"Defensive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... react faster than an adversary, to assimilate information and act on it effectively, is also an important advantage. In a NATO region-wide dynamic computer war game a few years ago, it was clear that the simulated enemy was advancing faster than the defensive chain of command could make counter moves. The tradition of sending decisions up the line was simply too slow to cope with the dynamic challenge posed by the adversary. Commanders on scene lacked the authority ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... fossils in the shale, with trilobites, such as the Asaphus Canadensis, a crustacean, closely allied to the wood-louse, and occasionally found rolled up, like it, into a defensive ball, together with ...
— Two Knapsacks - A Novel of Canadian Summer Life • John Campbell
... Warwick, during his short administration, which had continued only six months, had been guilty of any unpopular act, or had anywise deserved to lose that general favor with which he had so lately overwhelmed Edward. But this Prince, who was formerly on the defensive, was now the aggressor. Everyone who had been disappointed in the hopes which he had entertained from Warwick's elevation either became a cool friend or an open enemy to that nobleman; and each malecontent, from whatever cause, proved an accession ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... trivial or unpleasant errands. The ancient custom was never abolished by authority, but died with the change of feeling; so that what might be demanded as a right came to be asked as a favor, and the right was resorted to only as a sort of defensive weapon, as a rebuke of a supposed impertinence, or resentment of a real injury."—Memories of Youth and Manhood, Vol. I. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... Fleur-de-Lis," remarked Beauharnais, "relate, among other Court gossip, that orders will be sent out to stop the defensive works at Quebec, and pull down what is built! They think the cost of walls round our city can be better bestowed on political favorites and certain high personages at Court." Beauharnais turned towards the Governor. "Has your Excellency ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... she was, there was in her nature a certain reserve which compelled admiration. When not on the defensive for what she considered her rights, she had a decided sweetness that drew me irresistibly. I did not approve of her methods, but my sympathy was deep for this child of freedom forced to live in the painful restrictions of ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... asked Raymond. "A heavy snow like this is all in our favour, since we stand on the defensive; it makes it more difficult for the Yankee ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... saw Joan, both glanced at her deprecatingly, but quite ready to assume a defensive attitude. Ashamed of having allowed her indignation to carry her so far, she was, however, inclined to be conciliatory; and therefore, with an effort, managed to say, as ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... so. 'How are things on the right?' they said to the runner. 'Bad,' said the runner, and he went back, though Lord knows what he went back to. The Boche was through right enough. 'We'll have to make a defensive flank,' said the platoon commander. He was a Daleswood man too. Came from the big farm. He slipped down a communication trench with a few men, mostly bombers. And they reckoned they wouldn't see any of them any more, for the ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... quickly along the curving road to the Common where she was to receive her guests. Reaching the long narrow green, where a few cows nibbled placidly as in the days when a green in the center of the village was a necessary defensive measure, she walked idly up and down. The straggling road under the great elms passed the plain white meeting-house, dating from 1813, the Academy with its belfry, the little general store and post-office combined, and wound out of sight between dignified old houses, "like Aunt ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... Such ready belief and general inconsequentiality bothered Janet. She did not know, of course, that Jonas was hardly the sort of a Texan to feel comfortable in having a woman stand before him in the defensive, stating her case. Upon her first appearance he had concealed his surprise and rallied nobly to the courtesies of the occasion; it was sufficient that he was in the presence of the fair. Having heard enough to get ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive of ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... alone in the drawing-room. Again Captain Roughsedge thought her pale, and was even sure that she had lost flesh. This time it was hardly possible to put these symptoms down to Marsham's account. He chafed under the thought that he should be no longer there in case a league, offensive and defensive, had in the end to be made with Mrs. Colwood for the handling of cousins. It was quite clear that Miss Fanny was a vulgar little minx, and that Beechcote would have no peace till it was rid of her. Meanwhile, the indefinable change ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thrown over his arm, and a blue handkerchief bound round his left hand. His dress in other respects was that of a military man of the period; a long-waisted, broad-tailed coat, with a good deal of gold lace and many large buttons upon it, enormous riding boots, and a heavy sword. He had no defensive armour on, indeed, though those were days when the soldierly cuirass was not yet done away with; and on his head he only wore an ordinary hat ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... mine, but the teaching of God, and accordingly I wish ignorant people like myself knew it; for even if a soul were in this state, it must not rely so much upon itself as to go forth to the battle, because it will have enough to do in defending itself. Defensive armour is the present necessity; the soul is not yet strong enough to assail Satan, and to trample him under foot, as those are who are in the state of which I ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... classified roughly according to the impulses which they embody. Property is the direct expression of possessiveness; science and art are among the most direct expressions of creativeness. Possessiveness is either defensive or aggressive; it seeks either to retain against a robber, or to acquire from a present holder. In either case an attitude of hostility toward others is of its essence. It would be a mistake to suppose that defensive possessiveness is always justifiable, while ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... of the universe is solved for Eucken through life and action. While continual contemplation and thought is apt to paralyse us, "action is the best defensive weapon against the dangers and trials of human existence." "Doubt is not cured by meditation, but by action." He believes that we can attain certainty through action of much that cannot be justified on rational grounds. If we wish to understand ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... selfishness which distinguishes Protection to-day. The situation was peculiar, and required the application of strictly business methods to a threatening and immediate emergency. Great Britain was oppressing the country commercially by every method her council could devise. Defensive legislation was imperative. Moreover, if the country was to compete with the nations of the world and grow in independent wealth, particularly if it would provide internal resources against another war, it must manufacture extensively, and its manufactures must be protected. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... contests with the Romans for glory and empire. But now they had abandoned their former ambitious hopes, having been weakened by great defeats, so that, having fortified themselves with high and strong walls, and furnished the city with all sorts of weapons offensive and defensive, as likewise with corn and all manner of provisions, they cheerfully endured a siege, which, though tedious to them, was no less troublesome and distressing to the besiegers. For the Romans, having never been accustomed to stay away from home, except in summer, and for no great length of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... mother's, and her curly hair, he preserved a frozen indifference. For Camors had other anxieties, of which Madame de Tecle knew nothing. The manner of Madame Campvallon toward him had assumed a more marked character of aggressive raillery. A defensive attitude is never agreeable to a man, and Camors felt it more disagreeable than most men—being so little ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... louder than before, and we all sprang back and stood on the defensive. For myself, having forgotten my club, and not having taken the precaution to cut another, I buttoned my jacket, doubled my fists, and threw myself into a boxing attitude. I must say, however, that I felt somewhat uneasy; and my companions afterwards ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... by the din, had retired to a recess formed by the bulkhead of the cabin and the fixed wash-basin and was acting strictly on the defensive. ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... But these I forbear to mention, because they cant but be very shocking to the Reader as well as the SPECTATOR. In this manner they carry on a War against Mankind; and by the standing Maxims of their Policy, are to enter into no Alliances but one, and that is Offensive and Defensive with all Bawdy-Houses in general, of which they have declared ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... true, even now, that all the Quakers oppose defensive war: for some of them do not; they have told me so," continued Franklin. "They oppose aggressive warfare; but let a privateer come up the river, or savages attack our town, and they will fight for their homes as hard ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... about Yates's danger territory. Twice, by the hardest kind of line bucking, it was placed within the ten-yard line, and twice, by the grimmest, most desperate resistance, it was lost on downs and sent hurtling back to near mid-field. But Yates was on the defensive, even when the oval was in her possession, and Harwell experienced the pleasurable—and, in truth, unaccustomed—exultation that comes with the assurance of superiority. Harwell's greatest ground-gaining plays now were the two sequences from ordinary formation and full-back forward. ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... "Helene," he said, "I am interested in Mr. Brott. No, don't look at me like that. You need have no fear. My interest is in him as a man, and not as a politician. The other days are over and done with now. I am on the defensive and ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... improve upon acquaintance. I have seldom spent any length of time in the enforced society of a disagreeable person without finding that I liked him better at the end than at the beginning. Very often one finds that the disagreeable qualities are used as a sort of defensive panoply, and that they are the result, to a certain extent, of unhappy experiences. Since I met our friend I have learnt a fact about him, which makes me view him in a somewhat different light, I ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... young men fought cautiously, their heavy sabres flashing and glinting in the morning light as they thrust and parried with lightning rapidity. Later on Landauer seemed inclined to attack, and his blows on Helmar's weapon rang out in quick succession. Acting purely on the defensive, the latter parried the onslaught with an ease that puzzled and angered his opponent, until incautiously he fell into the trap by redoubling his attack. Helmar had reckoned on this. He hoped soon to tire the bully out, and a faint smile passed over his face, as with a head parry he ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... amusing correspondence that followed that call, the great preacher was on the defensive from the first, and in reading over two or three letters that, because of blots or errors, had to be recopied, I am fairly amazed at the temerity of some of my remarks. In one place I charge him with "standing upon his closed ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... seriously.' He was naturally more than half a Jew; his features were Jewish, his thinking was Jewish, and he believed after a fashion in the Jewish sacred books, or, at anyrate, read them continuously, although he had added to his armoury defensive weapons of another type. In nothing was he more Jewish than in a tendency to dwell upon the One, or what he called God, clinging still to the expression of his forefathers although departing so widely from them. In his ethics and system of life, as well ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... 24, the Salt Lake newspapers contained stories to the effect that the Germans had entered into an alliance offensive and defensive with the Aguinaldo government and would furnish equipments for an army of 150,000 men. We were on the Union Pacific Railroad at the time, and I called the attention of Don Felipe Agoncillo to this remarkable intelligence and asked him what he thought of it. He said emphatically ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... conquered from the aristocracy and now hold fast in Slave States an area of two hundred thousand square miles, inhabited by four millions of people—a district larger than France. Three years ago, every Slave State was virtually in the grasp of the rebels, and the Union was really put upon the defensive to protect freedom in the Free States and the national capital. Now, by a masterly series of campaigns in the West and Southwest, ranging from the Alleghanies to the Gulf, in which we have never lost a decisive battle, we have saved all the Territories of the United States, cut ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... walked in wide strides, and would sometimes use the tail of his gown on the blackboard. Like so many clergymen and schoolmasters, he had early distrusted his natural impulse in conversation, and had adopted the defensive precaution of a rather formal and sonorous speech, which habit had made a part of him. His general effect was of one who is earnestly keeping up things that might otherwise give way, keeping them up by act and voice, keeping up an atmosphere of vigour and success in ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... steady shot a few yards off, and then plied his bayonet till he got a moment's pause to re-load, came off well; the flurried soldier, who was not quite sure whether to stand or retire, who missed or only wounded his man, and then stood strictly on the defensive, was most likely overpowered ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... of the Chiboque remark, "They have only five guns;" and about midday, Njambi collected all his people, and surrounded our encampment. Their object was evidently to plunder us of every thing. My men seized their javelins, and stood on the defensive, while the young Chiboque had drawn their swords and brandished them with great fury. Some even pointed their guns at me, and nodded to each other, as much as to say, "This is the way we shall do with him." I sat on my camp-stool, with my double-barreled gun ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... our duty to give a particular account of the defensive means of the French Admiral. The road of Algeziras, six miles distant from Gibraltar, is open to the eastward. It is shallow, with sunken rocks in several parts. The town is nearly in the centre, at the bottom of the Bay; about a third of a mile from which ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... all I said, though it sounded extravagant, was absolutely true to fact. What we afterwards alluded to as an attack was really an attempt at repulse. The action was very far from being aggressive—it was not even defensive, in the usual sense: it was undertaken under the stress of desperation, and in its essence ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... authority is now established by the act of parliament and explanatory act, that he denied the same. Being also examined anent the excommunication at Torwood, he declined to answer, as being an ecclesiastical matter, and they a civil judicatory. He owned the lawfulness of defensive arms in cases of necessity, and denied that those who rose at Bothwel, &c. were rebels; and being interrogate anent the Sanquhar declaration, he declined to give his judgment until he had more time to peruse the contents thereof. He further declared, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... single-handed, all those mighty bowmen thus advancing (to the rescue). Though they shot dense showers of arrows and hurled innumerable lances, fighting with determination, yet they were unable even to look at the son of Radha. Indeed, the son of Radha, that master of all weapons offensive and defensive, by shooting dense showers of shafts checked all those great bowmen. The high-souled Sahadeva, however, quickly approaching (the spot where Duryodhana was), and invoking without loss of time a (celestial) weapon, pierced Duryodhana with twenty ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... worlds formed what they called a defensive league and with characteristic human rationality promptly attacked us. Naturally, they didn't get far. We had a bigger and better fleet and we were organized while they were not. And so they were utterly defeated at ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... opening of boxing with swift defensive watchfulness, Charley Burns had darted at his man. Before anyone knew what was happening his left crashed between Jefferson's eyes, a blow that caused him to reel back almost ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... pathognomonic sign requires deliberate, careful, and gentle manipulation. Sometimes the slightest of movements will be sufficient for its development, after much rougher handling has failed to discover it. Perhaps the failure in the latter case is due to a sort of defensive spasmodic rigidity caused by the pain resulting from ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Impossible for him and his friends to endeavour to hold their ground: they were too vastly outnumbered; the most they could do was to hold together and use every opportunity of retreat, standing in the meanwhile on the defensive. There was no adequate body of police on the Green; the riot would take its course unimpeded by the hired servants of the capitalist State. Redgrave little by little fought his way to within sight of Mutimer; he ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... remember Retzsch's drawing of destiny in the shape of Mephistopheles playing at chess with man for his soul, a game in which we may imagine the clever adversary making a feint of unintended moves so as to set the beguiled mortal on carrying his defensive pieces away from the true point of attack. The fiend makes preparation his favorite object of mockery, that he may fatally persuade us against our taking out waterproofs when he is well aware the sky is going to clear, foreseeing that the imbecile ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... reported that their men had obeyed instructions to the letter. No acts of violence had as yet been committed by any of the American crews. The ex-sailors, though chafing at their inaction, had assumed the defensive throughout. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... the expedition were that they should proceed eight miles into the bush, and there make three zerebas, or defensive enclosures of bushes, capable of sheltering ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... heard about his brutalities and about his seven wives, so terrified was she that she refused to leave England, and the affair had to be abandoned. Elizabeth's rejection of his proposals, and also of his plan for an alliance offensive and defensive against Poland and Sweden, so infuriated Ivan that he confiscated the goods of the English merchants, and this friendship was temporarily ruptured. But amicable relations were soon restored between Elizabeth and her barbarian admirer. If she had heard of his awful vengeance in 1571, she had ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... another intitled the remonstrance of the nobility, &c. a tract on church government, and an instruction for defensive arms, &c. the general assembly appointed him, Mr. Calderwood and Mr. Dickson, to prepare a directory for the worship of God, which not only had the desired effect, but at length brought about uniformity in all ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... plant will also feed an animal, and as many animals betray a felonious desire to appropriate to their own wicked ends the food-stuffs laid up by the palm for the use of its own seedling, the coco-nut has been compelled to inclose this particularly large and rich kernel in a very solid and defensive shell. And, once more, since the palm grows at a very great height from the ground—I have seen them up to ninety feet in favourable circumstances—this shell stands a very good chance of getting broken in tumbling to the earth, so that it has been ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... extremity. The protector summoned all his forces from every quarter, in order to relieve a place of such importance; and he appeared so much superior to the French, that they shut themselves up within the city, and resolved to act upon the defensive.[**] But the garrison of the castle, having received a strong reenforcement, made a vigorous sally upon the besiegers; while the English army, by concert, assaulted them in the same instant from without, mounted the walls by scalade, and bearing down all resistance, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... table, and maintained together a friendly, though short intercourse, I will not demand the combat before you are duly prepared. Proceed to the first great town, where you can be furnished with horse and harnessing, with arms offensive and defensive; provide a trusty squire, assume a motto and device, declare yourself a son of chivalry, and proclaim the excellence of her who rules your heart. I shall fetch a compass; and wheresoever we may chance to meet, let us engage with equal arms in mortal combat, that shall ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... walnut, bulging above the ears,—and the man was of a sallying temper. He lay there putting bit by bit of his plot before the Chief for his approval, with a careful construction, that upon the expression of any doubt of its working smoothly in the streets of Milan, caused him to shout a defensive, "But Carlo says yes!" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... feel that I might now commence the attack, but my master's lessons all came clear and vivid before me, and knowing that, as the weaker, it was my duty to act on the defensive, I waited, while we watched each other cautiously, my adversary evidently expecting that ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... assault must be, not to prove that the doctrines are scientifically unsound, but that they tend to the impoverishment and debasement of the masses. These propositions are three, and I lay down as my thesis—for I abhor defensive warfare—that ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... a move on at last. We don't know where we are going or why we are going or even if we are really going at all. It may be that we are on our way to the Continent; it may be that we are on our way to the coast to assume the defensive; it may be that the authorities are pulling our legs and are watching from behind the hedges en route to see how we take it. We march on till we are told to stop. We stop till we are told to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... many of these conspicuous insects would be eaten. It is the abundance of the eatable kinds that gives value to the inedibility of the smaller number; and this is probably the reason why so many insects rely on protective colouring rather than on the acquisition of any kind of defensive weapons. In the long run the powers of attack and defence must balance each other. Hence we see that even the powerful stings of bees and wasps only protect them against some enemies, since a tribe of birds, the bee-eaters, have been developed which feed upon them, ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... dear. We all have 'em. Sometimes, if I didn't smoke I should scream. No woman really likes to see her husband flirting openly with her friends. I'm no saint; but my wickedness is defensive. Now, ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... false charges against him brought on a serious illness, and on his recovery he received orders to conduct an expedition into France. William Lewis of Nassau had for sometime been urging upon the States-General that the time for remaining upon the strict defensive was past, and that, when the enemy's efforts were weakened and distracted, the best defence was a vigorous offensive. At first he spoke to deaf ears, but he found now a powerful supporter in Maurice, and the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... speaking of the power of dialectic, says that it surrounds all disciplines like a defensive enclosure, and elevates those that use it to the good itself, and the first unities; that it purifies the eye of the soul; establishes itself in true beings, and, the one principle of all things, and ends at last in that which is no longer hypothetical. ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... by the 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 ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... pasquinade and sneer is to put the prospective daughter-in-law on the defensive, and prepare her mind, unconsciously to herself, to regard her future husband's mother as her natural enemy. Many a girl marries with the preconceived notion that, to preserve her individual rights, and to rule in her own small household, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... one day on the young Welshman, made with unwonted and bitter sarcasm by an effeminate and luxurious scion of nobility, roused the indignation of Percy. Retorting haughtily on the defensive, a regular war of tongues took place. The masterly eloquence of Percy carried the day, and he hoped young Myrvin was free from all further attacks. He was mistaken: another party, headed by the defeated but enraged Lord, who had been roused to a state of fury by young Hamilton's appearance, surrounded ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... power of narrative, constantly renewed if not always logically sustained and connected, that Dumas' excellence, if not his actual supremacy, lies; and the fact may dispense us from saying any more about his plots. As to Character, we must still keep the offensive-defensive line. Dumas' most formidable enemies—persons like the late M. Brunetiere—would probably say that he has no character at all. Some of his champions would content themselves with ejaculating the two names "D'Artagnan!" and "Chicot!" shrugging their shoulders, and abstaining ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... of conduct. I'm no' intending to abandon the dog. I am commended here for my humanity, but the bit dog I must let starve for a technicality." Instantly, as the magistrate half rose from the bench, the landlord saw that he had gone too far, and put the court on the defensive. In an easy, conversational tone, as if unaware of the point he had scored, he asked if he might address his accuser on a personal matter. "We knew each other weel as laddies. Davie, when you're in my neeborhood again on a wet day, come in and dry yoursel' by my fire and tak' another cup o' kindness ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... Roselawn a couple of days before he had a chance to do more than observe Elise Durwent as one of the party. She had been his partner at tennis and bridge, and a dozen times he had exchanged light talk with her, but there was always about her the defensive shield of impersonal cordiality. When he spoke to her it was almost in a drawl, but no matter to what a lackadaisical level he reduced his voice, her replies were always punctuated by a retort that had in it the sense of sting, ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... various reasons, more sociable with the other sex than those who are still on the universal mock-defensive. A ship, like a distant country, thaws even English reserve, and women in general are disposed to admit ecclesiastics to certain privileges. No wonder then that Miss Rolleston, after a few days, met Mr. Hazel half-way; ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... times had been very few. He did not preach good sermons; he faced that now, unflinchingly. He was not broad minded; new thoughts were unattractive, hard for him to assimilate; he had championed always theories that were going out of fashion, and the half-consciousness of it put him ever on the defensive; when most he wished to be gentle, there was something in his manner which antagonized. As he looked back over his colorless, conscientious past, it seemed to him that his life was a failure. The ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... sent Marshal Grouchy the next day at noon, with thirty-two thousand men to look after the enemy, but then it was quite too late. In those fifteen hours they had time to re-form, to communicate with the English, and to act on the defensive. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... thought, in public discussion, and almost universally in the columns of the public press. One of the most vital questions among us then is, not so much as to how we shall prepare, but how shall we prepare adequately for defensive purposes, in case of any emergency arising, without being thrown too far along the road of militarism, and without an inordinate preparation that has been the scourge and the bane of many old-world countries for so many years, and that quite as much as anything has been provocative ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... Russian general of German descent, who, trained in the engineer corps, greatly distinguished himself by his defensive operations at Sebastopol during its siege by the French and English in the Crimean War, and subsequently by the reduction of Plevna, his greatest achievement, which brought to a close the war with Turkey in 1877; subsequently became commander-in-chief ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was the safest place. Austria's note to Serbia was issued without consulting Italy. One point of the Triple Alliance provided that no member should take action in the Balkans before an agreement with the other allies. Such an agreement did not take place. The alliance was of defensive, not aggressive, character and could not force an ally to follow any enterprise taken on the sole account and without a notice, as such action taken by Austria against Serbia. It was felt even then that Italy would eventually cast its lot ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... other, for position. It was hard to realize that human motions could be so graceful, light and easy. Then head-knives were drawn, and cuts right, and cuts left, cuts at every part of the body from the head to the ankles, were added to the motion; the man on the defensive for the moment making suitable parries with ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... realist and romanticist, frank lover of the flesh, lofty idealist, impressionist and judge, philosopher, dramatist, essayist, master of the comic and above all, Poet. Eloquence, finesse, strength and sweetness, the limpid and the cryptic, are his in turn: he puts on when he will, like a defensive armor, a style to frighten all but the elect. And they who persist and discover the secret, swear that it is more than worth the pains. Perhaps the lesson of it all is that a first-class writer, creative and distinctive, is a phenomenon transcending school, movement or ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... Phoebe, instantly on the defensive, "he is just exactly that, Caroline Darrah Brown—and he doesn't seem to be able to get over it. I'm afraid it's ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Republicans and every other class of Irish Nationalist. The manifesto it issued stated: "The object proposed for the Irish Volunteers is to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to all the people of Ireland. Their duties will be defensive and protective and they will not attempt either aggression or domination. Their ranks are open to all able-bodied Irishmen without distinction of creed, politics, or social grade." And then it appealed "in the name of national unity, of national ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... stood on the defensive, posting sentinels, and making other preparations for a fight. Actual hostilities soon ensued. The Mormons captured some arms which their opponents had obtained, and took them, with three prisoners, to Far West. "This was a glorious day, indeed," ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... he the choice? M. Guizot has eloquently described the position of Charlemagne towards the Saxons. Il y fit face par le conquete; la guerre defensive prit la forme offensive: il transporta la lutte sur le territoire des peuples qui voulaient envahir le sien: il travailla a asservir les races etrangeres, et extirper les croyances ennemies. De la son mode de gouvernement et la fondation ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... wife were filling the air with their outcries. Selina was giggling with hysteria. Marcus, terrified, but too brave to run, had picked up a jagged stone with his left hand and stood on the defensive. His swollen right arm, from which the shirt sleeve had been torn, dangled at his side, the back of the hand twisted where the palm should have been. The shirt itself was a mass of grass stains and was spotted with the ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... them to alter the line of policy they had adopted, or to recall from the assistance of their brethren of the English Parliament that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men, by means of which accession of strength, the King's party had been reduced to the defensive, when in full ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... always liked babies since she was a very little girl, and she became wholly wrapped up in her own human venture. The summer while the child was coming had drawn her very close to Marion Reddon, with whom she had established a staunch bond of the woman's league, offensive and defensive, against men. Marion, she felt, understood both babies and men. Although she could not approve of all Marion's ideas about the relations of the sexes, she admired the frank, brave, humorous way in which she solved her ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... in his Italian prison, though occasionally he was brought out, questioned and then taken back again. Thus at Ferrara he informed Captain Ciano about the whole organization of the Austrian offensive and defensive forces, and especially about Pola and Split. Sesan begged to be allowed to take part in the action against the Austrian fleet, and, at Rome, where he came before Captain Soldati, of the Bureau of Information, he made the same request. With two motor launches he undertook to organize communication ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... that made Athens great. It proved to be more than was necessary for defensive war against Persia, or even for the aggressive war which was carried on in Asia Minor and Egypt. It also more than sufficed for sending out the colonies which Athens founded in Italy and elsewhere. The remainder of the fund was used in Athens, ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... begun on the next day, but the small band of English, Sikhs, and Goorkhas which composed the force was quite inadequate to the task entrusted to it, and, in truth, could do nothing but act on the defensive against the horde of rebellious sepoys, who outnumbered them ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... most vigorous measures, and a stronger defensive force than the Province could supply, would be necessary to overawe the hostile purposes displayed by Spain, or repel them if put in execution, Oglethorpe resolved to represent the state of affairs to the British ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... the loyal confidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard the King was turned into hatred and suspicion. From that moment, the Parliament was compelled to surround itself with defensive arms. From that moment, the city assumed the appearance ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... were panic-stricken, and half of them bolted, with the kirangozi at their head, carrying off all the double-ration cloths as well as their own. At this time, the sultan, having changed tactics, as he saw us all ready to stand on the defensive, sent back his hongo; but, instead of using threats, said he would oblige us with donkeys or anything else if we would only give him a few more pretty cloths. With this cringing, perfidious appeal I refused to comply, until the sheikh, still more cringing, implored me ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... he had come on deck King Olaf was more intent upon observing his enemies than in arraying his own small armament. He had seen from the first that it would be his place to assume the defensive, and he had given the order for his ships to be drawn up in ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... yielded to her shrinking from the opportunities of social advancement that opened to them, and held aloof with her. This kept him a country person in his experiences much longer than he need have remained; and tended to that sort of defensive secretiveness which grew more and more upon him, and qualified his conduct in matters where there was no question of his knowledge of the polite world. It was not until after his wife's death, and until his daughters began to grow up into the circles where his money and his business ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... broke out gloriously, warming and drying our chilled, wet forms. Nearly all that day we maintained a line of battle confronting the pursuing enemy. One brigade would take a defensive position, while the other would march about five miles to a commanding point, where it in turn would form a line. The first brigade would then give way, pass through the second, and take position well to the rear. Thus, although retreating, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... most amiable and commonplace. There was no oratory and no defiance of anybody. What had been accomplished, however, was that, in the absence of organized government, the conservative elements in the county had formed an offensive and defensive league for mutual protection, as the by-laws ran, "against frauds and swindlers, and to prevent the stealing, taking, and driving away of horned cattle, sheep, horses, and other stock ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... followed the speaker closely. When he paused, she was ready for him. "But, even without a marriage, at any time now a treaty based on the marriage may be signed. A treaty for a mutually defensive alliance. Austria encroaches daily, and has Germany behind her. We are small fry, here and in Karnia, and we stand ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... furnished with tusks like unto the shafts of ploughs and decked with girdles made of gold, and covered with fine blankets and therefore, resembling the lotus in hue. And they were all darkish as rocks and always musty, and procured from the sides of the Kamyaka lake, and covered with defensive armour. And they were also exceedingly patient and of the best breed. And having made these presents, those kings were permitted to enter. O king, these and many others, coming from various regions, and numberless other illustrious kings, brought ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... complain that the Allies are too frequently on the defensive forget that it is very difficult to be as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months; and it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply our merchant-ships with defensive arms should that become necessary, and with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate and peaceful ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... and practises co-operation between her army and navy. Her hands are free for offence in home waters, since she has no distant network of coveted colonies and dependencies on which to dissipate her defensive energies. Finally, she is, compared with ourselves, economically independent, having commercial access through her land frontiers to the whole of Europe. She has little to ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... There they would find the second statue; but this they must spare, because, on account of the great fame of its creator, it was more valuable than the other. The fair-haired artist was ill, and it would be no difficult matter to take him alive, even if he should put himself on the defensive. Hermon, on the contrary, was a strong fellow, and to bind him without injuring him severely would require both strength and skill. Yet it must be done, for only in case Hanno succeeded in delivering ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... put action to the thought and under Pierre (II) Chambiges, a relative of the Chambiges of Fontainebleau and Saint Germain, the Petite Galerie, a mere means of communication between the two chateaux, and not the least to be likened to a defensive structure, was begun and work thereon carried out between 1564 and 1571, though it remained for Thibaut Metezeau, in 1595-1596, to carry it on a stage further under ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... has been commendably careful to avoid, as far as possible, giving real offence. Yet her criticism is sufficiently free to be piquant, and, on the whole, as salutary as it is entertaining. 'Why need Australians always be on the defensive?' asks more than once an Englishman in one of her novels. The author seems to have put the same question to herself as an Australian, and to have decided that ultra-sensitiveness is a worse vice than affectation, ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... defensive I said, "But we must admit that the so- called Christian nations are the most ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a swift light upon her face. He had said, "leave us"—not "leave me." And his voice was gentle. Surely he was the kind-hearted and chivalrous rancher of his own simple letters. She began to feel a woman's sense of superiority. On the defensive, she replied: "I don't know ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... ideals was demolished by the intimacy of common life, and she found him as merely human as the Hintock people themselves, a new foundation was in demand for an enduring and stanch affection—a sympathetic interdependence, wherein mutual weaknesses were made the grounds of a defensive alliance. Fitzpiers had furnished none of that single-minded confidence and truth out of which alone such a second union could spring; hence it was with a controllable emotion that she now watched the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... realize that until we have done away with capitalism, aristocracy and anti-Christian clericalism, it is our duty to be prepared to defend our homes and our native land. And therefore we are in favour of maintaining national defensive forces in the highest possible state of efficiency. But that does not mean that we are in favour of the present system of organizing those forces. We do not believe in conscription, and we do not believe ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the shooter, a great red-headed, freckly faced fellow, with backward-lying whiskers, crowned in a drab rustic. 'Oh, pretty middling,' repeated he, not knowing whether to act on the friendly or defensive. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... You understood You too, defensive and morose, Encloaked your secret puppyhood— Your secret ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... event which had lately excited so much general alarm. With a promptness inconceivable, his lordship planned every species of precautionary defence, while engaged in executing his offensive operations: and it is anxiously hoped, that his excellent defensive arrangements, made on this occasion, though happily not then needed, will be carefully treasured in the archives of the Admiralty, for immediate adoption, should any attempt ever be made, by a rash and powerful enemy, to ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... mentioned evil-speaking. As we were moving slowly along in the crowd from church, Johnson jogged my elbow, and said, 'Did you attend to the sermon?' 'Yes, Sir, (said I,) it was very applicable to us.' He, however, stood upon the defensive. 'Why, Sir, the sense of ridicule is given us, and may be lawfully used[1152]. The authour of The Government of the Tongue would have us treat ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... which the sick hunter spoke, they derived new information about the war. The reports were more and more accurate, but unfavorable for Fumba. The little travelers learned that he was conducting a defensive campaign, and that the Samburus under the command of their king, named Mamba, occupied a considerable expanse of the Wahima country and had captured a multitude of cows. The villagers said that the war was raging principally ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... been understood, and the orders had gone out by galloper to "Get a move on!" each commanding officer strained every nerve at once to strike where a blow would have the most effect. There was no thought of anything but action, and offensive, not defensive action. Until some one at the head of things proved still to be alive, and had had time to form a plan, each divisional commander acted as he saw fit. That was all that any one was asked to do at first: to act, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... plain, an uninteresting re-building of 1823, but the carved wood of its portals is beautiful. The towers, as in other maritime Cathedrals of Provence, recall the perils and dangers of their days; and these towers of Frejus, although none the less practically defensive, have a more churchly appearance than those of Antibes, Grasse, and Vence. Over the vestibuled entrance rises the western tower. Its heavy, rectangular base is the support of a super-structure which was replaced in the XVI century by one more in keeping with ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... monograph, he said, for his own amusement, upon the early forms of our present offensive and defensive weapons. Could I tell him about the first Deuber spheres and the earlier disintegrator rays and the crude atomic bombs we tried back when I first entered ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... a touch of embarrassment in Mr Abney's manner, for which I could not at first account. He was stately, but with the rather defensive stateliness which marked his announcements that he was about to pop up to London and leave me to do his work. He coughed once or twice before proceeding to the business of ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... Corinth, she appealed to Athens, where ambassadors from Corinth also appeared. Their arguments are stated in the speeches which are so characteristic of Thucydides. The Athenians after careful consideration decided to conclude a defensive alliance with Corcyra, for they dreaded the acquisition of her navy by Corinth. But circumstances turned this into an offensive alliance, for Corinth attacked and would have won a complete victory at sea but for timely Athenian succour. In the east Athens ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... and attributed his change of heart to mercenary motives. Douglass seems to have borne himself with rare dignity and moderation in this trying period. He realized perfectly well that he was on the defensive, and that the burden devolved upon him to justify his change of front. This he seems to have attempted vigorously, but by argument rather than invective. Even during the height of the indignation against him Douglass disclaimed ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... works abound with the most impressive truths, in all the simplicity of thought and language, yet he never elevates nor delights. Too faithful an observer of the miserable human nature before him, he submits to expedients; he acts on the defensive; and because he is in terror, he would consider security to be the happiness of man. In Religion he would stand by an established one; yet thus he deprives man of that moral freedom which God himself has surely allowed us. Locke has the glory of having first given distinct ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... with the French, who, as he had learned, had gained great successes in Europe; and, believing from their account that their country was much stronger than England, he had sent envoys to the Mauritius, to propose an offensive and defensive alliance against England. The envoys had been politely received, and some of them had proceeded to France, where Tippoo's proposal had been accepted. They committed France, indeed, to nothing, as she was already at war with England; but the French were extremely glad to embrace ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... retreat from Milan, the Austrian commander had moved with sufficient rapidity to save Verona and Mantua from passing into the hands of the insurgents. He was thus enabled to place his army in one of the best defensive positions in Europe, the Quadrilateral flanked by the rivers Mincio and Adige, and protected by the fortresses of Verona, Mantua, Peschiera, and Legnano. With his front on the Mincio he awaited at once the attack of the Piedmontese and the arrival ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... might be said as to the spies being sent from the Camp to enrol themselves amongst the insurgents, and who, report says, urged them to attack the Camp, which was repudiated by the diggers—they saying they would act upon the defensive. ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... really a work of time and toil to go about making our defensive preparations for the night; first closing the iron gate, then the ponderous and complicated fastenings of the house door, then the separate barricadoes of each iron-barred window on the lower floor, with a somewhat slighter arrangement above. There ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... attacked, his presence would add to the defensive strength, but such an attack would not be made if he was not there. Desperate and defiant as the rustlers had been, it would be an injustice to represent them as ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... of nature—to the positive, when at length it is recognised that human knowledge cannot pass beyond the region of phenomena. With these stages corresponds the progress of society from militarism, aggressive or defensive, to industrialism. The several abstract sciences—those dealing with the laws of phenomena rather than with the application of laws—are so arranged by Comte as to exhibit each more complex science resting on a simpler, to which it adds a new order of truths; the whole erection, ascending ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... corrupted being possessed of these tremendous powers; would he not be a demon let loose on earth? Grant that the same privilege be accorded also to the good; and in what state would be society? Engaged in a Titan war,—the good forever on the defensive, the bad forever in assault. In the present condition of the earth, evil is a more active principle than good, and the evil would prevail. It is for these reasons that we are not only solemnly bound to administer our lore only to those who will not misuse and pervert it, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and so surely dealt that succor should be impossible, the National army, which had established itself on the borders of one of the southernmost States of the Confederacy, and was menacing lines of communication of prime necessity to their maintenance of the defensive line within which those commanders had withdrawn their discomfited armies. At length, one evening, on dress parade, there were read 'General orders, headquarters Fourth division,' for a march at daylight the next morning. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... battle outside Atlanta, a siege, or a flanking bit of military chesswork, the great Union commander is dragged now into a purely defensive battle. Where ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... As it was, the rash action of the Democratic Convention made it reasonably clear from the beginning that the ticket was doomed to defeat. The progress of the canvass strengthened this impression; the Democracy was placed everywhere on the defensive; its own declarations shotted every gun that was aimed against it; and its orators and organs could neither make effective reply nor divert public ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... with palms, ... but they are constantly menaced with burial by the sands. The only remedy employed by the natives consists in little dry walls of crystallized gypsum, built on the crests of the dunes, together with hedges of dead palm-leaves. These defensive measures are aided by incessant labor; for every day the people take up in baskets the sand blown over to them the night before and carry it back to the other side of the dune."—Memoires sur le ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... maintained by Luther was that there should be no resort to secular power in support of the Reformation, and no appeal to arms for its defense. He rejoiced that the gospel was confessed by princes of the empire; but when they proposed to unite in a defensive league, he declared that "the doctrine of the gospel should be defended by God alone.... The less man meddled in the work, the more striking would be God's intervention in its behalf. All the politic precautions suggested ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... their box, and Craven was sure they were all talking about Lady Sellingworth and him. He saw Braybrooke's broad-fingered hand go to his beard and was almost positive his old friend was on the defensive. He was surely saying, "No, really, I don't think so! I feel convinced there is nothing in it!" Craven's eyes met Lady Sellingworth's, and it seemed to him at that moment that she and he spoke together without the knowledge of ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... and largest group, which in its enormous numbers was to the others as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired neither peace nor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at the Drissa or anywhere else, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor Bennigsen, but only the one most essential thing—as much advantage and pleasure for themselves as possible. In the troubled waters of conflicting and intersecting ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... suffered a great disaster in the loss of two gallant regiments, one of which had only ten days earlier gained for itself proud distinction by being first to crown the heights of Talana, near Dundee, where British infantry proved worthy of its most glorious traditions. As a purely defensive measure, if nothing more, the fight of yesterday was forced upon us. Like some other operations in this brief but eventful campaign, it came too late, but, whether timely or not, a battle was inevitable unless we meant to sit down tamely and be ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... had stood on the defensive, and had husbanded the lives of his men; but he now desired to make as great a slaughter as possible, so as to inspire the enemy with dread of the Grecian name. He therefore marched out beyond the wall, without waiting to be attacked, and the battle began. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... whole line of the army were field-pieces and Maxims, and the gunboats were within reach to aid in shelling the enemy. The British soldiers then built a square sand rampart called a zarilea, and their Egyptian allies dug defensive trenches. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... State would at once stay in the Union and stand aloof from it. Neutrality really signified a refusal to perform those obligations which nevertheless were admitted to be binding, and it made of the State a defensive barrier for the South, not to be traversed by Northern troops on an errand of hostility against Confederate Secessionists. It was practical "non-coercion" under a name of fairer sound, and it involved the inconsequence of declaring that the dissolution ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... 25th August [24th, if it were of moment]. Bouille followed thither; dined again. Besides Officers, there were present several Polish Princes, the Bishop of the Diocese, and the Abbot Bastiani. King made pleasantries about religion [pity, that]; Bastiani not slow with repartees", of a defensive kind. "King told me, on one occasion, 'Would you believe it? I have just been putting my poor Jesuits' finances into order. They understand nothing of such things, CES BONS HOMMES. They are useful to me in forming my Catholic Clergy. I have arranged it with his Holiness the Pope, who ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the living tissues trying to defend themselves, Lister returned afresh to the study of methods. He knew that he had to reckon with germs in the wound itself, if the skin was broken, with germs on the hands and instruments of the operator, and with germs on the dust in the air. He must find some defensive power which was able to kill the germs, at least in the first two instances, without exercising an irritating effect on the tissues and weakening their vitality. The relative importance of these various factors in the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... becoming also food for the monsters, they set about fortifying the high hill Gerundewagh, that their lives might be safe from the appalling danger, and within their fortification they collected all sorts of defensive materials. Having made themselves tolerably secure, they had leisure to view the war of extermination, which the snakes waged with the sons of the land who were not ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... themselves, or their friends, from any unjust aggressors; or out of good-nature or in compassion assist an oppressed nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny. They indeed help their friends, not only in defensive, but also in offensive wars; but they never do that unless they had been consulted before the breach was made, and being satisfied with the grounds on which they went, they had found that all demands of reparation were rejected, so that ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... prince. Most of the people were his slaves and fighting men. His private warriors, or his bodyguard, were armed with krisses, campalans, and spears, with shields of carabao hide, and coats of mail of buffalo-horn, as defensive armor. The favorite weapons of the datto were elaborately inlaid with the ivory cut from the tusks of the wild boar. His dress was also distinctive, and when new must have been very brilliant. It was fastened with pearl buttons, while along the outside seams of his tight pantaloons a row of ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... line of legions extending its entire length, they must have laughed at such a defence; even when duplicated later, as it was, by the Emperor Hadrian, in 120 A.D.; and still twice again, first by Emperor Antoninus, and then by Severus. For the swift transportation of troops in the defensive warfare always carried on with the Picts and Scots, magnificent roads were built, which linked the Romanized cities together in a network of ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... in the clear briny depths above and beneath! If the angels ever look out of their sphere of intense spiritual realities to indulge in a laugh, methinks such a lonely tripod-sitter, cased over with his invulnerable, non-conducting cloak and hood,—shrinking, dodging, or bracing himself up on the defensive, as the crowd fans him with its rush or jostles up against him,—like the man who fancied himself a teapot, and was forever warning people not to come too near him,—might furnish a subject for a planetary joke not unworthy of translation into the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... succeeded by Alexander Smythe of Virginia, who accomplished nothing of importance during the remainder of the season. The situation of the Americans at the close of 1812 was this: The army of the northwest was occupying a defensive position among the snows of the wilderness on the banks of the Maumee River; the army of the centre, under General Smythe, was resting on the defensive on the Niagara frontier, and the army of the north, under General Bloomfield, was also resting ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... while he was in such a dream of defensive battle, marking out some strip of street or fortress of steps as the limit of his haughty claim, that the King had met him, and, with a few words flung in mockery, ratified for ever the strange boundaries of his soul. Thenceforward the fanciful idea of ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... about the value of their charms and passes, thirty-four of the poor fanatics were lying beside their prophet in front of the redoubt. A number more were carried off hurt or dying, and thenceforward the Taranaki natives were reduced to the defensive. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... biting air for a moment, dropped it, and the swords were rapidly crossed. The reputation which Rachieff had won as a duellist was certainly well deserved, since his feints and thrusts were admirable, while Denviers, whose coolness in critical circumstances never deserted him, acted mainly on the defensive, parrying his ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the insult which they had made me, without their tarnishing the glory that they had merited in chastising the English & the savages, their friends, of their perfidy. We were nevertheless always upon the defensive, & we apprehended being surprised at the place where we were as much on the part of the English, as of those of the savages, their friends; that is why we resolved of coming to establish ourselves in the place where we are at present, & which is, as you see, difficult enough of access for ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... my military operations by stripping the department of troops to the lowest possible defensive limit. But this was what I had so earnestly urged before, when in a subordinate position; and I was glad to do it when the responsibility rested upon me. My loss of troops to Grant was returned with interest as soon as practicable after Vicksburg ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... "A balsamic taste, slightly piquant but agreeable," he observed. "A dangerous wine, Scroggs! It carries no warning; your older kind is like a world-worn coquette whose glances at once place you on the defensive. This maiden vintage, just springing into glorious womanhood, comes over you like ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the society are carried on: alike in war, in negotiation, and in migration. Afterwards, while this upper class grows distinct from the lower, and at the same time becomes more and more exclusively regulative and defensive in its functions, alike in the persons of kings and subordinate rulers, priests, and soldiers; the inferior class becomes more and more exclusively occupied in providing the necessaries of life for the community at large. From the soil, with which it comes in most ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... which should give him the claim of a kinsman. Such a court, however unable to make head against the collective power of Rome, might yet present a front of resistance to any single partisan who should happen to acquire a brief ascendancy; or, at the worst, as a merely defensive power, might offer a retreat, secure in distance, and difficult access; or might be available as a means of delay for recovering from some else fatal defeat. It is certain that Augustus viewed Egypt with jealousy as a province, which might be turned to ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... United States, Running Bear rallied his young men, and they fled the reservation and the ways and protection of the white men, and took to the mountains, where they lived by raiding the ranches in the neighborhood, and maintaining a sort of defensive partnership with Whipple's band ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... asked," said he, "by the committee, whether I have any defensive evidence? I am confounded by such a question. Where is there a possibility of obtaining defensive evidence? Where am I to seek it? I have often, of late, gone to the dungeon of the captive, but never have I gone to the grave of the dead, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... and—if that were possible to her—more lovable, but, in spite of these things, she could not help feeling that there was something in this new and delightful nature that was foreign to herself ... foreign, and even, subtly, hostile. It seemed to her that in some peculiar way he was on the defensive. Up to a certain point she could enter freely into his confidence, but after that point she knew in her heart that there was something that he denied her. Now, more than ever in her life, she wanted to feel that he was wholly hers; and now, if she ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... in her most matter-of-fact voice, giving Geof a glance of quick intelligence, and putting herself instantly on the defensive; "I should have said it was rather touch and go with their feelings. Ah! There's Mr. Kenwick, pretending he doesn't ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller |
