"Defensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... contrary, that the development of Western agriculture has elevated him, and that he has more money, and received more honors, 'than any man the world has produced,' by appropriating the brains of others, and the credit due them as inventors, are propositions much more defensible." ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... for the doctrine under consideration are, for the most part, drawn from precedent, but it is sometimes supposed to be defensible as theoretically sound. Every man, it is said, has an absolute right to his person, and so forth, free from detriment at the hands of his neighbors. In the cases put, the plaintiff has done nothing; the defendant, on the other hand, has chosen to act. ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... knew nothing of war the place seemed defensible enough. I have said that the road down which Long Gregory came with his tidings went north; and that was its general direction; but its first reach was nearly east, so that the low sun was not in the eyes of any of us, and where Will Green took his stand, and I with him, it was nearly ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... Charleston harbor. On December 27, 1860, by a skillful movement at night, Major Anderson, the commander at Fort Moultrie, had transferred his scanty force from that dilapidated and untenable post on the shore to the more defensible and more important position of Fort Sumter. Thereafter a precarious relationship betwixt peace and war had subsisted between him and the South Carolinians. It was distinctly understood that, sooner or later, by negotiation or by force, South Carolina intended ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... Germany, that its duties to civilization were so slight that it should support its ally, Austria, whether the latter were right or wrong. Such was its policy, and it carried it out with fatal consistency. To support its ally in actual war without respect to the justice of the quarrel may be defensible, but to support it in a time of peace in an iniquitous demand and a policy of gross discourtesy to friendly States offends ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... which the student is placed within its precincts. His only allurement to extravagance is the desire of vying with those who make a greater display than himself, or else it arises from, if possible, a less defensible motive, namely, that of becoming himself an object of emulation to others. It is not the duty of the college authorities to compensate by their watchfulness the effects of a weak understanding, or that lax principle, or the want of self-command, ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... sounds, which may be equally admitted, as being equally defensible by authority. ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... was only a pretext for quartering upon them two-score of lazy, rollicking soldiers, who certainly seemed more expert in making love to their daughters, and drinking their best ale and cider, than in patrolling the woods or putting the garrisons into a defensible state. The grain and hay harvest ended without disturbance; the men worked in their fields, and the women pursued their household avocations, without any very serious apprehension ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... time, a change from the printed text is not only justifiable; it is demanded, in order to give additional intensity and power to the phrase, and to avoid the monotony caused by mere repetition. This modification is all the more defensible, as the composer has substituted the orchestra, with the strings tremolo, for the rhythmical harp-figure with which he accompanies the phrase on its first and second presentations. Here is ...
— Style in Singing • W. E. Haslam
... enforced—among them one which made the blood-avenger a murderer, instead of a hero as he had been. Moreover, the foundations of a university were laid in the town of Corte, which was the hearthstone of the liberals because it was the natural capital of the west slope, connected by difficult and defensible paths with every cape and bay and intervale of the rocky and broken coast. The Genoese were gradually driven from the interior, and finally they occupied but three ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... whole the least defensible of the concessions made in this matter concerned the African Slave Trade. That odious traffic was condemned by almost all Americans—even by those who were accustomed to domestic slavery, and could see ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... sometimes amicable terminations. But I intreat you to observe the utmost silence on this point, as it may lead me into an awkward situation; for I have acted solely on my own responsibility, and without orders; the causes and reasoning on which, upon general principles, may be defensible, but as applying to our own country, may not be borne out, the old mercantile ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... our neighbor the Kirk,—General Assembly, Men of Strathbogie, Dr. Chalmers, and all,—came to a unanimous or quasi-unanimous resolve to submit to the Archbishop of Canterbury as their patriarch, this doubtless would be an exercise of private judgment perfectly defensible ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... perceive how much more defensible the new doctrine is than the old one. Even could the supporters of the Development Hypothesis merely show that the origination of species by the process of modification is conceivable, they would be in a ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... ought to make ourselves safe in Canada, not by sending more troops there, but by concentrating those we have in a few defensible posts before the winter sets ...
— The Education of Henry Adams • Henry Adams
... flagella, the colony is broken up, the different individuals settle to the bottom, and each gives rise by division to a new colony. This group of cells may be considered as a colony or as an individual. Each term is defensible. ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... of the frontier was important; but it did not become of supreme importance until, firstly, Shere Ali became our enemy, and, secondly, showed unmistakable signs of having a close understanding with Russia. Thenceforth it became a matter of vital import for India to have a frontier readibly defensible against so strong a combination as that of Russia ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... importance to the astronomer, inasmuch as they are calculated to throw light on the proper motions of the stars. Flamsteed's work may, indeed, be regarded as the origin of all subsequent catalogues, and the nomenclature which he adopted, though in some respects it can hardly be said to be very defensible, is, nevertheless, that which has been adopted by all subsequent astronomers. There were also a great many errors, as might be expected in a work of such extent, composed almost entirely of numerical detail. Many ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... labors of the day. With all this the fort was not completed until the supplies grew so short that further delay in obtaining more could not be thought of. By the latter part of April the work was in a partially defensible condition, and the 7th infantry, Major Jacob Brown commanding, was marched in to garrison it, with some few pieces of artillery. All the supplies on hand, with the exception of enough to carry the rest of the army to Point Isabel, were left ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... of perhaps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a land rich in the comforts of life; but in such a land they were sure to find a crowded population, of which every arm was raised in unrelenting hostility, with all the advantages of local knowledge, and with constant preoccupation of all the defensible positions, mountain passes, or bridges. Sometimes, again, wearied out with this mode of suffering, they took a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a land with few or no inhabitants. ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... dwellings. Those that show evidences of being built during the latter part of their occupation of the country are usually placed on the most inaccessible cliffs. Sometimes the mouths of caves have been walled across, and there are many other evidences to show their anxiety to secure defensible positions. Probably the nomadic tribes were sweeping down upon them and they resorted to these cliffs and canyons for safety. It is not unreasonable to suppose that this orange mound was used as a watchtower. Here I stand, where these now lost people stood centuries ago, and ...
— Canyons of the Colorado • J. W. Powell
... this," answered Charles, "I cannot think religious parties defensible on the considerations which justify political. There is, to my feelings, something despicable in ...
— Loss and Gain - The Story of a Convert • John Henry Newman
... and down the broad waters of the Altamaha to the music of these curious chants, I have been reading Mr. Moore's speech about the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia; and I confess I think his the only defensible position yet taken, and the only consistent argument yet used in any of the speeches I have hitherto seen upon ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... and book, That fashion'd others. And him, O wondrous him! O miracle of men! him did you leave, Second to none, unseconded by you, To look upon the hideous god of war In disadvantage; to abide a field Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur's name Did seem defensible: so you left him. Never, O never, do his ghost the wrong To hold your honour more precise and nice With others than with him! let them alone: The marshal and the archbishop are strong: Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers, To-day might I, hanging on Hotspur's neck, Have talk'd ...
— King Henry IV, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Chiswick edition]
... name in the case, to the best of my recollection. But had she any right to bear it? And even supposing they had married, what had happened to the second husband? Widow or no widow, second marriage or no second marriage, defensible or indefensible, was this the right friend for a lad still fresh from Eton, the only son of his mother, who had sent me in secret ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... fashion'd others. And him, O wondrous! him, O Miracle of Men! Him did you leaue (Second to none) vn-seconded by you, To looke vpon the hideous God of Warre, In dis-aduantage, to abide a field, Where nothing but the sound of Hotspurs Name Did seeme defensible: so you left him. Neuer, O neuer doe his Ghost the wrong, To hold your Honor more precise and nice With others, then with him. Let them alone: The Marshall and the Arch-bishop are strong. Had my sweet Harry had but halfe their Numbers, To day might I (hanging ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... hostilities, not only Amherstburg"—on the Detroit River, a little below Detroit—"but most probably the whole country, must be evacuated as far as Kingston."[407] This place is at the foot of Ontario, close to the entrance to the St. Lawrence. Having a good and defensible harbor, it had been selected for the naval station of the lake. If successful in holding it, there would be a base of operations for attempting recovery of the water, and ultimately of the upper country. Failing there, of course the British ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... evils should, caeteris paribus, be preferred: but so long as we conceive that a wanton expenditure of human labour, not for the necessities, not even for the luxuries of the mass of society, but for the egotism and ostentation of a few of its members, is defensible on the ground of public justice, so long we neglect to approximate to the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... Clout—that he intended, that is, to call his poems 'the calender of the shepherd' (see first line of postscript), rather than 'the calender for shepherds.' I have therefore adopted the singular form. 'Calender' is, I think, a defensible spelling. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... definition as this would in a way be defensible. Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life, so why not say that any total reaction upon life is a religion? Total reactions are different from casual reactions, and total attitudes are different from usual or professional attitudes. ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... certain, that many an honest Woman would make no Difficulty, tho she had been the Wife of Hector, for the sake of a Kingdom, to marry the Enemy of her Husbands Family and Country; and indeed who can deny but she might be still an honest Woman, but no Heroine? That may be defensible, nay laudable in one Character, which would be in the highest Degree exceptionable in another. When Cato Uticensis killed himself, Cottius a Roman of ordinary Quality and Character did the same thing; upon which ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... with the current and escape capture; but a still greater advantage would be its tendency to cut the enemy's lines in two by reaching the Memphis and Charleston railroad, threatening Memphis, which lies one hundred miles due west, and no defensible point between; also Nashville, only ninety miles northeast, and Florence and Tuscumbia, in North Alabama, forty ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... Buchanan was informed by telegraph that Anderson had dismantled Fort Moultrie on the north side of the harbor, had spiked its guns, and had removed its garrison to the island fortress, Sumter, which was supposed to be far more defensible. At Charleston his action was interpreted as preparation for war; and all South Carolinians saw in it a violation of a pledge which they believed the President had given their congressmen, three weeks previous, in that talk which had not been written down. Greatly ...
— Abraham Lincoln and the Union - A Chronicle of the Embattled North, Volume 29 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Nathaniel W. Stephenson
... all the general officers present, not less than fifteen hundred men would be requisite for its defence; and, from the nature of the works, which were opened toward the river, a great deal of labour and expense must have been incurred, and much time employed to make them defensible by us. The enemy, depending on their shipping to protect their rear, had constructed the works solely against an attack by land. We should have had to apprehend equally an attack by water, and must have inclosed the post. While we were doing ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... the actual world about us we find the same dark mystery, the weak perishing before the strong, the wicked prosperous, the just oppressed, and the innocent given as a prey to the guilty; and his conclusion is that deism is no more defensible than Christianity. His pessimistic estimate of the actual world drives him to a disbelief in ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... is very strong, mostly hewn in the rock; and he has that important outwork of a FLECHE; which is excellent for enfilading, as it extends well beyond the glacis; and, being of rock like the rest, is also abundantly defensible. Loudon's people, looking over into this FLECHE, find it negligently guarded; Quadt at breakfast, as would seem:—and directly send for Harsch, Captain of the Siege, and even for Loudon, the General-in-Chief. Negligently guarded, sure enough; nothing ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... his day. But his tendencies in that direction would be exaggerated while he was occupied with a purely Biblical subject. And he may have thought, if he thought about the question at all, that the contemptuous tone adopted about classical culture in the speech of Christ was not only dramatically defensible, but balanced by the far finer passage, evidently written from his {205} heart, in which Satan exalts the glories of Athens. It is, perhaps, the most famous ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... view, this seems to be the only defensible provision, as it would tend to discourage usury, a common evil in money transactions between Europeans and Natives; but because it interfered with Mr. Jabavu's personal aims, that is the only flaw. The cold-blooded ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... land and capital is not defensible on grounds of justice, or on the ground that it is an economical way of producing what the community needs. But the chief objections to it are that it stunts the lives of men and women, that it enshrines a ruthless possessiveness in all the respect ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... forward rapidly the construction of the bridge across the harbor, which was to have a roadway of sixteen feet and to bear heavy vehicles. He also conferred with Todleben on other measures to protect the withdrawal, and accordingly barricades were built across the streets and formed into armed and defensible works which were intended, as a last resort, to hold in check the assailants. Preparations were also made for blowing up the principal forts ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... of fatality, or fatal justice, is less defensible, and less acceptable too, than the ancient and elementary power, which, being general and undefined, and offering no too strict explanation of its actions, lent itself to a far greater number of situations. In the special case selected by Ibsen, it is not impossible ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... religious doctrine of personal survival has thus a position defensible on grounds of reason as being that of the inherent permanence of self-conscious truth, it also calls to its aid and indefinitely elevates the most powerful of all the emotions, love. This, as I have ...
— The Religious Sentiment - Its Source and Aim: A Contribution to the Science and - Philosophy of Religion • Daniel G. Brinton
... sentiments, and perhaps might induce the whole body to a tacit acquiescence in their declarations, under a natural and not always an improper dislike of showing a difference with those who lead their party. I will not deny that in general this conduct in parties is defensible; but within what limits the practice is to be circumscribed, and with what exceptions the doctrine which supports it is to be received, it is not my present purpose to define. The present question has nothing to do with ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... which determined her destiny. She resolved that she would not tread one single step in one particular direction, nor even look that way. She did not resolve to tell a lie, or, in fact, to do anything which was not strictly defensible and virtuous. She simply refused to reflect on the possibility of perjury on Jim's part. Refusing to reflect on it, she naturally had no proof of it; and, having no proof of it, she had no ground for believing ...
— Catharine Furze • Mark Rutherford
... severe ordeal was in store for the nascent civilisation of Sierra Leone. On a Sunday morning in September 1794, eight French sail appeared off the coast. The town was about as defensible as Brighton; and it is not difficult to imagine the feelings which the sansculottes inspired among Evangelical colonists whose last advices from Europe dated from the very height of the Reign of Terror. There was a party in favour of escaping into the forest with as much property as could ...
— Life and Letters of Lord Macaulay • George Otto Trevelyan
... the money of the Flemish manufacturers? It was the dictate of self-preservation which induced Elizabeth to prevaricate, and to deceive the powerful monarchs who were in league against her. If ever lying and cheating were justifiable, they were then; if political jesuitism is ever defensible, it was in the sixteenth century. So that I cannot be hard on the embarrassed Queen for a policy which on the strict principles of morality it would be difficult to defend. It was a dark age of conspiracies, rebellions, and cabals. In dealing with the ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VIII • John Lord
... out field-works advantage should be taken of all available artificial obstacles, such as hedges, walls, houses, outbuildings, &c. A thickset hedge may be rendered defensible by throwing up against it a slight parapet of earth. Stone fences may be employed in the same way. Walls of masonry may be pierced with loop-holes and arranged for one or two tiers of fire. The walls of houses are pierced ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... as he passed to move up abreast of the leading wagon, directing the first to the right, the second to the left, and so on. The result of this movement would of course be to bring the train into a compact mass and render it more defensible. The Indians no sooner perceived the advance than they divined its object and made an effort to prevent it. Thurstane had scarcely reached the centre of the line of vehicles when a score or so of yelling ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... as a godown, or storehouse, by the Shah's commissariat, part of it being occupied by Brigadier Anquetil, commanding the Shah's force. Close to this fort, divided by a narrow watercourse, was the house of Captain Troup, brigade-major of the Shah's force, perfectly defensible against musketry. Both Brigadier Anquetil and Captain Troup had gone out on horseback early in the morning towards cantonments, and were unable to return; but the above fort and house contained the usual guard of sepoys; and in a garden ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXVIII. February, 1843. Vol. LIII. • Various
... of the Mutakallimun. Epicurus too, he says, believed in the atomic theory, though he regarded the world as eternal. Hence there is no necessary connection between atoms and creation.[363] The atomic theory is defensible on its own merits, and the motives of the Mutakallimun in adopting it are purely scientific, as follows: According to the Mutakallimun there are only body or substance and its accidents or qualities. This is the constitution of material objects. ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... hands. But British and French assistance was sent to Italy, the Italian army recovered its spirit, and a permanent check was put to the enemy's advance before Venice was reached. Upon a much shorter but more defensible line the Italians held the enemy at bay in the mountains and along the ...
— A School History of the Great War • Albert E. McKinley, Charles A. Coulomb, and Armand J. Gerson
... political life. I am a politician because I cannot help myself; it is the trade I am fittest for, and ambition is my resource to make it tolerable. In politics we cannot keep our hands clean. I have done many things in my political career that are not defensible. To act with entire honesty and self-respect, one should always live in a pure atmosphere, and the atmosphere of politics is impure. Domestic life is the salvation of many public men, but I have for many years been deprived of it. I have now come to that point where increasing responsibilities ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... charm the ears of a Roman, or a Grecian audience; he must have felt a pang of which none, or at least but few, besides himself, could be susceptible. Even I am unable to restrain my tears, when I behold my country no longer defensible by the genius, the prudence, and the authority of a legal magistrate,—the only weapons which I have learned to weild, and to which I have long been accustomed, and which are most suitable to the character of an illustrious citizen, and of a ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... a miracle is "a transgression of a law of nature by a particular volition of the Deity, or by the interposition of some invisible agent," (IV. p. 134, note) is still less defensible. For a vast number of miracles have professedly been worked, neither by the Deity, nor by any invisible agent; but by Beelzebub and his compeers, or ...
— Hume - (English Men of Letters Series) • T.H. Huxley
... not ultimately the most defensible, hypothesis to adopt in the first instance, at any rate as regards visual sense-data, would be that, though physical objects cannot, for the reasons we have been considering, be exactly like sense-data, yet they may be more or less like. ...
— The Problems of Philosophy • Bertrand Russell
... take the command of the men, here, until I come back. I will go into the town and see Colonel Cox. I fear that the damage will be so great that the town will be really no longer defensible and, even if it were, the Portuguese troops will be so cowed that there will be no ...
— Under Wellington's Command - A Tale of the Peninsular War • G. A. Henty
... "I'm not tryin' to cover up me tracks," said he. "I was a gambler for thirty years. Me whole life has been a game of chance. There are many who think gambling one of the high crimes an' misdemeanors, but I think a square game between men is defensible. I am a gambler by nature. Why shouldn't I be? I grew up a fat squab of a boy rollin' about on the pavin'-stones of Troy. 'Twas all luck, bedad, whether I lived or died. I lived, it fell out, and ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... was seriously engaged. He reported a list of 216 casualties, whilst the Confederates admitted a loss of about 400. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 119, 233.] Hooker's position was made strongly defensible, so that Bragg did not again venture to disturb it, and the easy lines of supply for Chattanooga were opened. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... repose comes from labour, and that idleness is only a renewal of trouble. If, however, there must be a wall, the private houses had better be so arranged as to form one wall; this will have an agreeable aspect, and the building will be safer and more defensible. These objects should be attended to at the foundation of the city. The wardens of the city must see that they are carried out; and they must also enforce cleanliness, and preserve the public buildings from encroachments. Moreover, they must take care to let the rain flow off easily, and ...
— Laws • Plato
... certainly admit that, from that time, I have felt bound to support interests thus called into being, and into importance, by the settled policy of the government. I have stated this often here, and often elsewhere. The ground is defensible, and I ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... farmers would be plundered just as much as if Symons had remained at Ladysmith. I fancy all the military men think that a grave mistake has been made, and that General White should not have exposed half his force to disaster. Besides, the position of Ladysmith is no more defensible than that of Dundee. The Tugela would be the natural line of defence, but even that could be turned by troops from the Transvaal going through Zululand, and the line of the river would be very difficult to defend by a force of less than twenty thousand ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... that, to build another wall in the midst of the city, in order to exclude the market-place from the garrison, which was in the citadel, and by that means to hinder them from any plenty of provisions; and moreover, to make the fortresses that were in the country much stronger and more defensible than they were before. And when these things were approved of by the multitude, as rightly proposed, Jonathan himself took care of the building that belonged to the city, and sent Simon away to make the fortresses in the country more secure than formerly. But Demetrius ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... fascinating link between the bygone and the present. Old St. Ives seems to derive entirely from the little headland known as The Island. It was just one of those places that the ancients loved to fortify, almost insular and easily defensible. The dry-stone defence known as the Two Edges was probably constructed by men of the Stone Age; it is certainly pre-Celtic. Other strongholds of the same date may be found at Gurnard's Head, at Trencrom, and at Bosigran, to ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... and earth and stone; and all other things are composed of these; and he regards motion as eternal, and by this changes are produced." We have here a distinct adumbration of the atomic theory in its most defensible form— that is to say, a conception which makes the differences in various substances consist in differences in condensation or rarefaction of the particles of the primary substance. The simple normal condition of this substance he deemed to be air. In its rarefied condition, ...
— Nature Mysticism • J. Edward Mercer
... tremendous tradition of Tony Weller. But I am not so certain as I should like to be, that I should at that moment enjoy the personality of the Copt. For these reasons it seems really desirable, or at least defensible, to defer any premature reconstruction of disputed things, and to begin this book as a mere note-book or sketch-book of things as they are, or at any rate as they appear. It was in this irregular order, and in this illogical disproportion, that things did ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... definite halt at this position is intelligible and defensible. While binding by strict sanctions the States to submit all disputes to the pacific machinery that is provided, to await the conclusion of the arbitral and conciliatory processes, and even to accept the legal awards of arbitration, it leaves a complete formal freedom ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... riding-rod which he carried in his hand, after the manner of a half-bred man who affects ease in the society of his betters, he delivered his unasked opinion as follows:—"This house of yours, now, Sir Duncan, is a very pretty defensible sort of a tenement, and yet it is hardly such as a cavaliero of honour would expect to maintain his credit by holding out for many days. For, Sir Duncan, if it pleases you to notice, your house is overcrowed, and slighted, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... political conditions of the peninsula necessarily indicated the eastern, or Coromandel, coast as the scene of operations. Trincomalee, in the adjacent island of Ceylon, though unhealthy, offered an excellent and defensible harbor, and thus acquired first-rate strategic importance, all the other anchorages on the coast being mere open roadsteads. From this circumstance the trade-winds, or monsoons, in this region also had strategic bearing. From the autumnal to the spring equinox the wind blows regularly ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... one. But that is a very large question, and we needn't go into it. I confess that my method was unconventional; a little more summary than that of the usurers and the strictly legal robbers, but quite as defensible. For they rob the poor and the helpless, while I merely dispossessed one rich corporation of a portion of its exactions from ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... militates against this explanation is the unmistakable relation of the passage before us to chaps. xlix., l., which it is impossible to refer to the people. The same reason is also against the supposition of Gesenius and Umbreit, that the discourse is addressed to the prophetical order. Nor is it defensible to explain: "to plant the heaven and lay the foundation of the earth," by: to establish the new state of Israel. To these arguments it may be added that, according to this explanation, the words: "Thou art my people," are unsuitable; for Israel was not the people of the Prophet, ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions. Vol. 2 • Ernst Hengstenberg
... all the particulars of the cruel civil war through which the country had gone—not to speak of the army, and the present and pressing necessity for maintaining it—to arrive at any other conclusion, or to censure the brave men who urged and advocated the measure. The proceeding seems perfectly defensible on general principles, though in particular instances—as in the application of all general principles—it may have been productive of injury. The estates of the loyalists, by this measure, were seized upon as a means for building ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... to fortifying. His situation was easily defensible at certain points, and of them he first made sure. At the south, across the passage to Roxbury, were the "lines" of which all contemporary accounts speak. These Gage strengthened until by the 4th of May Lieutenant Barker records that the works were almost ready for ten twenty-four-pounders. ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... by small windows cut in the nearest cabins. The houses had sharp, sloping roofs, made of huge clapboards, and these great wooden slabs were kept in place by long poles, bound with withes to the rafters. In case of dire need each cabin was separately defensible. When danger threatened, the cattle were kept in the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... was unbroken. Then conversation never flagged: it was ever new and entrancing. Both talked pure nonsense, while having the art of "kissing full sense into empty words." On the other hand, it is, I think, quite a defensible proposition, despite the inferences to the contrary drawn from the failure of the Women's Hotel, that women enjoy conversation with women more than with men when there is no possible question of gallantry or flirtation; ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... his house has been in the possession of such visitants, he has been known to hurry away in his gondola, and pass the greater part of the night upon the water, as if hating to return to his home. It is, indeed, certain, that to this least defensible portion of his whole life he always looked back, during the short remainder of it, with painful self-reproach; and among the causes of the detestation which he afterwards felt for Venice, this recollection of the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. IV - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... nothing but piece-work; the man who does piece-work is guilty of less defensible conduct than a drunkard. The worst passions of our nature are enlisted in support of piece-work. Avarice, meanness, cunning, hypocrisy, all excite and feed upon the miserable votary who works by the task and not by the hour. A man who earns ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... person acquainted with Biblical criticism knows that Mr. Wheeler simply put the conclusions of nearly all reputable scholars in a bright, satirical way; and a century hence people will be astonished to learn that such a piece of defensible irony, every line of which might be justified by tons of learning, was included in an indictment for blasphemy, and considered heinous enough to merit ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... sprang at once to the President's defense. He would not presume to speak with authority in the matter, but an examination of the accessible official papers had convinced him that the course of the President and of the commanders of the army was altogether defensible. "In conducting the war, conquest was effected, and the right growing out of conquest was to govern the subdued provinces in a temporary and provisional manner, until the home government should establish a government in another form."[236] And more to this effect, uttered in the ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... few days later Hellas was startled to hear that Tempe had been evacuated without a blow, and the pass left open to Xerxes. It was said Democrates, in his ever commendable activity, had discovered at the last moment the mountain wall was not as defensible as hoped, and any resistance would have been disastrous. Therefore, whilst the retreat was bewailed, everybody praised the foresight of the orator. Everybody—one should say, except two, Bias and Phormio. They had many conferences together, especially after the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... thoroughfare, leading as it did in old times to the ford, and afterwards to the bridge and the Abbot's mill beside it. Here were the oldest inns; and though all the house-fronts have been sadly modernised, either by the insertion of huge plateglass windows or in some less defensible manner, yet the eye still passes with pleasure from house to house, and the effect of the irregularity, heightened by the contrast of light and shade, is picturesque in ...
— Evesham • Edmund H. New
... classification of this kind. For him poetry is an expression of intuitions—an emotional transfiguration of life—while prose is the expression of a scientific fact or a judgment. I doubt if this division is defensible. Everything that is literature is, in a sense, poetry as opposed to science; but both prose and poetry contain a great deal of work that is preponderantly the result of observation and judgment, as well as a great deal that is preponderantly ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... land. It fell far short of the numbers that had constituted, two centuries earlier, the European republic from which our federation borrowed its name. The task, too, of the occidental United States was double. Instead of being condensed into a small, wealthy and defensible territory, they had at once to win their independence from a maritime power stronger than Spain, and to redeem from utter crudeness and turn into food, clothing and the then recognized appliances of civilized ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - February, 1876, Vol. XVII, No. 98. • Various
... use of guiding themes binds the score together into a harmonious whole. A novelty in its arrangement is the plan of an orchestral accompaniment to the dialogue. AEsthetically this is perhaps hardly defensible, but in several scenes—notably that of Cours-la-Reine, in which Manon's agitated interview with the Count stands out in forcible relief against the graceful background formed by a minuet heard in the distance—the result is completely successful. 'Le Cid' (1885) and 'Le Mage' ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... Ching, the "Book of the World Law and its Power". The book is written in quite simple language, at times in rhyme, but the sense is so vague that countless versions, differing radically from each other, can be based on it, and just as many translations are possible, all philologically defensible. This vagueness is deliberate. ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... cause of evolution is a proposition that can be entertained so long only as no attempt is made to unite in thought its two terms in the alleged relation. That it should be accepted as a matter of faith may be a defensible position, provided good cause is shown why it should be so accepted; but that it should be accepted as a matter of understanding—as a statement making the order of the universe comprehensible—is a quite ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... Rulers of the Company, and the municipal authorities of the city, were inclined to defend the place, but found that it was impossible, for the city was not in a defensible condition. And even if fortified, it could not have been defended, because every man posted on the circuit of it would have been four rods distant from his neighbor. Besides, the store of powder in the fort, as well as in the city, was small. No relief or assistance ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... stop running until he was in what seemed to him a strongly defensible position near Luna Island. Then he took cover, panting, and ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... nations, who now found the way to conquer by issuing from their forests, and then retiring on the approach of a superior force, began to be truly formidable to Rome. 13. A'drian had thoughts of contracting the limits of the empire, by giving up some of the most remote and least defensible provinces; in this, however, he was overruled by friends, who wrongly imagined that an extensive frontier would intimidate an invading enemy. 14. But though he complied with their remonstrances, he ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... be seen that the plan of the castle was to have it divided into spaces separately defensible, so that an enemy had to establish his footing by a series ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... not always models of international virtue. They seized a French vessel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the charge—probably true—that she was carrying arms and ammunition to the Acadians and Indians. A less defensible act was the capture of the armed brig "St. Francois," laden with supplies for a fort lately re-established by the French, at the mouth of the River St. John, on ground claimed by both nations. Captain Rous, a New England officer commanding a frigate in the Royal Navy, opened fire on the "St. ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... provided by them, and will only give two or three days' service a month. It is probable, however, that half will be regular retainers at the castle. I know nothing about the castle at present, or how large it is, or whether it is defensible or not; still, it was spoken of as a castle, and 'tis, I suppose, ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... opens out into the wide smiling plain that thence spreads itself on every side to the sea. Hence there would be easy access to both regions; both would be, in a way, commanded; here, too, was a readily defensible position, one assailable only in front. Experience has shown that the instinct of the first founder was right, or that his political and strategic foresight was extraordinary. Though circumstances, once and again, transferred the seat of government ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... victorious city, all inspired the Athenians. After the winter in which the Persians were finally beaten at Plataea, the Athenians began to rebuild. For a while their efforts were confined to rendering the city habitable and defensible, since the activity of the little state was largely political. But when th leadership of Athens in Greece had become firmly established under Theistocles and Cimon, the third president of the democracy, Pericles, found leisure to turn to the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... do to be attacked when on the march. They must halt in some place favourable for defence. There was no such place within sight, but Macora believed he might find a more defensible position on the bank of the river; and towards that ...
— The Giraffe Hunters • Mayne Reid
... of the Roman Empire in the East is one of the marvels of history. Its great and constant vitality appears the more remarkable, when one considers that it had no easily defensible frontiers, contained many different races with little in common, and on all sides faced hostile states. The empire survived so long, because of its vast wealth and resources, its despotic, centralized government, the strength of its army, and the almost impregnable ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... were engaged to defend. Moreover, practical means of communication to and by these support platoons were likely to prove, in event of need, negligible. They were, in fact, isolated in places themselves not defensible and equally remote from company and battalion commanders. This situation was bad enough as point d'appui for an advance; to resist a counter-attack or raid it was deplorable. Like many similar situations, it was ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... engaged columns being set between the arches as buttresses, supporting entablatures which marked the divisions into stories (Fig. 45). This combination has been assailed as a false and illogical device, but the criticism proceeds from a too narrow conception of architectural propriety. It is defensible upon both artistic and logical grounds; for it not only furnishes a most desirable play of light and shade and a pleasing contrast of rectangular and curved lines, but by emphasizing the constructive divisions and elements of the building and the vertical support of the piers, it also contributes ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... to say that the talent that attracts the young to him must needs be the Opium-Eater's grand talent, though the notion is defensible, seeing that only salient qualities in good writing appeal to inexperienced readers. I believe, however, that this skill in narration is De Quincey's most persistent quality,—the golden thread that unites all his most distinguished and ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... be. But even the heathen can claim the right to be judged by their deeds, not by their creeds. Measured by this standard, the average heathen would not make a bad showing in comparison with the average denizen of Christian lands. As to beliefs, how much more defensible were the superstitions of our own race two or three centuries ago, or of to-day, than those of the Hawaiians? How much less absurd and illogical were our notions of cosmogony, of natural history; how much less beneficent, humane, lovable the theology of the pagan Hawaiians than of ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... of the Spanish-Dutch fleet at Palermo by Duquesne. But as the "nimbleness" of great-ships increased with the ripening of seamanship and naval architecture, the fireship as a battle weapon became almost negligible, while a fleet at anchor was found to be thoroughly defensible by its own picket-boats. Towards the middle of the eighteenth century indeed the occasions on which the fireship could be used for its special purpose was regarded as highly exceptional, and though the type was retained till the end of the century, its normal functions differed not at ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... be known later that the Confederate General gave to Lincoln's views the high endorsement of assuming that they were the inevitable views that the Northern Commander, if he knew his business, would act upon. Therefore, he had been quietly preparing to withdraw his army to more defensible positions farther South. By a curious coincidence, his "strategic retreat" occurred immediately after McClellan had been given authority to do what he liked. On the ninth of March it was known at Washington that Manassas had been evacuated. Whereupon, McClellan's fatal lack of humor ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... compelled to recognise the strong points in the rival position. In a serious controversy the right is seldom or never all on one side; and in the normal course of events both theories undergo some modification through the influence of their opponents, until a compromise, not always logically defensible, brings to an end the acute stage of the controversy. Such a tension of rival movements is very apparent in the religious thought of our day. The quickening of spiritual life in our generation has taken two forms, which appear to be, and ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... that he might be conveyed to the Castle under a sufficient guard, to remain there in security until his ultimate fate should be determined. Habituated, however, by his office to overawe the rabble of the city, Porteous could not suspect them of an attempt so audacious as to storm a strong and defensible prison; and, despising the advice by which he might have been saved, he spent the afternoon of the eventful day in giving an entertainment to some friends who visited him in jail, several of whom, by the indulgence ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... all wits in that direction. Thoroughly Calvinistic, it is also a wonderfully clear and precise statement of Calvinism. Framed after long controversies, it had the advantage of all the distinctions which are made only during controversy. It is a fortress made defensible at all points, because it has been attacked so often that all its weak places have been seen and marked. It ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... olden time, is clearly seen in all this. We cannot be mistaken in regard to it when we thus find the weak places made strong, and the strong places left as far as possible to their own natural defenses. The openings from the fort, also, lead out in every case to points easily made defensible and that command views from ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... the 16th, in pursuance of Sir Bindon Blood's orders, Brigadier-General Jeffreys moved out of his entrenched camp at Inayat Kila, and entered the Mamund Valley. His intentions were, to chastise the tribesmen by burning and blowing up all defensible villages within reach of the troops. It was hoped, that this might be accomplished in a single day, and that the brigade, having asserted its strength, would be able to march on the 17th to Nawagai and take part in the attack on the Bedmanai ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... letter will see how unfair and untrue this is. Calef keeps to the point, which was not whether there were, or could be, witches; but whether the methods Mather was attempting, in the case of Margaret Rule, and which had been used in Salem, the year before, were legitimate or defensible. He was determined not to suffer ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... the Atlantic Pact builds on such precedents. The novel feature is its enlarged conception of defensible American interests abroad. In the words of the published abstract of the Report of the Committee on Foreign Relations on the Pact, "Article 5 records what is a fact, namely, that an armed attack within the meaning of the treaty would in the present-day world constitute an attack upon the entire community ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... assuredly not the son of Earl Leofric. For some unknown cause, he had been banished in the days of Edward or of Harold. He now came back to lead his countrymen against William. He was the soul of the movement of which the abbey of Ely became the centre. The isle, then easily defensible, was the last English ground on which the Conqueror was defied by Englishmen fighting for England. The men of the Fenland were zealous; the monks of Ely were zealous; helpers came in from other parts of England. English leaders left their shelter in Scotland to share the dangers of their countrymen; ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... Faith and Scripture? Who shall dare enjoin aught else as an object of saving faith, beside the truths that appertain to salvation? The imposers take on themselves a heavy responsibility, however defensible the opinion itself, as an opinion, may be. For by imposing it, they counteract their own purposes. They antedate questions, and thus, in all cases, aggravate the difficulty of answering them satisfactorily. And not ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... before the Troaedes was produced, Athens, now entirely in the hands of the War Party, had been engaged in an enterprise which, though on military grounds defensible, was bitterly resented by the more humane minority, and has been selected by Thucydides as the great crucial crime of the war. She had succeeded in compelling the neutral Dorian island of Melos to take up arms against her, and after a long siege had conquered the quiet and immemorially ...
— The Trojan women of Euripides • Euripides
... statistical proof that members of minority groups were given equal treatment and opportunity,[15-19] and such assurances, of course, demanded racial determinations on the records. Still, not all the reasons for retaining the racial identification entry were so defensible. The Army, for example, had to maintain accurate statistics on the number of Negroes inducted because of its concern with a possible unacceptable rise in their number and the President's promise to reimpose the quota to prevent such an increase. Whatever ...
— Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940-1965 • Morris J. MacGregor Jr.
... based upon the broadest induction, and it is verified by the most constant, regular, and universal of deductive processes. But we must recollect that any human belief, however broad its basis, however defensible it may seem, is, after all, only a probable belief, and that our widest and safest generalisations are simply statements of the highest degree of probability. Though we are quite clear about the constancy of the order of Nature, ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... belonged in old time to a great noble of the stately Roman days. This colonnade, be it noted, for all it looked so open and amiable, could be shut off, if need were, by sliding doors, so as to make the room defensible whenever the war-cries rattled in the streets and Guelph and Ghibelline or Red and Yellow met in ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Old Town of Edinburgh was secured on the north side by a lake, now drained, and on the south by a wall, which there was some attempt to make defensible even so late as 1745. The gates, and the greater part of the wall, have been pulled down, in the course of the late extensive and beautiful enlargement of the city. My ingenious and valued friend, Mr. Thomas Campbell, proposed to celebrate Edinburgh under the epithet here ...
— Marmion • Sir Walter Scott
... Lumsden and including the Guides, was left at Pallosin to guard camp, equipage, and stores. Knowing the enemy he had to deal with, and his predilection for, and skill in executing the unexpected in war, Lumsden drew in his camp, so as to make it as snug and defensible as possible, and putting out strong picquets with their supports all round, he awaited the few days' absence of the main column. During the interval no signs of the enemy could be seen, nor could any news of ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... abundance of land, if furnished with the means and implements for profitable husbandry, their life of entire dependence upon Government rations from day to day is no longer defensible. Their inclination, long fostered by a defective system of control, is to cling to the habits and customs of their ancestors and struggle with persistence against the change of life which their altered circumstances press upon them. But barbarism and civilization can ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... a practice on which I shall not at this time trouble the house with my opinion, nor interrupt the present debate, by any attempt to justify or condemn it. This, I think, may be very reasonably alleged; that whether the employment of such persons be defensible by the reciprocal practice of nations, or not, it becomes at least those that corrupt them and pay them for their treachery, not to expose them to vengeance, to torture, or to ruin; not to betray those crimes which they have hired them to commit, or give them up to punishment, ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... between domination and defence: the former being equally condemnable, whether it be encroachment of a criminal upon an individual, or the encroachment of one upon all others, or of all others upon one; while resistance to encroachment is defensible and necessary. For their self-defence, both the citizen and the group have the right to any violence, including capital punishment. Violence is also justified for enforcing the duty of keeping an agreement. Tucker thus follows Spencer, and, ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... left at ten o'clock." This use of leave as a neuter verb, however attractive from its brevity, is not defensible. To leave off is the only proper neuter form. "We left off at six, and left (the hall) at a quarter past six." The place should be inserted after the second left. Even the first is essentially active, some form of action being understood after ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... or with that honorable determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible. What, then, are the distinctive characters of the republican form? Were an answer to this question to be sought, not by recurring to principles, but in the application of the term by political writers, to the constitution ...
— The Federalist Papers
... picture it drew. It was not much exaggerated. On the coasts of New Zealand some twelve thousand colonists were divided into eight settlements, varying in population from 4,000 at Wellington to 200 at Akaroa. Not one of them was defensible in military eyes. There were no troops, no militia, no money. Neither at Wellington nor Nelson had more than one thousand acres of land been cleared and cultivated. Labourers were riotously clamouring for work or rations. Within fifty miles of ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... ways. Again we come to the thought, suggested above, that probably we are attempting too much in too brief a time in the general course today. A longer time for the study would permit of a sequence that would be more logically defensible. It would begin with historical and descriptive studies, both because they are fundamentally necessary and because, being of more concrete nature, they may be given in a form easier for the beginner to get. In this period a good deal of the terminology can be gradually familiarized. ...
— College Teaching - Studies in Methods of Teaching in the College • Paul Klapper
... Eloquence;" a volume so much esteemed that it is still reprinted. Leland refuted the whimsical paradox, yet complimented Warburton, who, "with the spirit and energy of an ancient orator, was writing against eloquence," while he showed that the style of the New Testament was defensible on surer grounds. Hurd, who had fleshed his polished weapon on poor Jortin, and had been received into the arms of the hero under whom he now fought, adventured to cast his javelin at Leland: it was dipped ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... kissed her, Margaret disengaged herself gently, with a little sigh, and returned to the strong defensible position by ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... for Would Better. This is not defensible as an idiom, as those who always used it before their attention was directed to it take the trouble to point out. It comes of such contractions as he'd for he would, I'd for I would. These clipped words are erroneously restored as "he had," "I had." So we have ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... date, and indeed as late as the end of the Revolution, the continental colonies were all maritime. Each of them had sea-ports enjoying direct trade with Europe. The sea was the only national highway; the sea-front was easily defensible. Between contiguous colonies there was intercourse; but Nova Scotia, the last of the continental colonies to be established, was looked upon as a sort of outlyer, and its history has little connection with the history of the thirteen colonies farther ...
— Formation of the Union • Albert Bushnell Hart
... them hotly to the bridge leading to the town. Marshal Horn threw a barricade across this and defended it until nightfall. Tilly had then fallen back before the advance of Gustavus to a very strong position on the Lech. This was an extremely rapid river, difficult to cross and easily defensible. Tilly had broken down the bridges, and was prepared to dispute till the last the further advance of the Swedes. He placed his army between Rain, where the Lech falls into the Danube, and Augsburg, a distance of sixteen miles—all the ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... not suggest that such an attempt to explain the phenomena of evil {89} by God's supposed absence from the world is defensible; we do say that the belief in His all-encompassing nearness makes those phenomena even more difficult of explanation than they were before. The devout deist could always comfort himself with the thought that, however mysterious God's standing afar off might be, by and by, when He drew nigh again, ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... of the fairest and most admirable buildings in all the East, some three or four miles in circuit, inclosed by a fine and strong wall of squared stones, around which is a fair ditch with draw-bridges. The walls are built with bulwarks or towers somewhat defensible, having a counterscarp without, some fifteen yards broad. Within are two ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... by a large force in that straggling native town, of which I had often studied all the strategic possibilities. When I had come to my own conclusion I asked Hans and Mavovo what they thought, and found that they agreed with me that the only defensible place was outside the town where the road to the south gate ran down to a rocky wooded ridge with somewhat steep flanks. It may be remembered that it was by this road and over this ridge that Brother John had appeared on his white ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... Congregatio de Auxiliis, consisting of picked theologians from both the Dominican and the Jesuit orders. It debated the matter for nine full years without arriving at a decision. Finally Pope Paul V, at the suggestion of St. Francis de Sales, declared both systems to be orthodox and defensible, and strictly forbade the contending parties to denounce each other ...
— Grace, Actual and Habitual • Joseph Pohle
... himself for the exaggerated precaution he took to cover a perfectly defensible action. Why shouldn't he visit at the house of P. C. Frome? Entirely clear as to his right, he yet preferred his call not to become a matter of public gossip. For he did not need to be told that there would be ugly rumors if it should get out that Big Tim had ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... fortress since the war began the world has come to know of the underground life in Verdun, to think of the city as defended by some wonderful system of subterranean works; to think of Verdun, in fact, as a city or citadel that is defensible either by walls or by forts. But the truth is far different: even the old citadel is but a deserted cave; its massive walls of natural rock resist the shells as they would repulse an avalanche; but the guns that were once on its parapets are gone, the garrison is gone, gone ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... fell, October 21, and Custine occupied Frankfort and replenished his military chest. This excursion into the middle of the Empire was not authorised by State policy. The idea was already taking shape that the safety of France required the defensible and historic, or, as they unscientifically called it, the natural frontier of the Rhine, and that the grand conflict with Austria should be transferred to Italy. Germany was a nation of armed men, and was best let alone. In Italy, the Austrians ...
— Lectures on the French Revolution • John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton
... you, this enemy of civil society, this slanderer of women, is down. Then the Pope too! And the confession to the Reverend Father! Who but a woman could have thought of a thing like that?—-making your denunciation so defensible, so pardonable, so plausible, so inevitable! What skill! What patience! What diplomacy! And what will and nerve too! Who shall say now that women are ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... strain of the war. It was this finance that, continuing the work begun by Peel, made the country in 1859 richer by more than sixteen per cent, than it had been in 1853. It was this finance, that by clinching the open questions that enveloped the income-tax, and setting it upon a defensible foundation while it lasted, bore us through the struggle. Unluckily, in demonstrating the perils of meddling with the structure of the tax, in showing its power and simplicity, the chancellor was at the same time providing ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... in Sahara; and you can hardly fail to have one in the fruitful valley of the Nile. The growth of towns in one district rather than another must be governed largely by the existence of rivers or harbours, of coal or metals, of agricultural lowlands or defensible heights. Glasgow could not spring up in inland Leicestershire, nor Manchester in coalless Norfolk. Insular England must naturally be the greatest shipping country in Europe; while no large foreign trade is possible in any Bohemia except Shakespeare's. So much everybody admits. But it seems ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... offspring of a mind inexhaustibly fertile in ludicrous ideas, which it appended to any topic in hand. At times, doubtless, the all-pervading frenzy of the times inspired him with a bitterness not his own. But, in the least defensible of his writings, he was influenced by an honest zeal for the public good. There was nothing mercenary in his connection with politics. To an antagonist who had taunted him with being poor, he calmly replied, that he "need not have ...
— Biographical Sketches - (From: "Fanshawe and Other Pieces") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... your sudden journey. Under pretence of business indispensable With that sublime of rascals your attorney, Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible Of having play'd the fool? though both I spurn, he Deserves the worst, his conduct 's less defensible, Because, no doubt, 't was for his dirty fee, And not from any love to you ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... rose, and leaning on her daughter's arm, proceeded to explore her new abode. Like her apartment at the Lodge, it was at the top of the house, a fashion not uncommon when it was desirable to make the lower regions defensible; but, whereas she had always hitherto been placed in the castles of the highest nobility, she was now in that of a country knight of no great wealth or refinement, and, moreover, taken ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... which I have sought to convey in the formula "foreshadowing without forestalling." But before we can judge of the merits of M. Sarcey's theory, we must look into it a little more closely. I shall try, then, to state it in my own words, in what I believe to be its most rational and defensible form. ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... determination) to contrive some mode of turning the virtuous magnanimity of his wife to good account, without inflicting any injury upon herself. Surely if he could do this, he was bound to act. To save himself by her help, and, at the same time, without injuring her at all, was a very defensible step, to say the least of it. Who should say it wasn't his absolute duty to adopt it? Whatever repugnance he might have felt in asking a further loan from one who had already helped him beyond his expectations, it was certainly very ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... not destined to a Restoration, if the Jewish Mission is the propagation of an idea, on what ground is the continued existence of Israel as a separate organisation defensible or justified? Israel is indestructible, said Jehuda Halevi in the twelfth century; certainly Israel is undestroyed. When Frederick the Great asked what should make him believe in God, he received in answer, 'the survival of the Jews.' Dr. Guttmann ...
— Judaism • Israel Abrahams
... protection of the great, and settled on their lands. They became thus colons (coloni). In the later times of disorder of which we are now speaking, farmhouses in the country gave place to fortified castles on hill-tops or other defensible sites, about which clustered in villages the dependents of the lord, who tilled his land, fought for him, and, in turn, were ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... withdrew, forming themselves into three parties, and camped a short distance off, making the night hideous with fiendish yells and the horrid music of their war dances. During the night the garrison retreated into a still smaller and more defensible part of the town, committing the rest to flames. A brief demonstration was made by the enemy on the following morning, but finding the whites so well posted, they finally abandoned the contest and withdrew. The whites, exhausted and cut up, joyfully welcomed a cessation of hostilities. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... more cunning than any rodents—men. Since July 1st the Germans had not been idle. They had had time to profit from the lesson of the attack with additions and improvements. They had deepened dugouts and joined them by galleries; they had Box and Cox hiding-places; nests defensible from all sides which became known as Mystery Works and Wonder Works. The message of that gashed and spaded hillside ...
— My Second Year of the War • Frederick Palmer
... credit being exhausted, and their creditors growing clamorous, they presented a petition to the house of commons, disclosing their distresses, and imploring such assistance as should enable them not only to pay their debts, but also to maintain the forts in a defensible condition. This petition, recommended to the house in a message from his majesty, was corroborated by another in behalf of the company's creditors. Divers merchants of London, interested in the trade of Africa and the British plantations in America, petitioned the ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... itself so readily to abuse by its indiscriminate application in the interests of religious bigotry or political partisanship, that the lesson of history is one of warning against it. Such a practice is only defensible or impressive in proportion to the rarity of its use. Applied not oftener than once or twice in a generation, in the case of some work that flagrantly shocked or injured the national conscience, the book-fire might have retained, or might still recover, its place in the economy of well-organised ...
— Books Condemned to be Burnt • James Anson Farrer
... the general verdict, is at any rate well worth considering. According to this version, which is based on what actually passed between Bucharest and the capitals of the Entente Powers, the central idea of Roumania's strivings was to achieve national unity together with defensible military frontiers as far as appeared feasible, and to obtain in advance implicit assurances that the Entente Powers, if victorious, would allow her claims without demur or delay. The territories occupied by the Roumanians of Transylvania, the Bukovina, and the Banat were ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... master of all the land. There was a contest for power, which ended in the coup d'etat of 1851. Victory waited on the heir of her old favorite. The contest was marked by many deeds, on both sides, not defensible on strict moral grounds, but which bear too close a resemblance to the ordinary course of French politics to admit of the actors being sweepingly condemned, as if they had poisoned a pure fountain. Neither party could afford to act with fairness, because each party was convinced ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various |
