"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... afforded, before we deigned a survey of these great wonders of nature. On our walk down the creek to the river, struck with the beauty of its cascades, we even neglected the greater, to admire the lesser wonders. Bushing with great celerity through a deep defile of lava and obsidian, worn into caverns and fissures, the stream, one-fourth of a mile from its debouchure, breaks into a continuous cascade of remarkable beauty, consisting of a fall of five feet, succeeded by another of ...
— The Discovery of Yellowstone Park • Nathaniel Pitt Langford
... jaded palate by introducing a duel fought with butchers' knives by the light of lanterns. One genius subsists by murder, as another does by bigamy and adultery. Scott would have recoiled from the blood as well as from the ordure, he would have allowed neither to defile his noble page. He knew that there was no pretence for bringing before a reader what is merely horrible, that by doing so you only stimulate passions as low as licentiousness itself—the passions which were ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... subsequent period all provisions sold in the markets, in some parts of the empire, were sprinkled with the water or the wine employed in idolatrous worship, that the Christians might either be compelled to abstinence, or led to defile themselves by the use of polluted ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... the most considerable of all the rock-fortresses in the valleys of the Cele and the Lot which are attributed to the English companies. It possesses towers and embattlements, and it was evidently intended to defend the defile from any force advancing from the wider valley. Here, doubtless, many a desperate struggle occurred before the companies were dispersed and English influence was finally overcome in these wilds of the Quercy. At a little distance ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... appearance, subject to not unfrequent inundations: towards the mouth, indeed, it is partially flooded by each returning tide. Thirty-five miles from its mouth its whole appearance undergoes the most striking alteration. We now enter the narrow defile of a precipitous rocky range of compact sandstone, rising from 4 to 500 feet in height, and coming down to the river, in some places nearly two miles wide, in others not less than twenty fathoms deep, and hurrying through, as if to force a passage, with a velocity sometimes not ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... cannot so exactly tell who he is; but this we know, that he deprives young men of their (intended) wives, and virgins of their (intended) husbands, by teaching, There can be no future resurrection, unless ye continue in chastity, and do not defile your flesh. ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... sake of other men's goods. Thou seemest to me to be a wanderer, even as I am, and the gods it is that are like to give us gain. Only provoke me not overmuch to buffeting, lest thou anger me, and old though I be I defile thy breast and lips with blood. Thereby should I have the greater quiet to-morrow, for methinks that thou shalt never again come to the hall of Odysseus, ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... the mass of rock upon which Domfront is perched. The streets are narrow and parallel to accommodate themselves to the confined space within the walls. At the western end of the granite ridge, and separated from the town by a narrow defile, stands all that is left of the castle—a massive but somewhat shapeless ruin. At the western end of the ramparts, one looks down a precipitous descent to the river Varennes which has by some unusual agency, cut itself a channel through the rocky ridge ...
— Normandy, Complete - The Scenery & Romance Of Its Ancient Towns • Gordon Home
... round them, but the capture of Pontorson deranged the plans of the Republicans. The place had been held by four thousand men and ten pieces of cannon and, as it could be approached only by a narrow defile, it was believed that it would be impossible for the Vendeans to force their way into it. However, after three hours' fighting, their desperate valour won the day, and the Republicans were routed, with the loss of ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... I represent the principle of evil, but one to which yours is utterly abhorrent. Can you mix light with darkness, or filthy oil with water? As well hope to merge your life, black as it is with every wickedness, with that of the splendid creature you would defile. Do you suppose that a woman such as she will ever be really faithless to her love, even though you trap her into marriage? Fool, her heart is as far above you as the stars; and without a heart a woman is a husk that none but such miserables as yourself ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... darkened the air, while they made the forest ring with their shrill warwhoop. The Spaniards, astonished at the appearance of the savages, with their naked bodies gaudily painted, and brandishing their weapons as they glanced among the trees and straggling underbrush that choked up the defile, were taken by surprise and thrown for a moment into disarray. Three of their number were killed and several wounded. Yet, speedily rallying, they returned the discharge of the assailants with their cross-bows,—for Pizarro's troops do not seem to have been provided with muskets ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... onset, and invite The gods and Jove himself the spoil to share, And piling couches, banquet on the fare. When straight, down-swooping from the hills meanwhile The Harpies flap their clanging wings, and tear The food, and all with filthy touch defile, And, mixt with screams, uprose a ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... burden is great; now Plato his name is laid upon me, whom I must confess, of all philosophers, I have ever esteemed most worthy of reverence, and with great reason, sith of all philosophers he is the most poetical. Yet if he will defile the fountain, out of which his flowing streams have proceeded, let us boldly examine with what reasons he did it. First, truly, a man might maliciously object that Plato, being a philosopher, was a natural enemy of poets; for, indeed, after the ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... hundred and sixty-six feet), the road winds for over, five miles through the Coconino Forest, mainly following the railway track until Bass Station appears (elevation six thousand four hundred and seventeen feet). The road now enters a narrow defile known as the Bright Angel Wash, giving one a fine opportunity to learn the singular drainage system of the Canyon plateau, which, as has been explained elsewhere, is away from the Canyon for many miles. The Wash is picturesque and rugged, the side walls occasionally appearing as bare masses of ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... hate to hear a wanton song: Their words offend my ears: I should not dare defile my tongue With ...
— Divine Songs • Isaac Watts
... Fremont came up the North Platte and the Sweetwater branch, crossing (1842) from that stream by the South Pass thirty-four years after Andrew Henry had first traversed it, over to the headwaters of the Colorado. The ascent to South Pass is very gradual, and there is no gorge or defile. The total width is about twenty miles. A day or two later Fremont climbed out of the valley on the flank of the Wind River Mountains. "We had reached a very elevated point," he says; "and in the valley ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... steep that the rider can scarcely keep his seat on his horse. From the summit, the Widow's Pass, which is almost 2000 feet above the level of the sea, a sublime view of mountains, valleys and plains is obtained. The pass itself is a narrow rocky defile where a score of men might hold an army at bay. It is said that there are lower passes in the vicinity by utilizing which the steep grade might be avoided, but the fact could be ascertained only by a more thorough exploration than has yet been ...
— Santo Domingo - A Country With A Future • Otto Schoenrich
... what may help to resolve a few of the many perplexities of life, to wit: Why some live to the ripe old age of my dear father while others live but for a moment, to be born, gasp and die. Why some are born rich and others poor; some having wealth only to corrupt, defile, deprave others therewith, while meritorious poverty struggles and toils for human betterment all unaided. Some gifted with mentality; others pitiably lacking capacity. Some royal-souled from the first naturally, others with brutal, criminal ...
— Mystic Christianity • Yogi Ramacharaka
... attaindre, to reach); attain'able; conta'gion, communication of disease by contact or touch; contam'inate, to defile, ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... seen more things. If thou thinkest that thou art in this respect better than I am, thou art welcome. I praise God that I seek not that which I require not. Thou art learned in the things I care not for; and as for that which thou hast seen, I defile it. Will much knowledge create thee a double belly, or wilt thou seek paradise with thine eyes?' Such, omitting the references to the Creator, would probably have been the reply of Cheops to his visitors, ...
— Myths and Marvels of Astronomy • Richard A. Proctor
... assassination. It stands forth the Judas of corporations, a monument to greed and a warning to rapacity. May the story that I am to tell so set forth its infamies and horrors that never again shall such a monster be suffered to violate and defile ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... retire, and forcing him to fight again. Philip, however, on his part, marched from Lerida in order to retire into Castile by way of Saragossa. Charles followed hotly, and a portion of his cavalry came up to the rear of the enemy in the defile of Penalva. Here the Spaniards posted a strong force of grenadiers, and the defile being too narrow for the cavalry to act, these dismounted, and a hot fight took place, in which both parties claimed the victory. However, Philip retired the same day in great haste. Charles, arriving three ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... green swards and clumps of trees, forming a park-like scene such as might have been witnessed in England. Presently, however, the character of the country suddenly changed, and we were passing through a rocky defile, arid and waterless, while at the end could be seen a wide open country without rock or tree stretching away as far as the eye could ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... after your counsel, I left utterly all my Learning: I should hereby, first wound and defile mine own soul; and also I should herethrough give occasion to many men and women of full sore hurting. Yea, Sir, it is likely to me, if I consented to your will, I should herein by mine evil example in it, as far as in me were, slay many ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... desperately for their mistress' liberty or life; but the odds were too great, both in numbers and equipment; and not five minutes passed, before they were all cut down, and stretched out, dead or dying, on the rocky floor of the dark defile. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the cliffs. His brave peasants followed him; and taking their rapid march by a near cut through a hitherto unexplored defile of the Cartlane Craigs, leaping chasms, and climbing perpendicular rocks, they suffered no obstacles to impede their steps, while thus rushing onward ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... enter the house, and also the tax-gatherers when they restore the vessels, are credited in saying, "we did not touch them." And in Jerusalem they are credited in holy things (that they did not defile them), and at the time of the feast they are credited even in ...
— Hebrew Literature
... conscience perverted. Compare their fame with the everlasting infamy that time has fixed upon the names of the Jack Cades, the Robespierres, the Tomaso Nielos—guides and gods of the "fierce democracies" which rise with a sickening periodicity to defile the page of history with a quickly fading mark of blood and fire, their own awful example their sole contribution to the good of mankind. To be a child of your time, imbued with its spirit and endowed with its aims—that is to petition ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce
... flag of truce came to ask for terms, and the town surrendered on condition of the garrison going out with their arms and their private property. We went out to see them defile past the Prince and his staff. The poor fellows were in rags, and the bundles they carried on their backs contained everything they had in the world. Wives and children in numbers followed or preceded, and to our attempts to show them little kindnesses ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... our animals, and getting ready to cook our supper of coffee and tasajo, one of the hunters—a tireless fellow named Lincoln—had stolen off up the ravine. Presently we heard the sharp crack of his rifle ringing through the defile; and, looking up, we saw a flock of "bighorns"—so the wild sheep of the Rocky Mountains are called—leaping from rock to rock, and almost flying like birds up the face of the cliffs. It was not long before Lincoln made his appearance at the mouth ...
— The Desert Home - The Adventures of a Lost Family in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... know, for instance," asked Schill, indignantly, "why we lost the important defile of Koesen? In consequence of the night-sweat of General ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... of Women, pleading that they also may be allowed to take Pikes, and exercise in the Champ-de-Mars. Why not, ye Amazons, if it be in you? Then occasionally, having done our message and got answer, we 'defile through the Hall, singing ca-ira;' or rather roll and whirl through it, 'dancing our ronde patriotique the while,'—our new Carmagnole, or Pyrrhic war-dance and liberty-dance. Patriot Huguenin, Ex-Advocate, ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... it," he had other distinctions. He had—and has—uranomania, that is to say, a flight of fancy in which the patient believes himself associated with God. He had also defilirium tremens, which manifested itself in those man[oe]uvres that are war's image and in which the troops defile. Yet, when it came to the real thing, it may be that this paradomaniac lacked the stomach. Apart from the Kruger incident, and one or two other indecencies, his observance of international etiquette was relatively ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... waitress. Here, where Wellington Street plunged across and flung itself upon Waterloo Bridge, one beheld staggering changes. The mountainous motor bus put on speed and scampered past the churches left like rocky islets in the midst of a swift river of traffic. Once past Temple Bar and in the narrow defile of Fleet Street the author's thoughts darted up Fetter Lane and hovered around a grimy building where he had pursued his studies with the relentless fanaticism of youthful ambition. There, under the lamp-post at the corner, one keen evening in early spring, he had what was for him a tremendous emotional ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... neighbouring valley. Near this, in the bottome and uttermost extent thereof, there standeth a temple, once sumptuous, now desolate, built by Helena, and dedicated to St. John Baptist, in the place where Zachary had another house, possest, as the rest, by the beastly Arabians, who defile it with their cattell, and employ to the basest ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... shook the bridle in his hand, and the eight-footed, with a bound, leaped forth, rushed like a whirlwind down the mountain of Asgard, and then dashed into a narrow defile between rocks. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... this journey. Leaving at our right the mountains of Jaen, we passed through Andujar and Bailen, and on the third day reached Carolina, a small but beautiful town on the skirts of the Sierra Morena, inhabited by the descendants of German colonists. Two leagues from this place, we entered the defile of Despena Perros, which, even in quiet times, has an evil name, on account of the robberies which are continually being perpetrated within its recesses, but at the period of which I am speaking, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... her eye demurely devoured him; was he near her, she wooed him with such a god-like mixture of fire, of tenderness, of flattery, of tact; she did so serpentinely approach and coil round the soldier and his mental cavity, that all the males in creation should have been permitted to defile past (like the beasts going into the ark), and view this sweet picture a moment, and infer how women would be wooed, and then go and do ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... wore oriental tunics or robes, and a long beard; the women painted their faces. Ivan the Terrible said that to shave the beard was "a sin that the blood of all the martyrs could not cleanse. Was it not to defile the image of man ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... you tear from my lintels these sacred green garlands of leaves? Would you scare the white, nested, wild pigeons of joy from my eaves? Would you touch and defile with dead fingers the robes of my priest? Would you weave your dim moan with the chantings of love at ...
— The Golden Threshold • Sarojini Naidu
... them than their own force numbered. At first the Spanish forces overwhelmed the colonists by their superior numbers, when the veteran troops became seized with a panic. They made a precipitate retreat, the Highlanders following reluctantly in the rear. After passing through a defile, Lieutenant MacKay communicated to his friend, Lieutenant Southerland, who commanded the rear guard, composed also of Highlanders, the feelings of his corps, and agreeing to drop behind as soon as the whole had passed the defile. They returned through the brush and took post at the two points ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... fine equipages of the town drew up in the roads and lanes flanking the camp, where with leveled glasses the mothers, sisters, and sweethearts watched the columns as they skirmished, formed squares, or "passed the defile," quite sure that the rebels would fly in confusion before such surprising manoeuvres. This daily audience stimulated such a fierce rivalry among the companies that the men turned out at all hours of the day to drill and practice in squads, rather than loiter about the camp. One day great news ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Who shall tell how He between whom and the Woman God put enmity forged deadly plots to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall record the long strife between Serpent and Seraph:—How still the Father of Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, grossness into glory, pain into bliss, poison into passion? How the "dreadless ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... was beginning to yield to the pale tints of early dawn. A bat was sounding the departure of the hours of darkness with a singular note resembling the gurgling of liquid from a narrow bottle-neck. A neighing of horses was heard far up the defile; then, with the first rays of dawn, we distinguished a sledge driven by the baron's servant; its bottom was littered with straw; on this the ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... chairs to distribute the view, a tense moment of silence as the chorus came down a rocky defile and then—a white pencil of flame shot out from the royal box and a sharp ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... say 'Go On?' Does any man who has a wife and sisters, or children at home, say 'Go on' to such disgusting ribaldry as this? Do you dare, sir, to call yourself a gentleman, and to say that you hold the King's commission, and to sit down amongst Christians and men of honour, and defile the ears of young ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... victory, rather than of a condemned man to undergo sentence of death. So the Commonwealth's man, Sir John Eliot, went alike bravely to his death on the same spot, saying: "Ten thousand deaths rather than defile my conscience, the chastity and purity of which I value beyond all this world." Eliot's greatest tribulation was on account of his wife, whom he had to leave behind. When he saw her looking down upon him from the Tower window, he stood up in the cart, ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... on this occasion; as if it were a greater crime to rob the pagoda of Tebilicare without orders, than that of Tremele with orders. While the Portuguese were returning to their ships, the town and pagoda were set on fire, and they were attacked in a narrow defile by 200 Nayres, who killed 30 of them; but on getting into the open field, the Nayres were put to flight. No danger terrifies avarice. The Portuguese went on to another pagoda, from which a chest was brought out and opened publicly, and some silver money which ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... July that they neared the mouth of Turtle Creek, a stream entering the Monongahela about eight miles from the French fort. The way was direct and short, but would lead them through a difficult country and a defile so perilous that Braddock resolved to ford the Monongahela to avoid this danger, and then ford it again to reach ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... not able to parry the sophistry of Curtius. I have ceased, therefore, to give them. Hamilton is really a colossus to the anti-republican party. Without numbers, he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile, where they might be finished; but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward, there is nobody but yourself who can meet ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... his commands, any inequality of numbers. Eliduc praised their zeal; but observed, that this intemperate valour was more fitted for the lists of a tournament than for useful service; and requested that they, who knew the country, would shew him some defile in which he could hope to attack the enemy on equal terms. They pointed out a hollow way in the neighbouring forest, by which the invaders usually passed and returned; and Eliduc, while hastening there, described the measures ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... position, one of great natural strength, was held by a few thousand Greeks under the Spartan king, Leonidas. For two days Xerxes hurled his best soldiers against the defenders of Thermopylae, only to find that numbers did not count in that narrow defile. There is no telling how long the handful of Greeks might have kept back the Persian hordes, had not treachery come to the aid of the enemy. A traitor Greek revealed to Xerxes the existence of an unfrequented path, leading over the mountain in the rear of the ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... is especially rich in nautical terms, the Kirghis shepherd tribes who wander over the highlands of western Asia from the Tian Shan to the Hindu Kush have four different terms for four kinds of mountain passes. A daban is a difficult, rocky defile; an art is very high and dangerous; a bel is a low, easy pass, and a kutal is a broad ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... barren a soil. Out to the eastward, stretching away to an opposite range, lies a sandy desert dotted at wide intervals with little black bunches of "scrub mezquite" and blessed with only one redeeming patch of foliage, the copse of willows and cottonwood here at the mouth of a rock-ribbed defile where a little brook, rising heaven knows how or where among the heights to the west, comes frothing and tumbling down through the windings of the gorge only to bury itself in the burning sands beyond the shade. So narrow and tortuous is the canon, ...
— Foes in Ambush • Charles King
... battles we have to fight in order to drive away these children of our brain! Anger, ambition, revenge give birth to the most detestable thoughts, which make us blush with shame as we should at some horrible blemish. And yet they are not ours, for we have not evoked them; but they defile us nevertheless, and leave us in despair at not being masters of our own heart, mind, ...
— My Double Life - The Memoirs of Sarah Bernhardt • Sarah Bernhardt
... and inhospitable even in the sunlight. The rock walls rose sheer, the roofs slanted rakishly, the signs scratched on the rock by facetious riders were pointless and inane. Lone picked his way through the crooked defile that was marked MAIN STREET on the corner of the first huge boulder and came abruptly into the road. Here he turned north and shook his ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower
... himself—the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired. One of Pythagoras' wisest maxims, in his "Golden Verses," is that with which he enjoins the pupil to "reverence himself." Borne up by this high idea, he will not defile his body by sensuality, nor his mind by servile thoughts. This sentiment, carried into daily life, will be found at the root of all the virtues—cleanliness, sobriety, chastity, morality, and religion. ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... scrambled on our approach, and on reaching the summit, tried by various gestures to express their disapproval of our visit, but would not hold any parley with us. At five miles the river turned abruptly to the north-east, through a precipitous rocky defile, which induced us to make an attempt to cut across and strike the river some miles higher up; but after being for some time involved in impracticable ravines, we were again obliged to have recourse ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... having been once an eyewitness of some rough treatment received by a chumar, or leather-dresser, (one of the lowest castes,) at the hands of some high caste sepoys, who were highly indignant that so mean a carcass should presume to defile the holy ground! Leaving the ghats and devotees behind him, however, and floating down the stream in his capacious three-roomed budgerow, he passed Mirzapoor, Chunar, and even the holy city of Benares, (which he perversely spells Bunarus,) ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... pricked down on wood, May be made out a picture good Of the bright Southern Sieve. Who planned, and helped those slanderers vile, My name with base lies to defile? Unpitied, here ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... whilst I gave him what news I had of Clinton and how it was with us at the Lake, and all that had happened to my scout of six—the death of the St. Regis and the two Iroquois, the treachery of the Erie and his escape, the murder of the Stockbridge—and how we witnessed the defile of Indian Butler's motley but sinister array headed northwest on the Great Warrior Trail. Also, I gave him as true and just an account as I could give of the number of soldiers, renegades, Indians, and batt-horses in that fantastic ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... following clear statement is given: "The Holy Spirit which is pre-existent, which created all creation, did God make to dwell in the flesh which he willed. Therefore this flesh, in which the Holy Spirit dwelled, served the Spirit well, walking in holiness and purity, and did not in any way defile the spirit. When, therefore, it had lived nobly and purely, and had laboured with the Spirit, and worked with it in every deed, behaving with power and bravery, he chose it as companion with the Holy Spirit; ...
— Landmarks in the History of Early Christianity • Kirsopp Lake
... lewd fellow, Burns," exclaimed Moodie, angrily. "He did worse than hide his ten talents in a napkin. I wonder, my lady, you defile your mouth with ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... do't in spite, And break that stubborn disobedient will, That hath so long held out, that boasted honour I will make equal with a common Whores; The spring of Chastity, that fed your pride, And grew into a River of vain glory, I will defile with mudd, the mudd of lust, And make it ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont
... insurgents was raised by frequent success, and by the manifest inability of the Canton Viceroy to take any effectual military measures against them. Two hundred imperial troops were decoyed into a defile, and slaughtered by an overwhelming force in ambush. This reverse naturally caused considerable alarm in Canton itself, and defensive measures were taken. Governor Yeh was sent against them with 2000 men, and he succeeded in compelling, or as some say in inducing, them ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... verbatim account extracted from the journal of the late John Berthier Heatherstone, of the events which occurred in the Thul Valley in the autumn of '41 towards the end of the first Afghan War, with a description of the skirmish in the Terada defile, and of the death of the ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... an evil which that Race attaints Who represent God's World with oily paints, Who mock the Universe, so rare and sweet, With spots of colour on a canvas sheet, Defile the Lovely and insult the Good By scrawling upon little bits of wood. They'd snare the moon, and catch the immortal sun With madder brown and pale vermilion, Entrap an English evening's magic hush ...
— The Collected Poems of Rupert Brooke • Rupert Brooke
... But pass after pass was traversed, and valley after valley crossed, and yet the wadi of Ariab, with its cool, deep wells of precious water, was still afar. It was not till past two o'clock in the afternoon that a long, toilsome defile of rugged rock brought us on the edge of a steep descent, and before us lay the winding Khor of Ariab, with its mass of green fresh foliage throwing gentle shadows on the silver sand of its dry watercourse. It seemed an age as we traversed that extended khor before our ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 1157, March 5, 1898 • Various
... upon the three and the others were cast overboard. The canon was the creation of the Pharisaic doctors, who drew a line at a point of their own choosing, and decreed that writings "from that time onward" did not defile ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... with one touch of your finger, send that bursting spirit which throbs against your brow to flit forth free, and nevermore to defile her purity by ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... birches, and pines. The corpse thus sheltered from contact with the air does not putrefy. In other respects Bees are very careful about the cleanliness of their dwellings; they remove with care and throw outside dust, mud, and sawdust which may be found there. Bees are careful also not to defile their hives with excrement, as Kirby noted; they go aside to expel their excretions, and in winter, when prevented by extreme cold or the closing of the hive from going out for this purpose, their bodies become so swollen from retention of faeces that when at last able to go ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... seized on the Vizier Mussapulta, and tore him limb from limb. Yet the generous animal would not defile himself with the carcass, but with great wrath tossed the bloody remains among ...
— Eastern Tales by Many Story Tellers • Various
... long and superb chain of the Pyrenees which forms the embattled isthmus of the peninsula, in the centre of those blue pyramids, covered in gradation with snow, forests, and downs, there opens a narrow defile, a path cut in the dried-up bed of a perpendicular torrent; it circulates among rocks, glides under bridges of frozen snow, twines along the edges of inundated precipices to scale the adjacent mountains of Urdoz ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... creature may think, and more than any can tell, to all His lovers, without end. It is much easier to come to that bliss than to describe it. Also think what pain and what sorrow and tormenting they shall have who love not GOD above all things that one sees in this world, but defile their body in the pleasures and lusts of this life, in pride and greed and other sins; they shall burn in the fire of hell with the devil whom they served, as long as GOD is in heaven with His servants, ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... became. If a morsel of bread was left uneaten on the table, if an unexpected dish was served up at table, if she put a piece of ribbon into her hair, he used to heap violent, spiteful reproaches on her, torrents of rage which defile the mouth, and violent threats like those of a madman, who is tormented by some fixed idea. Monsieur d'Etchegorry had dismissed the servant and engaged a char-woman, whom he intended to pay, merely by small sums on account, and he used to go to market ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... peroration was undoubtedly very moving, very intimate, very modern, and Langham up to a certain point was extremely susceptible to oratory, as he was to music and acting. The critical judgment, however, at the root of him kept coolly repeating as he stood watching the people defile out of the church: 'This sort of thing will go down, will make a mark; Elsmere is at ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... ourselves therefore, on a bright April morning, riding along with a friend—a stranger like ourselves—on the high road from Swansea into the interior of the peninsula. After cantering over about seven miles of hill and valley and common, we entered a woody defile, and at last opened, to use a nautical phrase, the "Gower inn," (eight miles) which was built, we were told, expressly for the convenience of tourists. After ascending a tremendous rocky hill, for road it cannot be called, about a mile onwards, Oxwich Bay bursts ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... to her bed in his arms—I saw it with my own eyes, and I heard him kiss her." (This was a piece of embroidery on Elizabeth's part.) "She is his lover, and has been in love with him for months. I tell you this, Owen Davies, because, though I cannot bear to bring disgrace upon our name and to defile my lips with such a tale, neither can I bear that you should marry a girl, believing her to be good, when she is what ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... with his drunkenness and neglect of his business, if he had not broke one of the sacred commandments. Besides, if it had been out of doors I had not mattered it so much; but with my own servant, in my own house, under my own roof, to defile my own chaste bed, which to be sure he hath, with his beastly stinking whores. Yes, you villain, you have defiled my own bed, you have; and then you have charged me with bullocking you into owning the truth. It is very likely, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... father is a Christian preacher I feel I have a right to protest against his being placed on a clerical parity with bilkers of hack bills and crapulous associates of two-for-a-penny prostitutes. If Harman attempts to defile the Christian pulpit with his presence, I hope to the good Lord that the decent members of that denomination will tie him across a nine-rail fence and enhance the torridity of his rear elevation with a ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... accompany him. And if so, Spenser must soon have become acquainted with some of the scenes and necessities of Irish life. Within three weeks after Lord Grey's landing, he and those with him were present at the disaster of Glenmalure, a rocky defile near Wicklow, where the rebels enticed the English captains into a position in which an ambuscade had been prepared, after the manner of Red Indians in the last century, and of South African savages now, and where, in spite of Lord Grey's courage, "which could ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... of joy prevail, And echo wide from hill to vale; Ye warlike clans, arise and hail Your laurell'd chiefs returning. O'er every mountain, every isle, Let peace in all her lustre smile, And discord ne'er her day defile ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... must know has its distinct individuality to the Pilot's eye. Some are not fairy places at all, but great dark ugly blots upon the fair countryside, and with tall shafts belching forth murky columns of smoke to defile clean space. Others, melancholy-looking masses of grey, slate-roofed houses, are always sad and dispirited; never welcoming the glad sunshine, but ever calling for leaden skies and a weeping Heaven. Others again, little coquettes with village green, white palings ...
— The Aeroplane Speaks - Fifth Edition • H. Barber
... French General, Cherin, was once conducting a detachment through a very difficult defile. He exhorted his soldiers to endure patiently the fatigues of the march. "It is easy for you to talk," said one of the soldiers near him; "you who are mounted on a fine horse—but we poor devils!"—On hearing these words, Cherin dismounted, and ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... cynically. "Not many Rhodesians to-day have time to care for any but the treasures that they can work for and grasp and carry away. The time for natural beauties to be appreciated is not yet. Why, we do not even pay a native half-a-crown a week to keep the caves free from the baboons and bats that defile them. I am afraid, at present, Rhodesia lives almost entirely for to-day," he continued. "The spirit ready to sacrifice itself for the good of future generations has yet to be developed." He was a clever-looking man, with quiet, ...
— The Rhodesian • Gertrude Page
... object seemed to be nearly in their grasp, as they had done hitherto when success was more dubious. A strong party of the rioters, drawn up in front of the Luckenbooths, and facing down the street, prevented all access from the eastward, and the west end of the defile formed by the Luckenbooths was secured in the same manner; so that the Tolbooth was completely surrounded, and those who undertook the task of breaking it open effectually secured against the ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... so little concern, and at the same time placed such implicit confidence in the nerve courage of their companions. I must own that I felt very anxious, and carefully examined the lock of my rifle, and assured myself that I had properly loaded it. Soon after this we entered a broad defile with high broken rocks on either side of us, beyond which towered up to the sky the white masses of mountain-tops. The defile as we advanced gradually narrowed, till I found that we were approaching a narrow gorge with cliffs rising on each side almost perpendicularly above it. Just ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... deities have been found, Hinduism is not known to have existed apart from Buddhism.[471] Caves decorated for Buddhist worship are found not only in the Tarim basin but at Tun-huang on the frontier of China proper, near Ta-t'ung-fu in northern Shensi, and in the defile of Lung-men in the province of Ho-nan. The general scheme and style of these caves are similar, but while in the last two, as in most Indian caves, the figures and ornaments are true sculpture, in the caves of Tun-huang and the Tarim not only is the wall prepared for ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... feelings of our natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion. Corporeal attributes and necessities are thrown on one side, as they would destroy the charm of perfectability. Nothing can soil, or defile, or destroy my heroine; suffering adds lustre to her beauty, as pure gold is tried by fire: nothing can kill her, because she is all mind. As for my men, you will observe when you ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... for the purpose of attending the appraisement of an apprentice belonging to Silver Hill, a plantation about ten miles distant from Grecian Regale. We rode but a short distance in the town road, when we struck off into a narrow defile by a mule-path, and pushed into the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... at which the young male is more sensitive and serious and afraid of looking a fool. This is a blunder; but there is another much bigger and blacker. It is completely and disastrously false to the whole nature of falling in love to make the young Eugene complain of the cruelty which makes Candida defile her fair hands with domestic duties. No boy in love with a beautiful woman would ever feel disgusted when she peeled potatoes or trimmed lamps. He would like her to be domestic. He would simply feel ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... p.m. on the 4th of November our troops had reached Sluderno in the Val Venosta, the Pass of Mendola and the Defile of Salomo in the Val d'Adige, Cembra in the Val d'Avisio, Levico in the Val Sugana, Fiera di Primiero, Pontebba, Plezzo, Tolmino, ...
— With British Guns in Italy - A Tribute to Italian Achievement • Hugh Dalton
... thoughts, like those of the ignorant laity, are according to the flesh. It has pleased Our Lady and my patron saint to bless the pittance to which I restrain myself, even as the pulse and water was blessed to the children Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, who drank the same rather than defile themselves with the wine and meats which were appointed them by ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... kept well informed of what was going on in Paris, and knew that the king's death was imminent. His position on a plain, surrounded on all sides by woods and marshes with but one approach, and that through a narrow defile, was practically impregnable; and by occupying the defile he could have kept the French at bay without the slightest difficulty until Rocroi surrendered. He knew, too, that General Beck with a considerable force was ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... very cold. At morning freshen the yolks a little, then add the liquor, and at last the whites newly frothed. This is the only simon-pure Christmas egg nogg. Those who put into it milk, cream, what not, especially rum, defile one of the finest among ...
— Dishes & Beverages of the Old South • Martha McCulloch Williams
... I cried, addressing them all, "that His Majesty were here to see how you conduct your trials and defile his Courts. As for you, Monsieur le President, you violate the sanctity of your office in giving way to anger; it is a thing unpardonable in a judge. I have told you in plain terms, gentlemen, that I am not this Rene de Lesperon with whose crimes you charge me. Yet, in spite of my denials, ignoring ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... had completed the passage of the open country, and had entered the opposite branch of the Apennines, which they had long observed in the distance. After wandering among some rocky ground, they entered a defile amid hills covered with ilex, and thence emerging found themselves in a valley of some expanse and considerable cultivation; bright crops, vineyards in which the vine was married to the elm, orchards full of fruit, and ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... workshops, and afterwards went into a large court to see the men defile in gangs, and march into their dining hall, in which we afterwards saw them assembled at dinner, and a capital savoury dinner it seemed to be. They have as much bread as they choose to eat, and meat twice ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... an hour or two, bare precipices, hundreds of feet high, shooting up on either hand. Raymond, with his hardy mule, was a few rods before me, when we came to the foot of an ascent steeper than the rest, and which I trusted might prove the highest point of the defile. Pauline strained upward for a few yards, moaning and stumbling, and then came to a dead stop, unable to proceed further. I dismounted, and attempted to lead her; but my own exhausted strength soon gave out; so I loosened the trail-rope from her neck, and ...
— The Oregon Trail • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... north and east, dipping very suddenly 2,200 feet to the Ratong on the west. To the right was a lofty hill, crowned with the large temple and convents of Doobdi, shadowed by beautiful weeping cypresses, and backed by lofty pine-clad mountains. Northward, the gorge of the Ratong opened as a gloomy defile, above which rose partially snowed mountains, which shut out Kinchinjunga. To the west, massive pine-clad mountains rose steeply; while the little hamlet of Lathiang occupied a remarkable shelf overhanging the river, appearing inaccessible except by ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... kneeled, she flung Her loveliness at his feet: "I am tired of being blown and swung In the rain and the snow and the sleet! But better no rest than stillness among Things whose names would defile my tongue! How ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... of Bamian lie on the road leading from Kabul to Turkestan. The pass, at an elevation of 8,496 feet, is the only known defile over the Hindu Kush practicable for artillery. This valley was one of the chief centres of Buddhist worship, as gigantic idols, mutilated indeed by fanatical Mussulmans, conclusively prove. Bamian, with its colossal statues cut out in the rock, was among the wonders ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... valleys. Like one entranced, he looked from the crest of Olivet upon the magnificent temple, and gave command that not one stone of it be touched. Before attempting to gain possession of this stronghold, he made an earnest appeal to the Jewish leaders not to force him to defile the sacred place with blood. If they would come forth and fight in any other place, no Roman should violate the sanctity of the temple. Josephus himself, in a most eloquent appeal, entreated them to surrender, to save themselves, their ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... the natural means of healing. The inscriptions show that great attention was paid to diet, exercise, massage and bathing, and that when necessary, drugs were used. Birth and death were believed to defile the sacred precincts, and it was not until the time of the Antonines that provision was made at Epidaurus ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... was a road broad enough only for a single carriage, very steep, and impracticable for an army to pass, if any one opposed them. Syennesis, besides, was said to be stationed on the heights, guarding the defile; on which account Cyrus halted for a day in the plain. The next day, a messenger came to inform him that Syennesis had quitted the heights, on receiving information that Menon's army was already in Cilicia within the mountains, and hearing that Tamos ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... of her monstrous adoption to try, 'Midst, Syria! thy waterless waste, She bade him the blast of thy desert outvie, And defile all ...
— Poems • Sir John Carr
... ruined, saved only by a triumph of valor and discipline on the part of a single division and of skill on the part of its intrepid commander from complete destruction at the hands of an enemy inferior in everything and outnumbered almost as two to one. The passage of a wood is the passage of a defile; there, then, was a blind defile, where of six divisions four were suffered to be taken in detail and attacked in fractions on ground of the enemy's choosing. Hardly any tactical error was wanting to complete the discomfiture. Ransom ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... the banks of Rhine, we saw Cities and spires, beneath the mountains blue, Gleaming; or vineyards creep from rock to rock; Or unknown castles hang, as if in clouds; Or heard the roaring of the cataract. Far off,[5] beneath the dark defile or gloom Of ancient forests—till behold, in light, Foaming and flashing, with enormous sweep, Through the rent rocks—where, o'er the mist of spray, The rainbow, like a fairy in her bow'r, Is sleeping while it roars—that volume vast, White, and with thunder's ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 350, January 3, 1829 • Various
... within such coil The immortal spirit rests awhile: When this shall lie beneath the soil, Which its mere mortal parts defile, THAT shall for ever live and foil Mortality, ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... a deep defile which gradually grew shallower, and then ascended rapidly. Finally he came out on a crest, crowned with splendid trees, and he drew a great breath of pleasure as he looked upon a vast green wilderness, deepened ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... warn thee never to defile Beauty with gold? For every wise man knows That riches only mantle with a smile A thousand sorrows and a host ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... thirty men was chosen, to force the perilous entrance to the foe. The command of this devoted corps was assigned to Francis Marion, still a lieutenant under the command of Moultrie, in the provincial regiment of Middleton. The ascent of the hill was by means of a gloomy defile, through which the little band, headed gallantly by their leader, advanced with due rapidity; a considerable body of the army moving forward at the same time in support of the advance. Scarcely had the detachment ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... then said Aurelian in his fiercest tones, 'how is it that again, for these paltry gains, already rolling in wealth—thou wilt defile thy own soul, and bring public shame upon me too, and Rome! Away to thy tent! and put in order thine own affairs and mine. Thou hast lived too long. Soldiers, let him be strongly guarded.—Let Virro now receive his just dues. Men call me cruel, ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... that roadway of a god, along which presently at least the Vicar of a God should come—all this and a thousand memories more—memories of events such as few experience in a lifetime, crowded into twelve months—passed in endless defile, coherent and consistent at last under the pointing finger of Him who had directed and ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... Plunging into this defile, the travellers advanced with steadily increasing difficulty, the boulders with which their path was strewed growing ever larger and more numerous until at length the narrowing road became completely choked with them, and the only mode of progression was that ...
— The Log of the Flying Fish - A Story of Aerial and Submarine Peril and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... mountain road,—which winds in and out of the passes, on and on, and leads to a definite place at last,—and, because he sees an apparently impassable mountain wall across the path, forsakes this and wanders off into some other valley and defile that looks more open, but in whose mazes he loses himself and makes no ...
— The Life Radiant • Lilian Whiting
... when we smile!— But the conscience is quick to record, All the sorrow and sin We are hiding within Is plain in the sight of the Lord: And ever, O ever, till pride And evasion shall cease to defile The sacred recess Of the soul, we confess We are not always glad when ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley
... of Heaven!" said Issachar lifting up his eyes, "how long will you suffer that this murderous and accursed race should defile the face ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... exorcisms of various kinds. This notion of purity plays a great part in other old religions also; it is here that we see its original meaning most clearly. Another great feature of the doctrine of purity in the Vendidad is that the elements, fire, earth, and water, are holy, and to defile them in any way is the most grievous of sins. As everything which leaves the body is unclean, a man must not blow up a fire with his breath, and bathing with a view to cleanliness is not to be thought of. The ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... famous battle of Morgarten, resisted with growing success the Savoyard and the Hapsburg sovereignty, and divided in ever changing alliances the fermenting elements of the tottering feudal society. The horn of the Alps, sounding the tocsin over the rocky defile of the Swiss Thermopylae, announced the approaching end of the feudal rule of the middle ages and the dawn ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... soon after he sent Loudon the above letter. Then, by stripping all the forts below, he could bring together forty-five hundred men; while several French deserters assured him that Montcalm had nearly twelve thousand. To advance to the relief of Monro with a force so inferior, through a defile of rocks, forests, and mountains, made by nature for ambuscades,—and this too with troops who had neither the steadiness of regulars nor the bush-fighting skill of Indians,—was an enterprise for firmer ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... had to be swallowed, for the right of capital punishment had been withdrawn. A 'religious' scruple, too, stood in the way—very characteristic of such formalists. Killing an innocent man would not in the least defile them, or unfit for eating the passover, but to go into a house that had not been purged of 'leaven,' and was further unclean as the residence of a Gentile, though he was the governor, that would stain their consciences—a singular scale of magnitude, which saw ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... we approached the Pass, a narrow defile winding down between high hills from this table-land to the plain below. To say that we feared an ambush, would not perhaps convey a very clear idea of how I felt on entering ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... they had already more money than they could spend, or enjoy in any way soever, save by saying to themselves—I have got it, I have got it—they must needs, in the mere lust for becoming richer still, ruin themselves and others by frantic speculations? Have we not seen—but why should I defile myself, and you, and this holy place by telling you what I have seen; and what I hope, and hope alas! in vain, that I shall never see again, among those who must needs serve God and Mammon? Has not the love of money become such a chronic disease among us, that we can actually calculate, ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... dare not hope for mercy and forgiveness. Why, the very angels would scout me; and she, who was always glad of my approach, would now draw aside the hem of her raiment lest I should touch it and defile her! ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... of a thief." "Lord," said he, "rather than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom." "By my confession to Heaven, neither will I sell it nor set it free." "It is true, lord, that it is worth nothing to buy; but rather than see thee defile thyself by touching such a reptile as this, I will give thee three pounds to let it go." "I will not, by Heaven," said he, "take any price for it. As it ought, so shall it be hanged." And the priest went ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... sections, ever on the alert to keep down rival automatic guns, found out and sprayed the nests, the enemy was seen to be anxious about his line of retreat. One large party, harried by shrapnel and machine-gun fire, left its positions and rushed towards a defile, but rallied and came back, though when it reoccupied its former line the Londoners had reached a point to enfilade it, and it suffered heavily. We soon got this position, and then our troops, ascending some spurs, poured a destructive fire into the defile and so harassed ...
— How Jerusalem Was Won - Being the Record of Allenby's Campaign in Palestine • W.T. Massey
... the pass below, And the distant tramp of horses, And the voices of the foe: Down we crouched amid the bracken, Till the Lowland ranks drew near, Panting like the hounds in summer, When they scent the stately deer. From the dark defile emerging, Next we saw the squadrons come, Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers Marching to the tuck of drum; Through the scattered wood of birches, O'er the broken ground and heath, Wound the long battalion slowly, ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... shrilly. "Thou wilt defile these tubs with the linen of bandoleros? Hast thou had thy silly head turned with a kiss? Not one shirt shall go ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... quivering against the rocks, splitting and rending the stoutest forest trees. The thunder burst in tremendous explosions; the peals were echoed from mountain to mountain; they crashed upon Dunderberg, and then rolled up the long defile of the Highlands, each headland making a new echo, until old Bull Hill seemed to bellow back ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... tobacco and cigars because he did not feel that they were fit for him to use, but he said nothing about the manner in which he had discovered the fact. "I put them in the fire," Edwin continued, "because I did not want any one else to defile himself with what I could not use myself." Then seeing that Mr. Miller was taking a few of the cigars from the grate, he said, "If you take them out of the fire and use them, I shall not be to blame, but I have no more use for tobacco, and ...
— The Poorhouse Waif and His Divine Teacher • Isabel C. Byrum
... will let you come on, and suddenly, when you see cover, make a dash for it and escape. 3. Do not get lost. 4. Do not allow yourself to think of the enemy as being in one direction only. 5. In entering or passing through woods take an extended skirmish line formation. 6. In passing any short defile bridge or ford, send one man ahead. 7. If you suspect the presence of the enemy under certain cover, a good way to find out is to let one man approach within a reasonable distance and then, acting as though he had been discovered, turn and run. This will generally draw ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... bowed submission, dumb a little while. Then said my soul: "Thy will I dare not balk; I reach my hands to labours that defile, And help to rear a plant ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... forth, who with strength can bring aid, To strike down the injustice and lies That my house have beset, and with malice blockade Every pathway I out for my powers have laid, And would hidden means find With deceit and with hate To set watch on my mind And defile every plate In my beautiful home where defenseless ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... the settlers used to be astounded by the inroads of the northern Indians coming down upon them from this mountain rampart through some defile known only to themselves. It is, indeed, a wondrous path. A demon, it might be fancied, or one of the Titans, was travelling up the valley, elbowing the heights carelessly aside as he passed, till at length a great mountain took its stand directly across ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the distance; these are rain-clouds, which will certainly close over the clear sky, and bring on rain before midnight: but there is no power in them to pollute the sky beyond and above them: they do not darken the air, nor defile it, nor in any way mingle with it; their edges are burnished by the sun like the edges of golden shields, and their advancing march is as deliberate and majestic as the fading of the twilight itself into ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... ever used for an altar, but let us not anticipate. In the eighteenth century we shall again find abbes—among how many other monsters—who defile holy objects. One Canon Duer occupied himself specially with black magic and the evocation of the devil. He was finally executed as a sorcerer in the year of grace 1718. There was another who believed in the Incarnation of the Holy Ghost as the Paraclete, and who, in Lombary, ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... admitted, when the masses disowned the movement, all was over with the combatants, the city was changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the army to take ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... with war and conquest. He farther represented, that on the late occasion, when the general of the Calicut forces was in full march for the relief of Cranganor, the rajah of Tanor had placed 4000 of his nayres in ambush in a defile in their line of march, who had defeated the troops of Calicut, and hod slain 2000 of them. On this account the rajah of Tanor was in great fear of the zamorin, and humbly requested assistance from the admiral, promising ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... irrigation lands like Mesopotamia it is the combination of great heat and abundant water that makes for luxuriant growth. Milton conceives the most romantic and wild scenery on hill and dale and savage defile, suddenly brought into order for the use of man. The Bible story speaks only of features to be found in a land like Babylonia. Sir William Willcocks thinks that the word translated "mist" would probably be better rendered "inundation," and that the writer is speaking ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... of cattle. The river-bed is almost everywhere wide, but strewn with dangerous rocks and sandbanks which render navigation perilous. On nearing the ruins of Halebiyeh, the river narrows as it enters the Arabian hills, and cuts for itself a regular defile of three or four hundred paces in length, which is approached by the ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 7 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... and above the timber-line, the trail ran around Crater Lake and gained the rocky defile that led toward Happy Camp and the first scrub-pines. To pack his heavy outfit around would take days of heart-breaking toil. On the lake was a canvas boat employed in freighting. Two trips with it, in two hours, would see him and his ton across. But he was broke, ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... woman who has vowed the vow of a Nazarite drink wine or defile herself by contact with a dead body (see Num. vi. 2-6), she is to undergo ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... beech-woods of Itchkeria. Then began the fight. The hostile tribes of all the region round were up in arms, and waiting in the depths of the woods for the enemy. As his vanguard reached the first narrow and precipitous defile they were received by a murderous fire from behind numerous trunks of trees which, felled across the way, served as breast-works for the one party and obstacles to the progress of the other. Besides these barricades, the barriers no less difficult of removal, which were woven by nature, of thousands ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... desirous of pushing forward, and the provisional alcalde of the village gave us a trap to take us on. There is an excellent road by the mountain-side, until a tunnel to the right is reached, when we entered a most picturesque, well-wooded defile, through which the Bidassoa pours its waters. We dashed along gaily until we came in sight of the steeple of the church ...
— Romantic Spain - A Record of Personal Experiences (Vol. II) • John Augustus O'Shea
... incumbency, which may last many years. Thus he must live at the sacred dairy and may never visit his home or any ordinary village. He must be celibate; if he is married he must leave his wife. On no account may any ordinary person touch the holy milkman or the holy dairy; such a touch would so defile his holiness that he would forfeit his office. It is only on two days a week, namely Mondays and Thursdays, that a mere layman may even approach the milkman; on other days if he has any business with him, he must stand ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... so shalt thou know That fellowship of love, His spirit only can bestow Who reigns in light above. Walk in the light! and sin, abhorr'd, Shall ne'er defile again; The blood of Jesus Christ, the Lord, Shall ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why; and I clasped the hand of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... the occasion. I think there might have been quite seventy thousand. These mere reviews have little interest, the evolutions being limited to marching by regiments on and off the ground. In doing the latter, the troops defile before the king. Previously to this, the royal cortege passed along the several ...
— Recollections of Europe • J. Fenimore Cooper
... that leads to the broad and beautiful Valley of Virginia, and where John Brown's memory struggles through battered ruins and the invading smoke of the unhallowed locomotive, the river chafes from side to side of the stern defile that hems it in and curbs its restless waters. Great walls of dark rocks, crested by serried ranks of solemn pines, stand guard above its fitful, surging flood, and against the dark blue calm and misty depth of its gorge the pale smoke rises in a quiet column above the mills and houses that ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... all the time that I was abusing and polluting myself, but I did not know, I did not think, I was never told that I was abusing and polluting Thy Son, Jesus Christ. Oh, too awful thought. And yet, stupid sinner that I am, I had often read that if any man defile the temple of God and the members of Christ, him shall God destroy. O God, destroy me not as I see now that I deserve. Spare me that I may cleanse and sanctify myself and the members of Christ in me, which I have so often embruted and defiled. Assist me to summon up my imagination ...
— Bunyan Characters - Third Series - The Holy War • Alexander Whyte
... a tenth of his estate to Hercules to be made wise. It is reported, indeed, of Pythagoras that he sacrificed an ox to the Muses upon having made some new discovery in geometry;[286] but, for my part, I cannot believe it, because he refused to sacrifice even to Apollo at Delos, lest he should defile the altar with blood. But to return. It is universally agreed that good fortune we must ask of the Gods, but wisdom must arise from ourselves; and though temples have been consecrated to the Mind, to Virtue, and to Faith, yet that does not contradict their being inherent ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... pass was getting grander every moment; the brook was working its way deeper below the level of the road, while here and there in this sombre defile a splash of yellow aspen gleamed like living gold on the face of the precipice. The wild and beautiful gorge interested him in spite of himself; it disengaged his thoughts alike from his personal grievance, and from his dissatisfied contemplation of his own lack of proper vindictiveness. ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... containing $16,000 received the day before for the pay of the soldiers. Every tie of command and obedience now being broken among our troops, safety alone being the object, and all being involved in a frightful confusion, they rushed desperately to the narrow pass of the defile that descended to the Plan del Rio, where the general-in-chief had proceeded, with the chiefs and officers accompanying him. Horrid indeed was the descent by that narrow and rocky path where thousands rushed, disputing the passage with desperation, and leaving a track of blood upon the road. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann
... long and continued descent to the river Zerka. Passed through a defile, on issuing from which we observed a little stream with oleander, in pink blossom, thirty feet high, and in great abundance. Halted again at a pretty spring, called Ruman, where the water was upon nearly a dead level, and therefore ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... customs are the only ones worthy of attention from native and barbarian alike. The very antagonism of the few foreign manners and habits he is obliged by his position to cultivate, tend rather to confirm him in his own sense of superiority than otherwise. For who but a barbarian would defile the banquet hour "when the wine mantles in the cups" with a white table-cloth, the badge of grief and death? How much more elegant the soft red lacquer of the "eight fairy" table, with all its associations of the bridal hour! The host, too, at the head of his own board, sitting ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... ten miles east, had to pass through a gorge in which for a considerable distance the turnpike extends towards Winchester. Sheridan's plan at first was to bring his army, except Merritt's and Averell's Divisions of Torbert's Cavalry, through the defile, post the Sixth Corps on the left, the Nineteenth on the right, throw Crook's Army of West Virginia across the Staunton turnpike (leading southwest from Winchester), and so cut off all retreat up the valley. Meanwhile those two cavalry ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... true that a mouse is worth nothing, but rather than see thee defile thyself with touching such a reptile as this, I will give thee three ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... old high heart with the old longings and resolves, and the old fearless eyes to look out upon the world, but the old companions as well, with their glorious boy-faces, untouched then by any imprint of the base emotions and aims sure almost, a little later, to enter in and defile! The rain pattered ceaselessly; the heavy scent of the lilacs came in through the open windows; the martins screamed about their boxes under the eaves of the stable, and I could hear the twitter of innumerable birds; but with the consciousness of all this I had no thought ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. July, 1878. • Various
... mysteries is the upward tendency of so many souls through so much that clogs and would defile their wings, while so many others SEEM never even to look up. Then, having so begun with the dust, how do these ever come to raise their eyes to the hills? The keenest of us moral philosophers are but poor, mole-eyed creatures! ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... minutes the regiment was seen to defile from the mass, and take the road to Brussels, to increase the panic of that city, by circulating and strengthening the report, that the English were beaten,—and Napoleon in full ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... dark, he resolved to attempt the passage of the Gap, for he was so tired of inaction that peril and hardship seemed preferable to doing nothing. Returning to the road, he pursued his way with due diligence through the narrowing defile of the mountains, till he suddenly came upon a sentinel, who challenged him. Before he started from his hiding place, Tom had carefully loaded the revolver which he had taken from the rebel soldier; and, as he walked ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... eternal, irrepressible Sham; glib, nimble, ubiquitous, tricked out in all the paraphernalia of imposture, an endless defile of charlatans that passed interminably before the gaze of the city, marshalled by "lady presidents," exploited by clubs of women, by literary societies, reading circles, and culture organisations. The attention the Fake received, the time ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... between his eyes by an arrow. His companions were so terrified that they retreated with great loss. The enemy, however, irritated and ashamed, renewed the attack from another position on the side of Rocciaglia. They sought to enter the Pra del Torre by a narrow defile. At this moment a thick fog so confused them that they were afraid to move lest they should run into danger. The Angrognians, emboldened by this interposition of Providence, issued forth from their retreats, ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold |
