiration"—and how strictly and delicately he then obeys a thousand laws, which, by their very rigidness and precision, defy all formulation by means of ideas (even the most stable idea has, in comparison therewith, something floating, manifold, and ambiguous in it). The essential thing "in heaven and in earth" is, apparently (to repeat it once more), that there ...
— Beyond Good and Evil • Friedrich Nietzsche
... glamour of innocence in bad luck the sickly glare of cynicism. He asked Jim if he had ever heard of the expression, "The time, the place, and the girl." He had the jury snickering at the thought of a big rich youth like Jim being such a ninny, such a milksop and mollycoddle, as to defy ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... throughout all the rest of the war ventured to face the English squadrons in the North Sea and in the Channel; and the Dutch mercantile marine disappeared from the ocean. England was strong enough to defy the Armed Neutrality, which indeed proved, as its authoress Catherine II is reported to have said, "an armed nullity." There was deep dissatisfaction throughout the country, and mutual recriminations between ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... listening to this hoary student, Ferratus entered in a hurry, and informed us with the abruptness of ecstacy, that his set of halfpence was now complete; he had just received in a handful of change, the piece that he had so long been seeking, and could now defy mankind to outgo his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... its next voyage. It's gone a long way this time,' says she, 'and between you and me, I expect the storms will swamp it, but I've taken the best pieces out of my old dress and Esmeralda's, and, barring the darn on the back seam, I defy ye to tell it from new!' So that's all I've got, as I told you before, and, party or no party, ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... integrity; and this as the time is approaching when I shall voluntarily retire from the service of my country. I feel proudly conscious that there is no public act of my life which will not bear the strictest scrutiny. I defy all investigation. Nothing but the basest perjury can sully my good name. I do not fear even this, because I cherish an humble confidence that the gracious Being who has hitherto defended and protected me against the shafts of falsehood and malice will not desert me now ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... triumphs of soft peace, I reign; And, from my walls, defy the powers of Spain; With pomp and sports my love I celebrate, While they keep distance, and attend my state.— Parent to her, whose eyes my soul enthral, [To ABEN. Whom I, in hope, already father ...
— The Works Of John Dryden, Volume 4 (of 18) - Almanzor And Almahide, Marriage-a-la-Mode, The Assignation • John Dryden
... 'Twixt man and spiders, 'tis in vain to lie; I hate thee, stand off, if thou dost come nigh me, I'll crush thee with my foot; I do defy thee. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... sharp upward look, his eyes seemed to push away that fat chap's curiosity, and defy him to see the bitter ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... friends—and young, for your young friends Mary Anne and Charlotte were heartily glad to see you. As to the old, I will yield to no mortal living. In the first place is the plain immovable fact that I am the OLDEST friend you have living, and as to actual knowledge of you I defy any one to match me, ever since you were an infant at Foxhall, and through the Black Castle cottage times with dear Sophy and all. What changes and chances, and ups and downs, we ...
— The Life and Letters of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... wife," he said. "But in good troth, Sweetheart, methinks there is nothing to fear. For very shame neither King Edward nor his Captains will war against a woman, and, e'en if they do, if thou but keep the gates locked, and the portcullis down, I defy any one of them to gain admittance. And, look ye, the well in the courtyard will never run dry—'tis sunk in the solid rock—and besides the beeves that were salted down at Martinmas, and the meal that was laid in at the end of harvest, there are bags ...
— Tales From Scottish Ballads • Elizabeth W. Grierson
... taking for mine own. Thou shalt be admiral and captain of an expedition that I send with all speed to sweep out with all force the pirates that infest our Norman seas. In great pride they are gathered in Guernsey to defy my power. Take men, take ships, all that thou wilt need, and delay not thy journey, for certain monks and islanders are hard set with famine. See me again ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... was the motive power which directed his choice? By what whimsical combination of circumstances it came about that the appointment was finally offered to, and accepted by, one of the most unlikely men in the three kingdoms, is one of those official riddles which appear to defy solution. The fact remains, that the post of Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada was conferred upon Sir Francis Bond Head, a Knight of the Royal Hanoverian Guelphic Order, a retired half-pay Major, an Assistant Poor-Law Commissioner for ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... constitutional which robs me of my liberty is simply ridiculous. I would curse the constitution that authorized the enactment of such a law; I would trample the provisions of such a law under my feet and defy its pains and penalties. I would respect and obey such an inhuman law no more than OUR revolutionary fathers did the odious and absurd doctrine that kings and tyrants reign and rule by divine right. But it has often been said by learned ...
— Masterpieces of Negro Eloquence - The Best Speeches Delivered by the Negro from the days of - Slavery to the Present Time • Various
... is due. The house itself is often of quaint aspect, and of some architectural pretension; Moorish-looking arches and cornices, and turrets and columns, balconies and verandas, generally of solid masonry in the wealthy haciendas, are set there to defy all time. Indeed, many of these have already resisted the ravages of centuries, and the great thickness of the walls arrests the traveller's attention. The roofs—flat in some cases—are generally covered with red pan-tiles dug and baked near at hand. Perhaps a small chapel adjoins; ...
— Mexico • Charles Reginald Enock
... assault. Paul had learned of Alice's escape from the lake. He surely thought she had told all about this affair, and Paul had followed them in disguise. By silencing forever this the only witness to his crime, he could defy hearsay testimony. It became necessary to kill both. Perhaps Paul fled soon as Alice and Oswald fell over the bank. Possibly he may have seen Oswald reach the shore. It might be that Paul knew of the flight, and deliberately permitted it, to insure ...
— Oswald Langdon - or, Pierre and Paul Lanier. A Romance of 1894-1898 • Carson Jay Lee
... received a firm denial. So far from being baffled at this addition to the obstacles which presented themselves, it but increased my determination to surmount them. To overcome her duty to her parents, to induce her to trample on her vows to God, to defy the torments of the Inquisition, to release her from bolts and bars, to escape from a fortified and crowded city—each and every difficulty but inflamed my ardour—every appeal of conscience but ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... and evidently prepared to defy him. He stood for some moments silent before them, regarding them with an indescribable look of wrath, contempt, and sorrow. He looked upon the pale breathless Sara, and covered his eyes with his hand; the next ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... that she had a lover? When he looked at her, worn out, withered, an old woman before her time, was it possible that he should so believe? She herself asked him these questions. Lord Chiltern of course declared that he had no suspicion of the kind, "No;—indeed," said Lady Laura. "I defy any one to suspect me who knows me. And if so, why am not I as much entitled to help a friend as you might be? You need not even mention my name." He endeavoured to make her understand that her name would be mentioned, and others would believe and would say evil things. "They cannot say ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... and uniform colour. It is easy, by shaping our films so as to represent flowers or other objects, to exhibit such objects in hues unattainable by art. Here, for example, is a specimen of heart's-ease, the colours of which you might safely defy the artist to reproduce. By turning the front Nicol 90 degrees round, we pass through a colourless phase to a series of colours complementary to the former ones. This change is still more strikingly represented by a rose-tree, which ...
— Six Lectures on Light - Delivered In The United States In 1872-1873 • John Tyndall
... glowered, and glared fiercely, shook their fists, and muttered stifled incoherent curses, but when he turned to them they assumed a meekness and pleasantry which quite disarmed suspicion. Still, their anger, as they followed him into the building, was so intense as to defy being masked and afforded us, who were witnessing the episode, the most ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... foot, or whip; the single rein is of very little use, and hardly ever used by a native, for once a camel bolts, nothing will stop him, excepting a cloth flung over his head, or the birth of some passing fancy in his head, which serves to divert the evil tenor of his benighted brain. And I defy anyone unused to the desert and its markings to know if they are really going straight or in a circle, and you were too taken up to notice the stars. Try again! Keep that red star straight ahead, those ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest
... in the house of the Jarados. A bold sort of humor, I call it—to defy the Prophecy in the very spot ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... yap! You defy me?—you pigmy, you insolent scrap! What!—this to my teeth, that have worried a score Of the biggest rats bred in the granary floor! Come on, and be swallowed! ...
— Verses for Children - and Songs for Music • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... reptiles, the rich and varied shells of the Jurassic, the dinosaurs and primitive birds of Cretaceous, the little early horses of Eocene, and Miocene's camels and mastodons mingling their fossil remnants in a democracy of ruin to defy the eternal ages! ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... which, at twelve o'clock Saturday night. You and her brother will be under it ready to receive her; and when you have got the lady, you will bring her aboard the ship, which shall be ready to cut and run, I tell you; up killock, sheet home, and I'll defy all the cutters in Havana to overhaul us with an hour's start! Those chaps in Stockholm are almighty particular about your health, if your papers show that you left Havana after the first of June, and so, to pull the wool over their eyes, and save ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... exclaimed the Sage of Fleet Street, raising a glass of Ammoniated Tincture of Quinine to his lips, and quaffing merrily a teaspoonful. "I defy you! You are puffed up with conceit, my poor little Illness, and when, in a few weeks' time, we have another sensation to talk and think about, you will sink ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 98, January 18, 1890 • Various
... one thing Destiny admires in a man, it is his courage to defy her. She relentlessly crushes the supine spirit who acquiesces, but to him who snaps his fingers in her face she often extends a helping hand. In this case she did not make Quin wait until the morrow ...
— Quin • Alice Hegan Rice
... defiance, and gain the highest glory of a warrior by meeting death with fortitude. But when he feels himself attacked by a mysterious evil, before whose insidious assaults his manhood is wasted, and his strength drained away, when he can see no enemy to resist and defy, the boldest warrior falls prostrate at once. He believes that a bad spirit has taken possession of him, or that he is the victim of some charm. When suffering from a protracted disorder, an Indian will often abandon himself to his supposed destiny, pine away ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... wisdom, methinks, in putting on armour where we have no power to fight; it is but a dangerous temerity to defy the foe ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... interrupted the tirade of M. de la Vrilliere, by observing, that a conspiracy conducted by only eight persons might very possibly escape the eye of the police; but, furnished as it now was with so many circumstances and particulars, it was impossible that the plot should any longer defy their vigilant researches. M. d'Aiguillon fully concurred in this observation, and M. de Sartines, recovered in some measure from his first alarm, promised every thing they could desire; and it was finally arranged that the police should this night use every ...
— "Written by Herself" • Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon
... Mistress Nutter, boldly, "since you find yourself defeated in the claims you have made against my property, you are seeking to revenge yourself, I understand, by bringing charges against me as false as they are calumnious. But I defy your malice, and can ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... a liar. I've never lied so much in my life ... yes, I'm going to Hildreth ... and I'm going to persuade her to live with me, and defy the whole damned world—the world of fake radicals that talk about divorces when the shoe pinches them, as well as the world of ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... from about sixty other fellows, too ragged to come themselves, to offer him a home in the mountains of Virginia. The home was a good house and farm, and near by was a defile, in some rugged hills, from which they could defy the entire Federal Army. They made this offer of a home and their protection because there was a report that he was about to be indicted for treason. The General had to decline to go with them, but the tears came into his eyes at this hearty exhibition ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son
... more civilised, with his power of evil trained by education and cynical reflection to defy the attacks of those spasms of unreasoning spiritual terror and unrestrainable passion that have their natural dwelling-place in the raw strong mind of uncultivated man, Frank Muller might have broken upon the world as a Napoleon. Had he been a little more savage, a ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... put these classic souls of art in the same category? The art for art's sake people—these make me sick. It is at best an argumentative confusion springing from the fact that in the perfect work of art there is such a fusion of form and substance as to resist dissociation and defy analysis. Perhaps this fact accounts for Tolstoi's contempt for some of the classic art. It seems to me that most classic art is one of two things: either it smacks of smug content and over-fed geniality or it is permeated with a profound pessimism. The philosophers are worse ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... so," said Wallace, "and of course I shall not fail you in this attempt to protect your old friends; but, to tell you the truth, I don't quite like this readiness on the part of you Covenanters to defy the laws, however bad they may be, and to attack the King's troops. The Bible, which you so often quote, ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... in every dispensary, in every grand jury room, at every petty sessions, in every county court, in every public institution throughout the kingdom. The land-agent is the commanding officer, his office is a garrison, dominating the surrounding district. He is able, in most cases, to defy the confessional and the altar; because he wields an engine of terror generally more powerful over the mind of the peasantry than the terrors of the world to come. Armed with the 'rules of the estate' and with a notice to ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... of the melee. But worst of all, the city is pockmarked with public-houses, and bristles with high round chimneys. These are not confined to a locality, but stuck all over the place like cloves in an orange. They defy the law, and belch forth massy volumes of black smoke, that hang like acres of crape over the place, and veil the sun and the blue sky even in the brightest day. But in a fog—why, the air of Hillsborough looks a thing to plow, if you ...
— Put Yourself in His Place • Charles Reade
... enthusiasm in fairs and revivals, conventions and flag presentations; to pay a dollar apiece into their treasury for the honor of being members of their various organizations; to beg money for the Church; to circulate petitions from door to door; to visit saloons; to pray with or defy rumsellers; to teach school at half price, and sit round the outskirts of a hall, in teachers' State conventions, like so many wallflowers; but they would not allow them to sit on the platform, address the assembly, or vote for men ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... opening and closing it in a most leisurely fashion—a significantly different exit from her furtive and ashamed entrance. Love and revolt were running high and hot in her veins. She longed openly to defy the world—her world. ...
— The Conflict • David Graham Phillips
... on, we, too, were dying and the race fast approaching extinction, when the Great Truth was revealed to us, that mind is all. Many more died before we perfected our powers, but at last we were able to defy death when we fully understood that death was merely ...
— Thuvia, Maid of Mars • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... continued to repeat, with groans and tears. 'It is my fate.' Athol sat knitting his black brows during this conversation; and at last throwing out some sullen remarks to Lord Douglas on exhorting the king to defy his liege lord, ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... firmly believe what they were told respecting the cause in which they fought: it would have been a high breach of discipline to doubt it; and they, I conceive, are men better skilled in handling a musket, than in sifting evidence, and detecting imposture. But I defy any one of them to come forward and declare, on his own knowledge, what was the cause in which he fought,—under whose commands the opposed generals acted,—and whether the person who issued those commands did really perform the mighty ...
— Historic Doubts Relative To Napoleon Buonaparte • Richard Whately
... gospel of Jesus Christ? And, therefore, this curse is executed in wrath, in jealousy, in anger, in fury; yea, the heavens and the earth shall be burned up with the fire of that jealousy in which the great God will come, when He cometh to curse the souls of sinners, and when He cometh to defy the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... preceding year. The seat of government for the archipelago is founded there; and amicable relations (involving the payment of tribute by the natives) are established between the Spaniards and the people of some neighboring villages. Other communities refuse to make submission, and defy the invaders; but they are successively reduced to subjection by the Spaniards. After narrating these transactions, the writer gives a brief description of the people of Luzon, their mode of dress, religious rites, and various customs; ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803 - Volume III, 1569-1576 • E.H. Blair
... south, Bulgarians in the east, and Servians in the north-east. Most of the Albanians forsook Christianity and are among the most fanatical and warlike upholders of Islam; but in their turbulent clan-life they often defy the authority of the Sultan, and uphold it only in order to keep their supremacy over the hated and despised Greeks and Bulgars on their outskirts. Last among the non-Turkish races of the Balkan Peninsula are a few Wallachs in Central Macedonia, ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... institution of common meals extended to both sexes. But, in the present unfortunate state of opinion, who would dare to establish them? And still more, who can compel women to eat and drink in public? They will defy the legislator to drag them out of their holes. And in any other state such a proposal would be drowned in clamour, but in our own I think that I can show the attempt to be just and reasonable. 'There is nothing which we should like to hear better.' Listen, then; having ...
— Laws • Plato
... he: 'it's utterly impossible for me to wade through; and even if I could, I should be in such a dirty plight, that it would defy all the waters in the Mississippi to wash me clean again. No,' he added in a desponding tone, 'I should be like a live eel in a frying-pan, Colonel, sort of out of my element, if I attempted to live like an honest man ...
— David Crockett: His Life and Adventures • John S. C. Abbott
... When the roar of the tempest is high, I'll sing of his might to redeem,— Of the Rock that is higher than I: I'll triumph o'er death and the grave, The proud legions of darkness defy— The foam my firm foot shall just lave On the Rock that is ...
— Favourite Welsh Hymns - Translated into English • Joseph Morris
... rest. It was no use worrying about his opinions. Affluence had come to her—that was the one important and exhilarating fact. Besides, had not the hypocrites really enjoyed her book? A new wave of emotion swept over her—again she felt strong enough to defy the whole world. ...
— Children of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... self-appointed murderers; his mood was quick with wonder and foreboding and bewilderment. The more closely he examined the affair, the more strange and inexplicable it bulked in his understanding. He had not thought to defy the Pack and get off lightly; but he had looked for no such overt effort at disciplining him so long as he kept out of the way and suspended his criminal activities. An unwilling recruit is a potential traitor in the camp; and retired competition isn't to be feared. So it seemed ...
— The Lone Wolf - A Melodrama • Louis Joseph Vance
... may be, a commonplace is cast. 'Is human grandeur so stable that they may deny to others that which they would in an humble situation desire themselves? Or has human pride reached such a pitch of arrogance that they have learned to defy both right and reason, to reject the laws of natural kindness that ought to reign in the breast of all, and to look on their fellow countrymen as the refuse of mankind?... Is it morally just or politically ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... suffered, the coldness of the reception I had met from the president on my return to college, and the ambiguity which I conceived I had since remarked in his manner, excited some fear; and my preparatory efforts were so strenuous that I imagined I might defy reproof. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... lodgings; and so the cuck swears she will pin the dish-clout to mistress's tail; and the house-maid vows, she'll put cowitch in master's bed, if so be he don't discamp without furder ado — I don't blame them for making the most of their market, in the way of vails and parquisites; and I defy the devil to say I am a tail-carrier, or ever brought a poor sarvant into trouble — But then they oft to have some conscience, in vronging those that be sarvants like themselves — For you must no, Molly, I missed three-quarters of blond lace, and a remnant of muslin, and my silver ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... an English monk of Peterborough. Englishmen were shocked by the new regularity of taxation. They could hardly be expected to understand the advantages of a government strong enough through regular taxation to put down the resistance of rebellious earls at home and to defy invasion from abroad. The result of the inquiries of the king's commissioners was embodied in Domesday Book, so called because it was no more possible to appeal from it than from ...
— A Student's History of England, v. 1 (of 3) - From the earliest times to the Death of King Edward VII • Samuel Rawson Gardiner
... perished Gaius Gracchus, a wiser man than his brother—a man who attempted greater changes, and did not defy the constitutional forms. He was, undoubtedly, patriotic in his intentions, but the reforms which he projected were radical, and would have changed the whole structure of government. It was the consummation of the war against the patrician oligarchy. Whether wise or foolish, ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... co-worker, Miss Bilbrough. Many misgivings arose in the hearts of some at the thought of these two sisters in the Lord arriving uninvited in a new land where neither owned a friend, and, greatest of all, fears were entertained that those who had known the wild roaming life of city Arabs might defy the control and authority of the leaders. But how vain were all these fears! Wisdom had been asked of the Lord in every step of the way, and He had given "liberally," according to His gracious word. How blessedly was the title of Counsellor as well ...
— God's Answers - A Record Of Miss Annie Macpherson's Work at the - Home of Industry, Spitalfields, London, and in Canada • Clara M. S. Lowe
... your pledge Lieutenant Boyd," the captain continued. "I give you my word I shall wait Mr. Ruthven's pleasure at Port Garry, and I defy him to bring his witnesses before a competent tribunal. Indeed, I court and desire a full investigation of the act with which I stand charged." As he spoke he glared at Ruthven, and ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... place for cholera; where windows and doors are kept most jealously shut, there cholera will find easiest entrance; and people who indulge in intemperate diet during the hot days of autumn are actually courting death. To repeat it, cleanliness, sobriety, and free ventilation almost always defy the pestilence; but, in case of attack, immediate recourse should be had to a physician. The faculty say that a large number of lives have been lost, in many seasons, solely from delay in seeking medical assistance. ...
— The Book of Household Management • Mrs. Isabella Beeton
... blend with the picture of his Lord which Luke portrays. The character of Jesus is so subtle and complex as to defy exact analysis, and yet it is evident that certain of its features, common to all, are emphasized successively by each one of the Gospel writers. Matthew depicts its majesty, Mark its strength, and John its sublimity; but Luke reveals its ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... lambies, so I will. You just keep on a steppin' backwards and I'll do it, too, and first we know we'll get to that nice pantry where we stayed last night. I've got the key to that, even if 'tis rusty from not bein' often used, and I'll defy anybody to ...
— Jessica, the Heiress • Evelyn Raymond
... released, it guards itself against exposure by the menace of revenge more formidable still. The parole and the indeterminate sentence, framed to open the way to reform of prisoners, is used by prison officials to intimidate and debase them; and if any ex-convict ventures to defy this fortified despotism, the immediate rejoinder is, "Who can believe a jail-bird? A man wicked enough to steal or murder is wicked enough to lie, and is not the malicious motive ...
— The Subterranean Brotherhood • Julian Hawthorne
... I have frequently examined: they are tastefully and comfortably built, and fitted up with all sorts of furs,—skins of bear and buffalo, and various other beasts; are lined and betasseled in a way that renders them quite beautiful; and might defy the recognition of their nearest ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power
... skill. The composition of a bed was a question of sacks. There was one very large variety of chaff-sack, which was a sleeping-bag in itself; with this and your blanket and cloak, and under the lee of some forage or scrub, you could defy anything. The only peril was that of a loose horse walking ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... have received an answer from this Railsford here to my question! Let him get up like a man and say he did not attack me like a coward last term, and allow the blame and suspicion to fall on others; let him even get up and declare that he does not know anything about the affair. I defy him to do ...
— The Master of the Shell • Talbot Baines Reed
... take a blow sitting down. We have to burn their crops, you see; blow up their towers; enforce heavy fines, and generally knock it into their heads that they can't defy the Indian Government with impunity. Yes; it means fighting—severe or otherwise, according ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... powerfully depicted, but it is found in Wagner's 'Remorse after the Deed' (1775), wherein a coachman's daughter, Friederike Walz, is loved by the aristocratic Langen, who is opposed by his mother. Langen goes to his sweetheart, all courage and resolution. He is prepared, like Leisewitz's Julius, to defy his kin, renounce the lures of his rank and flee to the ends of the earth with 'Rikchen'. To which she replies: 'Langen, you are terrible. To marry with the curse of parents is to make one's whole ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... soldiers, as far as circumstances would permit, throughout the whole course of this campaign, by civilian friends at home, in the Colonies, and in the conquered territories, defy all counting and all description. In some cases, indeed, valuable consignments intended for their comfort seem never to have reached their destination, but the knowledge that they were thus thought ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... that," responded one of the club. "Let us defy such intolerance, though all the magistrates and ministers in Boston support it; the mass of the people are ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... it only the Nile, and the Yang-tse-Kiang, or Great River of China. But the upper course of neither is yet very fully established; and the Nile can compete only in length of course, not in the magnitude of its stream, or the fertility of the regions. There is one feature in which the Niger may defy competition from any river, either of the old or new world. This is the grandeur of its Delta. Along the whole coast, from the river of Formosa or Benin to that of Old Calabar, about 300 miles in length, there open into the Atlantic its successive estuaries, which navigators have scarcely been ...
— Life and Travels of Mungo Park in Central Africa • Mungo Park
... procedure the problems of conduct which defy solution by conscious thought will frequently yield to autosuggestion. When we are "at our wits' ends," as the saying goes, to discover the best path out of a dilemma, when choice between conflicting possibilities seems impossible, it is worse than useless to continue the struggle. The ...
— The Practice of Autosuggestion • C. Harry Brooks
... the fiercest people on the Enchanted Island," said he, "and there are thousands upon thousands who obey this unknown king. But if you think we dare defy them I am willing to go on. Perhaps our boldness will lead them into torturing me, or starving me to death; and at the very least I ought to find much trouble and privation in ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... great pain; and whom recent circumstances had especially rendered an object of suspicion and alarm. There was much more to the same effect. There was no distinct charge—nothing tangible, or of which I could defy them to the proof. All was dark doubt and murderous innuendo. There was nothing for which I could claim relief from the laws of my country—more than enough to complete my ruin. I burned with anger and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... which have been put into my hands belie them. But how is it with those the bishops don't appoint? There seems to me to be such a complication of absurdities as to defy explanation." ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... plank at Scrymgeour's window. The plank was pushed nearly half-way out at the window, and you walked up it until it toppled and you were flung into the quadrangle. Such was the romance of William John that he walked the plank with his arms tied, shouting scornfully, by request, "Captain Kidd, I defy you! ha, ha! the buccaneer does not live who will blanch the cheeks of Dick, the Doughty Tar!" Then William John disappeared, and had to ...
— My Lady Nicotine - A Study in Smoke • J. M. Barrie
... aloud that the Lady Mary's title was the better. That same night, a letter arrived from Mary herself, claiming the allegiance of the Council in true queenly style. They were not yet prepared to defy Northumberland, and a reply was penned the next day affirming Lady Jane's title. Two of the Duke's sons were already in pursuit of Mary, and a general impression prevailed that they had captured her and were on their way to London. They had indeed reached her, but their ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... Imperialism; now it's Liberty in Europe; now it's Slavery in Ireland; now it's sacrifice of the last man an' the last dollar. You never can tell what aspiration'll get 'em next. And the 'ole point of an aspiration is the sacrifice of someone else. Don't you make a mistake, sir. I defy you to make a public speech which 'asn't got that at ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... in" more clearly might tell Her grace in its buoyant and billowy swell. Her robe was a vague circumambient space, With shadowy boundaries made of point-lace; The rest was but guesswork, and well might defy The power of critical feminine eye To define or describe: 'twere as futile to try The gossamer web of the cirrus to trace, Floating far in the blue of ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... might; I am not gainsaying that: but you said quarrel, says you. 'Quarrel' it were your word; and I defy all Barkton, gentle and simple, to say as how me ...
— Hard Cash • Charles Reade
... which I am just returned. I do not mind being taken by you for a rogue, for there is no disgrace in the vast sums at stake; but to be taken for an imbecile, capable of dancing attendance on a sham nobleman, and so silly as to defy the Montsorels on behalf of a counterfeit—Really, my friend, it would seem that you have never been to Vienna! We are not in the ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... anything of the kind; and I defy you to prove the faintest thing." But Jerrold's fingers were twitching, and his eyes ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... grim and impregnable fortress of the Old World. The wonderful glow of the air, and the vast river flowing at its feet, magnified and colored everything. It was a city ten times its real size and the distance turned gray wood to gray stone. Everything was solid, immovable, and it seemed fit to defy the world. ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... still; in the next moment, she perceived it to be the voice of Verezzi, who did not appear to know, that she was there, but to have spoken to himself. 'The air is fresher here,' said he: 'this should be the corridor.' Perhaps, he was one of those heroes, whose courage can defy an enemy better than darkness, and he tried to rally his spirits with the sound of his own voice. However this might be, he turned to the right, and proceeded, with the same stealing steps, towards Emily's apartment, apparently ...
— The Mysteries of Udolpho • Ann Radcliffe
... on the stage in Henri III, though it adds to the splendour of the scenic effect, produces a confusion in the plot; as does also the vast number of names and titles introduced during the scenes, which fatigue the attention and defy ...
— The Idler in France • Marguerite Gardiner
... ended when there came from the mother- country a demand for the raw fiber, which promised to be almost without limit. A few trials sufficed to show Southern planters that with their soil and their slaves they could supply this demand with a quality of cotton which would defy competition, and at a profit to themselves far exceeding that of any other product of agriculture. But an insurmountable obstacle yet seemed to interpose itself between them and their golden harvest. The tedious work of cleaning the fiber from the seed apparently ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... also keep him from getting it. Bell nearly had a stroke at that threat. Henry behaved very decently throughout. I think it must have pleased him to find that somebody in Wichita, besides him, had the courage to defy his father; anyhow, he said, '"Bob" has beaten us at our own game. She knows enough now to place that lease in half an hour, and I think we'd better take her in. Otherwise she'll wire Knute, and he'll probably ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... in a tone of reproof, "your notions of gentlemen's conduct is so disgusting, that I can't help despising you, and giving the honour of my birth to some other individual. No son of your's could be elevated in his ideas. I defy him." ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... character of the story; but, in that of the King so much license has been used as almost to defy its identification with history. Scenes, situations, and sketches, of uncommon interest, abound throughout the work; the manners and customs of the times, and the details of costume and pageant glitter are worked up with great labour—perhaps ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 17, Number 489, Saturday, May 14, 1831 • Various
... says in one of her charming letters to Freiherr von Stein, "are my principal characteristics. Hence I despatch at once whatever I have to do, the most disagreeable always first, and I gulp down the devil without looking at him. When all has returned to its proper state, then I defy any one to surpass me in good humour." Her heartiness and tolerance are the causes, she thinks, why every one likes her. "I am fond of people, and that every one feels directly—young and old. I pass without pretension ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... them continued. "Because I love my countrymen, sir, I protest the destructive teachings of your brotherhood. Your ambitious schemes would plunge my country into a bloody revolution the horrors of which defy the imagination. America will find a better way. The loyal American citizens who labor in our industries and the equally loyal American operators of these industries will never consent to the ruthless murder ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... elsewhere vowed a duty; Turn away thy tempting eye: Show not me a painted beauty: These impostures I defy: My spirit loathes Where gaudy clothes And feigned oaths may love obtain: I love her so, Whose look swears No, That all your labours will ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... which invite criticism and yet defy it. The great batsman at cricket is the man who can play an unorthodox game, take every liberty which is denied to inferior players, and yet succeed brilliantly in the face of his disregard of law. So it is here. I should think the model of these ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Shadow I'll no longer try Or use the pleasing Toy A sprightly Youth I can't defy, ...
— Tractus de Hermaphrodites • Giles Jacob
... bigger than themselves—their relief was great, and their courage began to return. They assumed at once a superior 'don't-care' air, as though they thought it all a great joke. In their own minds they felt they could easily defy such antagonists and get the better of them; but their attitude only made Esther and Penelope ...
— The Carroll Girls • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... have been deemed vague heretofore, can only be judged of by the sequel. At any rate, it appears to me necessary not to be misunderstood. Mr. Pendleton is therefore authorized to say, that in the course of the present discussion, written or verbal, there has been no intention to evade, defy, or insult, but a sincere disposition to avoid extremities, if it could be done with propriety. With this view General Hamilton has been ready to enter into a frank and free explanation on any and every object ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis
... would seem to have lost its appeal and savour for a time. The poet had received a shock that we cannot quite estimate or understand, and turning to Plutarch's Lives for inspiration, he wrote the famous tragedy "Julius Caesar," in many respects a work that must always defy adequate representation on the stage. How it could have passed muster on the bare Elizabethan boards is a puzzle. Next in order came the masterpiece by which his name is known to the widest circle of his followers, "Hamlet," yet another ...
— William Shakespeare - His Homes and Haunts • Samuel Levy Bensusan
... Ha! Maatche- Mahneto!' he cried—and again he fixed his glaring eyes on the dark space in the far corner of the hut, from which the spectators had shrunk trembling away—' Ha! spirit of evil! I behold thee—and I defy thee! Terah is not thine; and my power has compelled thee to send the Ashkook,[4] with his healing tongue, to lick my brother's wounds; and Wobsacuck, with eagle beak, to devour the venom that clogs his veins, and ...
— The Pilgrims of New England - A Tale Of The Early American Settlers • Mrs. J. B. Webb
... of Rosa is worth dying for, if you can win it. (I could not even win it.) You will have to choose between Love and Life. I do not counsel you either way. But I urge you to choose. I urge you either to defy your foe utterly and to the death, or to submit ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... them understand such an institution as trial by jury; they throve best under the form of government to which they had been immemorially accustomed—a commandant to give them orders, with a few troops to back him up.[24] They often sought to escape from these orders, but rarely to defy them; their lawlessness was like the lawlessness of children and savages; any disobedience was always to a particular ordinance, ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... love, I find words deeply impregnated with the savour of life; but in George Meredith there is nothing but crackjaw sentences, empty and unpleasant in the mouth as sterile nuts. I could select hundreds of phrases which Mr. Meredith would probably call epigrams, and I would defy anyone to say they were wise, graceful or witty. I do not know any book more tedious than "Tragic Comedians," more pretentious, more blatant; it struts and screams, stupid in all its gaud and absurdity as a cockatoo. More than fifty pages ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... things are seen in their immediate relation to the individual soul. This kind of research is the work of letters; here are facts of human life to be noted that are never like to be numerically tabulated, changes and developments that defy all metrical standards to be traced and described. The greater men of science have been cast in so generous a mould that they have recognised the partial nature of their task; they have known how to play with science as ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... schoolhouse, which was the early New England method of getting rid of an unpopular schoolmaster. None of the boys, however, dared raise a finger against him, and he ruled his little kingdom as an absolute monarch. At last, however, towards the close of the term, some one dared to defy him—and it was not one of the big boys, but ...
— A Busy Year at the Old Squire's • Charles Asbury Stephens
... who should strive ambitiously to represent the complex effect of the original would clog his own powers of expression and strain his instrument to breaking. But, apart from the diction in this narrower sense, there is a quality of atmosphere surrounding the Agamemnon which seems almost to defy reproduction in another setting, because it depends in large measure on the position of the play in the historical ...
— Agamemnon • Aeschylus
... introduced to the public? the preface is as genuine a panegyric, and nearly as long a one, as that of Pliny's on the Emperor Trajan. Such a preface is ringing an alarum bell for an author. If we look closer into the characters of these masters of ceremony, who thus sport with and defy the judgment of their reader, and who, by their extravagant panegyric, do considerable injury to the cause of taste, we discover that some accidental occurrence has occasioned this vehement affection for the author, and which, like that of another kind of love, makes ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... purpose of perplexing my already harassed and agitated mind. In this letter I was told, amongst other matter which I need not repeat, to prepare to quit Spain. But by the shaft I knew the quiver from which it came, and, merely exclaiming, 'Satan, I defy thee,' I hurried to Sagra, and disposed of amongst the peasantry in one fortnight four hundred copies of the New Testament. But it is hard to wrestle with the great Enemy; another shaft arrived in the shape of a letter, which compelled me to return to Madrid, whilst the cause of God ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... as he would have bled, by rote, to recall to life one actually cut down from the beam. But, although the young blood did flow, bearing testimony to the fact that the heart still beat in that deathlike frame, the vitality left seemed so faint as to defy ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... us, that this has been owing to his very greatness; that he was so much above other men as to defy competition and extinguish rivalry; and that genius, in despair of ever equalling his vast and varied conceptions, has turned aside into other channels where the avenue to the highest distinction was not blocked up by the giant of former ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... whole body was blackened. Nor is the extravagance of the methods, which the militant lady follows to put over her program, so foreign to her nature as it may seem. The suffragette adapts to her needs a form of feminine coquetry as old as the world. To defy and denounce the male has always been one of woman's most ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... on a long country excursion, my stepmother got a severe chill and within a week was dead. We returned to Haynthorpe, my father being now in a very precarious state of health, Henshaw followed us with a pertinacity that was almost devilish. But I now ventured to defy his threats of exposing me; he strenuously denied any such intention and declared himself madly in love with me. I had now taken courage enough to reject him uncompromisingly; I forbade him ever ...
— The Hunt Ball Mystery • Magnay, William
... this extraordinary work that it defies analysis would be the merest inadequacy of commonplace. It was meant to defy analysis; it is of the very essence of its scheme and purpose that it should do so; and the mere attempt to subject it systematically to any such process would argue an altogether mistaken conception ...
— Sterne • H.D. Traill
... with a mixture of blood and snow than with any other available material. He furthermore intimated that he feared they might be overtaken by a blizzard before morning, in which case they could best defy it in ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... a little, and follow the movements of Alcidas. The Spartan admiral, it would seem, had small stomach for the bold adventure on which he was bound—no less than to rob the Athenians of one of their most important possessions, and defy the redoubtable captains of Athens on their own element. After loitering for some time off the coast of Peloponnesus, he sailed on slowly as far as Delos, and then, touching at Icarus, he heard that Mytilene was ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... intentions towards you are very innocent and good, for you are one of those whose interests I shall ever prefer much above my own; and you are not to thank me for it, since, to speak truth, I secure my own by it; for I defy my ill fortune to make me miserable, unless she does it in the persons of my friends. I wonder how your father came to know I was in town, unless my old friend, your cousin Hammond, should tell him. Pray, for my sake, be a very ...
— The Love Letters of Dorothy Osborne to Sir William Temple, 1652-54 • Edward Abbott Parry
... palace and the forest of Fontainebleau, in one of those cold but bright autumn days when the half bare trees have a strange appearance, when some leaves are as red as blood, others as yellow as gold, and nature wears all the countless hues which defy the artist's brush. The forest is wonderfully beautiful with its marvellous combination of trees and rocks. All the kings of France since Louis VII. have inhabited this palace. The holy head of Louis IX. appears there with his aureola on his head, In the gallery of Francis I., with ...
— The Court of the Empress Josephine • Imbert de Saint-Amand
... him: till then he is the minister of none but the devil. And no ecclesiastic shall suffer at the tribunal of an infidel. Holy Writ forbids us to go to law before the unjust.—Let the world say of me what it will. I defy it and its rulers. I have to establish the kingdom of God in this city, and do it I will, knowing that other foundation can no man lay than that which is laid, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... trees a rustling shade supply, The boards are spread, the altars blaze anew. Back, from another quarter of the sky, Dark-ambushed, round the clamorous Harpies fly With taloned claws, and taste and taint the prey. To arms I call my comrades, and defy The loathsome brood to battle. They obey, And swords and bucklers ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... Strange to say, it was the mere sight of the real fine gentleman that made the mock fine gentleman shrink and collapse. Though Jasper Losely knew himself to be still called a magnificent man,—one of royal Nature's Lifeguardsmen; though confident that from top to toe his habiliments could defy the criticism of the strictest martinet in polite costume, no sooner did that figure, by no means handsome and clad in garments innocent of buckram but guilty of wrinkles, appear on the threshold than Jasper Losely felt small and shabby, as if he had been suddenly ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... aunt knows them, by good fortune; I perfectly trust, as I tell you, her judgment for them; and you may take it from me once for all that I won't hear of any one of whom she won't." Which led up to his last word. "If you should really defy us both——!" ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... handsome, distinguished-looking man who is the hero prince, and will presently discover you and smile divinely with all his soul in his eyes, and when instead an iron-visaged person looks up at you, and scowls and grows as black as thunder, I defy any woman not to ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... what are apparently intended for two acts, headed respectively Parte prima and Parte quinta, each consisting of several scenes, though these are not distinguished. The first two form a sort of introduction, in which Cupid and Diana mutually defy one another on account of the nymph Irinda, whom the boy-god has wounded with love for Filicio. The shepherd returns her love, but finds a rival in Viaste, whose blind passion, though unreturned, will admit no discourse ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... this month: especially glad that you particularize the first chapter. I hope to do great things with Nancy. If I can only work out the idea I have formed of her, and of the female who is to contrast with her, I think I may defy Mr. —— and all his works.[13] I have had great difficulty in keeping my hands off Fagin and the rest of them in the evenings; but, as I came down for rest, I have resisted the temptation, and steadily applied myself to the labor of being idle. Did you ever read (of course you have, though) ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... malady attacked most battalions of the army; and it may have quickened Bonaparte's march towards Acre. Certain it is that he rejected Kleber's advice to advance inland towards Nablus, the ancient Shechem, and from that commanding centre to dominate Palestine and defy the power of Gezzar.[114] ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... could, and succeeding so well that Aunt Barbara, on her return, never suspected the fierce storm which Ethelyn had passed through during her absence, or dreamed how anxiously the young girl watched and waited for some word from Frank which should say that he was ready to defy his mother, and abide by his first promise. But no such letter came, and at last, when she could bear the suspense no longer, Ethelyn wrote herself to her recreant lover, asking if it were really so that hereafter their lives lay apart from each other. ...
— Ethelyn's Mistake • Mary Jane Holmes
Copyright © 2025 Dictionary One.com
|
|
|
