"Offensive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... thousand pounds a year by hearing other men talk nonsense." Anecdotes are frequent in illustration of his supercilious treatment of attorneys and clients while he was a barrister. And since his elevation to the wool-sack there has been no abatement or modification of his offensive manner. His demeanor toward counsel appearing before him has been the subject of constant and indignant complaint. It will be remembered by some of my readers, that, not long since, during a session of the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, August, 1863, No. 70 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... toujours—I wonder if it is possible for the mind of man to conceive anything more degradingly offensive than the condition of us 150 men, shut up in this wooden box, and being watered with hot water, as we are now. It is no exaggeration to say HOT, for the temperature is that at which people at home commonly take a hot bath. ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 1 • Leonard Huxley
... disclaimed any intention to be personal, asked pardon for any improprieties of which he might have been guilty in the heat of debate, and excused himself with the plea, that such charges against the American government and people, from such a source, were naturally very offensive. ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... had arisen which made its provisions inconsistent with a policy of neutrality. His main contention was that the obligations imposed by the treaty of '78 were no longer binding on the United States, since they contemplated only defensive war. By her declaration of war France had taken the offensive, thereby relieving the United States of her reciprocal obligations. Jefferson held that the treaty was still operative, for even if its provisions apparently required the United States to engage in the war, it did not follow that such action would be an actual consequence. ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... connection with sound-detection devices and groundings of electric circuits. Some of the captured German maps were models of applied geology. They contained condensed summaries of most of the features above named, together with appropriate sketches and sections. During the Argonne offensive by the American army the captured German lines disclosed geologic stations at frequent intervals, each with a full equipment of maps relating to that part of the front. From these stations schools of instruction had been conducted for the officers in the adjacent ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... the cliff, it grew tamer and tamer. The house, too, became dangerously like a villa; a super-villa, to be sure, and not in its first offensive youth, but still closely connected with the villa tribe. Its complexion was a bilious yellow, and it had red-rimmed windows. It was close to the sea, however, and its windows, with their blinds drawn down against the sun, looked like eyes ...
— This Is the End • Stella Benson
... headquarters were in Berlin, I made frequent journeys to the front in Belgium, France, Poland, Russia and Roumania. Ten times I was on the battlefields during important military engagements. Verdun, the Somme battlefield, General Brusiloff's offensive against Austria and the invasion of Roumania, I saw almost as ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... thirty-eight women were brought up at one time before the court in 1676 for their "wicked apparell." One young miss, Hannah Lyman, of Northampton, was prosecuted for "wearing silk in a fflaunting manner, in an offensive way and garb, not only before but when she stood presented, not only ...
— Customs and Fashions in Old New England • Alice Morse Earle
... violent and cruel; even Clara Mowbray taunts her. Now Lady Binks is in the same parlous case as the postmistress who dreed penance "for ante-nup," as Meg Dods says in an interrupted harangue, and we know that, to the author's mind, Clara Mowbray had no right to throw stones. All these jeers are offensive to generous feeling, and in the mouth of Clara are intolerable. Lockhart remarked in Scott a singular bluntness of the sense of smell and of taste. He could drink corked wine without a suspicion that ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... precaution to convey their canoe from the beach into the middle of the stream, whither the natives could not follow them. The former had flocked down to the water's edge in considerable numbers, armed with muskets, spears, and other offensive weapons, and kept up a dreadful noise, like the howling of wolves, till long after midnight; when the uproar died away King Boy slept on shore with his wife Adizzetta, who was Obie's favourite daughter, and on her account they waited till between seven and eight o'clock in the morning, when she ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... ashamed of being women, and they did all that was possible to conceal the fact. They, doubtless, would gladly have amputated their legs, if the ministers had so decreed, and they apologized to the world every time an unforseen circumstance uncovered a portion of these offensive legs. In fact, they denied the existence of "said members," and alluded to them tentatively and with ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... agitating violence as seemed to carry the performers beyond what their strength was able to sustain; and had the performance finished with the third act, we should have retired from their theatre with a much higher idea of the moral tendency of their drama, than was conveyed by the offensive, libidinous scene, exhibited by the ladies in the concluding part. The language of the song, no doubt, corresponded with the obscenity of their actions; which were carried to a degree of extravagance ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... very attentive to smell, and their taste as regarded agreeable and disagreeable odors corresponded very closely to European taste, although it must be added that some of their common articles of food possessed a very offensive odor. They are not only sensitive to European perfumes, but possessed various perfumes of their own, derived from plants and possessing a pleasant, powerful, and lasting odor; the choicest and rarest was the gum of the taramea ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 4 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... this goes out, I hope to see your expressive, but surely not benignant countenance! Adieu, O culler of offensive expressions—'and a' to be a posy to your ain dear May!'—Fanny seems a little revived again after her spasm of work. Our books and furniture keep slowly draining up the road, in a sad state of scatterment and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 25 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... free right. A few days later he removed the bag of beans and hung up garlic in its place. Again a few days and he came with an old cat which had been some time dead; and so on, bringing ever more offensive things, until the tenants were obliged to leave the house and forfeit their year's rent, without redress, since Johha was within his rights. Therefore I say to you, beware. These fathers of kirats will spoil ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall
... bad taste, possibly offensive; but Rachel was singularly moved by the revelation thus made. Before she could find a reply John's Ernest came into the shop, followed by an ...
— The Price of Love • Arnold Bennett
... makes with antichrist is rather defensive than offensive. A Christian also, if he can but defend his soul in the sincere profession of the true religion, doth what by duty, as to this, he is bound. Wherefore, though the New Testament admits him to put on the whole armor of God, yet the whole ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... sounds, by this judges some longer, some shorter, and ever anticipates the completion of a measure. It feels hurt when a rhythm is maimed or curtailed as if it had been defrauded of due payment. It dislikes even more whatever is prolonged and runs on beyond the proper bounds, since too much is more offensive than too little. Not that everyone knows the metrical feet, or understands anything about rhythm, or is aware of what offends him, or where, or why; it is rather that nature has set in our ears a power of judging the length ...
— An Essay on True and Apparent Beauty in which from Settled Principles is Rendered the Grounds for Choosing and Rejecting Epigrams • Pierre Nicole
... the besieged took the offensive both by sea and land, and were worsted on the water, but captured some of the Athenian forts, commanding the entry to the besiegers' lines—a serious disaster. By the time that Demosthenes with his reinforcements reached Sicily nearly the whole island had come over to the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... a mistake. Men like Perkins, however, are not to be lied to; still less may they be made the recipients of confessions. Methods of self-defence were therefore unthinkable, and I knew instinctively that I must assume the offensive. I must order him curtly, upon his arrival, to do something. But what? As I waited anxiously I tried to think of some service I could require at this hour. What can a man want at 1 A.M. except to go to sleep? Even the richest must do that ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 29, 1914 • Various
... sustained by this opinion, is proceeding to say, that, for his part, a parson is a useless sort of animal in general, who gets his living by frightening old women, but that this particular parson is an unusually offensive specimen, and that there is nothing in this world that he (Yellow-hair) would like better than to have him out in front of the house for five minutes, and see who was best man,—when Black-hair, usually a taciturn, peaceable fellow, astonishes the pair by turning ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... to be satisfied with this; but when the tapop summoned the representative of the Bear clan to give his opinion, the speech of the latter was not only stronger, it was even offensive to the Water people. He accused them of having done wrong in not sharing their fields with the clan of the Turquoise some time before, since it was the duty of those who had too much to divide with those who were poorer. He said that it was wrong on the part of Tzitz to have remained ...
— The Delight Makers • Adolf Bandelier
... eyelids to remain closed for a few minutes, and then opening them, the pupil appeared clear, but he could not bear exposure to light. On my asking him what he had seen, he said, 'Your head, which seemed to touch my eye,' but he could not tell its shape. On the 22d the light was less offensive. He said he saw my head, which touched his eye. On the 23d the eye was less inflamed, and he could bear a weak light. He said he could see several gentlemen round him, but could not describe their figure. My face, while I was looking at his eye, ...
— The Mind of the Child, Part II • W. Preyer
... from all Asses preceding it, called his tale 'The Golden Ass.' But living in the present day, such a designation—implying a merit in general, not the partial and limited merit corresponding only with your individual abilities—would be presumptuous and offensive. True, I here anticipate the observation I see Squills is about ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... again, bluntly refused; at the same time, casting some illiberal reflections on the Mowree's maternal origin, which the latter had been long enough among the sailors to understand as in the highest degree offensive. So just after the men came up from below, Bembo singled him out, and gave him such a cursing in his broken lingo that it was enough to frighten one. The convict was the worse for liquor; indeed the Mowree had been tippling also, and before we knew it, a blow was struck by Ben, and ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... his paws upon one end of the trunk, and giving out a threatening growl, the animal did nothing for a few minutes, while the boy, fully sensible of the value of his ammunition, was equally lacking in offensive proceedings. Thus matters stood, while the great heavy cloud floated slowly by the moon, and the head of the unwelcome stranger gradually came ...
— Through Apache Lands • R. H. Jayne
... represents the general opinion current both at home and abroad during the period immediately preceding the outbreak of the War; but it proved to be mistaken from the first. The Free Staters joined the Transvaalers and the allied forces assumed the offensive over a wide area without delay. Kimberley and Mafeking were threatened on the west, and on the east the Boers poured into Natal, upon which they had for sixty years looked with the aggrieved and greedy eyes of ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... demand as of right the cooperation of Italy, while France, determined for this and other reasons not to be the aggressor, had withdrawn its troops ten kilometers from the frontier and refused to take any offensive step either before or after ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... without dramatic vigour, and it has plenty of melody of a rough and ready kind. There is technical skill, too, in the treatment of the voices and in the orchestration, but hardly enough to reconcile an English audience to so offensive a book. Salvatore Auteri-Manzocchi has never repeated the early success of 'Dolores,' and Spiro Samara, a Greek by birth, but an Italian by training and sympathies, seems to have lost the secret of the delicate imagination ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... every lorgnette, the subject of every conversation. Several phrases he had overheard from a group of men had brought him to his feet in a frenzy; then he fell back in his place like one stunned. Nevertheless there had not been one offensive ...
— The Idol of Paris • Sarah Bernhardt
... It was not that she perceived any glamour of royalty about him; she did not wish to hear his voice. Besides, she had never found a conversational opening so harmless that he could not contrive, were it his whim, to be offensive about it. Besides, she had at the moment nothing ...
— The Loudwater Mystery • Edgar Jepson
... and of their lives bereaved, foreseeing this evil, thought it our prudence to withdraw. (3.) We found so frequent and positive preaching up some principles and practices by Mr. Parris, referring to the dark and dismal mysteries of iniquity working amongst us, as was not profitable, but offensive. (4.) Neither could we, in conscience, join with Mr. Parris in many of the requests which he made in prayer, referring to the trouble then among us and upon us; therefore thought it our most safe and peaceable ...
— Salem Witchcraft, Volumes I and II • Charles Upham
... without distinction of creed or party; and it would be inconsistent with the spirit and object of such an invitation, and such a visit, to thrust on him the exhibition of banners or other badges of distinction which are known to be offensive to any of Her Majesty's subjects." Roman Catholics called meetings to protest at the intended action of the Orangemen; the latter met in public and private and convinced themselves that the representatives of the former were being allowed to control the Prince's movements. They pointed to their ...
— The Life of King Edward VII - with a sketch of the career of King George V • J. Castell Hopkins
... boiled out of the tongue only. After having once vanquished this leviathan, there are two enemies to be dreaded beside the wind; the first of which is the shark: that fierce voracious fish, to which nature has given such dreadful offensive weapons, often comes alongside, and in spite of the people's endeavours, will share with them their prey; at night particularly. They are very mischievious, but the second enemy is much more terrible and irresistible; it is the killer, ...
— Letters from an American Farmer • Hector St. John de Crevecoeur
... said. "I shall be alone." And there was in the girl's parting half-glance at Zuleika that which told him he was truly loved, and made him the more impatient of his offensive and ...
— Zuleika Dobson - or, An Oxford Love Story • Max Beerbohm
... disgusted with this man's manner. It had the vulgar sort of witticism about even his air, that he so much affected in his speech; the whole being deformed by a species of sly malignancy, that rendered him as offensive as he seemed to me to be dangerous. I could not refuse to let a belligerent look at my papers, however, and went below to get them, while Sennit gave some private orders to his reefer, and sent him ...
— Miles Wallingford - Sequel to "Afloat and Ashore" • James Fenimore Cooper
... tunic without a belt. They carried a great circular buckler of more than a yard in diameter, formed of the tough hide of the river horse, brought down from the upper Nile, with a central boss of metal with a point projecting nearly a foot in front of the shield, enabling it to be used as an offensive weapon in a close fight. They carried short heavy swords similar to those of the Romans, and went barefooted. Their total strength ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... able to turn his attention to the Turks. He felt that he had in fact gained the battle of Varna, which was only lost through the jealous humor of a youthful king; that it behoved him not to stop half way; that it was his duty to continue offensive operations. But in so doing he had to rely upon his own proper forces. It is true that he was governor of the country, but for the purpose of offensive warfare beyond the frontier he could not gain the ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... Simmonds, and the other Coroner Goldberger, both of whom I had met in previous cases. Simmonds was a stolid, unimaginative, but industrious and efficient officer, with whom Godfrey had long ago concluded an alliance offensive and defensive. In other words, Godfrey threw what glory he could to Simmonds, and Simmonds such stories as he could to Godfrey, and so the arrangement was to ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... tried to suppress because it was offensive to him, brought a scowl to his forehead, and in imagination he anticipated her answer, "I do not think I ...
— 'Lena Rivers • Mary J. Holmes
... mysteriously offensive odour in the room, entirely new in his experience of revolting smells. It was composed (if such a thing could be) of two mingling exhalations, which were separately-discoverable exhalations nevertheless. This strange blending of odours consisted of something faintly and unpleasantly ...
— The Haunted Hotel - A Mystery of Modern Venice • Wilkie Collins
... to the throne, pretended to have conscientious scruples about prostrating himself before the Caliph; wouldn't call him Commander of the Faithful; spoke of him slightingly and inconsistently as a mere "chap;" said he, the other creature, "wouldn't play"—Play!—and was otherwise coarse and offensive. This meanness of disposition was, however, put down by the general indignation of an united Seraglio, and I became blessed in the smiles of eight of the fairest ...
— The Signal-Man #33 • Charles Dickens
... the stress of the danger threatening them from their adversaries the demons has induced them to organise themselves into an ordered kingdom under the sovereignty of Indra, who has been anointed by Prajapati. True, many of the offensive features in this mythology and ritual are survivals from a very ancient past, a pre-historic time in which morals were conspicuously absent from religion; the priesthood has forgotten very little, and as a rule has ...
— Hindu Gods And Heroes - Studies in the History of the Religion of India • Lionel D. Barnett
... come," said he, rolling his eyes at me with an awful solemnity and speaking in a thick voice, "the time has come to talk of affairs. First let me impress on you that Henkendyke is an appellation offensive to French ears. Henceforward my name is Pradel—Polydore Pradel. And as it is necessary for you to have an etat civil, I hereby adopt you as my son. Your name is therefore Asticot Pradel. I hope you like it. You have never known what it is to have a father. Now the possession of a father ...
— The Beloved Vagabond • William J. Locke
... Sophocles (Walpole justified himself by the example of "Oedipus"), or even of Ford, or of Shelley, may possibly claim a place among the themes which art is not quite forbidden to touch; but when handled in the prurient and crudely melodramatic fashion of this particular artist, it is merely offensive. "The Mysterious Mother," indeed, is even more absurd than horrible. Gothic machinery is present, but it is of the slightest. The scene of the action is a castle at Narbonne and the chatelaine is the heroine ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... There was something offensive in the man's manner. He spoke with a thick tongue, and was evidently half intoxicated. But his air ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... disposition of the guests, and the danger arising from the feuds into which they were divided, few of the feasters wore any defensive armour, except the light goat-skin buckler, which hung behind each man's seat. On the other hand, they were well provided with offensive weapons; for the broad, sharp, short, two-edged sword was another legacy of the Romans. Most added a wood-knife or poniard; and there were store of javelins, darts, bows, and arrows, pikes, halberds, Danish axes, and Welsh hooks and bills; so, in ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... over to assist me. They were of the nature of a reenforcement, which consisted of the captain, a Mexican, a Michigan man that stuttered, and two negroes—Napoleon Bonaparte de Neville Smith, and George Washington Marlborough Johnsing, by name. Hence we were six in all, and I decided to take the offensive at once. The captain was advanced in years and rheumatic, but a clearheaded man, used to command, and had 'boarded,' as he expressed it, 'several of the——crafts in his own waters.' So I put him in charge of the marines, namely, ourselves, and told him to fight the ship ...
— The Busted Ex-Texan and Other Stories • W. H. H. Murray
... back the invading armies of Austria and Prussia, and having, after campaigns full of dramatic changes, shaken off the peril of the crushing of the fatherland by a huge European combination, were now waging an offensive war in Holland. Pichegru, the French commander, though not a soldier by training, secured astonishing successes, and, in the thick of a winter of exceptional severity, led his ragged and ill-fed army on to victory ...
— The Life of Captain Matthew Flinders • Ernest Scott
... banks of the Maine, at the head of an army of fresh troops, estimated at not less than one hundred thousand men, and that he was marching on Meaux. The Prince von Schwarzenberg, having been informed of this movement of Blucher's, immediately cut short the negotiations, and assumed the offensive at Bar-sur-Seine. The Emperor, whose genius followed by a single glance all the marches and, operations of the enemy, though he could not be everywhere at once, resolved to confront Blucher in person, while by means of a stratagem he made ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant
... hope of eternal glory hereafter. Chaps. 6-8. Since the doctrine of the admission of the Gentiles to equal privileges with the Jews, and the rejection of the unbelieving part of the Jewish nation, was exceedingly offensive to his countrymen, the apostle devotes three entire chapters to the discussion of this momentous theme. Chaps. 9-11. He then proceeds to draw from the whole subject, as he has unfolded it, such practical exhortations in respect to daily life and conduct as were adapted to the particular ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... to pronounce his excuses, but lapsed into a lamentation for the squandering of property bequeathed to him by his respected uncle, and for which—as far as he was intelligible—he persisted in calling the three offensive young cricketers opposite ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... bois brules had been long away from any fort or trading-post, and it so happened that their inevitable whiskey keg was almost empty. They had diluted the few gills remaining with several large kettles full of water. In order to have any sort of offensive taste, it was necessary to add cayenne pepper and ...
— Indian Boyhood • [AKA Ohiyesa], Charles A. Eastman
... told us before going into the Argonne offensive? The more prisoners we took, the less grub there'ld be; and do you know what happened to the prisoners that were taken? Why ...
— Three Soldiers • John Dos Passos
... easy people to live with, Olive and Bob," she said. "They're immensely in love with each other I suppose, but without somehow being offensive about it. And they have such a lot of fun. Olive has a piebald cayuse, that she's taught all the haute ecole tricks. He does the statuesque poses and all the high action things just as seriously as a thoroughbred and he's so short and homely ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... other advertisements, began to suspect him for a counterfeit. Wherefore in a noble fashion he called him unto him, and recounted the benefits and favors that he had done him in making him his ally, and in provoking a mighty and opulent king, by an offensive war, in his quarrel, for the space of two years together; nay, more, that he had refused an honorable peace, whereof he had a fair offer, if he would have delivered him; and that, to keep his promise with him, he had deeply offended both his nobles and ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... and defiant. They refused to trade with Great Britain, and became self-supporting. Thus the obnoxious laws, instead of bringing money to the mother country, caused her heavy losses. English merchants joined the Americans in petitioning for the repeal of the offensive acts of Parliament; and soon every tax was withdrawn except a tiny one on tea, so small that the money involved was trifling. But it was not the money, it was the principle involved, which had aroused the Americans; and their resistance continued as vigorous as against the previous ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... her myself, if you like," he said. "I could explain that they're just the sort of things that a silly ass of a man does, and that they were not intended to be offensive—even that one about her lips being like two red ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... wish to score off Therese; his sole desire was to leave her strictly alone. It was true that the very perfume she used had become offensive to him—he fancied he could smell it now about the covers of the bed, which showed how she was getting on his nerves—but certainly ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell
... Oh, there's a great deal of humiliation and self-abasement about it, but it all comes from pride.... I am too young and I've loved you too much. I know that I ought not to say this, that it would be more dignified on my part simply to leave you, and it would be less offensive for you. But I am going far away, and shall never come back.... It is for ever. I don't want to sit beside a 'laceration.'... But I don't know how to speak now. I've said everything.... Good-by, Katerina Ivanovna; you can't be angry with me, ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... with winning from my hearers, for a partial and defective view of the Gospel, the love and reverence which were due only to a very different view. They called me a legalist, a work-monger, and other offensive names. They charged me too with spoiling the people, with giving them a distaste for ordinary kinds of preaching, and making it hard for other preachers to follow me. The complaints they whispered in the ears of their friends soon found their way to ...
— Modern Skepticism: A Journey Through the Land of Doubt and Back Again - A Life Story • Joseph Barker
... or from Pehlevi into Arabic, the Sanskrit story was exactly like the Arabic story, and that it was changed afterwards. But another explanation is equally admissible, viz., that the Pehlevi or the Arabic translator wished to avoid the offensive behavior of the husband kicking his wife, and therefore substituted the son as a more deserving ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... all naked; and in colour, as in every thing else, seemed to have a perfect resemblance to the inhabitants of the east and south coasts of Terra Australis. In Torres' Strait bows and arrows are the offensive weapons; but here we saw spears only: each man had several in his hand, and something which was supposed ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... in a bathrobe, came back to the stateroom from his tub. His manner had the offensive jauntiness of the man who has had a cold bath when he might just as easily have had a hot one. He looked out of the porthole at the shimmering sea. He felt strong and ...
— Three Men and a Maid • P. G. Wodehouse
... spoils are worthless. His skin sells for but little, and he yields no other trophy of any value. As hunting him is attended with great danger, and the hunter, as already stated, may avoid him if he wishes, but few lions would be destroyed, were it not for a certain offensive habit to which they are addicted— that of robbing the vee-boor of his horses and his cattle. This brings a new passion into play,—the vengeance of the farmer; and with such a motive to urge on the hunt, the lion in some parts is chased with ...
— The Bush Boys - History and Adventures of a Cape Farmer and his Family • Captain Mayne Reid
... was spent in the wood, the time being devoted to training in the new wave formation for the coming offensive. It was about this time that distinguishing marks were adopted in the Division and the Battalion began to wear the red diamonds which came to be regarded with almost as much pride as the cap badge, and continued to be worn as long as ...
— The Story of the 6th Battalion, The Durham Light Infantry - France, April 1915-November 1918 • Unknown
... of exiles, overawed by dissolute soldiery, interspersed here and there with few persons of a superior class, could only be governed by despotism. It might have been legalised instead of tolerated by the parliament, and it might have been less offensive to the spirit of liberty. But to have trusted a few proprietors with legislation or a share of the executive authority, could have only ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... the swift strokes of the dervish with a cool certainty. His weariness passed from him; the joy of battle was on him. He was wounded twice-in the shoulder and the head. Now he took the offensive. Once or twice he circled slowly round the dervish, whose eyes blazed, whose mouth was foaming with fury; then he came on him with all the knowledge and the skill he had got in little Indian wars. He came on him, and the dervish fell, his head ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... obsessions of tenderness, purity, and self-severity met with in saintliness, we cannot, I think, avoid the conclusion that in religion we have a department of human nature with unusually close relations to the transmarginal or subliminal region. If the word "subliminal" is offensive to any of you, as smelling too much of psychical research or other aberrations, call it by any other name you please, to distinguish it from the level of full sunlit consciousness. Call this latter the A-region ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... and I have often wondered why Alice could not light her lire and the lamp in the same manner, without those matches, which have so offensive a smell. ...
— Parker's Second Reader • Richard G. Parker
... the ingratitude of his friends, found any sympathy from our philosopher. "Let him do good on higher motives next time," would be the answer; "he will then be sure of his reward." It is easy to observe that the justice of such sentences made them offensive; but we must be careful how we condemn a man for saying what we know to be true, only because it is so. I hope that the reason our hearts rebelled a little against his severity was chiefly because it came from ...
— Anecdotes of the late Samuel Johnson, LL.D. - during the last twenty years of his life • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... lady,' said he—'although I have known you but a very short time, I have become exceedingly interested in you. I am an old man—old enough to be your father; and as a father I now speak to you.—What I am about to say, might seem impertinent and offensive in a young man, but you will pardon it in me. You have unconscientiously dropped a hint touching the insufficiency of your income to maintain you as a lady should be maintained. I am rich—deign to accept from me as a gift—or as a loan, ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... said Father Brown, "the most unreliable machine I know of. I don't want to be rude; and I don't think you will consider Man to be an offensive or inaccurate description of yourself. You say you observed his manner; but how do you know you observed it right? You say the words have to come in a natural way; but how do you know that you did it naturally? ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... with Byron began in a manner rather doubtful. I was so far from having any thing to do with the offensive criticism in the Edinburgh, that I remember remonstrating against it with our friend, the editor, because I thought the 'Hours of Idleness' treated with undue severity. They were written, like all juvenile poetry, rather from the recollection of what had pleased ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... busted up that bluff you exposed, there they stay day and night, half a dozen or more. And my own notion is that if we have a new offensive here, which I think looks likely to a man up a tree, those blamed sausages will give the Boches too much leeway in nosing out ahead what we might be trying to ...
— Our Pilots in the Air • Captain William B. Perry
... peltasts, saw no risk in attacking with the light brigade. Since if the enemy continued his march by the high road, he would be cut up by showers of javelins on his exposed right flank; or if he were tempted to take the offensive, they with their peltasts, the nimblest of all light troops, would easily slip out of ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... of the sexes really means, all forbid that ambiguity of language or euphemism of expression should be employed in the discussion. The subject is treated solely from the standpoint of physiology. Technical terms have been employed, only where their use is more exact or less offensive than common ones. ...
— Sex in Education - or, A Fair Chance for Girls • Edward H. Clarke
... rocks and hedges and earthworks: never to risk a man in the open except where absolutely necessary, and when absolute victory is sure. To husband her resources in men and means is the South's first duty, sir. I hope General Lee will never fight another offensive battle." ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... were in town. This sermon is it, that so offends such as would please the court, and will not appear to be enemies to the truth; yet they dare affirm, that I exceeded the bounds of God's messenger. I have therefore faithfully committed unto writing whatsoever I could remember might have been offensive in that sermon; to the end, that the enemies of God's truth, as well as the professors of the same, may either note unto me wherein I have offended, or at the least cease to condemn me before they have convinced ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox
... touched me, I might just as well have bought a daily paper; neither like nor dislike, a shrug of the shoulders—that is all. Hardy seems to me to bear about the same relation to George Eliot as Jules Breton does to Millet—a vulgarisation never offensive, and executed with ability. The story of an art is always the same,...a succession of abortive but ever strengthening efforts, a moment of supreme concentration, a succession of efforts weakening ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... which has no English name—Germans call them Zornnatter, in allusion to their choleric disposition. Most of them are quite ready to snap at the least provocation; maybe they find it pays, as it does with other folks, to assume the offensive and be first in the field, demanding your place in the sun with an air of wrathful determination. Some of the big fellows can draw blood with their teeth. Yet the jawbones are weak and one can force them asunder without much difficulty; whereas the bite of a full-grown ...
— Alone • Norman Douglas
... ultra-fashionable example of gilded youth would have been in his place among the votaries of Charles James Fox. The climax of his incongruity was a vehement and rather antiquated Protestantism; he was, for instance, among the few who opposed the alteration of the Coronation oath to a formula less offensive to Catholics. Nobody doubted that his Cornish constituents would endorse whatever he did, for the House held few more popular human beings, but no one took him very seriously as a politician. This particular ...
— John Redmond's Last Years • Stephen Gwynn
... in the society of the good, they feel compelled to be guarded in their words and actions. They must put on an exterior appearance, at hast, of virtue, well knowing that otherwise their presence would be extremely offensive, and calculated to mar ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... thinking man to whom you appeal." (The Christian Commonwealth, April 14th, 1909.) Are we, then, to understand that if we want to appeal to high-minded thinking men, we must drop the term "God" and substitute for it, as being less offensive to these higher thinkers, some non-committal phrase like "universal life?" We say quite frankly that we are not prepared to pay such a price for making such a successful appeal; for the "universal ...
— Problems of Immanence - Studies Critical and Constructive • J. Warschauer
... Cade, with a small band of followers, retreated to Rochester, and attempted without success, the capture of Queenborough Castle. On the news that the commons had dispersed from Southwark, the Government at once took the offensive. Alexander Iden was appointed Sheriff of Kent, and, marrying Crowmer's widow, subsequently gained considerable profit. Within a week John Cade was proclaimed by the King's writ a false traitor throughout the countryside, and Sheriff Iden was in eager pursuit—for a reward of ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... the largest quantity of pus from the liver on record. His patient was a man of thirty-eight, a victim of hydatid disease of the liver, from whom he withdrew one gallon of offensive material. ...
— Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine • George M. Gould
... its privileges, as its own undoubted right, and manifesting a determination to maintain them as such. This, says the historian, so enraged his Majesty, that he sent for the journal, had it brought into the Council, and there, in the presence of his lords and great officers of state, tore out the offensive resolution with his own royal hand. He then dissolved Parliament, and sent its most refractory members to the Tower. I have no fear, certainly, Sir, that this English example will be followed, on this occasion, to its full extent; nor would I insinuate ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... village blacksmith, for, although we were men of peace, we thought it advisable to provide against what were known as single-stick encounters, which were then by no means uncommon, and as curved handles would have been unsuitable in the event of our having to use them either for defensive or offensive purposes, ours were selected with naturally formed knobs ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... affair. Shields opened the correspondence, as might have been expected, with blustering and with threats; his nature had no other way of expressing itself. His first letter was taken as a bar to any explanation or understanding, and he afterwards wrote a second, a little less offensive in tone, but without withdrawing the first. At every interview of the seconds General Whitesides deplored the bloodthirsty disposition of his principal, and urged that Mr. Lincoln should make the concessions ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... in her old farmhouse rocking-chair, with an inelegant darning-basket on the table by her side. The whole effect of the room was as bare and squalid to Theron's newly informed eye as the atmosphere was offensive to his nostrils. He coughed sharply, and his wife sat up and looked at the clock. It ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... never allowed his chivalrous nature to be overruled by passion. In a letter to Lord Radstock in 1806 he closes it by paying a high tribute to the unfortunate French Admiral Villeneuve by stating "that he was a well-bred man, and a good officer, who had nothing of the offensive vapourings and boastings in his manner which were, perhaps, too ...
— Drake, Nelson and Napoleon • Walter Runciman
... of Brussels has informed the German Commander that the French Government has declared to the Belgian Government the impossibility of giving them any offensive assistance whatever, as they themselves are forced to ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... physicians as the best antiseptic and deodorant powder for destroying offensive odors of ...
— The Handy Cyclopedia of Things Worth Knowing - A Manual of Ready Reference • Joseph Triemens
... to downright nonsense—to dangerous nonsense? No. I like you very well, Mr. Yorke, as you know, but I thoroughly dislike some of your principles. All that cant—excuse me, but I repeat the word—all that cant about soldiers and parsons is most offensive in my ears. All ridiculous, irrational crying up of one class, whether the same be aristocrat or democrat—all howling down of another class, whether clerical or military—all exacting injustice to individuals, whether monarch or mendicant—is really sickening to me; all arraying ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... be necessary to tell her elder sister what was the right mode of behavior in family matters. Mrs. Pullet's argument, that it would look ill in the neighborhood if people should have it in their power to say that there was a quarrel in the family, was particularly offensive. If the family name never suffered except through Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pullet might lay her head on ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... graceless things he had done; he felt that his presence here as a knight of unassailable purity was hypocritical. He winced at all points from the uncertainty as to the point to be attacked. His life was like a long frontier and his enemy was mobilized for a sudden offensive. He would know the point selected for the assault when he felt the assault. The first gun was that ...
— We Can't Have Everything • Rupert Hughes
... about the Means they did it by, nor any Regard to Truth or the Reality of Things; as is evident from the gross Absurdities they have made Men swallow concerning their own Nature, in spight of what All felt within. In the Culture of Gardens, whatever comes up in the Paths is weeded out as offensive and flung upon the Dunghill; out among the Vegetables that are all thus promiscously thrown away for Weeds, there may be many curious Plants, on the Use and Beauty of which a Botanist would read long Lectures. The Moralists ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... woman than Athenais Reneaux he would have hesitated to deal so bold an offensive stroke; but his confidence in her quickness of apprehension and her unshakable self-possession was both implicit and well-placed. For she received this overt notification of the success of his quest without one sign other than a ...
— Alias The Lone Wolf • Louis Joseph Vance
... or candy in a crowded public conveyance is a serious offense against those about you. A neat lunch, quietly eaten at an appropriate hour, is not offensive and is quite permissible. But one should not impose even the odor of food upon people who are forced to be near, and who may find it ...
— The Etiquette of To-day • Edith B. Ordway
... curious that in London, where everyone is brave, only one man is needed to arrest another, whereas in my dear native land, where cowardice prevails, thirty are required. The reason is, perhaps, that the coward on the offensive is more afraid than the coward on the defensive, and thus a man usually cowardly is transformed for the moment into a man of courage. It is certain that at Venice one often sees a man defending himself against twenty sbirri, and finally escaping after beating them soundly. I remember once helping ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... limited knowledge of military matters and to my lack of practical experience that I did not see the battle of Oriskany as our historians have recorded it; nor did I, before or during the affair, notice any intelligent effort towards assuming the offensive as described by those whose reports portray an engagement in which, after the first onset, some semblance of military ...
— The Maid-At-Arms • Robert W. Chambers
... somber, who did not like noise, shrugged his shoulders. Storri, by the fireplace, caught the shrug and found it offensive. He made towards Richard, and offered the right hand, his white teeth gleaming in a sinister way through ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... have said nothing of lithography, because, with the exception of Samuel Prout's sketches, no work of standard Art-value has ever been produced by it, nor can be: its opaque and gritty texture being wholly offensive to the eye of any well trained artist. Its use in connection with color is, of course, foreign to our present subject. Nor do I take any note of the various current patents for cheap modes of drawing, though they are sometimes to be thanked ...
— On the Old Road Vol. 1 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin
... assistance of Mr. Southern and Mr. Henry Creighton, with a view to ascertain not only the best modes of making, but also of purifying and burning gas, so as to prevent either the smell or the smoke from being offensive. ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 290 - Volume X. No. 290. Saturday, December 29, 1827. • Various
... fully admit that there were abuses in the ancient system, offensive to the natural sense of justice; that the sale of seats was contrary to principle; and that the dependence of members on individual patrons was a violation of legislative liberty. But whose was the criminality? not ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... me. I had all the assurance of a man double my years and an easy way of making acquaintances that was destined to stand me in good stead, but I do not wish to be understood as admitting that my manners were offensive or that I was in any degree supercilious. I was simply a good fellow who had always enjoyed the comradeship of other good fellows, and as a result felt reasonably sure that the rest of the world would treat ...
— The Confessions of Artemas Quibble • Arthur Train
... comrade, he was easily the most beloved general after General Washington. With the citizen body of Philadelphia he was on fairly good terms,—popular during the early days of his administration, although somewhat offensive of late because of his indiscretion and impetuosity. Still he was not without his following, and whereas he had made himself odious to a great number of people by his manner of life and of command, there were a greater number of people who were ready to condone ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... fatal pause. Until that moment Teeny-bits had been content to cling on and make a defensive fight of it. Now suddenly he changed his tactics to the offensive. By clever leg-work he got Bassett lurching backward. He pressed home his advantage and while a shout of amazement and delight rang in his ears, brought his big antagonist down to the floor with a jar that made ...
— The Mark of the Knife • Clayton H. Ernst
... threatens to make the war interminable; one of the two adversaries must use his offensive to unlock the situation and precipitate events. I think the high command faces this probability—and I hardly dare tell you that I cannot regret anything ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... nor Erle Palma belongs to that class of harmless innocuous bugaboos, as those will find to their cost who run against them. I am simply Olga Neville, almost twenty-three, and quite willing to help you if possible. Shall we enter into an alliance—offensive ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... me? Not that," he said, and he snapped his thumb-nail against his teeth. "A man, in short, is everything to me, or just nothing at all. Less than nothing if his name happens to be Poiret; you can crush him like a bug, he is flat and he is offensive. But a man is a god when he is like you; he is not a machine covered with a skin, but a theatre in which the greatest sentiments are displayed—great thoughts and feelings—and for these, and these only, ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac
... forms,—which render this Byzantine crucifix as horrible to you, as it was pleasing to its maker. More is required to excite your fancy; but your fancy is of no more authority than his was: and a point of national art-skill is quite conceivable, in which the best we can do now will be as offensive to the religious dreamers of the more highly cultivated time, as this ...
— The Ethics of the Dust • John Ruskin
... Germans came round the north of Belgium, and Britain blundered again in sending a force of marines and reserves to hold Antwerp. They had to ignominiously retire as they found the country too flat for offensive manoeuvring, and they had arrived too late to do the necessary extensive trenching which really meant the making of artificial land contours. That British force, however, helped to cover the retreat ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... meaning." He was bred in a society which made it a fashion to be vicious. He affected to follow the fashion. If vice must needs be something active, or at least, something of the will, Sir George Anville must escape punishment. But he was to a wholesome taste more offensive than sinners who did more damage. It was Harry's worst blunder in the affair that he treated Alison as if she did ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... tried to make soldiers of a large number of the Seminole Indians. In 1815, after the war was over, Colonel Nichols again visited the Seminoles, who were disposed to be hostile to the United States, as Colonel Nichols himself was, and made an astonishing treaty with them, in which an alliance, offensive and defensive, between Great Britain and the Seminoles, was agreed upon. We had made peace with Great Britain a few months before, and yet this ridiculous Irish colonel signed a treaty binding Great Britain to fight us whenever the Seminoles ...
— Strange Stories from History for Young People • George Cary Eggleston
... is exceedingly common. God is wont sometimes to command common, paltry, ridiculous and even offensive things, but reason takes delight in splendid things. From the common ones it either shrinks or undertakes them under protest. Thus the monks shrank from home duties and chose for themselves others apparently of greater glamour. Today the great ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... conflict slackened. To lose a first lieutenant at the outset, and to have two more members of your army near death, is no slight matter. Silvey grew more and more disconcerted as the failure of his offensive ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely
... points, but their retreat was not a rout. After experiencing reverses they fell back without disorder, and retired behind the Aube, where they rallied and obtained numerous reinforcements, which daily arrived, and which soon enabled them to resume the offensive. ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... that I was wrong in defending Mademoiselle de la Valliere?" said De Guiche. "In that case, I pass judgment upon myself, and am ready to withdraw the offensive words I may have used to Monsieur ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... with literature for our province, we have endeavored to omit nothing which the reader of elegant literature is likely to find occasion for. Such stories and parts of stories as are offensive to pure taste and good morals are not given. But such stories are not often referred to, and if they occasionally should be, the English reader need feel no mortification in confessing his ignorance ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... ironwork of a sign which had once hung in front of the house, and lay in the garret. The sign had been taken down when the Jacobite army penetrated into England in the Rebellion of 1745. Probably it had been of a character likely to be offensive to the Jacobites, and its removal is a little incident, shewing how greatly the country apprehended a revolution in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 450 - Volume 18, New Series, August 14, 1852 • Various
... the Gospel a grudge because the Gospel condemns the religious wisdom of the world. Jealous for its own religious views, the world in turn charges the Gospel with being a subversive and licentious doctrine, offensive to God and man, a doctrine to be persecuted as the ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... Salted codfish that's been under water a long time gets most o' the salt took out of it, an' even at sea, if it's left long enough, it'll get so durned ripe that it's what you might call offensive. But it makes good fertilizer. There ain't nothin' in the world to equal a dead codfish, medium ripe, for fertilizer. I've rigged up a deal with a orchard comp'ny that's layin' out a couple o' thousand acres o' young trees up in ...
— Captain Scraggs - or, The Green-Pea Pirates • Peter B. Kyne
... the other hand, it is very clear that, as part and parcel of this vigorous offensive, Germany is already in more quarters than one suggesting that she is quite open to offers of peace. As every one knows, Von Buelow in Switzerland is the head and controlling agent of a great movement ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... that might have been started to the relief of general Clay, to fall upon the camp at Seneca, or upon Upper Sandusky, according to circumstances. The gallant defence of fort Stephenson by captain Croghan, put a sudden stop to the offensive operations of the army under Proctor and Tecumseh; and very shortly afterwards transferred the scene of action to a new theatre on the Canada shore, where these commanders were, in ...
— Life of Tecumseh, and of His Brother the Prophet - With a Historical Sketch of the Shawanoe Indians • Benjamin Drake
... sickening, offensive smell pervaded the air, a stench which only those who have been present at scenes such as these can realize—the pungent odour ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... to the fourth and last order of the Stomach fungi (Gasteromycetes) that we shall mention. In spite of their appellation these fungi are strikingly beautiful, but their odor is most offensive. They grow in woods, and are also found in cellars. Their history has been carefully investigated by mycologists, and the novice will find many beautiful illustrations in various works. In their early stage they are enclosed in an ...
— Among the Mushrooms - A Guide For Beginners • Ellen M. Dallas and Caroline A. Burgin
... against humanity to eliminate the better part of the younger generation, the flower of human brains, in the monstrous pedantry of attempting to correct an intellectual error. For the risks of modern warfare are not ordinary. It is not sufficiently realised that in six months of offensive tactics under modern conditions no man in the front line has more than one chance in a million ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... wrote to the journals to beg that female students might be admitted to come between them and the brutal curiosity of the male students, to which they were subjected in so offensive a way that more than one poor creature declared she had felt agonies of shame, even in the ...
— The Woman-Hater • Charles Reade
... Lords, of this state of things,—and I wish it never to pass from your minds that I have called him the captain-general of the whole host of actors in Indian iniquity, under whom that host was arrayed, disciplined, and paid. This language which I used was not, as fools have thought proper to call it, offensive and abusive; it is in a proper criminatory tone, justified by the facts that I have stated to you, and in every step we take it is justified more and more. I take it as a text upon which I mean to preach; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. XI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... aimed at him, and he could not always escape them. His spiritlessness served to inspire the chaffinch with greater boldness, and then it appeared that the gay little creature was really and truly incensed, possibly because the rusty, draggled, and listless appearance of the larger bird was offensive to him. Anyhow, the persecutions continued, increasing in fury until they could not be borne, and the blackbird tried to escape by hiding in the bramble. But he was not permitted to rest there; out he was soon driven and away into another bush, and again into ...
— Afoot in England • W.H. Hudson
... stout-built yeoman of the guard, who was standing within the doorway, Nicholas Clamp demanded admittance to the kitchen, and the man having detained them for a few moments, during which he regarded Mabel with a very offensive stare, ushered them into a small hall, and from thence into a narrow passage connected with it. Lighted by narrow loopholes pierced through the walls, which were of immense thickness, this passage described the outer side of the ...
— Windsor Castle • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of Penrod, this question was without meaning or reasonableness. It was within neither his power nor his desire to analyze the process by which the phrase had become offensive to him, and was now rapidly assuming the proportions of an outrage. He knew only that his gorge rose at the thought ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... it has of absorbing great quantities of gas into itself. It is in fact what may be termed an all-round purifier. It is a deodoriser, a disinfectant, and a decoloriser. It is an absorbent of bad odours, and partially removes the smell from tainted meat. It has been used when offensive manures have been spread over soils, with the same object in view, and its use for the purification of water is well known to all users of filters. Some idea of its power as a disinfectant may be gained by the fact that one volume of wood-charcoal will absorb no less than 90 volumes of ammonia, 35 ...
— The Story of a Piece of Coal - What It Is, Whence It Comes, and Whither It Goes • Edward A. Martin
... except the commanding general. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad is the natural and only good thoroughfare along the valley of the upper Potomac. Harper's Ferry, confessedly the strongest and best military point in Northern Virginia, and the one best fitted for a base of offensive operations, is on this railroad, and, of course, of easy access from Baltimore and Washington. In June last the road was open from Baltimore to the Point of Rocks, between which last place and the Ferry were some rebel ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... be distinguished, in order to an accurate discussion of this question, as it relates to persons or to things. To think highly of ourselves in comparison with others, to assume by our own authority that precedence which none is willing to grant, must be always invidious and offensive; but to rate our powers high in proportion to things, and imagine ourselves equal to great undertakings, while we leave others in possession of the same abilities, cannot with equal ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... abattis, and approached by few roads, all easily swept by artillery. And, while it is true that the position was difficult to carry by direct assault, full compensation existed in other tactical advantages to the army taking the offensive. It is not probable that Lee, in Hooker's place, would have selected such ground. "Once in the wood, it was difficult to tell any thing at one hundred yards. Troops could not march without inextricable confusion." Despite which fact, however, the density of these very woods was ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... woman said nothing at all, and went on with her soup. Her silence was almost more formidable than her speech, and she knew that, and contrived to make it offensive. Beatrice paid no sort of attention to it, however; and without looking at her again began to talk cheerfully to Sir James about her journey from town. Margaret watched her, fascinated; her sedate beautiful face, her lace and jewels, her white fingers, ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... Tricipitinus, and Titus Veturius (or Vetusius) Geminus, to the consulship. They entered on their consulship on the third day before the ides of August,[14] the state being now strong enough not only to repel a a hostile attack, but even to act itself on the offensive. Therefore when the Hernicans announced that the enemy had crossed over into their boundaries, assistance was readily promised: two consular armies were enrolled. Veturius was sent against the Volscians to carry on an offensive war. Tricipitinus, being posted to protect the territory of ...
— Roman History, Books I-III • Titus Livius
... little hatred toward the allies on the part of the people themselves, although the press has taken occasion to stir up such feelings. After the victories at the beginning of the war, the enemy was rather looked down upon, but when allied offensive gathered momentum and especially after the advent of the majestic B-29's, the technical skill of America became an object of wonder ...
— The Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki • United States
... near the end of a bridge. He fought me to the middle of it and when his speed slackened I took the offensive and with such energy that he clinched. I threw him on the planks and we went down together, he under me, in a fall so violent that it shook the bridge and knocked the breath out of him. This seemed to convince Latour that I was his ...
— The Light in the Clearing • Irving Bacheller
... Threatened with the loss of his position at the bar, he was thus acquiring, as we said before, a new position and that of a "detached fort"; compelled, as he might be, to defend himself, he could from that vantage-ground take the offensive and oblige his enemies to ...
— The Lesser Bourgeoisie • Honore de Balzac
... been persuaded to promise at least neutrality in the event of a Russo-Austrian War. But Frederick was unwilling to break with Russia, with whom he was negotiating the partition of Poland; Austria in these circumstances dared not take the offensive; and Maria Theresa was compelled to purchase the modification of the extreme claims of Russia in Turkey by agreeing to, and sharing in, the spoliation of Poland. [Sidenote: Partition of Poland.] Her own share of the spoils was the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... the security of the priest and the tranquillity of the religious rites that he should keep watch outside, lest any of the more fanatical of the Huguenots should deem it their duty to break in on what they had worked themselves into believing offensive idolatry. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... fellowship with the other men and women engaged in the same task, fellowship of work, with fun to vary the work; for unless there is this feeling of fellowship, of common effort on an equal plane for a common end, it will be difficult to keep the relations wholesome and natural. To be patronized is as offensive as to be insulted. No one of us cares permanently to have some one else conscientiously striving to do him good; what we want is to work with that some one else for the good of both of us—any man will speedily find that other people can ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... world." Another writes: "This fruit is of a hot and humid nature. To those not used to it, it seems at first to smell like rotten onions! but immediately they have tasted it they prefer it to all other food." Wallace himself says of it: "When brought into the house, the smell is so offensive that some persons can never bear to taste it. This was my own case in Malacca, but in Borneo I found a ripe fruit on the ground, and, eating it out of doors, I at once ...
— Blown to Bits - The Lonely Man of Rakata, the Malay Archipelago • R.M. Ballantyne
... need not fear Sr. Eternal, there shall be nothing exhibited by me offensive to decency or Modesty! Pray lett the Lady walk in, she will be the best Apology for ...
— The Covent Garden Theatre, or Pasquin Turn'd Drawcansir • Charles Macklin
... more than social ones. I daresay that is why I always feel so uneasy in his presence!" And Vergniaud laughed lightly. "For the rest, he is a brilliant creature enough, and thoroughly manly. The other evening at the Club that little Vicomte de Lorgne was chattering in his usual offensive manner about women, and Leigh astonished everyone by the way in which he pulled him up. There was almost a very pretty quarrel,—but a stray man happened to mention casually,—that Leigh was considered one of the ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... coarse, vulgar, and stupid. He exercised, however, a very remarkable control over Macfarlane; issued orders like the Great Bashaw; became inflamed at the least discussion or delay, and commented rudely on the servility with which he was obeyed. This most offensive person took a fancy to Fettes on the spot, plied him with drinks, and honoured him with unusual confidences on his past career. If a tenth part of what he confessed were true, he was a very loathsome rogue; ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the dower of his sister Joan, the widow of William, the late sovereign, and to pay him besides forty thousand ounces of gold. In return he betrothed his nephew, Arthur, the son of his next brother, Geoffrey, to Tancred's infant daughter, and formed a league offensive and defensive with the Sicilian king—a connection which afterward cost him dear, for it was the source of the enmity of the Emperor Henry VI., who had married Constantia, the aunt of William, and claimed the throne of Sicily in right of his wife. After the dispute with ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... constitutional means—to arrest, if possible, by moderate but firm measures, the necessity of a recourse to force; and, if it be the will of Heaven that the recurrence of its primeval curse on man for the shedding of a brother's blood should fall upon our land, that it be not called down by any offensive act on the ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... but wrestlers: the Spaniard will still prefer his Lope de Vega to the French Racine, or the English his Shakspeare, as the Italian his Tasso and his Petrarch. Hence all national writers are studied with enthusiasm by their own people, and their very peculiarities, offensive to others, with the natives constitute their excellences. Nor does this perpetual contest about the great writers of other nations solely arise from an association of patriotic glory, but really because these great native ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... this atrocity are not merely to be condemned as bad rhymesters: they are to be blamed on the far more serious ground that they give the sanction and authority of print to one of the vilest vulgarisms which pollutes the oral language of certain provincial societies. What makes the practice so offensive in literary composition is the fact, that the barbarism is one which may sometimes be actually heard falling from living lips. But for this, it would be pardonable. We verily believe that Miss Barrett herself ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... An offensive and defensive alliance therefore was struck up between this pair (who were in reality singularly ill assorted), and Ernest set to work to master the books on which the Bishop would examine him. Others gradually joined them till they ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler
... poniard, which he placed upon the table; unhooked his sword-belt, which he laid close to his poniard; and, without affectation, opening his doublet as if to look for his handkerchief, showed beneath his fine cambric shirt his naked breast, without weapons either offensive ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... the office altogether, with a retiring allowance of about half the salary. Certain Whig peers took this up as a job, and Lord Lauderdale, supported by Lord Holland, made in the House of Lords very offensive charges against Scott personally for having appointed his brother to a place which he knew would be abolished,[13] and against Thomas for claiming compensation in respect of duties which he had never performed. ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... declares it to be the Devil's doing. Seeing Polibans, who is his cousin, he hails him, but Polibans draws back, avowing his Christian faith. The Caliph in a rage has him off to prison. Bauduin becomes very ill, and has to sell his horse and arms. His disease is so offensive that he is thrust out of his hostel, and in his wretchedness sitting on a stone he still avows his faith, and confesses that even then he has not received his deserts. He goes to beg in the Christian quarter, and no one gives to him; ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... the fact that the sheep, cropping into the very roots of the gray grass itself, destroyed it. Moreover, the animals on their slow marches, herded so close together that they left an offensive trail rather than follow which the cattle ...
— The Free Range • Francis William Sullivan
... said one, 'this gentleman was with him. My friend's name is M. Le Baron de—-. The man who struck him was an odd-looking person; kindly inform me whether it is possible for my friend to meet him?' Eh!" commented Jules, "he was offensive! Was it for me to give our dignity away? 'Perfectly, monsieur!' I answered. 'In that case,' he said, 'please give me his name and ad dress.... I could not remember his name, and as for the address, I never knew it...! I reflected. 'That,' ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the beginning of Vespasian's reign, by Helvidius Priscus. In the History (book iv. s. 7 and 8) we see them both engaged in a violent contention. In the following year (823), Helvidius in the senate opened an accusation in form; but Marcellus, by using his eloquence as his buckler and his offensive weapon, was able to ward off the blow. He rose from his seat, and, "I leave you," he said, "I leave you to give the law to the senate: reign, if you will, even in the presence of the prince." See Hist. iv. s. 43. See also, Life of Agricola, s. 11. ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... ungovernable passions. Seldom a day passed but some of his men experienced his severity. The mob on all public occasions excited his naturally bad temper; and on all days of rejoicing, when there was a multitude from the country as well as from the town, the people were sure to experience offensive and tyrannical treatment from him. The hatred and terror of him increased every year, and his character as an immoral man was known to everybody, so that he was universally hated and feared by the lower orders both ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland Volume 17 • Alexander Leighton
... wise man speaketh, "It is a snare to a man to devour that which is holy (or, to swallow a sacred obligation), and after vows to make inquiry," seeking how he may disengage himself the doing which is a folly offensive to God, as the Preacher telleth us. "When," saith he, "thou vowest a vow unto God, defer not to pay it; for He hath no pleasure in fools: pay that which thou hast vowed." God will not admit our folly in vowing as a plea for non-performance; He will exact ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... departure, he re-appeared at Bruce's Station, where he was twice or thrice again seen. But, whether it was that, as we have once before hinted, he found the cheers and hearty hurrahs, in token of respect for his valiant deeds at Wenonga's town, with which Bruce's people received him, more embarrassing and offensive than the flings and sarcasms with which they used in former days to greet his appearance, or whether he had some still more stirring reason for deserting the neighbourhood, it is certain that he, in a short time, left the vicinity of Salt River altogether, ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... carried a carpet bag, and in the other a large bundle, tied up in a coloured handkerchief. In his conversation he employed the Armagh accent with such slavish fidelity as to make it evident that he regarded any other form of speech as showing culpable ignorance or offensive affectation. His name was ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... no escape. For I freely own that I am one of those who refused to believe there would be "a great offensive." (Curse such trite and sounding words, which put measureless misery through the mind as unconsciously as a boy repeats something of Euclid.) I believe that no man would now dare to order it. The soldiers, I knew, with all the signs before them, still could not credit that it would be done. The ...
— Old Junk • H. M. Tomlinson
... the field was left in his hands with large numbers of wounded and numerous trophies of cannon. It was then claimed by some of our best officers, and is still an open question whether, if Rosecrans had been with Thomas and, calling to him Granger's troops, had resumed the offensive, the chances were not in our favor, and whether Bragg might not have been ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox |
