"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the mountain-range of Guadarrama, which had to be crossed by the pass of Somosierra. This defile was found to be strongly guarded; there were not only infantry stationed on the heights, but artillery also, sixteen guns being below the turn of the pass in a most advantageous position. In the early ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... Gerard distinguishes between the summits that rise in the middle of the plateau, where he states the elevation of the snow-line to be between 18,000 and 19,000 feet, and the northern slopes of the chain of the Himalaya, which border on the defile of the Sutledge, and can radiate but little heat, owing to the deep ravines with which they are intersected. The elevation of the village of Tangno is given at only 9300 feet, while that of the plateau surrounding the sacred ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... which I was, unexpectedly left the route of Fezzan to the east, and turned sharp round to the south, through the gorge of a low mountain range, which we had had all along to the right. In this defile we proceeded an hour, but it had no natural opening at the end. We came at last to a very abrupt ascent of some hundred feet high, and mounted an elevated plateau. Once on the plateau, all was plain as far as the eye could see. The defile was tertiary formation, mere ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... "a handful of resolute men may defend any defile in these mountains against such a small force as this is, providing that their bravery is equal ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... their protecting trenches around the other side of this stricken village, like a great embracing arm. It stirred him to think that it was now within the refuge of the American lines and that the arrogant Prussian officers could no longer defile those low, ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but the Lame Tiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when—when we suffer together—Man and Jungle People alike. Clean or unclean, get to thy lair, ...
— The Second Jungle Book • Rudyard Kipling
... as the wrath of the deep Corryvreckan, Far-booming o'er Scarba's lone wave-circled isle, As mountain rocks crash to the vale, thunder-stricken, Their slogan arose in Glen Spean's defile;— As clouds shake their locks to the whispers of Heaven; As quakes the hushed earth 'neath the ire of the blast; As quivers the heart of the craven, fear-riven, So trembled Argyle at the sound as it passed;— Over the startled snows, ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... about four hours, the Grand Vizier Hali, seeing the battle go against him, put himself at the head of his guard of horse, pushed through a defile, and made a very brisk charge; but his men could not sustain the contest; and he, having received two wounds, was carried off the field to Carlowitz, where he died the next day. The Aga of the Janisaries ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... the few remaining Chinese garrisons, and also in cowing his Tungan allies, who already regarded their new ruler with a doubtful eye. By the month of September in the same year that witnessed the passage of the invading force through the Terek defile, the triumph of the Khoja's arms was assured. A few weeks later Mahomed Yakoob deposed his master, and caused himself to be proclaimed ruler in his stead. The voice of the people ratified the success of the man; and in 1866 Mahomed Yakoob, ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... now, any blackguard, any whippersnapper, any shattered ancient can take any one of these women to himself for a minute or for a night, as a momentary whim; and indifferently, one superfluous time more—the thousand and first—profane and defile in her that which is the most precious in a human being—love... Do you understand—revile, trample it underfoot, pay for the visit and walk away in peace, his hands in his pockets, whistling. But the most horrible of all is that all this has come to be a habit with them; ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... tell me all about the savagery of Orangemen in her days. She used to describe to me the attempts of an Orange procession to pass through Dolly's Brae, when she was a young girl, before she left Ireland. Dolly's Brae is a kind of rugged defile through which passes the road from the town of Castlewellan, which, running westward, divides the townlands of Ballymagenaghy and Ballymagrehan. It is an entirely Catholic district, and not at all ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... on the authority of Samuel, that the book of Esther does not defile the hands (14), i.e., that this book was not given by the inspiration of God. Samuel, however, explained that Esther was dictated by the Spirit of God, but only to be orally repeated, and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... archipelago, and of which no one ate except himself, although for devotion the shells were given to the others. As we said, they planted many jasmines, and made their defenses there, so that animals might not defile the mausoleum. As an entrance to it, there was arranged in front of it a little house which was placed at the beginning of the stockade, as if it were an entrance into the well of St. Patrick. There ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... showers.' Other snakes, the best of their kind, proposed, 'Going, by night, let us steal away the vessel of Soma juice. That will disturb the rite. Or, at that sacrifice, let the snakes, by hundreds and thousands, bite the people, and spread terror around. Or, let the serpents defile the pure food with their food-defiling urine and dung.' Others said, 'Let us become the king's Ritwiks, and obstruct his sacrifice by saying at the outset, 'Give us the sacrificial fee.' He (the king), being placed in our power, will do whatever we like.' Others there said, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... in hand, make onset, and invite The gods and Jove himself the spoil to share, And piling couches, banquet on the fare. When straight, down-swooping from the hills meanwhile The Harpies flap their clanging wings, and tear The food, and all with filthy touch defile, And, mixt with screams, uprose ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil - Translated into English Verse by E. Fairfax Taylor • Virgil
... the wideness of the world. He could sail away. There were islands of the sea—Stevenson's Samoa, Conrad's Malay Archipelago. If people proved disappointing, there were always the painted solitudes which human disillusions had not withered and could not defile. It ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... "May jackals defile my grave," he muttered, "but this is the wrong woman! Here have I, Abdullah the Spear-thrower, been, befooled by a black slave in the caravanserai. What have I done? By the beard of the Prophet, what shall I say if her capture was part of ...
— The Wheel O' Fortune • Louis Tracy
... were closing round them, but the capture of Pontorson deranged the plans of the Republicans. The place had been held by four thousand men and ten pieces of cannon and, as it could be approached only by a narrow defile, it was believed that it would be impossible for the Vendeans to force their way into it. However, after three hours' fighting, their desperate valour won the day, and the Republicans were routed, with the loss of most of ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... end? Foul birds defile my skull. The new king's praises fill the land. He clings to precept, simple, dull; HIS pyramids on bases stand. But ...
— Young Adventure - A Book of Poems • Stephen Vincent Benet
... forward with all possible speed into a region where food should be procurable. Acting on this reasoning, he marched the day after his arrival. Cotton, while lying in Quetta, had not taken the trouble to reconnoitre the passes in advance, far less to make a practicable road through the Kojuk defile if that should prove the best route. The resolution taken to march through it, two days were spent in making the pass possible for wheels; and from the 13th to the 21st the column was engaged in overcoming the obstacles it presented, losing in the task, besides, much baggage, ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... the gate of the south lands. Letting his foe pass round the angle of the Levant coast, Darius, who had been waiting behind the screen of Amanus, slipped through the hills and cut off the Macedonian's retreat in the defile of Issus between mountain and sea. Against another general and less seasoned troops a compact and disciplined Oriental force would probably have ended the invasion there and then; but that of Darius was neither compact nor disciplined. The narrowness of the field compressed it ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... the result was that they were always standing at garden gates, walking in the orchards, or sitting gossiping just within cottage doors, with the bowls of their tobacco-pipes thrust outside for politeness' sake, that they might not defile the air of the household. Being gentlemen of a gallant and most affectionate nature, they naturally turned their heads and smiled if a pretty girl passed by, which was rather disconcerting to the latter if she were unused ...
— The Trumpet-Major • Thomas Hardy
... there are defiles which are the only routes of exit practicable for an army; and these may be decisive in reference to any enterprise in this country. It is well known how great was the importance of the defile of Bard, protected by a single ...
— The Art of War • Baron Henri de Jomini
... Averell, who was to move south from Darksville by the Valley pike. Meanwhile, Wilson was to strike up the Berryville pike, carry the Berryville crossing of the Opequon, charge through the gorge or canyon on the road west of the stream, and occupy the open ground at the head of this defile. Wilson's attack was to be supported by the Sixth and Nineteenth corps, which were ordered to the Berryville crossing, and as the cavalry gained the open ground beyond the gorge, the two infantry corps, under ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... himself, as she rose to her feet and looked down on Monsieur de Merosailles as he knelt imploring her. Now her face turned pale from red, and she set her lips, and she drew her gown close round her lest his touch should defile it (so the unhappy gentleman understood the gesture), and she daintily picked her steps round him lest by chance she should happen to come in contact with so foul a thing. Thus she walked toward the door, and, having reached it, she turned and said ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... had it been serious, the Battle had been lost. At Breslau, Erlach [who is a Major-General, forsooth!], instead of covering the Army by seizing the Heights, marched off with his Division straight as a row of cabbages into that Defile; whereby, had it been earnest, the enemy's Cavalry would have cut down our Infantry, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... hatred and betrayal, of ambush, pitfalls, and assassination. It stands forth the Judas of corporations, a monument to greed and a warning to rapacity. May the story that I am to tell so set forth its infamies and horrors that never again shall such a monster be suffered to violate and defile our civilization. ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... would like to direct such concerns. He wants to begin at the top, for manual labor is held to be discreditable, and he would never defile his hands by the apprenticeship which the architects, engineers, and manufacturers of England cheerfully undergo; and he would be aghast to learn that the leading names of industrial enterprise in England belonged a generation or two since, or now belong, ...
— Under the Deodars • Rudyard Kipling
... until the pass has been reconnoitred. That done, the White Chief guides his followers down the defile; and in another half-hour the five hundred horsemen have silently disappeared within the mazes ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... are women, that is to say: the females of man, nothing more. They are above all what men make them, and as we are generally vicious and spoilt, since from the most tender age we take care to defile ourselves in the street, in the workshop or on the school-benches; as the atmosphere we breathe is corrupt, we have no claim to believe that our wives, our sisters and our daughters can remain unspotted by our touch, and ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... the army to approach. Edward gave them permission, and they set forward. As might have been expected, they fell into the snare which the French knights had laid for them. The Frenchmen remained quiet and still in their hiding-places, and allowed the English to pass on through the defile. Then, as soon as they had passed, the French rushed out and galloped after them, with their spears in their rests, ...
— Richard II - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... we left that day the Highlands too, passing through. Hell Glen, a very wild and grand defile. Taking boat then on Loch Levy, we passed down the Clyde, stopping an hour or two on our way at Dumbarton. Nature herself foresaw the era of picture when she made and placed this rock: there is every preparation for the artist's stealing a little piece from her treasures ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... Negation." The newer work is both more cynical and more charming. It is, of course, a history and a comparison of religions. With Reinach Saltus believes that Christianity owes much to its ancestors. Brahma, Ormuzd, Amon-Ra, Bel-Marduk, Jehovah, Zeus, Jupiter, and many lesser deities parade before us in defile. Prejudice, intolerance, tolerance even are lacking from this book, as they were from "Imperial Purple." "The Lords of the Ghostland" is neither reverent nor irreverent, it is unreverent. Mr. Saltus finds joy in writing about the gods, the ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... because as the supreme artist he filled it with the breath of poetry where others in general spoke the word of prose. Turgenev's horizon always broadens before our eyes: where Fielding and Richardson speak for the country and the town, Turgenev speaks for the nation. While Balzac makes defile before us an endless stream of human figures, Turgenev's characters reveal themselves as wider apart in the range of their spirit, as more mysteriously alive in their inevitable essence, than do Meredith's or Flaubert's, than do Thackeray's or Maupassant's. Where Tolstoi uses ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... made between the virtues of the heathen and the virtues of Christians. It is true that in both instances hearts are divinely prompted, but in the former ambition and love of glory afterward defile the ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... a mouse is worth nothing, but rather than see thee defile thyself with touching such a reptile as this, I will give thee three pounds ...
— The Lilac Fairy Book • Andrew Lang
... up the rue de la Paix, took a table on a cafe pavement, and, ordering a glass of something fizzy for the form of it, sat content and happy, watching the whole gigantic pageant of Paris in war-time defile before my eyes. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... which Diane went out! The dull silence in which George came home! The manufactured conversation! The forced gayety! The startling pause! The effort to begin again, and keep the tone to one of common intercourse! The long defile of guests! The strangers who came, grew intimate, and disappeared! The glances that followed Diane when she crossed a room! The shrug, the whisper, the suggestive grimace, at the mention of her name! All these were as an alphabet in which Mrs. Eveleth, ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... to try its strength, and, riding across, was followed by his little body of cavalry, his infantry, and Tlascalan allies, who formed the first divisions of the army. Then came Cortes and his squadrons, with the baggage, ammunition wagons, and a part of the artillery. But before they had time to defile across the narrow passage, a gathering sound was heard, like that of a mighty forest agitated by the winds. It grew louder and louder, while on the dark waters of the lake was heard a plashing noise, as of many oars. Then came a few stones and ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... publisher wrote again to say that the immortal treatise must be spiced; a little politics flung in: "Nothing goes down, else." The author answered in some heat that he would not dilute things everlasting with the fleeting topics of the day, nor defile science with politics. On this his Mentor smoothed him down, despising him secretly for not seeing that a book is a matter of trade and nothing else. It ended in Aubertin going to Paris to hatch his Phoenix. ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... rather more than midway adown the declivity of one of the ridges that form the valley to the left, as you go southward, and its site would have been a good one for a fortress, intended to defend the lower entrance of this mountain defile. At a proper distance, it looks not unlike the gray dilapidation of a Gothic castle, which has been crumbling and crumbling away for ages, until Time might be supposed to have imperceptibly stolen its massive pile from man, and given it back to Nature; its towers and battlements and arched ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... distinguished by architectural ornament, possessed an air of terrible dignity by its position on the very verge of the opposite bank of the torrent, which, just at the angle of the rock on which the ruins are situated, falls sheer over a cascade of nearly a hundred feet in height, and then rushes down the defile, through a trough of living rock, which perhaps its waves have been deepening since time itself had a commencement. Facing, and at the same time looking down upon this eternal roar of waters, stood the old tower, built so close to the verge of the precipice, that the buttresses ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 13, - Issue 372, Saturday, May 30, 1829 • Various
... ascended, the latter being only a path leading out to the uninhabited pampa: while the former is the main thoroughfare between town and cemetery. It debouches on the level summit through a slight hollow, or defile, possibly due to the wear and tear of travel, continued through the long ages. Many a funeral procession, and from the most remote time, may have wound its way up that steep slope, passing between two cliffs, which, like the posterns of some grand gateway, mark the entrance ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... period coincides well with what might have then been required to ascend, as the country was, on the neighbourhood of Grenoble or Echelles; while the ascent to the summit of the Little St Bernard, would not require more than half the time. 2. The narrow defile of St Jean de Maurienne, which leads from the plain of Montmelian to the foot of Mont Cenis, corresponds much more closely with the description, given both in Livy[25] and Polybius[26], of that in which the first serious engagement took place between Hannibal and the Mountaineers, two days ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... Indians as well as the horses. They had continued the pursuit alone after Fuentas left them, and towards nightfall entered the mountains into which the trail led. After sunset, the moon gave light until late in the night, when it entered a narrow defile, and was difficult to follow. Here they lay from midnight till morning. At daylight they resumed the pursuit, and at sunrise discovered the horses; and immediately dismounting and tying up their own, they crept cautiously ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... you come on, and suddenly, when you see cover, make a dash for it and escape. 3. Do not get lost. 4. Do not allow yourself to think of the enemy as being in one direction only. 5. In entering or passing through woods take an extended skirmish line formation. 6. In passing any short defile bridge or ford, send one man ahead. 7. If you suspect the presence of the enemy under certain cover, a good way to find out is to let one man approach within a reasonable distance and then, acting as though he had been discovered, ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... considerable, and adds: 'Un peu a l'est de Sirmagha, le Gomal traverse la chaine de montagnes de Soliman, passe devant Raghzi, et fertilise le pays habite par les tribus de Dauletkhail et de Gandehpour. Il se desseche au defile de Pezou, et son lit ne se remplit plus d'eau que dans la saison des pluies; alors seulement il rejoint la droite de l'Indus, au sud-est de bourg de Paharpour.' The Kurrum falls into the Indus north of the Gomal, while, according to the poet, we should expect ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller
... sound-hearted men of common understanding, and they were not able to parry the sophistry of Curtius. I have ceased, therefore, to give them. Hamilton is really a colossus to the anti-republican party. Without numbers, he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile, where they might be finished; but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... side of the pass we went through a steep, narrow, and most fantastically picturesque defile of rocks, and eventually passed the little hamlet of Golandeh which boasts of no less than half-a-dozen mud huts and ...
— Across Coveted Lands - or a Journey from Flushing (Holland) to Calcutta Overland • Arnold Henry Savage Landor
... to rest; And lie we down, in gentle slumbers wrapp'd; For never have mine eyes been clos'd in sleep, Since by thy hand my gallant son was slain: But groaning still, I brood upon my woes, And in my court with dust my head defile. Now have I tasted bread, now ruddy wine Hath o'er my palate pass'd; but ...
— The Iliad • Homer
... Here he urged the dun to its utmost, outdistanced the pair in his rear, and gained on the men riding from the south, almost ahead of him. He swerved a bit to the north and cut straight for a notch in the mountains. He smiled, as he approached it, and saw a narrow defile leading into the hills. He gained it in a final, heartbreaking burst of speed on the part of his mount. As he dashed into the canyon, bullets sang past him and over his head. Then a cry of amazement ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... Amazon is recognizable as destined to become a magnificent stream. There are neither rapids nor obstacles of any sort until it reaches a defile where its course is slightly narrowed between two picturesque and unequal precipices. No falls are met with until this point is reached, where it curves to the eastward, and passes through the intermediary ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... deliciously green and peaceful, and now worming its way with agonised fury through the gorge. Many cascades of rare beauty streamed down from the summit of the precipices, and we were continually crossing high and narrow bridges suspended over deep gulfs. The box luxuriates in this defile, springing in tree-like proportions from ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... not always glad when we smile!— But the conscience is quick to record, All the sorrow and sin We are hiding within Is plain in the sight of the Lord: And ever, O ever, till pride And evasion shall cease to defile The sacred recess Of the soul, we confess We are not always glad ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... mountains of the Danube, in its wild outlines and dilapidated castles, the imagination embraces a bolder range. At one time the river is confined within its narrowest limits, and proceeds through a defile of considerable altitude, with overhanging rocks menacing destruction. At another it offers an open, wild archipelago of islands. The mountains have disappeared, and a long plain bounds on each side of the river its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... points, pricked down on wood, May be made out a picture good Of the bright Southern Sieve. Who planned, and helped those slanderers vile, My name with base lies to defile? ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... would have been so in this case had Mrs. Fairfield (who is but the representative of the homely natural affections, strongest ever in true genius,—for light is warm) never crushed Mr. Avenel's moss rose on her sisterly bosom. Now, forth from this passage and defile of transition into the larger world, must Genius go on, working out its natural destiny amidst things and forms the most artificial. Passions that move and influence the world are at work around it. Often lost sight of itself, its very absence ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... cumbrous trappings of fleshy pride! We will promote an universal Christian education—we will teach charity by examples, and live unto all men by a personal abstinence from the bickerings and malice of civil life. We will not defile the sacred lawn with the mud of turnpike acts—we will no longer sweat in the House of Lords, but labour only in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... "silence, if you do not want me to run mad! Cast not my own words in my face. They defile me, for falsehood has desecrated and trodden them in the mire. No! I will not make room for you in my grave. I will not again call you Geraldine. You are Jane Douglas, and I hate you, and I hurl my curse upon your criminal head! I ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... convinced that the King of Poland was but trifling with him, and in the last week of September started to take the command of the centre, which was facing the entrance to the defile, at Pirna. Marshal Keith had been sent, a week after Fergus was wounded, to assume the command of the western column, hitherto commanded by ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... ter pass through One Tree Gulch," he declared. "We c'n overtake them in the defile, goin' by way of Poison Spider Creek and the old Buffalo Trail, droppin' on 'em when they least ...
— Kiddie the Scout • Robert Leighton
... up to the limit, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, he said, he could conjure up. He urged me (stating that he felt it his mission in life to urge me) to defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery at ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... had set out with that little place as our serious destination. It was Brunow who suggested this lingering method of approach, and it was he also who gave a semblance of nature to our proceedings by pausing here and there to set up his camp-stool and easel in some picturesque defile, or in the streets of some quaint village. Twice this innocent blind brought us into collision with the military police, who were in a condition of perpetual disquiet, and suspected everybody. Our papers, however, were in perfect order, and Brunow ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... the regions of speculation, some have thought that, if sin defile any of these worlds, its inhabitants may share in the benefits of the atonement which Christ offered in ours; and that beings further removed than we from the scenes of Calvary, and differing more from us than we from the Jews ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... Karnak, Luxor, Thebes, the Nile: Of these your letters told; and I who read Saw loom on dim horizons Egypt's dead In march across the desert, mile on mile, A ghostly caravan in slow defile Between the sand and stars; and at their head From unmapped darkness into darkness fled The gods that Egypt ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse
... leading mules, breaking with their simple melody the stillness of the airy height; or, perhaps, the voice of the muleteer admonishing some tardy or wandering animal, or chanting, at the full stretch of his lungs, some traditionary ballad. At length you see the mules slowly winding along the cragged defile, sometimes descending precipitous cliffs, so as to present themselves in full relief against the sky, sometimes toiling up the deep arid chasms below you. As they approach, you descry their gay decorations of worsted tufts, tassels, and saddle-cloths, while, as they ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 19, Issue 547, May 19, 1832 • Various
... Muata as he went off with the second band. Mr. Hume, with the last company, followed at a slower gait, along a path that skirted the river with its fringe of banana trees, whose broad leaves shone in the sun. After a couple of miles, the river entered the defile through which long since it had cut its way out of the valley. It was at the entrance to the defile that an ambush was formed by Muata of fifteen men, with Compton and Venning. The warriors were already in position behind fallen rocks, the two lads being higher up the slope. They showed ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... military skill than in the choice of these stations. But one pass in those mountainous districts permitted the descent of the Persian army from Thessaly, bounded to the west by steep and inaccessible cliffs, extending as far as Mount Oeta; to the east by shoals and the neighbouring sea. This defile received its name Thermopylae, or Hot Gates, from the hot-springs which rose near the base of the mountain. In remote times the pastoral Phocians had fortified the place against the incursions of the Thessalians, ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... attended by a wagonload of trunks. Horses and travelers refreshed, we soon move after it, and rising from the valley by half an hour's steep zigzags upward and forward, we pass the great yellow vehicle as it is entering the defile. Looking back, we have one brilliant view of the wide Eden of Argeles, and ...
— A Midsummer Drive Through The Pyrenees • Edwin Asa Dix
... instructed,—that is, maintaining the sexual purity of his body. He should be taught from the beginning to think of his body as the sacred temple of his soul, which it is a sin against nature and against God to defile. That the child's body be kept uncontaminated is one of the most priceless gifts his parents can bestow upon him; the value of this was so keenly felt in antiquity that at a certain period of Greek supremacy the laws were most stringent concerning it, a youth sinning ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... approached the Pass, a narrow defile winding down between high hills from this table-land to the plain below. To say that we feared an ambush, would not perhaps convey a very clear idea of how I felt on ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... trailing at his heels a huge steel scabbard, that had war in its very clattering. There was a good deal of difficulty in getting all the platoons (there were six) to look the same way; but, by the time they reached the defile of the bridge, the troops were in sufficiently compact order. In this manner they marched up the hill to the summit of the mountain, no other alteration taking place in the disposition of the forces, excepting that a mutual complaint was made, by the sheriff and the ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper
... defile from out my Fatherland and from the society of my friends,[1] and out of the house of my father into a strange land, to campaign against the enemies of our king. Therefore I would cast myself with life and soul upon Thy ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... Porges, hard put to it, "to answer you were to defile the tongue God hath given me for her ladyship's service. To obey is better than sacrifice. Her present obedience is that I should request your presence in the ante-chamber the instant of your ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... enthusiasm for great generals is expressed in pompous commonplaces; even the dramatic circumstances of a campaign full of the movement and suffering of great masses of men, in bivouac, upon the march, in the gloomy and perilous defile, during a retreat, and in the hours when wavering victory suddenly turns and lets her hot lips be kissed, are scarcely seen, or feebly hinted at. The horizon of the battle-field itself is limited, and it is impossible to obtain a total impression of the picturesque and terrible fact. After ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... vanished from before his eyes—through the fence, he should have said, had such a thing been possible. Mr. Hubbard was a resolute man; he determined to sift the matter to the bottom. Still calling upon the fugitive, he made his way to the garden paling through the defile of the peas. No one was there—a broad, open bed lay on either hand, and before him the fence. At last he observed a foot-print in the earth near the paling, and a rustling sound beyond. He advanced and looked over, and to his unspeakable amazement, saw his brother, James ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... magistrates, godly men, had sent the sergeants commanding them to stop his mouth. Moreover, they had sent their wives as well, and even the sergeants were less bitter against him than the women. For they declared that if the Quaker dared to defile the noble market cross of Carlisle city by preaching there, they themselves would pluck off the hair from his head, while the sergeants should clap him into gaol. Nevertheless the Quaker would not be ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... French General, Cherin, was once conducting a detachment through a very difficult defile. He exhorted his soldiers to endure patiently the fatigues of the march. "It is easy for you to talk," said one of the soldiers near him; "you who are mounted on a fine horse—but we poor devils!"—On hearing these words, Cherin ...
— The Book of Three Hundred Anecdotes - Historical, Literary, and Humorous—A New Selection • Various
... a broad park-like area that tended downward almost imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across the defile had once afforded ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson
... array of influences that stand between humanity and its redemption. He is a very excellent, a very estimable man,—but he is not shocked at intemperance, he would not have slavery disturbed, he sees a necessity for war. Does Christ know who and what sort of a woman it is that touches him? Will he defile himself by such a contact? Can he expect to accomplish anything by familiarity with such matters? Why is he not satisfied with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... conquered the passes of the Vosges, but the conquest was vigorously opposed and took more time than the French had reckoned on. As soon as it had become master of the Donon and the passes, the first French army pushed forward into the defile of Saarburg. At St. Blaise it won the first German colors, took Blamont and Cirey (August 15, 1914), seized the defiles north of the canal of the Marne and the Rhine, and reached Saarburg. Here a connection was established ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... from its impurity unless man had a power to raise his understanding into the light of heaven, and to see how he ought to live in order that his love, as well as his understanding, may be elevated into wisdom. By means of the understanding, love, that is, the man, sees what the evils are that defile and corrupt the love; he also sees that if he flees from those evils as sins and turns away from them, he loves the things that are opposite to those evils; all of which are heavenly. Then also he perceives the means by which he is enabled to flee from and turn away from those evils ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... Duchy had to furnish troops in aid of Napoleon. In 1808 the Polish light cavalry, led by Kozietulski, won glory by the capture of Somosierra, a defile leading to Madrid ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... Liszt picked out the individuals composing the band one by one from among the gypsy performers in Hungary and Bohemia. Half-civilized in appearance, dressed in an unbecoming half-military costume, they are nothing while playing Strauss' waltzes or their own; but when they play the Radetsky Defile, the Racoksky March, or their marvelous czardas, one sees and hears the battle, and it is easy to understand the influence of their music in fomenting Hungarian revolutions; why for so long it was made treasonable ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... emerge into a cleared field that stretches up from the valley below, and just laps over the back of the mountain. It is a broad belt of white that drops down and down till it joins other fields that sweep along the base of the mountain, a mile away. To the east, through a deep defile in the mountains, a landscape in an adjoining county lifts itself up, like a bank of ...
— The Writings of John Burroughs • John Burroughs
... deseoso desirous. desertar to desert. desesperacion f. despair. desesperador, -a causing despair, desperate. desfallecer to weaken, grow faint. desfavorable unfavorable. desfilar to defile, march. desgajar to lop off. desgarrador, -a heart-rending. desgracia misfortune. desgraciado unfortunate, unhappy. deshacer to undo, destroy, melt. deshielo thaw. deshonrar to dishonor. ...
— Novelas Cortas • Pedro Antonio de Alarcon
... But the second part of the doctrine must not be overlooked. There are false Christians who accept only the first part and make no effort to reform themselves; but, being liberated from our sins and in a state of salvation, we may not again defile ourselves therewith. Where these two principals of the Christian doctrine are not maintained in their proper relation, injury must result to the truth in two respects: they who are occupied solely with their own works corrupt the true doctrine ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. II - Epiphany, Easter and Pentecost • Martin Luther
... see to her hidden house. She must take dust-pan and broom and go about a little. For there are purifications in which king and cowboy must each serve himself. The things that come out of a man are they that defile him, and to get rid of them, a man must go into himself, be a convict, and scrub the floor of his cell. Mrs. Sclater's cell was very tidy and respectable for a cell, but no human consciousness can be clean, until it lies wide open to the eternal sun, and ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... glutton worm defile This spotless tenement of love, That like a playful infant's smile Seem'd born of purest ...
— The Sylphs of the Season with Other Poems • Washington Allston
... now appeared to wind precipitately down a steep and narrow defile, through which a rapid torrent was heard foaming and tumbling over its rugged bed. Following the course of the stream to a considerable distance, a rude bridge was discerned, sufficiently indicating a path to some ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... Once under way, however, with our thirteen waggons, there was no trouble save from their heavy loads, which could not be moved faster than a walk. Our first camp was at Sturgeon River—the Namao Sepe of the Crees—a fine stream in a defile of hills clothed with poplar and spruce, the former not quite in leaf, for the spring was backward, though seeding and growth in the Edmonton District was much ahead of Manitoba. The river flat was dotted with clumps of russet-leaved willows, to the ...
— Through the Mackenzie Basin - A Narrative of the Athabasca and Peace River Treaty Expedition of 1899 • Charles Mair
... view of the enemy, full up the increasing steepness of the mountain side, where, horses failing, it would be necessary to creep by stealth and upon the hands and knees. And, where the shelter ended, there lay before them a short defile between walls of naked rock, ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... disagreeable odor proclaimed the presence of an opossum; in fact, its beady eyes could be seen dully glowing in the farthermost corner of the cavity. How dared the impudent creature appropriate for its own use and defile the place that Suma held sacred? Ordinarily she would pass it in contempt, but such impertinence must not remain unpunished. With a snarl of rage she dashed through the entrance and struck the wretched creature a terrible ...
— The Black Phantom • Leo Edward Miller
... they left the main body behind, and soon reached the end of the defile. The woods were still dense on their left and front; but on their right lay a great marsh, covered with alder thickets and rank grass. Suddenly the air was filled with yells, and a rapid though distant fire was opened from the thickets ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... twofold pollution or uncleanness; one, that of sin, whereby the soul was defiled; and another consisting in some kind of corruption, whereby the body was in some way infected. Speaking then of the first-mentioned uncleanness, no kind of food is unclean, or can defile a man, by reason of its nature; wherefore we read (Matt. 15:11): "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man": which words are explained (Matt. 15:17) as referring to sins. Yet ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... manner also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject government, and blaspheme glories. [1:9]But Michael the arch-angel, when disputing with the devil he reasoned about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a charge of blasphemy, but said, The Lord rebuke you. [1:10]But these ...
— The New Testament • Various
... Ossipee joins forces, and the river, now a splendid stream, flows onward to Bonny Eagle, to Moderation and to Salmon Falls, where it dashes over the dam like a young Niagara and hurtles, in a foamy torrent, through the ragged defile cut between lofty banks of ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... divested themselves of their licentious and predatory habits, and learnt now for the first time to distinguish between right and wrong? Do they understand what it is to commit sacrilege? To intrude into the sanctum sanctorum of the meat-safe? To rifle and defile the half roseate, half lily-white charms of a virgin ham? To touch with unhallowed proboscis the immaculate lip of beauty, the unprotected scalp of old age, the savoury glories of the kitchen? To invade with the most ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... beginning," said Sergeant Pinto, shading his eyes with his hands, "or I know nothing of war. Those beggarly Prussians and Russians want to take us on the flank with their whole force, as we defile on Leipzig, so as to cut us in two. It is well thought of on their part. We are always teaching ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... be full.' Asked again, why she so terrified the lad? Replied: 'It is the law; we must seek a youth or a maiden of clean life, and under age, to receive messages and admonitions.' We conversed with many more words, but it is not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would degrade and defile the thoughts she uttered, and which my mind received that day. I broke the ring, and she passed, but to return once more next day. At even-song, a long discourse with that ancient transgressor, Mr B. Great horror and remorse; entire atonement and ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... concern, and at the same time placed such implicit confidence in the nerve courage of their companions. I must own that I felt very anxious, and carefully examined the lock of my rifle, and assured myself that I had properly loaded it. Soon after this we entered a broad defile with high broken rocks on either side of us, beyond which towered up to the sky the white masses of mountain-tops. The defile as we advanced gradually narrowed, till I found that we were approaching a narrow gorge with cliffs rising ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... work of Immortals should be, and that no mortal man should have wrought. Now therefore will I arm me in them, but I have grievous fear lest meantime on the gashed wounds of Menoitios' valiant son flies light and breed worms therein, and defile his corpse—for the life is slain out of him—and so all ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... gradating by mixture, while we avoid the compounding of contrasting colours. That is, the colours must be kept distinct in the act of blending them, or otherwise they will run into dusky neutrality and defile each other. This is the case in blending and gradating from green to red, or from hue to hue—from blue to orange, or to and from coldness and warmth—from yellow to purple, or to and from advancing and retiring colours. It is the same in light and shade, or white and black, which ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... enter the house, and also the tax-gatherers when they restore the vessels, are credited in saying, "we did not touch them." And in Jerusalem they are credited in holy things (that they did not defile them), and at the time of the feast they are ...
— Hebrew Literature
... and of caste. It is the caste that keeps him rigidly to himself, since, as a rule, he can touch no food that others have handled. He sits apart, over his own tiny fire, baking his unappetising little cakes; and in many cases even the shadow of a passer-by falling across his cookery is held to defile it beyond possibility of his eating it. As a rule he has but one idea in life—to make enough money to carry him back to end his days in comfort by the ...
— Mates at Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... before the charge of this squadron of iron. A Febrer from the island, entitled "the rich," a remote ancestor of Jaime's, had twice rushed in between the Emperor and the enemy, saving his life. At the exit of a narrow defile the fire from the Turkish culverins decimated the cavalry. The Duke of Alva grasped the bridle of his monarch's horse. "Sire, your life is more important than a victory!" and the Emperor, growing calmer, turned back, and with a stately gesture of gratitude re moved the gold chain ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the buffaloes turned into a green brake, on the river bank, while the horses dashed up a narrow defile of the hills, with their pursuers close to their heels. Beatte passed several of them, having fixed his eye upon a fine Pawnee horse that had his ears slit and saddle marks upon his back. He pressed him gallantly, but lost him ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... reach his home in safety, by our faith confirmed. And I establish this PEACE on the part of ourselves and of our kinsmen, our friends and belongings, alike of women and of men, bondsmen and thralls, youths and adults. Be there any truce-breaker who shall violate this PEACE and defile this faith, so be he rejected of God and expelled from the community of righteous men; be he cast out from Heaven and from the fellowship of the holy; let him have no part amongst mankind and become an outcast ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... with white sand, gleaming now in the sun, and the little frothy waves that ran up it and lapped at his feet, like puppies nibbling, were just the friendliest frothy little waves in the world. But there were the remains of the fire left by the ruffians to defile it, and broken bottles and broken food were scattered about. The litter hurt his eyes so much that he gathered up every fragment, one by one, and threw them into the sea. When the last vestige of the foul invasion was cleared away he felt that he had his lonely, clean island ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... distance, on either side, his guide pointed out to him the Houses of Birth and Death, erected for the reception [35] respectively of women about to become mothers, and of persons about to die; neither of those incidents being allowed to defile, as was thought, the actual precincts of the shrine. His visitor of the previous night he saw nowhere again. But among the official ministers of the place there was one, already marked as of great celebrity, whom Marius saw often in later days at Rome, the physician ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume One • Walter Horatio Pater
... by a brook, the banks of which were broken, swampy, and overgrown with dwarf willows. Cedric and Athelstane, who were at the head of their [v]retinue, saw the risk of being attacked in this pass, but neither knew anything else to do than hasten through the defile as fast as possible. Advancing, therefore, without much order, they had just crossed the brook with a part of their followers, when they were assailed, in front, flank, and rear at once, by a band of armed men. The shout of a "White dragon! Saint George for merry England!" the war cry of the Saxons, ...
— The Literary World Seventh Reader • Various
... feeling so nice and new. Then, dropping the blind, she went back to the glass and began to pin her hair up. When this was done she stood for a long minute looking at her old brown skirt and blouse, hesitating to defile her new-found purity. At last she put them on and drew up the blind. The sunlight had passed off the pear-tree; its bloom was now white, and almost as still as snow. The little model put another sweet into her mouth, and producing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... nothing about this narrow defile through which the party traveled. But he agreed that they were breaking through the wall of the glacier on the right side. Aleukan, the big native ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... up shoulder-high, looking ahead, grew instantly stock-still, a shiver tingling along her spine. The narrow defile through which she had passed had led out of the ring of peaks and now abruptly debouched into nothingness. As she had turned with the twisting passageway, expecting to see another wall of rock before her, she saw instead the sky filled with stars. ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... to rain, and the wind blew violently; insomuch that Domitius, not imagining there would be any action that day, ordered his army to retire. But Pompey looked upon this as his opportunity, and he passed the defile with the utmost expedition. The enemy stood upon their defence, but it was in a disorderly and tumultuous manner, and the resistance they made was neither general nor uniform. Besides the wind and rain beat in their faces. The storm incommoded the Romans, ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... as playfulness too often is, of what contemporary English called an "unlucky" (that is, a "mischievous") kind; and if the author had not been constantly longing to make somebody or many bodies uncomfortable,[352] to damage and defile shrines, to exhibit a misanthropy more really misanthropic, because less passionate and tragical, than Swift's, and, in fact, as his patron, persecutor, and counterpart, Frederick the Jonathan-Wildly Great, most justly observed of him, ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 1 - From the Beginning to 1800 • George Saintsbury
... should a maiden be? Pure as the rill, Ere it has left its first home in the hill; Thinking no evil, suspecting no guile, Cherishing nought that can harm or defile. ...
— Sagittulae, Random Verses • E. W. Bowling
... This defile is described at length in the Anastasi Papyrus, No. 1, and the terms used by the writer are in themselves sufficient evidence of the terror with which the place inspired the Egyptians. The annals of Thutmosis III. are equally explicit as to the difficulties which an army had to encounter ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... West had only twenty thousand, and the sovereign of the East no more than five and thirty thousand, men. The inferiority of number was, however, compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he steadily expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... kind of a father was this, thought Donal, who would thus defile his son's conscience! he had not done it in mere revenge, but to gain his son's submission as well! Whether the poor fellow leaned to the noble or ignoble, it was no marvel he should wander about looking scarce worthy the name of man! If he would but come to him that ...
— Donal Grant • George MacDonald
... day found us in the mouth of a defile which wound away into the heart of the mountains. As it seemed the only possible path, we followed it, and were much cheered to discover that here must once have run a road. Not that we could see any road, indeed, for everything was buried in ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... copper coin and a loaf of bread and go down that deep defile there till thou comest to a deep river and there thou wilt see an old man ferrying people across the river. Put the coin between your teeth and let him take it from you, and he will carry you across, but speak not to him. ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... libations, fillets, or cakes. One of the Magi sings an ode concerning the origin of the gods, over the sacrifice, which is laid on a bed of tender grass." "They pay great reverence to all rivers, and must do nothing to defile them; in burying they never put the body in the ground till it has been torn by some bird or dog; they cover the body with wax, and then put it in the ground." "The Magi think they do a meritorious act when they ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... himself in reverence and due esteem, both for the dignity of God's image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship and filial relation ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... punishment for your misdeeds. Being thus made into a devil, why do you come and stand near my house? I should like to leave you alone. But as I am this tree, which is made the chief of trees by heaven, and as it would defile me to have you die beside my house, I will turn you into a man again and send you home. Do not misbehave yourself henceforth!" ...
— Aino Folk-Tales • Basil Hall Chamberlain
... of night was beginning to yield to the pale tints of early dawn. A bat was sounding the departure of the hours of darkness with a singular note resembling the gurgling of liquid from a narrow bottle-neck. A neighing of horses was heard far up the defile; then, with the first rays of dawn, we distinguished a sledge driven by the baron's servant; its bottom was littered with straw; on ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... and were able to procure all they wanted. There was a contest who should decamp the last. All our communications were cut off with Philipsburg, so that we could not repass the Rhine under the protection of that place. To get out of our position, it was necessary to defile before our enemies into the plain of Hockenun, and this was a delicate operation. The most annoying circumstance was, that M. de Joyeuse would communicate with nobody, and was so ill-tempered that none dared to ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... been attacked by the regiment which had just escaped from the field of battle. They had been ordered by some superior officer on the ground to attack the major's command; and the regiment had rushed into the narrow defile, where only a portion of it could be brought into action. The sharpshooters were rapidly reducing the numbers at the head of the column, though the ranks were immediately filled up ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... wind their serpent coils around Christianity, and to defile the Bible with their filthy lickings. The Lord Jesus will not suffer such persons to bear even a true testimony to him, and his followers will not permit them to ascribe their falsehoods to him, without reproof. Let them stand ...
— Fables of Infidelity and Facts of Faith - Being an Examination of the Evidences of Infidelity • Robert Patterson
... purest thoughts, her holiest aspirations travelled like pilgrims, offering the best of which her nature was capable. Would those for whom she had patiently chiselled and built it guard and prize and keep it; or smite and overturn and defile it? ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... to stop her cries. This I imagined would be the case, and I had provided them with a white cambric handkerchief. But what will not the touch of such unconsecrated rascals defile? ...
— Anna St. Ives • Thomas Holcroft
... since Jim came. They make a strong party, all armed, and determined to fight their way through. They are already twenty miles away; but we will overtake them to-morrow. I am to guide them. I know every cave and defile. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... cleft between Windham High Peak and the mountain to the north, runs the road, which suddenly emerges from the defile and overlooks the open country. We here find no long cleft as in the Kauterskill, Plattekill, and Stony Cloves, but the highway descends along the face of the mountain slope. The first view is ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... death. Soon we heard a challenge-trumpet Sounding in the pass below, And the distant tramp of horses, And the voices of the foe: Down we crouched amid the bracken, Till the Lowland ranks drew near, Panting like the hounds in summer, When they scent the stately deer. From the dark defile emerging, Next we saw the squadrons come, Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers Marching to the tuck of drum; Through the scattered wood of birches, O'er the broken ground and heath, Wound the long battalion slowly, Till they gained ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun
... of Bamian lie on the road leading from Kabul to Turkestan. The pass, at an elevation of 8,496 feet, is the only known defile over the Hindu Kush practicable for artillery. This valley was one of the chief centres of Buddhist worship, as gigantic idols, mutilated indeed by fanatical Mussulmans, conclusively prove. Bamian, with its colossal statues cut out in the rock, was among the wonders described by the Buddhist ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... above the timber-line, the trail ran around Crater Lake and gained the rocky defile that led toward Happy Camp and the first scrub-pines. To pack his heavy outfit around would take days of heart-breaking toil. On the lake was a canvas boat employed in freighting. Two trips with it, in two hours, would see ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... German gunners made for cover, the firing into the gully stopped, and the arrested column poured up the steep defile after Gerhardt. ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... to a poor motherless working girl's reputation. As my father is a Christian preacher I feel I have a right to protest against his being placed on a clerical parity with bilkers of hack bills and crapulous associates of two-for-a-penny prostitutes. If Harman attempts to defile the Christian pulpit with his presence, I hope to the good Lord that the decent members of that denomination will tie him across a nine-rail fence and enhance the torridity of his rear elevation with a vigorous application of ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... Gettysburg—and there is no fourth. His vision led him unto obloquy also. What revilings were his! What bitter hatred! What insults and scoffs! At last the vision led him unto fame. The very city that would have slain him builded his monument, and men who once would not defile their lips with his name taught their children the pathway to his tomb. It was that vision splendid that saved Phillips from sodden contentment. Had Christ never crossed his path, his imagination would have lost its brightest picture, his ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... word and line with his eye, translating it as he went into his own way of speech. Thus he turned the third verse of the fifth chapter of Solomon's Song, "I have put off my coat; how shall I put it on? I have washed my feet; how shall I defile them?" into "Chav a doffed my cooat; how shall I don't? Chav a washed my veet; how shall I moil 'em?" This is a good example of intelligent reading; for the boy took in the sense of the printed lines, and then made it his own by giving homely ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... for over, five miles through the Coconino Forest, mainly following the railway track until Bass Station appears (elevation six thousand four hundred and seventeen feet). The road now enters a narrow defile known as the Bright Angel Wash, giving one a fine opportunity to learn the singular drainage system of the Canyon plateau, which, as has been explained elsewhere, is away from the Canyon for many miles. The Wash ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... made swift starlights on a jewelled breast. So, starting forward, like a loosened hound, The stranger clutched the sword and wheeled it round, And struck the Lord's Anointed. Fierce and fleet Philistia came, with shouts and clattering feet; By gaping gorges and by rough defile Dark Ashdod beat across a dusty mile; Hot Hazor's bowmen toiled from spire to spire, And Gath sprang upwards, like a gust of fire; On either side did Libnah's lords appear, And brass-clad Timnath thundered in the rear. "Mark, Achish, mark!"—South-west and south ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... circumstances must have been great. Jackson might be crushed before his arrival. He rode up to the summit of the commanding hill which rises just west of the Gap, and dismounting directed his field-glass toward the shaggy defile in front. ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... spoken at the precise spot where we had met on my outward journey, but I did not pause there, pushing some twenty miles into the defile where we had seen the man-monkeys before we outspanned for the night. Two days later we passed the grave of the unhappy Siluce, and I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing that, thus far, it had not been disturbed by wild animals. ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... scarves, rushing with its bracing chill without obstruction through even the compactest mass of wayfarers. The cedars on the hills about the little town whistled continuously and at times some extremely narrow defile with an uninterrupted draft would take voice and cry humanly. But there was no responsive exhilaration to the vigor of morning on a mountain-top. The great ever-growing migration was dark, dangerous ...
— The City of Delight - A Love Drama of the Siege and Fall of Jerusalem • Elizabeth Miller
... curse at my own folly. Saint Andrew! it is odd how superstition grips the best of us. Those rock walls, binding us within their scant confines as in a prison, were not particularly precipitous or high, yet our way was sufficiently perilous, leading along a contracted defile, the merest chasm, indeed, steep cliffs rising sheer on either side, merely the raging stream and a ribbonlike path between. The slight expanse of sky above was blue and clear, but it was sombre and gloomy enough down in that black hollow, ...
— Prisoners of Chance - The Story of What Befell Geoffrey Benteen, Borderman, - through His Love for a Lady of France • Randall Parrish
... than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom." "By my confession to Heaven, neither will I sell it nor set it free." "It is true, lord, that it is worth nothing to buy; but rather than see thee defile thyself by touching such a reptile as this, I will give thee three pounds to let it go." "I will not, by Heaven," said he, "take any price for it. As it ought, so shall it be hanged." "Willingly, lord, do thy good pleasure." And ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards |
