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More "Defy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... actuating the Norlaminians, but which would not be considered by Osnome, nor even remotely understood by the Fenachrone. Second, I am certain that the Fenachrone will merely be enraged by the warning and will defy us. Then what will they do? You have already said that you have been able to locate only a few of their exploring warships. As soon as we declare war upon them they will almost certainly send out torpedoes to every one of their ships of war. We can then ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... which, by its very nature, lies beyond the experience of the human understanding. It is sufficiently easy, indeed, to form any proposition, concerning which we are ignorant, just not so absurd as not to be contradictory in itself, and defy refutation. The possibility of whatever enters into the wildest imagination to conceive is thus triumphantly vindicated. But it is enough that such assertions should be either contradictory to the known ...
— A Defence of Poetry and Other Essays • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... these two centuries has been chiefly on lines which defy the columns of the statistician and elude the ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... survive the total Extinction of Morals. "The Roman Empire, says the Historian, MUST have sunk, though the Goths had not invaded it. Why? Because the Roman Virtue was sunk." Could I be assured that America would remain virtuous, I would venture to defy the utmost Efforts of Enemies to subjugate her. You will allow me to remind you, that the Morals of that City which has born so great a Share in the American Contest, depend much upon the Vigilance of the respectable Body of Magistrates of which you ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... to recall to life one actually cut down from the beam. But, although the young blood did flow, bearing testimony to the fact that the heart still beat in that deathlike frame, the vitality left seemed so faint as to defy the power of ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... this way and that through the broken uplands. Where Brocky Lane had placed his men so as to defy the union of the two bands of outlaws it described a wide rude arc curving about the spur from Mt. Temple. Here the cowboys, with some twenty or thirty feet separating each man from his nearest fellow, were extended along a line which must ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... her visit until another day, and returned home, but she feared he'd follow her there. Here was a man of whom she was heartily afraid, and as she dared not defy him, she obediently walked across the gully bridge, and hurried along ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... out all the dwellers on Earth and mine the ores ourselves. But that would be a needless waste of our powers, for since you can not defy us, and since the desire for life burns as high in you as in us and as it does in all sensate things in all universes, your people will save themselves from death and save us from wasting energy by mining the ores for us. What happens afterwards, we ...
— Raiders of the Universes • Donald Wandrei
... quite dark and none saw him come to the surface, but the next day he had another force ready to defy them. Of his fellow- prisoners who had been thrust into the hold, some managed to throw open a hatchway, overpower the guard, and likewise plunge into the sea. The sailors hurriedly pushed back the hatchway so that no more might climb out on deck; but next morning it was discovered ...
— Christopher Columbus • Mildred Stapley
... sitting in the bonde next morning, saw with an uncanny clarity the one weak point in Ribiera's hold upon his subjects. When they had courage to fear nothing more than death, they could defy him. And not many could attain to ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, May, 1930 • Various
... "Certainly a most extraordinary creature!" In my indignation I could not help turning suddenly upon her and looking straight into her eyes. They were brown, with that peculiar velvet opacity common to the pupils of nearsighted persons, and seemed to defy internal scrutiny. She only repeated carelessly, "Isn't he?" and added: "Please see if you can find Jocasta. I suppose we ought to be going now; and I dare say he won't be doing it again. Ah! there she is. Good gracious, child! what have ...
— Selected Stories • Bret Harte
... said, pointing to the man, "look and tremble at the justice of Hes the Mother. Aye, and be sure that as it is with him, so shall it be with every one of you who dares to defy her and to practise sorcery and murder. Lift up that dead ...
— Ayesha - The Further History of She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed • H. Rider Haggard
... and eke Hazar, * And Kata calling on Quail vicine; So fill with the mere and the cups make bright * With bestest liquor, that boon benign;— This site and sources and scents I espy * With Rizwan's garden compare defy." ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... that a learned Catholic doctor, engaging in controversy with him, exclaimed, "We were better to be without God's laws than the pope's." Tyndale replied, "I defy the pope and all his laws; and if God spare my life, ere many years I will cause a boy that driveth the plow to know more of ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... tale, but told too late to gain credence," sneered the officer. "You made a cully of me once. I defy you to ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... dandies were perch'd on a rock, Were perch'd on a rock as the waves dash'd high; Each thought himself equal to any black cock, And proudly determined the sea to defy. For cormorants fish, and cormorants catch, And they swallow their prey with the utmost despatch, Without all the ...
— Twixt France and Spain • E. Ernest Bilbrough
... brother managed to do it. "He's got a Scotch Presbyterian conscience mixed with an Asiatic perception of the main chance." Lester once told somebody, and he had the situation accurately measured. Nevertheless he could not rout his brother from his positions nor defy him, for he had the public conscience with him. He was in line with ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... derive in keeping up this mystery engages you. You bid me to find you. I accept the challenge. You must understand at once that it is the mystery that interests me. It is the unknown that attracts me. I am mentally painting you in all sorts of radiant colors. You defy me to find you. There is nothing so reliable as the unexpected, nothing so desperately uncertain as a thing assured. I warn you that I shall lay all manner of traps, waylay your messengers, bribe them. I shall find out where you live. The rest ...
— The Lure of the Mask • Harold MacGrath
... back with a movement of quiet satisfaction and turned to his companion. Miss St. Quentin sat round in her chair, presenting her long, slender, dust-coloured lace-and-silk-clad person in profile to the passers-by, and so tilting her parasol as to defy recognition. The expression of her pale face and singular ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... Rosa is worth dying for, if you can win it. (I could not even win it.) You will have to choose between Love and Life. I do not counsel you either way. But I urge you to choose. I urge you either to defy your foe utterly and to the death, or to ...
— The Ghost - A Modern Fantasy • Arnold Bennett
... really is," he remarked as we walked on down the street. "Look at that place of Albano's. I defy even the police news reporter on the Star to ...
— Masterpieces of Mystery In Four Volumes - Detective Stories • Various
... which has heretofore been associated in the public mind with the Negro Minstrel business. Certain weird barbaric melodies, which defy all laws of musical composition, but which haunt one like a dream of a lonely night on some wild African river, are said to have been written by "OLD EMMET." Is there any such person? Has any one actually seen "OLD EMMET" in the flesh, and with—say a ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 18, July 30, 1870 • Various
... out from Rodeo as marshals, but the mob that would have met Farnsworth at the outskirts of the town, to hang him, was the real boss. Those marshals would no more dare defy that mob than they would fly. In the first place, they were not of the real stuff, as was proved by their conduct when they entered your house and saw Farnsworth in the middle of the floor and dared not ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... irritating messages and letters then passed between his lordship and the burgesses; the former declaring that his life was not safe among them, and the latter asserting that he had nothing to fear. Lord Dunmore, however, felt that he had cause for fear, and he resolved to defy the provincials. Having divested himself of all authority, he collected a small naval force, and carried on a sort of predatory warfare against the province. Previous to his taking refuge in the Fowey ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... of the Quester to the Fisher King, without any explanation of the tasks assigned to him by the story. The result obtained is always quite satisfactory to the writer, often plausible, sometimes in a measure sound, but it would defy the skill of the most synthetic genius to co-ordinate the results thus obtained, and combine them in one harmonious whole. They are like pieces of a puzzle, each of which has been symmetrically cut and trimmed, till they lie ...
— From Ritual to Romance • Jessie L. Weston
... three, which dealt with the class as a collective whole, then I became frankly and noisily hilarious. I am not given to being tiresome in the reading-room; it is another of the unforgivable offences; but I defy any man of intelligence to read those chapters and retain even a fair ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 30, 1914 • Various
... with the various courses' at dinner. As we Americans were sorely tried under such circumstances, it was decided in the Basingstoke mansion to have a hall stove, which, after a prolonged search, was found in London and duly installed as a presiding deity to defy the dampness that pervades all those ivy-covered habitations, as well as the neuralgia that wrings their possessors. What a blessing it proved, more than any one thing making the old English house ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various
... music that endears, And makes this chill'd existence tolerable? Yet will I not such selfishness—'tis well; I hear, I hear a happier, holier swell From out the eternal spheres! I do defy thee, Death! Why flee me, like a debtor in arrears? To weary out the agony of years, With nothing but the bitter brine of tears, And scarcer ...
— The Poets and Poetry of Cecil County, Maryland • Various
... is, far more probably, that if the King had any additional reason for suppressing the Templars it was not envy of their wealth but fear of the immense power their wealth conferred; the Order dared even to defy the King and to refuse to pay taxes. The Temple in fact constituted an imperium in imperio that threatened not only the royal authority but the whole social system.[171] An important light is thrown on the situation by ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... head, looking up with an expression of rage and reproach and defiance that was terrible. Had we been in New Zealand, I should not have wondered so much: there are devils going about there. Nobody knows of any here, but it was here they got into my mother, and made her defy God. She does it straight out in church. That is why I always sit in the poor seats, and not in the little gallery that belongs to my father.—Have you ever been to our ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... vice that has become so great an evil, even in these enlightened times, as to defy the most skillful legislation, which openly displays its gaudy filthiness and mocks at virtue with a lecherous stare, must have its origin in causes ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... vacillating state of mind was turned by a word to any new subject that was suggested,—"Seat of learning and loyalty! these rude soldiers are unfit inmates for thy learned halls and poetical bowers; but thy pure and brilliant lamp shall defy the foul breath of a thousand churls, were they to blow at it like Boreas. The burning bush shall not be consumed, even by the ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... that forms the New York hill—the first of all, perhaps, to show its head above the pristine waters—has nourished a lofty forest which, battling with everlasting winds, resembles a body of men strong from incessant toil: its elms and beeches are so tough they defy the forester, and are fit only for water-wheel shafts. Working among these adamantine timbers, the boy stops to look across the broad and deep valley. Not at the old hill-quarries opposite, in whose depths snow lies all summer, does he look, nor at the hanging woods above the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... disheartened husbandman, "than pay two shillings an acre, and sit down to beef and ale three times a day in the old superstitious ages." This is not the oratory of conviction. There are unreasoning prejudices in favour of one's own stomach which eloquence cannot gainsay. "I defy the utmost power of language to disgust me wi' a gude denner," observes the Ettrick Shepherd; thus putting on record the attitude of the bucolic mind, impassive, immutable, since earth's first ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... dared not venture again in search of food, so we resumed our regular watches and slept in our turns. As soon as the sun should set we planned to skirt the mountains under the cover of darkness, in desperate hope of finding somewhere food and water with which we could return to our boat and defy death by putting out to sea; but ere the brief twilight of the tropics had settled into night, Neddie Benson was writhing and groaning in mortal agony. We were alarmed, and for a time could think of no explanation; but after a while black Frank looked up from ...
— The Mutineers • Charles Boardman Hawes
... lights from the old tower defy explanation. Had the engaging circus family anything to do ...
— Maida's Little Shop • Inez Haynes Irwin
... physical basis of life"; a chemical compound or probably an emulsion of numerous compounds. It contains proteins which differ slightly in many species of organism. It contains carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen, sulphur, and various salts, but is so complex as to defy ...
— Applied Eugenics • Paul Popenoe and Roswell Hill Johnson
... cannot soar, held down by sense and sin, How can I storm the citadel?—the traitor lurks within! Forsake me not, my God! Thy spirit pour! Oh, make me true to Him whom I adore! With Thee I rise,—the flesh, the world, defy, Thou, who hast died for me, for Thee I die! Yes, I will go! With heaven-born zeal I burn, I will be free,—all Satan's lures I spurn; Death, torture, outrage, these will I embrace, To nerve my heart and arm, ...
— Polyuecte • Pierre Corneille
... moments. Then, as no response came from within, his anger began to soar. "Caramba!" he cried, "but you defy the law?" ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... orators, using his rare powers solely to elucidate and convince, though their inevitable effect is to delight and electrify as well. We present herewith a very full and accurate report of this speech; yet the tones, the gestures, the kindling eye, and the mirth-provoking look defy the reporter's skill. The vast assemblage frequently rang with cheers and shouts of applause, which were prolonged and intensified at the close. No man ever before made such an impression on his first appeal ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... cheerful influences of wholesome air and spaciousness of forest were very healthful comrades for a man, in so far as nature can really influence this wonderful human genus which has in these centuries learned to defy her most violent storms in its well-established houses, to bridle her torrents and make them light its streets, to tunnel her mountains and plow her seas, the inhabitants of St. Faith's will not willingly venture into the forest after dark. ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... nothing of the sort," said Horace, savagely. "Just understand that I don't intend to marry any Princess. You may prevent me—in fact, you have—from marrying this lady, but you can't force me to marry anybody else. I defy you!" ...
— The Brass Bottle • F. Anstey
... sharp-piercing, nor the rushing shower; The verdant arch so close its texture kept: Beneath this covert great Ulysses crept. Of gather'd leaves an ample bed he made (Thick strewn by tempest through the bowery shade); Where three at least might winter's cold defy, Though Boreas raged along the inclement sky. This store with joy the patient hero found, And, sunk amidst them, heap'd the leaves around. As some poor peasant, fated to reside Remote from neighbours in a forest wide, Studious to save what human ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... jealousy. He sees another in possession of his past domain. Something like this must have come into his mind—if I only can get man ruined and turn him against God, if I can make of man a rebel and lay hold on him, I shall get back the place which once was mine and then defy God. ...
— Studies in Prophecy • Arno C. Gaebelein
... undertaker—or anything else you like, except what he really was. A more complete opposite to Superintendent Seegrave than Sergeant Cuff, and a less comforting officer to look at, for a family in distress, I defy you to discover, search where ...
— The Moonstone • Wilkie Collins
... locked the door, and sat down before her glass, and, chin in hands, communed long and earnestly with the image pictured there, gazing deep into its eyes, and thinking unutterable thoughts, which completely defy transcription. ...
— Affairs of State • Burton E. Stevenson
... as implying distrust of his ability to endure pain with the fortitude of a warrior, the lad turned quietly and proudly to his captor, and, with an eye in which scorn and haughtiness were alike glowing, seemed to defy the ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Well said, my noble Scot, if speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have, As not a soldier of this season's stamp Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter; I defy The tongues of soothers; but a braver place In my heart's love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord." In the first five lines of this skimble-skamble stuff I hear Shakespeare speaking in his cheapest way; with the oath, however, he tries to ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... to prevent any injurious consequences from either defective or unproved counts; and we think we may truly state, that no single instance as adduced during the argument, of actual mischief or injury occasioned to defendants by the operation of this rule—we believe we may safely defy any one now to produce such a case. It is certainly possible for an anxious straining ingenuity to imagine such cases; and where is the rule of law, which, in the infirmity of human institutions, cannot be shown capable of occasioning ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various
... she was not giving her whole attention; she was trying to guess, from the sounds behind, whether Mr. Ogilvie were accompanying them. They entered the meadows—Norman turned round, with a laugh, to defy the doctor to talk of the Cam, on the banks of the Isis. The party stood still—the other two gentlemen came up. They amalgamated again—all the Oxonians conspiring to say spiteful things of the Cam, and Dr. May making a spirited defence, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... was still hurrying up the ravine, fired with a new purpose. Ever since the day he had seen the strange, dark man of the Drowned Lands defy the minister, the eldest orphan had regarded the offender with worshiping interest. Among the other peculiarities of the child's queer, twisted nature, was a feeling of comradeship with the wicked and outcast. ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... abode of a nobleman's left-handed wife,—you see, sir," said Adrienne, smiling, "that live in a very profane place—there is here a secret place of concealment, so wonderfully well-contrived, that it can defy all searches. Georgette will conduct you to it. You will be very well accommodated. You will even be able to write some verses for me, ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... it, says Captain Hector: I defy the bold Robber; and I have an hundred Guineas that I ...
— The Merry-Thought: or the Glass-Window and Bog-House Miscellany. Part 1 • Samuel Johnson [AKA Hurlo Thrumbo]
... lyrics of Bjerregaard Johan Storm Munch, S. O. Wolff, etc., which are yet sung at festal gatherings, by the side of Bjoernson's "Yes, we Love our Native Country," and "I will Guard Thee, my Land!" There is the brassy blare of challenging trumpets in the former; they defy all creation, and make a vast deal of impotent and unprofitable noise about "The roaring northern main," "The ancient Norway's rocky fastness," "Liberty's temple in Norroway's valleys," and "Norway's lion, whose axe doth ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen
... should be friendly, I spoke courteously to him, but he looked at me as if I were a dog. He might as well have struck me. I saw that my friends were greatly surprised, but of course I could not explain there, and yet it's not pleasant to be treated like a pickpocket, with no redress. I defy him," continued Hunting, assuming the tone and manner of one greatly wronged, "to prove anything worse against me than that I compelled him and his partners to pay money to which I had a legal right, and which I could have collected in a ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe
... heard, Archibald Craven thought, as it was poured forth in headlong boy fashion. Mystery and Magic and wild creatures, the weird midnight meeting—the coming of the spring—the passion of insulted pride which had dragged the young Rajah to his feet to defy old Ben Weatherstaff to his face. The odd companionship, the play acting, the great secret so carefully kept. The listener laughed until tears came into his eyes and sometimes tears came into his eyes ...
— The Secret Garden • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... Buddir ad Deen, astonished at the sight, said with a pitiful tone, "Pray, good people, why do you serve me so? What is the matter? What have I done?" "Was it not you," said they, "that sold this eunuch the cream-tart?" "Yes," replied he, "I am the man; and who says any thing against it? I defy any one to make a better." Instead of giving him an answer, they continued to break all round them, and the oven itself was ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments Complete • Anonymous
... like a curtain spread, Obscures the clouded brain, And worries on the weary head Descend like soaking rain— Lift up th'umbrella of the heart, Stride manfully along; Defy depression's dreary dart, And shout in ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... and that before long the emperor would have given satisfaction to France by dispersing these bodies of emigres, or that France would declare war against him, and by this declaration draw on herself the hostilities of all her enemies at the same time. France thus would defy them all. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... it should have happened just now," she said, as I wrestled with one of those remarkable feminine knots that, while they seem to defy the utmost efforts of human ingenuity to untie, yet have a singular habit of untying ...
— The Vanishing Man • R. Austin Freeman
... Regiment from Tasmania on December 10th dealt a final blow to the hopes of the insurgents. Even before this event, all the respectable classes in the community had rallied round the Governor, and he felt himself in a position to defy further outbreaks. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... one knew that the Six-Cross-Roads people had done it—even if something had happened to Mr. Harkless. He declared that he spoke in Harkless's name. Nothing could distress him so much as for them to defy the law, to take it out of the proper ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... a prisoner," said Genifrede, mournfully. "But soon, very soon, we can go. Why do you look so? You said there was no fear—that nothing serious could happen—nothing more than disgrace; and, for each other's sake, we can defy disgrace. Can we not, Moyse? Why ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau
... understood those men, he might also have comprehended one important feature of the tangled politics of Mexico, and why ambitious military men were every now and then able to set up for themselves, and defy the central government until it could manage to capture them, and have them shot as rebels. Wiser men than he, looking at the matter from the outside, might also have understood how greatly it was to the credit of President Paredes that he was making so good a stand ...
— Ahead of the Army • W. O. Stoddard
... eyes flashed; she longed to defy the despot, but she thought of her meek, patient, ...
— For Woman's Love • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... If they say they will punish me, they must punish me. But if they say that in peace and mercy they will spare me expulsion, I disdain and cast away their mercy, and I ask if they will come to such a trial and expel me. I defy them. I have constituents to go to, and they will have something to say if this House expels me, nor will it be long before the gentlemen will see me here again." The fight went on for nearly a fortnight, and on February 7 the whole subject was finally laid on the table. The sturdy, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... into the steerage, and gave him as sound a drubbing as he ever received in his life. The fight, or set-to, lasted only a quarter of an hour, and the young supernumerary displayed so much science, and such a thorough use of his fists, as to defy the brutal force of his opponent, who could not touch him, and who was glad to retreat to his berth, followed by the groans and hisses of all the midshipmen, in which ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... sake of Protestants, for they have very strange notions about us. In spite of the testimony of history the other way, they think that the Church has no other method of putting down error than the arm of force, or the prohibition of inquiry. They defy us to set up and carry on a School of Science. For their sake, then, I am led to enlarge upon the subject here. I say, then, he who believes Revelation with that absolute faith which is the prerogative of a Catholic, ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... not more unlike to Jourdain, Joseph Surface is not more unlike to Sir Lucius O'Trigger, than every one of Miss Austen's young divines to all his reverend -brethren. And almost all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 1 • Madame D'Arblay
... situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient Government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations, under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, ...
— Washington's Birthday • Various
... yearning to ask one question. One question only. But she knew the value of her success with this creature whom she could not yet openly defy. ...
— The Heart of Unaga • Ridgwell Cullum
... than just wear a cockade and watch-ribbon. I have got a watch-guard too, you see, for fear of losing my watch. But you won't get my cockade off a bit the sooner for my having no spikes under it. I have a particular way of fastening it on. Only try, any day. I defy you to it." ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... outlast them all, praise God!" replied the Doctor. "As a 'Government of the people, for the people, and by the people shall not perish from the earth,' so shall our flag and staff defy all the Arctic storms that ...
— Doctor Jones' Picnic • S. E. Chapman
... farther than I had intended, when the sun disappeared behind the mountains, and suddenly left me in darkness. I turned to retrace my steps with somewhat uncomfortable feelings, lest a jaguar or puma might be following me. I do not mind mentioning these creatures so often, for I defy any one to wander alone through the South American forests without thinking of their possible vicinity, and the numberless stories he may have heard from the natives of the way in which people have been destroyed by these savage beasts. The puma, it is true, is not so fierce as the ...
— The Young Llanero - A Story of War and Wild Life in Venezuela • W.H.G. Kingston
... I only want you to listen to me about Michael. You agree with me on the impossibility of his adopting a musical career. I cannot, at present, think so ill of Michael as to suppose that he will defy our joint authority." ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... Vengeance who, amidst the warm commendations of the audience, thus assisted the proceedings. The President rang his bell; but, The Vengeance, warming with encouragement, shrieked, "I defy that bell!" wherein ...
— A Tale of Two Cities - A Story of the French Revolution • Charles Dickens
... me stand; And take from me the glove, also the wand. For you have heard, you're chosen by the Franks," "Sire," answers Guenes, "all this is from Rollanz; I'll not love him, so long as I'm a man, Nor Oliver, who goes at his right hand; The dozen peers, for they are of his band, All I defy, as in your sight I stand." Then says the King: "Over intolerant. Now certainly you go when I command." "And go I can; yet have I no warrant Basile had none ...
— The Song of Roland • Anonymous
... clubs, and when I lost my senses for a spell I was revived by chatties of cold water being dashed on my face. But I never spoke a word. The very spirit of Shaitan had entered into my soul; if they were devils, then was I the prince of devils in my resolve to defy them. ...
— Tales of Destiny • Edmund Mitchell
... the case; and that while no man ever did less to free himself than I did, my adversary retained his grasp to the end, and had surely, but for a strange interposition, effected my ruin. How relief came, and from what quarter, I might defy the most ingenious person, after reading my memoirs to this point, to say; and this not so much by reason of any subtle device, as because the hand of Providence was for once ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... it," replied I, "but it would be a waste of time which I have no right to allow myself; not only does it make one idle while it lasts, but the next day also, for I defy a man to read to any purpose the morning after ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... it, and rather resolve the contrary. And Francis I. of France, who first set on and stamped this disgrace so deep, is taxed by the judgment of all wise writers for beginning the vanity of it; for it was he, that when he had himself given the lie and defy to the Emperor, to make it current in the world, said in a solemn assembly, "that he was no honest man that would bear the lie," which was the fountain of this ...
— The World's Best Orations, Vol. 1 (of 10) • Various
... historians who have recorded the deeds of the world's principal actors. A few cases, of which perhaps Ranke is the most conspicuous, may indeed be cited of historical writers whose reputations are built on foundations so solid and so impervious to attack as to defy criticism. But it has more usually happened, as in the case of Macaulay, that eminent historians have passed through various phases of repute. The accuracy of their facts, the justice of their conclusions, their powers of correct generalisation, ...
— Political and Literary essays, 1908-1913 • Evelyn Baring
... argument of a moment before, for all its short-cut logic, had set him utterly against the plan he had himself proposed. And now he was for no man's help, but for a vengeance wreaked with his own gun. Hurling a final defy toward Shanty Town, ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... generous sympathy for the fate of their fellow-Greeks in Asia, had led them to join in the last Ionian war, and now mingling with their abhorrence of the usurping family of their own citizens, which for a period had forcibly seized on and exercised despotic power at Athens, nerved them to defy the wrath of King Darius, and to refuse to receive back at his bidding the tyrant whom they had ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... speedy winning of the Haven; new Dogs to relieve the first runners, who would suffer heart-collapse in the terrific strain of their pace, if kept up many minutes in hot weather; and finally, for Rabbits that by continued dodging defy and jeopardize the Dogs, and yet do not win the Haven, there is kept a ...
— Animal Heroes • Ernest Thompson Seton
... of vital, mutual interaction by conciliatory conference is held to be applicable to international and interracial conflict as it is to that between workers and employer, or between man and wife. But it is not content to stop there. It would defy all fears and bring into the tense process of arriving at this joint decision a kind of patience and a quiet confidence which believes, not that there is no other way, but that there is a 'third-alternative' which will ...
— Introduction to Non-Violence • Theodore Paullin
... not? Don't take it into your head that it is mere boastfulness on my part. I guarantee failure in my case, simply because every renowned European mesmerist has tried his luck with me, without any result; and that is why I defy the whole lot of them to try again, and feel perfectly safe about it. And why a Hindu Raj-Yogi should succeed where the strongest of European mesmerists failed, ...
— From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan • Helena Pretrovna Blavatsky
... onward toward decay, like dying autumn leaves, before the "everlasting storm which no one guides." Is this the inward voice of health and strength? or rather, for evil or for good, that voice which bids the man, the woman, in the mysterious might of the free I within, trample on their own passions, defy their own circumstances, even to the death; fall back, in utter need, on the absolute instinct of self; and even though all seem lost, say with ...
— Westminster Sermons - with a Preface • Charles Kingsley
... Evolution, and challenge him to disprove that, which he can no more do than you can disprove Circumstantial Selection, both forces being conceivably able to produce anything if you only give them rope enough. You may also defy him to act for a single hour on the assumption that he may safely cross Oxford Street in a state of unconsciousness, trusting to his dodging reflexes to react automatically and promptly enough to the visual impression produced ...
— Back to Methuselah • George Bernard Shaw
... or demon that thou darest defy me? Thou shouldst be either or both, to array thyself in opposition against the High Priestess of Nagaya, whose relentless Will hath caused empires to totter and thrones to fall! HIS life a glory to the world? ..." and she pointed to Sah-luma's ...
— Ardath - The Story of a Dead Self • Marie Corelli
... sight No, Jesus, no! My tongue is dumb, Him I defy, Lord tarry not, While here beneath The hour is come! Thy cross ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... on the Enchanted Island," said he, "and there are thousands upon thousands who obey this unknown king. But if you think we dare defy them I am willing to go on. Perhaps our boldness will lead them into torturing me, or starving me to death; and at the very least I ought to find much trouble and privation in the Kingdom ...
— The Enchanted Island of Yew • L. Frank Baum
... like dying. A sight of Philip Schuyler's face sent him sliding into the next ode—Justum et tenacem . . . non voltus instantis tyranni. . . . John a Cleeve would have started had the future opened for an instant and revealed the face of the tyrant Philip Schuyler was soon to defy: and Schuyler would have ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... what the Saracen did not do. Touching some of the good things which we lacked, we were fortunately able to follow him. But in all the good things which he lacked, we were confirmed like adamant to defy him. It may be said that Christians never knew how right they were till they went to war with Moslems. At once the most obvious and the most representative reaction was the reaction which produced the best of what we call Christian Art; and especially those grotesques of Gothic ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... them in the works of Richardson and Fielding. Nay, the French, from whom they were borrowed, did not talk of le sentiment in that sense till long after Louis XIV.'s reign. No such thing is to be found in Madame de Sevigne, la Bruyere, etc., etc., etc. At home or abroad I defy Lord Dundee ever to have met with the expression. Mr. Peter Pattieson had been reading the Man of Feeling, and it was a slip of his tongue, which I am less inclined to excuse than Mause's abstruse Scotch, which I duly reverence, as ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Sir Walter Scott, Volume V (of 10) • John Gibson Lockhart
... woman in the house your affairs, and they have all sympathized with you and pitied you. I shall have to be plain, and tell you that I can't have them sneering and laughing at any one who is my guest. I can't let you defy public opinion here." ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... than dropping down with the tide in a boat, without sails, or oars or other means of propulsion.... Birds not only rise in the air, but they can also propel themselves against the ordinary currents. A study, then, of the conditions that enable a bird thus to defy the ordinary currents of the atmosphere seems to furnish the most likely mode of solving the problem. Whilst a bird flies, whilst I see a mass of matter overcoming, by its structure and a power within it, the natural forces of gravitation and a current of air, I dare not say that ...
— Samuel F. B. Morse, His Letters and Journals - In Two Volumes, Volume II • Samuel F. B. Morse
... which the Ethiopian acted, the police authorities have lately provided, that, in an out-of-the-way room, on a back street, the honest men of New York city may scan the faces of its thieves, and hold silent communion with that interesting part of the population which has agreed to defy the laws and to stand at issue with society. Without disturbing the deep pool of penalogy, or entering at all into the question, as to whether Actisanes was right, or whether the police of New York do not overstep their authority in putting on the walls this terrible bill ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 30, April, 1860 • Various
... torture him to death. His proud spirit rose in fierce rebellion. He would cheat them of their prey. They might take his life but it should be done under the forms of law in open day. He would live. His will would defy death. He would learn to sleep with the tramp of three sets of sentinels in his ears. He would eat their coarse food at whatever cost to his feelings. He would learn to bury his face in his bedding to avoid the rays of the lamp with which they ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... serious difficulty that the leaders of the revolution had to overcome was the unwillingness on the part of the people at large to defy the power of their spiritual chief; which feeling among the upper classes was mainly because disobedience to the Priest Captain was, in effect, heresy; while among the lower classes there was joined to a like horror of heresy a very lively dread of the punishment, both temporal and spiritual, ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... Clay County a committee from Ray County called on them to inquire about their intention, and, when a few miles from Liberty, in Clay County, General Atchison and other Missourians met them and warned them not to defy popular feeling by entering that town. Accepting this advice, they took a circuitous route and camped on Rush Creek, whence Smith on June 25 sent a letter to General Atchison's committee saying that, in the interest ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... come on, Berks!' 'The Royal Berks will lead the attack,' while a humorist shouted from the fort at Gommecourt, 'Run away, English; go away home.' The enemy had indeed good reason to be confident in the strength of these positions, which twice next year were to defy capture after the most elaborate preparation. The turmoil of the last few days was now succeeded by a complete calm in which scarcely a ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... system. But, so long as he isn't here, and I am, why shouldn't I draw up a chair before the fire for you, and another for myself, with the cigarettes and a world between us, to discuss conditions as they are, not as they might be if we were discovered? Shall I? Good! I defy any one's father to get me out of this chair until I am ready ...
— Truxton King - A Story of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... sensibly uglier than Algy (as indeed he has, on several occasions, dispassionately remarked to me); the Brat than me; Bobby than the Brat; and so steadily on, till we reach our nadir of unhandsomeness in Tou Tou. Tou Tou is our climax, and we certainly defy our neighbors ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... vessel has come to Hampton Roads to wood and water. An English officer thinks he recognizes among the {335} American crews men who have deserted from English vessels. Three men defy arrest and show their naturalization papers. High words follow, broken heads and broken canes, and the English crew are glad to escape the mob by rowing out to their ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... decided limits to Christian love!" he said, the laughter still dancing in his eyes. "I defy—I positively defy anyone to love Leveson! 'The columns and capitals are all wrong' are they?" And he gave a glance back at the beautiful little church in its exquisite design and completed perfection."'Out of keeping with early Norman ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... for receiving Richemont cordially, and so was La Hire and the two young Lavals and other chiefs, but the Lieutenant-General, d'Alencon, strenuously and stubbornly opposed it. He said he had absolute orders from the King to deny and defy Richemont, and that if they were overridden he would leave the army. This would have been a heavy disaster, indeed. But Joan set herself the task of persuading him that the salvation of France took precedence ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... who determined to support the government in carrying out its oppressive laws of 1742. These laws had been passed while the committee were searching the church records. The majority of the church, incensed at having their liberty curtailed, proceeded to defy the law by listening to lay exhorters and to itinerants just as they had been in the habit of doing ever since the church had felt the quickening influences of the Great Awakening. This majority declared that it was "regular for this church to admit persons into this church that are in ...
— The Development of Religious Liberty in Connecticut • M. Louise Greene, Ph. D.
... presents; take it in its every part, and look on each one, we will find that it does not exaggerate a single woe. We have seen far greater scenes of wretchedness than those narrated herein; scenes which defy description; for their character has been so horrible that to depict it, a pen mightier than a Bulwer's or a Scott's ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams
... again, tempted to defy all common sense because its dictates were not the same for everybody. But he marched away, back to the cubbyhole in which he had awakened. Angrily, he donned the heat-suit that had not protected him adequately before, but had certainly saved his life. He filled the canteens ...
— Sand Doom • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... persuasive strain Teach erring man to spurn the rage of gain; Teach him, that states of native strength possess'd, Though very poor, may still be very bless'd; 426 That trade's proud empire hastes to swift decay, As ocean sweeps the labour'd mole away; While self-dependent power can time defy, As rocks resist the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Goldsmith • Oliver Goldsmith
... a fascinating thing, Tony's stand. A high wooden structure rising tier on tier, containing papers from every corner of the world. I'll defy you to name a paper that Tony doesn't handle, from Timbuctoo to Tarrytown, from South Bend to South Africa. A paper marked Christiania, Norway, nestles next to a sheet from Kalamazoo, Michigan. You can get the War Cry, or Le Figaro. With one hand, Tony will give ...
— Buttered Side Down • Edna Ferber
... the heath, with withering brake grown o'er, Lends the light turf that warms the neighbouring poor; From thence a length of burning sand appears, Where the thin harvest waves its withered ears; Rank weeds, that every art and care defy, Reign o'er the land, and rob the blighted rye; There thistles stretch their prickly arms afar, And to the ragged infant threaten war; There poppies nodding, mock the hope of toil; There the blue bugloss ...
— Hours in a Library - New Edition, with Additions. Vol. II (of 3) • Leslie Stephen
... in the eyes of the law; but there are times when one is tempted to defy the mandates of a wise legislature. For instance, I have told you more than once before that I have enemies, and everything points to the fact that you are the tool and accomplice of some of them. I have about me one or two faithful people, who would do anything I ask. If I shoot ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... there is a space of two feet, but in that space you will always find four feet and their owners, unless one of them happens to have a wooden leg. Under ordinary circumstances four into two won't go, but the sardine-cars defy the laws of gravitation. ...
— The Silly Syclopedia • Noah Lott
... the old man sallied forth to combat with the elements, less sharp than his daughters' unkindness. For many miles about there was scarce a bush; and there upon a heath, exposed to the fury of the storm in a dark night, did king Lear wander out, and defy the winds and the thunder: and he bid the winds to blow the earth into the sea, or swell the waves of the sea till they drowned the earth, that no token might remain of any such ungrateful animal as man. ...
— Books for Children - The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 3 • Charles and Mary Lamb
... heart, and teach the soul to charm, And when the eyes no more the breast can warm, These ever-blooming beauties shall inspire Each gen'rous heart with friendship's sacred fire; These charms shall neither wither, fade, nor fly; Pain, sickness, time, and death, they dare defy. When the pale tyrant's hand shall seal your doom, And lock your ashes in the silent tomb, These beauties shall in double lustre rise, Shine round the soul, and waft it ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... of the heart, will play The tyrant, force its vassal to obey: 'Twill make thee thine own happiness oppose And offer open violence to those That love thee best; yea make thee to defy The law and counsel of the deity. Beware then, keep this tyrant out of door, Lest thou be his, and so ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... riding-master, yet such I know to be the case. Mr. F.W., the person to whom I allude, had long been accustomed to mount horses of all descriptions, with the full confidence of always being able to keep his seat; but when at Paris he met with a master who could not only defy any horse to throw him, but under all circumstances could always preserve a graceful position, even while baffling every attempt of a horse to floor him. In order to try the capabilities of Mr. W., the French master placed him on all kinds ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... here described fell on the first of April, 1376. Early in May, the Florentines, knowing of her holy fame, sent for her to come to their city and give them counsel. For to defy the Vicar of Christ was a fearsome thing, and many hearts were uneasy ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... long trail of fire he boasting goes, Dancing a war dance to defy his foes. His flesh is scorched, his muscles burn and shrink, But still he dances to ...
— Flint and Feather • E. Pauline Johnson
... (LAMMAS ISLET) where the observations were taken to fix the longitude of Careening Bay. (See above.) The two bays on the opposite, or north-east shore, are shoal, and not fit for any vessel drawing more than six or seven feet; and the shores are so lined with mangroves, as in most parts to defy all attempts at landing. After passing them, the shores approach each other within three-quarters of a mile, but the south-west shore is fronted by a rocky shoal, which narrows it to less than half a mile; here the tide ...
— Narrative of a Survey of the Intertropical and Western Coasts of Australia] [Volume 2 of 2] • Phillip Parker King
... however, my difficulties began to disappear. The embossed books and other apparatus arrived, and I threw myself into the work with renewed confidence. Algebra and geometry were the only studies that continued to defy my efforts to comprehend them. As I have said before, I had no aptitude for mathematics; the different points were not explained to me as fully as I wished. The geometrical diagrams were particularly vexing because I could ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... morning and gave the charge of the flock to the keeper. And he came to the place of Magala and to the army which was going out to fight. And, seeing Goliath, he asked: 'Who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... too," cried Edith, for the first time since her marriage losing control of her temper and answering back. "Everybody says you worried her into the grave. But you won't succeed so well with me. I will live just to defy you, if no more. And I'll show you that ...
— A Budget of Christmas Tales by Charles Dickens and Others • Various
... a gathering of the Clan Kennedy," repeated the older man. "I defy anybody to produce a more successfully predatory family than mine. The fortunes of the present generation of Kennedys don't come from any white-livered subterfuge, like the rise in the value of ...
— The Bent Twig • Dorothy Canfield
... compel admiration. The great maple at Eagles Mere is the king of the bit of primeval forest yet remaining to that mountain rest spot. It towers high over mature hemlocks and beeches, and seems well able to defy ...
— Getting Acquainted with the Trees • J. Horace McFarland
... of the self-same day that saw Mr. Jellicorse set forth upon his return from Scargate Hall, armed with instructions to defy the devil, and to keep his discovery quiet—upon a lovely August morning of the first year of a new century, Mary Anerley, blithe and gay, came riding down the grassy hollow of this ancient Dane's ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... Nature,—and though the fact we have stated be a startling one, the statements and authorities which go to support it will, perhaps, in the end, surprise us still more. We shall give them, at any rate, in such a form as "to challenge investigation and to defy scrutiny." How far they will bear out our sensational opening paragraph, then, the readers of the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... fled from the Eastern States, as fraudulent bankrupts, swindlers or committers of other crimes, which have subjected them to the penitentiaries, miscreants, defying the climate, so that they can defy the laws. Still this representation of the character of the people, inhabiting these States, must from the chaotic state of society in America be received with many exceptions. In the city of New Orleans, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... coloured with annoyance and set her lips firmly. "How dare you defy me in that way, Elizabeth!" she cried. "I have told you to wear those stockings, and you are to wear them. Remember, I mean what I say. I wonder your father has not insisted long before this on your wearing flannel next your skin. Don't you know that ...
— Kitty Trenire • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... bitter beyond expression. When the enterprise was on the point of failure, and while he was still chafing at the conduct of his treacherous subordinates, he wrote to Mr. Hunt, the most faithful of all his agents: "Were I on the spot, and, had the management of affairs, I would defy them all; but as it is, every thing depends on you and your friends about you. Our enterprise is grand, and deserves success, and I hope in God it will meet it. If my object was merely gain of money, I should say, think whether it is best to save what we can, and abandon the ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... sneer, I like the blue no better than the black, My faith consists alone in savoury cheer, In roasted capons, and in potent sack; But above all, in famous gin and clear, Which often lays the Briton on his back; With lump of sugar, and with lymph from well, I drink it, and defy the fiends of hell.' ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... bullets could not injure him; and he had had proof of this, for once a ball had broken the bone of his leg, crippling him, but without breaking the skin or drawing blood. In this confidence, he came out with his men to defy us, but Captain Zubire at once leveled his musket at him, and sent two balls through his forehead; this was the only portion of his body uncovered, the rest of it being protected by an English shield. The wretched man ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... themselves they are an extraordinarily talkative company. They chatter at the traghetti, where they always have some sharp point under discussion; they bawl across the canals; they bespeak your commands as you approach; they defy each other from afar. If you happen to have a traghetto under your window, you are well aware that they are a vocal race. I should go even further than I went just now, and say that the voice of the gondolier is in ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... into the Family of the Rakehellorums for this, Sir: Let my Father drink old Adam, read the Pilgrim's Progress, The Country Justice's Calling, or for a Regale, drink the dull Manufacture of Malt and Water; I defy him; he can't cut off the Entail of what is settled on me: and for the rest, I'l trust Dame Fortune; and pray to the Three Fatal Sisters to cut his rotten Thred in two, before he thinks of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... exclaimed sharply. "Why, sir, you seem to suppose that you may defy rules with impunity! How often have I told you that no one is allowed to sit here, except ...
— Eric • Frederic William Farrar
... But it's still more horrible to defy all warnings; it's still more horrible to be landed in—" Without saying in what I disgustedly shrugged ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... hurt me," he thought; "after this I can defy every evil power to do me harm!" And he stood in his old attitude with his elbow leaning on the mantelpiece, while he answered Gwen's ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine
... important enquiry which this subject presents is the question whether it is more for the interest of the working classes, that improved machinery should be so perfect as to defy the competition of hand labour; and that they should thus be at once driven out of the trade by it; or be gradually forced to quit it by the slow and successive advances of the machine? The suffering which arises ...
— On the Economy of Machinery and Manufactures • Charles Babbage
... like a criminal mutilation, or a hereditary disproportion in the features. I know it is worse than that; because a man told me who was present at a scene that no man could invent, where a stronger man than any of us tried to defy the secret, and was scared away ...
— The Wisdom of Father Brown • G. K. Chesterton
... acquaintance with the principles and details of government and law, or a law-abiding and law-supporting spirit? What reasons have you for your opinion? Where is your sympathy in times of disorder, with, those who defy the law or with those who seek to enforce it? (Suppose a case in which you do not approve ...
— Civil Government in the United States Considered with - Some Reference to Its Origins • John Fiske
... plenty of pluck, I know,' Barton replied, with a smile, 'but they cannot defy nature with impunity. You are completely fagged out, and if you don't turn in at once I shall have two patients to-morrow instead ...
— Chatterbox, 1905. • Various
... supper, and after a little reading to bed. My wife still troubled with her cold. I find it everywhere now to be a thing doubted whether we shall have peace or no, and the captain of one of our ships that went with the Embassadors do say, that the seamen of Holland to his hearing did defy us, and called us English dogs, and cried out against peace, and that the great people there do oppose peace, though he says the ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... north-westward, steering for Cape Oxia and the wide channel between Ithaca and the mainland. Santa Cruz and Doria pursued for a while, but a wind sprang up from the south-east, and the fugitives set their long lateen sails. Under sail and oar a corsair could generally defy pursuit. ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... restore the dead to life. At last Aides complained to Zeus that the number of shades conducted to his dominions was daily decreasing, and the great ruler of Olympus, fearing that mankind, thus protected against sickness and death, would be able to defy the gods themselves, killed Asclepius with one of his thunderbolts. The loss of his highly gifted son so exasperated Apollo that, being unable to vent his anger on Zeus, he destroyed the Cyclops, who had forged the fatal thunderbolts. ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens
... situation not more than one minute, yet it seemed to him to be an hour of torture, so intense was the agony experienced; and yet it was beyond a doubt his salvation in the end, for he had by chance struck one of those violent undertows that prevail in all these fresh water inland seas, which defy all philosophical calculation, and which bore him with the speed of an arrow for two hundred rods far away from the spot where he had a second time sunk below the surface, until, as he once more rose to the surface, he found himself so far away from the boat that he could not possibly ...
— The Circassian Slave; or, The Sultan's Favorite - A Story of Constantinople and the Caucasus • Lieutenant Maturin Murray
... intended to go. I congratulated myself on the fact that all trace of evidence against me was destroyed and that her grip was now broken. My plan was to induce her to sail, believing that I would follow. When she was gone I would marry Miss St. Clair, and if Nina San Croix should return I would defy her and lock her up as a lunatic. But I was reckoning like an infernal ass, to imagine for a moment that I could thus hoodwink such a woman as ...
— Stories by Modern American Authors • Julian Hawthorne
... stringent laws against the dissemination of "weeds." Inasmuch as each black-eyed Susan puts into daily operation the business methods of the white daisy (q.v.), methods which have become a sort of creed for the entire composite horde to live by, it is plain that she may defy both farmers and legislators. Bees, wasps, flies, butterflies, and beetles could not be kept away from an entertainer so generous; for while the nectar in the deep, tubular brown florets may be drained only by long, slender tongues, pollen is accessible to ...
— Wild Flowers, An Aid to Knowledge of Our Wild Flowers and - Their Insect Visitors - - Title: Nature's Garden • Neltje Blanchan
... the pillars that defy The volleyed thunders of the sky; Sweet are the summer wreaths that twine With bud ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... old man was saying, "there's not every one in the world will do your bidding, though you may think so. You can defy the old one and talk over the young one to go your way, but there's one man will not sail on any ship of yours and that's Ben Barton. I'll starve ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... over him and a holy peace, a feeling of unspeakable love. He felt himself a part of God, and remained in this relation to Him from that time throughout his whole life. He heeded no longer the roundabout ways of the ancient Church; he could, with God in his heart, defy the whole world. Even thus early he ventured to believe that those held false doctrine who put so much stress on works of penance, that there was nothing beyond these works but a cold satisfaction and a ceremonious confession; and when, later, he learned from Melanchthon that the Greek word ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... curtain spread, Obscures the clouded brain, And worries on the weary head Descend like soaking rain— Lift up th'umbrella of the heart, Stride manfully along; Defy depression's dreary dart, And shout in ...
— The Giant of the North - Pokings Round the Pole • R.M. Ballantyne
... room to dress. He was still very angry, but his anger was less poignant than his sense of helpless defeat. Brigit's attitude was absolutely incomprehensible to him, and hurt him in an almost unbearable degree. That she should defy him, grow as angry as he himself, he had already learned was not impossible; but the cruel hardness of her face as she had sent him away had shocked him more than anything in his ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... run to and fro in the streets, and talk about the corners, and prognosticate with passion, and defy, in the way of cowardice, where safety rather than the truth is well assured. If one woman could console another, Jacqueline wished that she might console Leclerc's mother. And if any words of wisdom could drop from the poor old woman's lips while her soul was in ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 6, No. 34, August, 1860 • Various
... side of the line from the sheriff. This escape led some of the Bloods to think they could get ahead of the Police. In fact one of the chiefs, "Calf Shirt," brought in liquor from Montana and said he would defy the Police, while another Indian, "Good Rider," tried cattle-killing on the Cochrane Ranch. But the Police took a hand at this point. Superintendent Neale wired Superintendent MacDonnell for a detachment of officers ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... Law's hotel and to tear him in pieces. Nothing that could have happened would have produced a greater clamor; but in times like those it was not only necessary not to fear these clamors: it was even a duty to defy them. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... certain that the curl of the lip is responsible for my being here; it kept sending me constant telegrams; but what I want to know is, do I come for the pleasure of the thing or for the pain? Do I like your disdain, Alice, or does it make me writhe? Am I here to beg you to do it again, or to defy it?" ...
— Tommy and Grizel • J.M. Barrie
... pleased to hint,) to swear away my life, that is, the life of your creditor, because he asks you for a debt.—The publick shall soon be acquainted with this, to judge whether you are not fitter to be an Irish Evidence, than to be an Irish Peer.—I defy and despise you. ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 1 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... my conduct should be misinterpreted; but I defy a heart like yours to think ill of mine. Others would perhaps speak better of me if I resembled them more. God preserve me from gaining their approbation! Let the vile and wicked watch over my conduct and misinterpret my actions, Rousseau ...
— The Confessions of J. J. Rousseau, Complete • Jean Jacques Rousseau
... and messages from spirits, are always seeming to exist and can never be fully explained away, they also can never be susceptible of full corroboration.... It is hard to believe, however, that the Creator has really put any big array of phenomena into the world merely to defy and mock our scientific tendencies; so my deeper belief is that we psychical researchers have been too precipitate in our hopes, and that we must expect to mark progress not by quarter-centuries, but by half-centuries ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... Dick. "I can defy the whole world if I choose. There is a certain portion of a man, you know, that can't be beat if he plays fair, however hard he's hammered. It's the rule ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... outfit. This is usually of the United States Army type, solidly built and hauled by four mules. The cook of the outfit is the driver. He has a helper, a tenderfoot, or a boy learning the trade. In the field only the bravest dares defy the cook. His word on the camp is law. All the men are subject to his call. In the wagon are carried a tent, the men's bedding, sleeping-bags, and stores consisting of pork, navy beans, flour, potatoes, canned tomatoes, and canned peaches. ...
— The Round-up - A Romance of Arizona novelized from Edmund Day's melodrama • John Murray and Marion Mills Miller
... being absolutely incapable of reasoning, or of listening to reason upon certain subjects; provided they are resolute in repeating their own train of thoughts without comparing them with that of others, they may defy the malice of wisdom, and in happy ignorance ...
— Practical Education, Volume II • Maria Edgeworth
... "I defy your Eminence to prove it," cried Treville, with his Gascon freedom and military frankness; "for one hour before, Monsieur Athos, who, I will confide it to your Majesty, is really a man of the highest quality, did me the honor after ...
— The Three Musketeers • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... her head and her consort's they'd equally dance. They care not for Caroline, nor king, nor for queen, A pretext they want their intentions to screen, 'The Queen!' is the Radicals' rallying cry; A queen bears the standard the king to defy." ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... present embarrassing situation as related to this subject we will be wise if we temper our confidence and faith in our national strength and resources with the frank concession that even these will not permit us to defy with impunity the inexorable laws of finance and trade. At the same time, in our efforts to adjust differences of opinion we should be free from intolerance or passion, and our judgments should be unmoved by alluring phrases and unvexed ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... mid-Septem- ber, for the charming little city of Tours, from which point it seemed possible to make a variety of fruitful excursions. His excursions resolved themselves ulti- mately into a journey through several provinces, - a journey which had its dull moments (as one may defy any journey not to have), but which enabled him to feel that his proposition was demonstrated. France may be Paris, but Paris is not France; that was perfectly evident on the return to ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... castle without a garrison, and took possession of it, thereby declaring himself a rebel. Orders have in consequence been given to strike off his head. Although his strong fortress enables him to defy these orders, his dread of being surprised induces him to try every means in his power to obtain his pardon from the Porte, and he has even sent considerable sums of money to Constantinople. [Damascus. ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... my eyes this morning on Leonora, from which I defy the greatest chemist in morals to extract any instruction; the style most affectedly florid, and naturally insipid, with such a confused heap of admirable characters, that never were, or can be, in human nature. I flung it aside ...
— Lady Mary Wortley Montague - Her Life and Letters (1689-1762) • Lewis Melville
... ordinary British soldier, I must repeat what I have already said—that he is a courageous, willing and faithful warrior, and that it is to his fidelity and patriotism that the British Army may attribute its success. I believe this to be a truism which will defy even criticism. ...
— My Reminiscences of the Anglo-Boer War • Ben Viljoen
... a sombre chapel. This was St. Peter's Sanctuary, dedicated to the Holy Innocents, and to it any hunted criminal had the right of entry. Apparently, his pursuers might besiege him without danger of sacrilege, but at any rate he could defy them in tolerable security within those massive walls. There do not seem to be many records of the occasions on which it was used; we do not hear of the quick step and panting breath of the fugitive as he neared that doorway, nor ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... nearly finished their work; the grave was filled up, and they were carefully replacing the turf. This done, they scattered dry leaves over the place. "And now," said the leader, "I defy the devil himself to ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... herself generally useful. By this time the children regarded her affectionately as "Aunt Thusan," and they knew they must obey her, for she was a stern disciplinarian whom even the mischievous Stanton boys dared not defy. ...
— Susan B. Anthony - Rebel, Crusader, Humanitarian • Alma Lutz
... they now occupy a higher position in the eyes of the world. Friend Bright was with me to-day, and said he would not for the world have missed seeing the embarkation at Kingston, for he had felt just the same enthusiasm as the rest of the crowd. "Indeed," he added, "I'll defy any man to have felt otherwise when he saw the Queen come upon the platform and bow to the people in a manner that showed her heart was with them." He didn't disguise either that the Monarchical principle had made great way with him since Friday. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... in prose along with others, and was employed by Pope, whom he excelled as a Greek scholar, in translating the Odyssey, of which he Englished the 8th, 11th, 12th, 16th, 18th, and 23rd books, catching the style of his master so exactly as almost to defy identification, and thus annoying him so as to earn a niche in The Dunciad. He pub. verses of his own of very ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... he had seen her, gracious, high-bred, apparently brilliantly well; and it appeared monstrously impossible that death should be near her. She had seemed a woman who would defy death, and live on simply by her own ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... want of decorum, the master of the shop turned to his wife, (a very pretty woman, and dressed even to a plumed head)—shew Monsieur the little miniature, said he; she then opened a drawer and took out a book, (I think it was her mass-book) and brought me a picture, so indecent, that I defy the most debauched imagination to conceive any thing more so; yet she gave it me with a seeming decent face, and only observed that it was bien fait. After examining it with more attention than I should, had I received it from the hands of her husband, I returned ...
— A Year's Journey through France and Part of Spain, 1777 - Volume 1 (of 2) • Philip Thicknesse
... draw,—in other words, that we detach things from their surroundings and put them in their due relief. The proper distribution of light can alone reveal the whole body. For this reason I do not sharply define lineaments; I diffuse about their outline a haze of warm, light half-tints, so that I defy any one to place a finger on the exact spot where the parts join the groundwork of the picture. If seen near by this sort of work has a woolly effect, and is wanting in nicety and precision; but go a few steps off and the parts ...
— The Hidden Masterpiece • Honore de Balzac
... of the effect it would have in abridging the authority and dignity of justice, of weakening the respect which constitutes her power. Such a mistake would call for discussion, provoke examination, and awaken distrust, at an epoch in our history when all minds are but too much disposed to defy the constituted authorities." ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... us up," spoke the inventor. "It would defy even their powerful sucking apparatus to bore through the steel sides of the Porpoise. What I am afraid of is that they may move us to some hidden depth where we will be caught under the rocks ...
— Under the Ocean to the South Pole - The Strange Cruise of the Submarine Wonder • Roy Rockwood
... sight, you miserable, sordid scoundrels,—out of my sight! What? You defy me, do you? This is mutiny! Take that! ...
— The Voyage of the Hoppergrass • Edmund Lester Pearson
... not suffice for its end, which was to overset the Liberal predominance; but it very nearly sufficed. Unconditionally entitled to dismiss the Ministers, the Sovereign can, of course, choose his own opportunity. He may defy the Parliament, if he can count upon the people. William IV, in the year 1834, had neither Parliament nor people with him. His act was within the limits of the Constitution, for it was covered by the responsibility of the ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... parables, so clear in meaning, she never explained. She was too high-minded to say a word about them. She had doomed herself to very damnation. Some will say that in her pride she deemed herself so deadened and impassive as to defy the impurity with which the Demon troubled a man of God. But it is quite clear that she had no accurate knowledge of sensual things, foreseeing nought in such a mystery save pains and torments of the Devil. Girard was very cold, and quite ...
— La Sorciere: The Witch of the Middle Ages • Jules Michelet
... pessimism which was the motive power of the Euler family, as it is that of all respectable persons, and made their life a foretaste of purgatory. That a woman who did nothing but dawdle about all the blessed day should take upon herself to defy them with her calm insolence, while they bore their suffering in silence like galley-slaves,—and that people should approve of her into the bargain—that was beyond the limit, that was enough to turn you against respectability!... Fortunately, thank God, there were still ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... whose eyes are on the crown of its head; the Italians call him pesce-prete, or priest-fish. Also, a sail of very light duck, over which un-nameable sails have been set, which defy classification. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... State Rights, the same question that Hayne and Webster debated in Eighteen Hundred Thirty, and Grover Cleveland and John P. Altgeld fought over in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-four. The Elector Frederick prepared for a legal battle, and would defy the "Federal Arm" by force if worse ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... LEARNER.—The attitude of the typical learner must frequently be one of hesitancy and self-distrust if not of fear, though conditions were so varied as almost to defy classification. One type of apprentice was expected to learn merely by observation and imitation. Another was practically the chore boy of the worker who was assigned to teach him. A third was under no direct supervision at all, but was expected to "keep busy," finding ...
— The Psychology of Management - The Function of the Mind in Determining, Teaching and - Installing Methods of Least Waste • L. M. Gilbreth
... that chap. But th' cheerman saw her comin, an' managed to stop it, but it wor noa easy job to quieten her. "A'a, tha lyin gooid-for- nowt!" shoo sed, "has ta come here slanderin daycent wimmin? Aw defy awther onybody i' this world or onybody i'th' tother to say owt agean my karractur! Yor a lot o' himposters, ivery one on yo, that's what yo are! Come on, Jim," shoo sed to her husband, as shoo seized hold ov his arm, "let us goa, its nooan a ...
— Yorksher Puddin' - A Collection of the Most Popular Dialect Stories from the - Pen of John Hartley • John Hartley
... said the teacher, now losing his temper. "What! you will not ask Monsieur the Count's pardon, as a rebel should? Then will we tame your spirit. Is a little arrogant Corsican to defy all France, and Brienne school besides? Go, sir! We will devise some fine punishment for you, that shall well ...
— The Boy Life of Napoleon - Afterwards Emperor Of The French • Eugenie Foa
... social laws, which could but remind Ida of her own entanglement. She had bound herself by a chain that could never be broken, and here she read of how all noblest and grandest impulses are above the law, and refuse to be so bound; and how, in such cases, it is noble to defy and trample upon the law. A kind of heroic lawlessness, spiritualized and diffused in a cloud of exquisite poetry, was what she found in her Shelley; and it comforted her to know that before her time there had been lofty souls caught in the web ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... while the management of the post-office itself, in all its departments, is simplified to the highest degree, by the use of adhesive postage-stamps. The stamp is a small oblong piece of paper, with a device upon it, (Queen's head) so skilfully engraved and printed as almost to defy counterfeiting, against which indeed the small value of each one, the danger of speedy detection, and the high penalty for counterfeiting a royal signet, are equally effective safeguards. The stamp is coated on the back with ...
— Cheap Postage • Joshua Leavitt
... because owing to her economic dependence on Britain and the United States she could not indulge in the luxury of nonconformity. Hence the plenipotentiaries, and in particular Mr. Wilson, asserted their will inexorably and were painfully surprised that one of the lesser states had the audacity to defy it. ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... do nothing. Cecil Rhodes had had the natural wealth of Rhodesia at his back. McKeith had set himself the task of opening up the fine country out West, which he knew only needed a system of irrigation by Artesian Bores to defy drought, the squatters curse. That object once accomplished—he gave himself with luck and good seasons five or six years—there would be nothing to stop his becoming a patriot and ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... is nothing against me. I defy your impudence. Nay, I thank you, I thank you. You lead me gracefully to the end ...
— The Highwayman • H.C. Bailey
... dreamed, beyond all breadth of man, and stronger than men may know; strength in its very essence dwelt in that little frame, as a spark in the heart of a flint: but to Plash-Goo he was no more than mis-shapen, bearded and squat, a thing that dared to defy all natural laws by being more broad ...
— Tales of Wonder • Lord Dunsany
... for the happiness of your whole life, I charge you—I implore you not to read it!" cried Olive, springing forward, and catching her arm. But Christal thrust her back with violence. "'Tis something you wish to hide from me; but I defy you! I ...
— Olive - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik, (AKA Dinah Maria Mulock)
... showed him it was useless to expect mercy from them. All hope seemed gone. Wiles, apparently wishing more to show a brave front to man than a humble and contrite spirit to God, simply said: "I've nuthin' to say to de likes uv you'uns; only I defy ye to ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... may not live to see it at its fullest, but I defy the world to produce today a finer or more honorable gentleman, a more useful member of the community. And it will last. The time may come when Judson Clark will again be Judson Clark. I have expected it for many years. But he will never again be the Judson Clark of ten years ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... Vapours, or with Fright and Terror of Mind; but he saw the Devil, that's certain, and with Eyes open, his Courage not at all daunted, his Mind resolute, and with the utmost Composure spoke to him, reply'd to his Answer, and defy'd his Summons to Death, which indeed he ...
— The History of the Devil - As Well Ancient as Modern: In Two Parts • Daniel Defoe
... German Navy the sinking of the Lusitania means an extraordinary success. Its destruction demolished the last fable with which the people of England consoled themselves; on which hostile shipping relied when it dared to defy ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... "Girl, I defy thee and all the world. Ready, I say, like a foaming charger, to devour the space between this and Rotterdam, and strong to combat the ills of life, even poverty and old age, which last philosophers have called the summum malum. Negatur; unless the man's life has been ill-spent—which, ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... settlement proved a failure, the ore which the ships brought back turned out to be worthless, and England was saved from that greed of gold which was to be fatal to the energies of Spain. But, failure as it was, Frobisher's venture had shown the readiness of Englishmen to defy the claims of Spain to the exclusive possession of America or the American seas. They were already defying these claims in a yet more galling way. The seamen of the southern and south-western coasts had long been carrying on a half-piratical ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... Religion! Alas, my Lord, he deserves not the Name of a Patriot, who does not for the publick Good, defy all ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... little service against this formidable creature, owing to its cunning and the rapidity with which it manoeuvres, while its bristly hide is stout enough to defy the ordinary shotgun. It is proposed to detail certain anti-aircraft batteries to deal with high-flying swarms, while a young friend of my own, who was with a special company of the R.E. in France, is prepared to design a haversack projector ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 156, June 11, 1919 • Various
... following spring I noticed a pair of flickers about the stack showing signs of wanting to make it a fixed habitation. One morning a few days later I was amused at the efforts of one of the pair. It was clinging to the perpendicular end of the stack and throwing out clipped hay at a rate to defy competition. This work continued for a week, and in that time the pair had excavated a cavity twenty inches in depth. They remained in the vicinity until autumn. During the winter the remainder of the stack was removed. They returned the following spring, and, after ...
— Birds Illustrated by Color Photograph [March 1897] - A Monthly Serial designed to Promote Knowledge of Bird-Life • Various
... ambitious of being elected knight of the shire. When it was first proposed, the aunt forwarded the project: for there was no probability that any other candidate so powerful should start. The joint interest of the Earl and the Mowbrays would defy opposition. ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft
... note of this: If you question Jesus in the effort to trip Him, you throw yourself down; but if you question Jesus in order to know and do His will, you may confidently stand upon your feet and defy anything that threatens your peace, your happiness, or ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... Prize-fighters; both groups are wonderful portrayals of animal strength and manly courage. The mosaics and frescoes are very beautiful; and there are some wonderfully preserved Egyptian mummies, which, in their double casings or coffins, after two thousand years, still defy the ravages of time, the teeth and nails in many cases being quite perfect. The Pompeiian collection was especially interesting to us, perhaps because, although so ancient, their discovery has been of such comparatively ...
— Fair Italy, the Riviera and Monte Carlo • W. Cope Devereux
... of double-entendres, the meaning of most of which is obvious, but others are so obscure and farfetched as to defy explanation. ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume III • Anonymous
... away. Many went out of their minds. The quacks no longer drove a flourishing trade in their pretended nostrums; these were now utterly discredited, for nothing seemed of the slightest avail. Some went to the opposite extreme, and affected to defy fate. The taverns were filled again, and boisterous shouts and songs seemed to mock the dismal cries from the houses with the red cross on the door. Robberies were rife. Regardless of the danger of the pest, robbers broke into the houses where all the inmates had perished by the ...
— When London Burned • G. A. Henty
... depot or station presented a curious appearance, such crowds of men loafing about with apparently no other object but to watch the new arrivals; so different to English stations where everyone seems in a hurry either coming or going. And then the roads we had to drive along defy description. The inches (no other word) of mud, and the holes which nearly capsize one at every turn. Even down Main Street the roads are not stoned or paved in any way. We bumped a good deal in our carriage, and for consolation at any worse bumping than ...
— A Lady's Life on a Farm in Manitoba • Mrs. Cecil Hall
... may dictate? Have you come to join yourself to those miserable spectres who go shrinking through the world, afraid of their own past, and anxious to hide it from those they hold dear; or do you propose to defy the world, to help form within it the community of outcasts with whom shame is not shame, nor dishonor, dishonor? How will you like the society of those uncertain men, ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... personal or official integrity; and this as the time is approaching when I shall voluntarily retire from the service of my country. I feel proudly conscious that there is no public act of my life which will not bear the strictest scrutiny. I defy all investigation. Nothing but the basest perjury can sully my good name. I do not fear even this, because I cherish an humble confidence that the gracious Being who has hitherto defended and protected ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... consequently met with no favor. The meeting, accordingly, found immediate relief for its feelings in the usual American way, by passing a series of resolutions. The vigor of these was out of all proportion to the sense. The disposition to defy Cooper shot, in some instances, indeed, beyond its proper mark, and extended even to the rules of grammar. After reciting in a preamble the facts as they understood them, the citizens present went on to express their determination ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... when in practise we see might play the hypocrite in not only perverting right but even in using it as a tool in order to gain control. For the very reason that I love Spain, I'm speaking now, and I defy your frown! ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... of the stack. Here, the heavy embers and cinders are collected and prevented from directly discharging into the countryside as dangerous firebrands. Wire netting is stretched overtop of the deflecting cone to catch the lighter, more volatile embers which may defy the action of the cone. The term "bonnet stack" results from the fact that this netting is similar in shape to a lady's bonnet. The cinders thus accumulated in the stack's hopper could be emptied by opening a plug at the base of ...
— The 'Pioneer': Light Passenger Locomotive of 1851 • John H. White
... to; peace, peace; we must deal gently with him: let me alone. How do you, Malvolio? how is 't with you? What, man! defy the devil; consider, he 's ...
— Twelfth Night; or, What You Will • William Shakespeare [Hudson edition]
... man and a hero with all the country folk, so that when any one was in danger or difficulty, it was to Tom Hickathrift he must turn. It chanced that about this time many idle and rebellious persons drew themselves together in and about the Isle of Ely, and set themselves to defy the king ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... not be like hogs Hunted and penned in an inglorious spot, While round us bark the mad and hungry dogs, Making their mock at our accursed lot. If we must die, let it not be like hogs So that our precious blood may not be shed In vain; then even the monsters we defy Shall be constrained to honor us, though dead! Oh, kinsman! We must meet the common foe; Though far outnumbered, let us still be brave, And for their thousand blows deal one deathblow! What though before us lies the open grave? Like men we'll face the murderous, cowardly pack Pressed ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... village of Hastings, on the Hudson River. Here he awaited events, hoping for employment; but it is one of the cruel circumstances attending civil strife that confidence is shaken, and the suspicions that arise, however unjust, defy reason and constrain the Government to defer to them. No man could have given stronger proof than Farragut had of his perfect loyalty; but all shades of opinion were known to exist among officers of Southern origin, even when they remained in the service, and there ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... eyes of smiling challenge standing before me in modern dress. I have seen her in a hundred varieties of that costume since then, and have grown familiar with the exhaustless diversity of its adaptations, but I defy the imagination of the greatest artist to devise a scheme of color and fabric that would again produce upon me the effect of enchanting surprise which I received from that quite ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... him a curious look. "Your nerve's pretty good, but do you want to defy your enemies and show them you ...
— Brandon of the Engineers • Harold Bindloss
... still thrilling, "it is like old times to hear you try to bully me. It's so long since I've had enough spirit to defy you. But I do now!—oh, yes, I do! Why, I believe that if we had the gloves here, I'd make you fight me or take back what you said about my not ...
— The Danger Mark • Robert W. Chambers
... evidence against him!" I cried, scarce believing that he would dare to defy me and ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... come across all these different kinds of nests, because, in order to do so, that person would have to traverse India from Peshawar to Tinnevelly and from Quetta to Tenasserim. Nevertheless, the man who remains in one station, if he choose to put forth a little energy and defy the sun, may reasonably expect to find the nests of more than fifty kinds of birds. Whether he be energetic or the reverse he cannot fail to hear a great many avian sounds both by day and by night. In May the birds are more vociferous than at any other time of ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... wiping away the perspiration which streamed from his face, "if they do not track us through the bushes to the very foot of this tree, I defy them to ...
— For Name and Fame - Or Through Afghan Passes • G. A. Henty
... the bearer of something like a defiance; the people wish you to know that they hold your right cheaply, and that they laugh at it. Not to mince matters, they defy you." ...
— Home as Found • James Fenimore Cooper
... the buildings, she was not giving her whole attention; she was trying to guess, from the sounds behind, whether Mr. Ogilvie were accompanying them. They entered the meadows—Norman turned round, with a laugh, to defy the doctor to talk of the Cam, on the banks of the Isis. The party stood still—the other two gentlemen came up. They amalgamated again—all the Oxonians conspiring to say spiteful things of the Cam, and Dr. May making a spirited defence, ...
— The Daisy Chain, or Aspirations • Charlotte Yonge
... do next?" he said. "He would oppose the Lord of the heavens from thundering and lightning—he would defy Providence and Omnipotent Power. Why, the next thing he may deny the authority of King George himself, who is divinely appointed. He is a dangerous man, the most dangerous man ...
— True to His Home - A Tale of the Boyhood of Franklin • Hezekiah Butterworth
... Mediterranean, at least taken as a whole. Even there however—in the north and west of Spain, in the valleys of the Ligurian Apennines and the Alps, and in the mountains of Macedonia and Thrace—tribes wholly or partially free continued to defy the lax Roman government. Moreover the continental communication between Spain and Italy as well as between Italy and Macedonia was very superficially provided for, and the countries beyond the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Balkan chain—the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... ideas to-day—his conceptions are on a far grander scale. He only asks for a fraction of an acre in order to produce sufficient vegetables for a family; and to feed twenty-five horned beasts he needs no more space than he formerly required to feed one; his aim is to make his own soil, to defy seasons and climate, to warm both air and earth around the young plant; to produce, in a word, on one acre what he used to gather from fifty acres, and that without any excessive fatigue—by greatly reducing, on the contrary, the total of former labour. ...
— The Conquest of Bread • Peter Kropotkin
... Do you believe that I would defy the universe in your service? Do you believe me? If not, ...
— Victor's Triumph - Sequel to A Beautiful Fiend • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... rumored that the Turks look upon Germany as their most powerful friend, and are willing to defy Russia or any other nation so long as Germany shows a ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 58, December 16, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... yet wanted none; For nature did that want supply: So rich in treasures of her own, She might our boasted stores defy: Such noble vigour did her verse adorn, That it seem'd borrow'd where 'twas only born. Her morals too were in her bosom bred. By great examples daily fed, What in the best of books, her father's life, she read: And to be read herself she need not fear; Each test, and every light, ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol II - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... find himself in love with her, and was conscious of excellent judgment in preferring her to Miss Leyburn, the daughter of the county member, although Lucy was only the daughter of his father's subordinate partner; besides, he had had to defy and overcome a slight unwillingness and disappointment in his father and sisters,—a circumstance which gives a young man an agreeable consciousness of his own dignity. Stephen was aware that he had sense and independence enough to choose the wife who was likely to make him happy, unbiassed ...
— The Mill on the Floss • George Eliot
... is prettier by night than by day," said Bearwarden. "I suggest that we investigate this further." "How?" asked Cortlandt. "By destroying its life," replied Bearwarden. "Give it one barrel from your gun, doctor, and see if it can then defy gravitation." Accordingly Cortlandt took careful aim at the object, about twenty-yards away, and fired. The main portion of the jellyfish, with the snake still in its embrace, sailed away, but many pounds of jelly fell to ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds • J. J. Astor
... other bears—blacks and grizzlies—on the wider and sunnier slopes of his range just so long as they moved on when he approached. They might seek food there, and nap in the sun-pools, and live in quiet and peace if they did not defy his suzerainty. ...
— The Grizzly King • James Oliver Curwood
... the Philistine said, I defy the armies of Israel this day; give me a man, that we may ...
— Holiday Stories for Young People • Various
... eastern metallic regions, and its mineral development progressed naturally with the advantage of homemaking settlements, the power of common-law precedent would have governed its whole mining history. But California was one of these extraordinary historic exceptions that defy precedent and create original modes of life and law. And since the developers of the great precious metal mining of the Far West have, for the most part, swarmed out of the California hive, California ideas have not only been everywhere dominant over the field of the ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
... purpose of perplexing my already harassed and agitated mind. In this letter I was told, amongst other matter which I need not repeat, to prepare to quit Spain. But by the shaft I knew the quiver from which it came, and, merely exclaiming, 'Satan, I defy thee,' I hurried to Sagra, and disposed of amongst the peasantry in one fortnight four hundred copies of the New Testament. But it is hard to wrestle with the great Enemy; another shaft arrived in the shape of a letter, which compelled me ...
— Letters of George Borrow - to the British and Foreign Bible Society • George Borrow
... obedience; the obedience of free hearts and wills. The law could threaten to slay them for wronging each other; but they themselves had to enforce the law against themselves. They were always physically strong enough to defy it, if they chose. They did not defy it, because they believed in it, and felt that in obedience and loyalty lay the salvation of themselves ...
— Discipline and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... lets Pepe see all the ugliness of her perverted soul. She is wonderfully managed. At what moment does she begin to hate him, and to wish to undo her own work in making a match between him and her daughter? I could defy anyone to say. All one knows is that at one moment she adores her brother's son, and at another she abhors him, and has already subtly entered upon her efforts to thwart the affection she has invited in ...
— Dona Perfecta • B. Perez Galdos
... shall man the wrath of Heaven defy, 300 And force unwilling vengeance from the sky? O race confederate into crimes, that prove Triumphant o'er th' eluded rage of Jove! This wearied arm can scarce the bolt sustain, And unregarded thunder rolls in vain: Th' o'erlabour'd Cyclops from his task retires, Th' AEolian forge exhausted ...
— Poetical Works of Pope, Vol. II • Alexander Pope
... that should you bid me stand beside you at the altar, I should not have courage to refuse. I feel, oh God! Arthur, that I love you, and am betrothed to Harold. But you are strong—you have courage, will, the power to defy such weakness of the heart—and you will save me, for I know you are a ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... hunger, with the keen relish of a traveller. "Even Woods might stand a siege in a house built and stockaded like this. Every window has solid bullet-proof shutters, with fastenings not easily broken; and the logs of the buildings might almost defy round-shot. The gates are all up, one leaf excepted, and that leaf stands nearly in its place, well propped and supported. In the morning it shall be hung like the others. Then the stockade is complete, and has not ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... you are physically better. Look sharply after your diet, take exercise and defy the blue-devils, and you ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... of exhibiting their new steps. There was first an Operetta, then a supper, and afterwards an attempt at a dance; but the stupid English voted it not ton, and there were only about fifteen couples who ventured to defy this opinion—Marianne and Mr Macdonald one of them. Anne remained a spectator. As the dancing did not seem to be approved, Mr Greville said, for the future there should be none ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... proved by his taking so much food with him. No doubt, he'd rather have avoided that, in case it looked suspicious, but he's had one hungry march over the same ground, and I dare say it was quite enough. Besides, he could defy us once he'd emptied and obliterated ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss
... am reminded again of the days during the Boer war, when one realised that it had never occurred to our happy-go-lucky Army that it was possible to make a military use of barbed wire or construct a trench to defy shrapnel. Suppose in the North Sea we got a surprise like that, and fished out a parboiled, half-drowned admiral explaining what a confoundedly slim, unexpected, almost ungentlemanly thing the enemy had done ...
— An Englishman Looks at the World • H. G. Wells
... Germans could possibly be more galling and repulsive to them. Doubtless, too, it would suit the books of our allies very well, who could impose on German goods any duty they thought fit, and deposit their surplus and inferior goods in Germany at a price which would defy competition. But these are questions which I must leave to those more conversant with the merits and demerits of free trade and protection than ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... that word," says his Riv'rence, "I'll prove it widout aither one or other. Black," says he, "is one thing and white is another thing. You don't conthravene that? But everything is aither one thing or another thing; I defy the Apostle Paul to get over that dilemma. Well! If anything be one thing, well and good; but if it be another thing, then it's plain it isn't both things, and so can't be two things,—nobody can deny ...
— Stories of Comedy • Various
... to abandon the point of view whence things are seen in their immediate relation to the individual soul. This kind of research is the work of letters; here are facts of human life to be noted that are never like to be numerically tabulated, changes and developments that defy all metrical standards to be traced and described. The greater men of science have been cast in so generous a mould that they have recognised the partial nature of their task; they have known how to play with science as a pastime, ...
— Style • Walter Raleigh
... mind that Count von Schwarzenberg would have taken you into his service, and that you declined it, thereby exciting his wrath a little, which, as I have been told, has seldom turned to the advantage of those who have roused it, but always to their injury. However, you care nothing for that; you defy the wrath of the Stadtholder ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... thus given of the common occurrence of shooting stars, will render a satisfactory general account of their sporadic appearance; but there are other phenomena of greater interest, viz.: the occasional recurrence of swarms of such meteors, which defy all numerical estimates, being more like a fiery rain than anything they can be compared to. The most interesting feature of this phenomena, is the apparent periodicity of their return. In the following ...
— Outlines of a Mechanical Theory of Storms - Containing the True Law of Lunar Influence • T. Bassnett
... others the green covering has disappeared and left the ground as brown and bare as it was when the sower went forth to sow upon it. Where the earth is soft underneath, and so permits the roots to penetrate its depths, the towering stalks defy the summer's drought; but where the roots are shut out from the heart, the ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... to defy me, mad boy?" he asked. "Thou thinkest that thy brother will come to thine aid? Let him try to trace thee if he can! I defy him ever to learn where thou art. Wouldst know it thyself? Then thou shalt do so, and thou wilt see thy case lost indeed. Thou ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... necessary, And right convenient. STU. Yea, sir, beware yet what ye do, For if you forsake my company so, Lord Nature will not be content. Of him ye shall never learn good thing, Nother virtue nor no other cunning, This dare I well say. SEN. Marry, avaunt, knave! I thee defy! Did Nature forbid him my company? What sayest thou thereto? Speak openly. HU. As for that I know well nay. SEN. No, by God! I am right sure; For he knoweth well no creature Without me can live one day. HU. ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Volume I. • R. Dodsley
... France, pass his whole life without employment and notice, by his domestic hearth, to the singular detriment of the public; for, so far as he was concerned, I may assure you, Monseigneur, that he was so rich in those treasures which defy fortune, that never was man more satisfied or content. I know, indeed, that he was raised to the dignities connected with his neighbourhood—dignities accounted considerable; and I know also, that no one ever acquitted himself better of them; and when he died at the age of ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... married. I lied when you asked me if it was a family jewel; lied but did not take it off, perhaps because it clung so tightly, as if in remembrance of the vows it symbolized. But now the very sight of it gave me a fright. With his ring on my finger I could not defy him and swear his claim to be false the dream of a man maddened by his experiences in the Klondike. It must come off. Then, perhaps, I should feel myself a free woman. But it would not come off. I struggled with it and tugged in vain; ...
— The Filigree Ball • Anna Katharine Green
... any kind of literary veneering to cover the moral deformity and the blasphemous wickedness which, side by side with acknowledged excellences, mar the pages of the Koran. The soiled finger-marks of the sensual Arab everywhere defile them. Like the blood of Banquo, they defy all ocean's waters to wash them out. It was easy enough for Mohammed to copy many exalted truths from Judaism and Christianity, and no candid mind will deny that there are many noble precepts in the Koran; but after all has been said, its ruling spirit is base. ...
— Oriental Religions and Christianity • Frank F. Ellinwood
... Fool, Black Lewin e'en am I, And, by my head, an ill man to defy. Now, motley rogue, wilt call me fool?" he roared, And roaring fierce, clapped hairy fist ...
— The Geste of Duke Jocelyn • Jeffery Farnol
... Whose love had been his shield; and his deep tones. Grew tremulous. But oh! for Absalom— For his estranged, misguided Absalom— The proud, bright being who had burst away In all his princely beauty, to defy The heart that cherished him—for him he poured, In agony that would not be controlled, Strong supplication, and forgave him there, Before his God, for his deep sinfulness. The pall was settled. He who slept beneath Was straightened for the grave; and as the folds Sunk ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... Raleighs still for Raleigh's part, We've Nelsons yet unknown; The pulses of the Lion-Heart Beat on through Wellington. Hold, Britain, hold thy creed of old, Strong foe and steadfast friend, And still unto thy motto true, 'Defy not, but defend.' ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... visit us, though it be only once a year." And he answered, "To hear is to obey: be your behest on my head and eyes!" Then they arose forthright and making him ready victual for the voyage, equipped the bride for him with raiment and ornaments and everything of price, such as defy description, and they bestowed on him gifts and presents which pens of ready writers lack power to set forth. Then they beat the magical kettle-drum and up came the dromedaries from all sides. They chose of them such as could carry all the gear they ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 8 • Richard F. Burton
... monster in the garb of an honest citizen. I have not the faintest idea what I am to do next, Eleanore. I must leave at once. In a strange country I may regain my strength and mental clearness. With you I could defy the universe. Believe in ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... and yet it made him uneasy. A woman who could defy an edict of fashion was a new thing under the sun, and it ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... the glamour of fashion in the eyes of girlhood is so complete, that the oddest, wildest, most uncouth devices find grace and favor in the eyes of even well-bred girls, when once that invisible, ineffable aura has breathed over them which declares them to be fashionable. They may defy them for a time,—they may pronounce them horrid; but it is with a secretly melting heart, and with a mental reservation to look as nearly like the abhorred spectacle as they possibly can on the first ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... centuries passed, Before brave sailors dared to creep Beyond the gloom these monsters cast, And venture on the unknown deep, At last resolving to defy The ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... not dare defy him, and had the scribe bring in the Book. Sun Wu Kung opened it. Under the head of "Apes," No. 1350, he read: "Sun Wu Kung, the heaven-born stone ape. His years shall be three hundred and twenty-four. Then he shall die ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various
... useful, and best under the cirumstances, which rarely deserts either men or women till they have brought themselves to the Burgo Fitzgerald state of recklessness. Men when they have fallen even to that, will still keep up some outward show towards the world; but women in this condition defy the world, and declare themselves to be children of perdition. Lady Glencora was doubting sorely; but, though doubting, she was not as ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... to themselves, thy children may defy The power and malice of a world combined; While Britain's flag, beneath thy deep blue sky, Spreads its rich folds and wantons in the wind; The offspring of her glorious race of old May rest securely in ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... doors and window shutters, and if there is a garden, it is two to one that the wall is a real wall. And not only in the country districts, but in the towns, pre-eminently in Paris itself, each house or block of flats is so constructed as to defy the ...
— Personality in Literature • Rolfe Arnold Scott-James
... existence, this retaining to the sun and elements, I cannot think this to be a man, or to have according to the dignity of humanity. In expectation of a better, I can with patience embrace this life, yet, in my best meditations, do often defy death.' ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... 1571, he saw the nobles of S. Mark welcome their victorious admiral Sebastiano Veniero and confer on him the honors of the Dogeship. In 1606, he aided the Republic to withstand the thunders of the Vatican and defy the excommunication of a Pope. Eight years later he attended at those councils of state which unmasked the conspiracy, known as Bedmar's, to destroy Venice. In his early manhood Cyprus had been wrested from the ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... themselves with a church in the Monastery of the Holy Cross, and for fear of offending the Protestants, were even forced to suppress the greater part of their religious rites. At length a fanatical abbot of this monastery ventured to defy the popular prejudices, and to arrange a public procession, preceded by the cross and banners flying; but he was soon compelled to desist from the attempt. When, a year afterwards, encouraged by a favourable imperial proclamation, the same abbot attempted ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... with fierce energy. "He's a liar born, and he'll die a liar. Look at his face; ain't it written there? Let him turn those eyes of his on me. I defy him ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... Was it right in the almost innumerable efforts it made to prevent this House dealing with the purity of its own electoral machinery? Was it right in endeavouring to prevent the abolition of purchase in the Army? Was it right in 1880, when it rejected the Compensation for Disturbance Bill? I defy the Party opposite to produce a single instance of a settled controversy in which the House ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... indeed damn your precious soul? Our decretals forbid this. Ah, I wish you had them at your finger's-end. Patience, said Friar John; but, si tu non vis dare, praesta, quaesumus. Matter of breviary. As for that, I defy all the world, and I fear no man that wears a head and a hood, though he were a crystalline, ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... look of dried tree-bark was gone, and the dusty grey had become a shining black. After the bath there was usually a struggle with Maharaj, who, directly he was clean, wanted to plaster himself all over with wet mud to keep cool and defy mosquitoes. This he was not allowed to do, so he tore a branch from a neem-tree instead, and fanned himself all the ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... a protection to a woman. Strangers respect her sorrow and refrain from the jocular. Behind her crepe she may defy intrusion. But it often becomes a hardship ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... us hope that he suffered no harm on Mexican soil. That would be serious, indeed; yes, very serious, for I have given my word to your government. This—David Law—" he pronounced the name carefully, but with a strange, foreign accent—"he is a reckless person to defy the border regulations. It is a grave matter to invade foreign territory on such a mission." Longorio again bent his brilliant eyes upon Alaire. "I see that you are concerned for his safety. You would not desire him to come to trouble, eh? He ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... I have wealth and possessions and respect as great as if I were a sceptred King. The youth and the maid are of fitting age. Let us join their hands together, and with them those of our States, and grow strong enough to defy the barbarians, ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... enough; but they are not in a woman the unpardonable sin. And a caprice in English society was always possible. The young beauty of Bice might attract the eye of some one whose notice would throw down all obstacles; or it might touch the heart of some woman who was so high placed as to be able to defy prejudice. And after that, of course, they would go everywhere, and every prognostication of success and ...
— Sir Tom • Mrs. Oliphant
... contended that such forms of theft would be prevented by public opinion. But public opinion is not greatly operative upon an individual unless it is the opinion of his own group. A group of men combined for purposes of theft might readily defy the public opinion of the majority unless that public opinion made itself effective by the use of force against them. Probably, in fact, such force would be applied through popular indignation, but in that case ...
— Proposed Roads To Freedom • Bertrand Russell
... The Holy Spirit is present as a guide to the Church to-day quite as fully as He was in the first century. His presence then was not a guarantee that all men should believe the truth or do the right, nor is it now. The state of Christendom is a sufficient evidence of the ability of men to defy the will of God, the Holy Spirit; but that does not mean that the Holy Spirit has withdrawn any more than the state of things at Corinth which called out S. Paul's two Epistles to that Church is a proof ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... protected, I defy The coxcomb's sneer, the stupid lie Of ignorance and spite: Alike contemn the leaden fool, And all the pointed ...
— Clarissa, Volume 2 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... and never hit the right kay, nor mind when to laugh or cry in the right place; moreover, when they'd get frighted with a cross-examination, they'd be apt to be cutting themselves. Now, the ould one himself, if he had me on the table even, I'd defy to get the truth out of me, if not convanient, and I in the sarvice of ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... the Duke of Wellington displayed his whole force to the enemy, and seemed to defy them to the combat—but in the evening retired upon Waterloo, and there reposed with some of his officers in the village, which lies embosomed in the Foret de Soignies. Picton had fallen; each herald brought us tidings of a hero less, where ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 20, - Issue 566, September 15, 1832 • Various
... place knew it no more. Perhaps, in the desire to propagate, it admitted unworthy candidates; perhaps it turned to the by-ways of magic in an attempt to arrest the external course of nature and to defy necessity; perhaps there came a day when none could understand the inner meaning of the high and far-shining mysteries, and so amidst party strife the building word was lost. Many a man, no doubt, who called himself a "Gnostic" was but a sorry ...
— The Gnosis of the Light • F. Lamplugh
... this meeting," went on Jack, ducking a lump of moss tossed in lieu of a bouquet, "is to formulate plans, whereby the humans of Prowlers' Paradise may continue to defy the birds of the air, and the beasts of the field, and live in a ...
— The Motor Girls on Crystal Bay - The Secret of the Red Oar • Margaret Penrose
... to make any such foolish trial of your lover's faith, Milly,' said Mr. Darrell. 'Whether your fortune is or is not a paramount consideration with him can make no possible difference in my decision. Nothing will ever induce me to consent to your marrying him. Of course, if you choose to defy me, you are of age and your own mistress; but on the day that makes you Angus Egerton's wife you will cease ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... Jacob, is a wag, but pleasantries are not always understood in the ghetto, and he is made to pay for them. His practical jokes and his small respect for the notables of the community, whom he dares to defy and poke fun ...
— The Renascence of Hebrew Literature (1743-1885) • Nahum Slouschz
... hearty. Proud as Lucifer in one way, but as gullible as a hedgehog. English, quite English, you know, with a proper scorn for everything that isn't English. The British Navy, you know—the British Navy can defy ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... confused, but strong enough to bow him to the dust, passed through the mind of this wretched man. He had been familiar with grief, he had been dull to enjoyment; sad and bitter memories had consumed his manhood: but pride had been left him still; and he had dared in his secret heart to say, "I can defy Fate!" Now the bolt had fallen; Pride was shattered into fragments, Self-abasement was his companion, Shame sat upon his prostrate soul. The Future had no hope left in store. Nothing was left for him ...
— Alice, or The Mysteries, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would smoke in their own dining-rooms, or wherever the men smoked. All agreed however, in never smoking "in public"—that is, where they would be seen by people not of their own set. Such, at any rate, had always been the rule, though a few daring ones were beginning to defy ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... coquette, A wit in folly, and a fool in wit? Who says, that fool alone is not thy due, And quotes thy treacheries to prove it true? Our force united on thy foes we'll turn, And dare the war with all of woman born: For who can write and speak as thou and I? My periods that deciphering defy, And thy still matchless tongue that conquers ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... sufficient examples of how the deep roots of national prejudice defy every effort and circumstance to eradicate them, I shall hope that my readers will endeavour to banish from their minds any early impressions they may have received inimical to the French, and resolve only to judge them as they find them, as reason must suggest that ...
— How to Enjoy Paris in 1842 • F. Herve
... turned at the garret door; Quietly there they spoke once more: "The tale is not all told. It's au revoir, but it's not good-by; We're yours, old chap, till the day you die; Laugh on, you fool! Oh, you'll never defy Hunger and ...
— Ballads of a Bohemian • Robert W. Service
... of this kind, which should be smart and well-fitting, we can defy the elements without running any undue risks. Fig. 59 shows a coat which is made to cover the right knee. Fig. 60 gives the back view, and is a useful length. Fashion, whoever he or she may be, invents ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... also in grayling, the trout being unaccustomed to the fly, as they are in most of the streams hereabout. Shawnik lies in the gate to the open country, the gateposts being two huge bastions of rock from which a few riflemen could defy an army until they found a way around through the rough country of Voinik, the chain which lay between us and Niksich. I slept at the house of an Albanian tailor (all the tailors in Montenegro and the Berdas are Albanians) and was made comfortable. We found the voivode of the province, Peiovich, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume II • William James Stillman
... quite justified in making these demands if the United States willingly and wilfully helped Cuba to defy Spain, for every shipload of supplies landed enables the Cubans to hold out so ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 60, December 30, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... record is well known, not only here but all along the coast. No innocent woman or girl is safe when you are around, and you are a menace to any community. You leave the marks of your filthy trail wherever you go. And you are not alone in your villainous deeds, for there are others just like you, who defy the laws of God and man. So far you have escaped, but now you shall pay for your vile and cowardly acts. It would be a sin to allow a creature like you to remain at large. It is far better to settle with you immediately ...
— Glen of the High North • H. A. Cody
... windings of the deep hollow lane together. Necessarily it would seem, for this lane appeared to defy the proverb and have no turning. But that it had one we know—and to it the little party came at last. A gate led to some fields belonging to the estate of the Hazels—Lettice and the nurse prepared ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... the vulgar Death too harsh appears, The ill we feel is only in our fears; To die is landing on some silent shore Where billows never break, nor tempests roar; Ere well we feel th' friendly stroke 'tis o'er. The wise through thought th' insults of death defy, The fools through blest insensibility. 'Tis what the guilty fear, the pious crave; Sought by the wretch and vanquished by the brave. It eases lovers, sets the captive free, And ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... she defy thee, thou Only One of many Forms, saying 'if the god Amon of the Egyptians be a greater god than my god, let him snatch me out of the arms of my god and here in this the shrine of Amon take the breath from out ...
— Moon of Israel • H. Rider Haggard
... while most of the plays in which they appeared are not only no longer actable, but also no longer readable. The brothers de Goncourt, for example, wrote an account of Clairon which is a book of the first interest, while I defy any one to get through two pages of most of the fustian she was compelled to act! The reason for this is very easily formulated. Great acting is human and universal. It is eternal in its appeal and its memory is easily kept alive while ...
— The Merry-Go-Round • Carl Van Vechten
... like Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus, to be devoured last. Luliya, or Elulaeus, the king of Tyre at the time,[14137] endeavoured to escape this calamity by gathering to himself a strength which would enable him to defy attack. He contrived to establish his dominion over almost the whole of Southern Phoenicia—over Sidon, Accho, Ecdippa, Sarepta, Hosah, Bitsette, Mahalliba, &c.[14138]—and at the same time over the distant Cyprus,[14139] where the Cittaeans, or people of Citium, held ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... Malays and Dyaks, behaved with the greatest gallantry, and dashed in under the fire of the forts. In fact, like their country, anything might be made of them under a good government; and such is their confidence in Mr. Brooke's judgment, and their attachment to his person, that he might safely defy in his own stronghold the attacks of ...
— The Expedition to Borneo of H.M.S. Dido - For the Suppression of Piracy • Henry Keppel
... United States would provide counter weapons for other nations. In no more than months every continent and nation on earth would be equipped to defy any alien landing that might take place. The world would be able to defend itself. It would be equipped to do so. And this was the resolve of the United States because the world could not exist half ...
— Operation Terror • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... moment. Knowing well, your worship, that they could not get in all Ireland a jury to convict me, to secure my imprisonment openly and fairly, they do this. I now declare that I participated in that funeral, and I defy those who were guilty of such cowardice as to subpoena me as a ...
— The Wearing of the Green • A.M. Sullivan
... in putting them in pack, and when it was ready I asked the amount of my bill, which was one hundred and fifty dollars. This I paid at once, and they gave me some crackers and dried beef for lunch on the way. Davis said—"That is the quickest sale I ever made, and here the man is ready to go. I defy any one to beat it." Before sun down I was two or three miles on my way back where I found some grass and camped for the night, picketed the animals, ate some of Mr. Davis' grub for supper, and arranged a ...
— Death Valley in '49 • William Lewis Manly
... "Bismillah arachmani arachemi" ("In the name of the great and most merciful God") in large Koran characters. He made so deep an impression on the paper, that after using the india-rubber the words still appeared legible, the fighi remarking: "They are the words of God, delivered to our prophet: I defy you to erase them." The sultan and all around him gazed at the paper with intense satisfaction, exclaiming that a miracle had been wrought, and Denham was well pleased to take his departure. Even Barca Gana afterwards, when Denham visited him in his tent, ...
— Great African Travellers - From Mungo Park to Livingstone and Stanley • W.H.G. Kingston
... wherein, not many months before, a country grazier had lain, and in the night cut his own throat; after this night's lodging, he was perpetually, and for many years, followed by a spirit, which vocally and articulately provoked him to cut his throat: he was used frequently to say, 'I defy thee, I defy thee,' and to spit at the spirit; this spirit followed him many years, he not making any body acquainted with it; at last he grew melancholy and discontented; which being carefully observed by his wife, she many times hearing ...
— William Lilly's History of His Life and Times - From the Year 1602 to 1681 • William Lilly
... which one could crush in his hand, so nearly immaterial was this mosquito fabric; sumptuous steamer-chairs; a leather reading-couch that could be moved to the best breeze or light with a touch of the finger; a broad-side of books and a vast writing-table, openly dimensioned to defy litter—the whole effect was that of coolness and silence and room. Everything a man needed seemed to be there and breathing spaciously.... Turning through a draped door, the astonished wanderer found ...
— Fate Knocks at the Door - A Novel • Will Levington Comfort
... month. Time is working wondrous changes in your chickens. They are not such chickens as we used to get of you before the war. They may be the same chickens, but oh! how changed by the lapse of time! How much more indestructible! How they have learned since then to defy the encroaching tooth of remorseless ages, or any other man! Why do you not have them tender like your squashes? I found a blue poker chip in your butter this week. What shall I credit myself for it? If you would try to work your butter more and your customers less it would be highly ...
— Nye and Riley's Wit and Humor (Poems and Yarns) • Bill Nye
... step, and calm thy brow— The Lord God of hosts is for thee now; And, strong in his strength, thou mayest advance, And defy the world with thy piercing glance; While the prophets of Baal bend at thy nod, And the people own that the Lord, he ...
— Canadian Wild Flowers • Helen M. Johnson
... innocent, that I May give a disentangled state and free; And yet thy wounds still my attempts defy, For by thy death ...
— England's Antiphon • George MacDonald
... that all this could not be true. But it was, down to the last least detail which had made it thinkable for him to defy all his fellow-men to keep faith with four children whose lives and errand he'd interfered with. The matter had been a very ...
— Long Ago, Far Away • William Fitzgerald Jenkins AKA Murray Leinster
... lose you, Roger Hawkshaw," she said, gently; "and were there a hope of doing so successfully, we would defy the cruel orders from Montezuma. But it would bring ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... resort, she thought of throwing herself on Taylor's mercy. She would explain to him that she had been mad with anger; that she hadn't in the least realized what she was doing; that her only thought had been to defy Gertie in the hour of her triumph. Surely no man since the days of the cave-men would prize an unwilling wife. She would humbly confess that she had used him and beg his pardon, if ...
— The Land of Promise • D. Torbett
... protective tariff benefits our agricultural producers? I can show you—I think I can demonstrate clearly—how the tariff hurts them; and I defy any of you to show wherein they are benefited ...
— Practical Argumentation • George K. Pattee
... a little more civilised, with his power of evil trained by education and cynical reflection to defy the attacks of those spasms of unreasoning spiritual terror and unrestrainable passion that have their natural dwelling-place in the raw strong mind of uncultivated man, Frank Muller might have broken upon ...
— Jess • H. Rider Haggard
... my Saturday afternoon. Dont flatter yourself that I'm a loafer or a criminal. I'm a cashier; and I defy you to say that my cash has ever been a farthing wrong. Ive a right to call you to account because my hands ...
— Misalliance • George Bernard Shaw
... able to handle the transportation problem of the thousands of eager pilgrims who were clamoring for passage, and at the end of the Crusades they had built themselves such strong defences of brick and of gold that they could defy Pope and Emperor ...
— The Story of Mankind • Hendrik van Loon
... that I returned: that I remained on account of the children, to prevent their becoming rogues. They can judge. But may the thunder crush me if I leave this island, and if the children remain one day more in this house! Yes, I defy you—defy you and yours to ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... north with all available forces. Still Mack clung to his notion that it was the French who were in sore straits; and he forbade the evacuation of Ulm; whereupon the Archduke, with Schwarzenberg, Kollowrath, Gyulai, and all whose instincts or rank prompted and enabled them to defy the madman's authority, assembled 1,500 horsemen and rode off by the northern road. It was high time; for Ney, firmly established at Elchingen, was pushing on his vanguard towards the doomed city: Murat and Lannes were ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... you understand me once for all," he rushed on. "You've shown me New York as you see it. I don't believe it's the truth—I don't believe it for one single moment! But let me tell you this, I shall stay here and find out—and if it is true, it won't stop me! I shall stay here and defy those people! I shall stay and fight them till the day I die! They may ruin me,—I'll go and live in a garret if I have to,—but as sure as there's a God that made me, I'll never stop till I've opened the eyes of the people ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... anything of the kind; and I defy you to prove the faintest thing." But Jerrold's fingers were twitching, and his eyes had lost ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... a point that I have no desire to discuss, you odious robber. My word you have heard, and you hear again, that I care not for your threats; that I defy you and declare you to be as cowardly as you are bloody and bad.' He had faced the band, holding his pistol in his hand; and he moved backward towards the pit. He then noticed that Silent Poll was not among the rest; and ...
— The Four Canadian Highwaymen • Joseph Edmund Collins
... cried Max. "I tell you, Yolanda, there is in all the world no woman for me save—save one upon whom I may not think." Yolanda's face grew radiant, though tears moistened her eyes. "Even though it were possible for me to defy my parents, to turn my face against my country, my people, and the sacred traditions of my house, by asking her to share my life, there could be only wretchedness ahead for her, and therefore unhappiness for me. The dove and the eagle may not mate. Consider the fate of sweet ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... The day goes drudging through the while, Yet, in the name of Godhead, I The morrow front, and can defy; Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed, Cannot withhold his conquering aid. Ah me! it was my childhood's thought, If He should make my web a blot On life's fair picture of delight, My heart's content would find ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... the time of his dominion, but we can claim at any moment King Louis' protection, and therefore I may defy him if I wish?" ...
— Mistress Penwick • Dutton Payne
... malefactor in prison, to converse with horrible torments—the sweet, unhappy creature! Even to this pass! even to this!—Treacherous, worthless spirit, and this thou hast hidden from me!—Stand up here—stand up! Roll thy devilish eyes round grimly in thy head! Stand and defy me with thy intolerable presence! Imprisoned! In irretrievable misery! Given over to evil spirits and to the judgment of unfeeling humanity, and me meanwhile thou lullest in insipid dissipations, concealest from me ...
— Faust • Goethe
... you are determined to defy me," added Mr. Parasyte. "You ask me to restore Thornton without punishment of any kind. Are you aware that he assaulted me with ...
— Breaking Away - or The Fortunes of a Student • Oliver Optic
... life, the deepest impression of your kindness will always remain here" (putting his hand on his breast) "fixed and unalterable. I will very readily agree to my successors having more skill and ability for their station than I have; but I defy them all to take more sincere, and more uninterrupted pains for your favor, or to be more truly sensible of it, than is your ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... Balak brought me, The king of Moab from the mountains of the East: Come, curse me Jacob, And come, defy Israel. How shall I curse, whom God hath not cursed? And how shall I defy, whom the LORD hath not defied? For from the top of the rocks I see him, And from the hills I behold him: Lo, it is a people that dwell alone, And shall not be reckoned ...
— Select Masterpieces of Biblical Literature • Various
... Ragnor's rocks. He swore that she should wed Sir Ralph of Normanhurst, His sister's son. Would not the Holy Church deem her accursed, Dared she defy his will and marry one Of her own choice! Were't so, 'twere ...
— Rowena & Harold - A Romance in Rhyme of an Olden Time, of Hastyngs and Normanhurst • Wm. Stephen Pryer
... will not believe in any such untoward event. Too long a time has elapsed since the loss for me not to have heard something respecting the MS., had it been found by anyone who knew how to make use of it. Besides, I would defy the most clever reader of cryptography to master my MS. without—Ah, Bah! where's the use of talking about it? Should not you like some tobacco? Daylight's last tint has vanished, and there is a chill air ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 3, March, 1891 • Various
... All useless here. I defy you to soften, as far as money is concerned, the man we are speaking of. He is a Turk on that point, of a Turkishness to drive anyone to despair, and we might starve in his presence and never a ...
— The Miser (L'Avare) • Moliere
... highest, and to divide the empire of heaven with the Almighty, was hurled down to hell. His aim was no less than the throne of the universe; his means, myriads of angelic armies bright, the third part of the heavens, whom he lured after him with his countenance, and who durst defy the Omnipotent in arms. His ambition was the greatest, and his punishment was the greatest; but not so his despair, for his fortitude was as great as his sufferings. His strength of mind was matchless as his strength of body; the vastness of his designs did not surpass ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... Cameron on a farm. What possessed her to let Robert take her there in the first place is beyond my comprehension. Granting that first mistake, why she has let him stay all these years is another enigma. Robert is all very well, but Jessica! I would defy any one to produce the situation anywhere that Jessica wouldn't ...
— The Camerons of Highboro • Beth B. Gilchrist
... if they don't," replied Ensign Fullerton, grimly. "A solid shot across the bows, and a shot through their rigging after that. What schooner has any chance to defy ...
— The Submarine Boys for the Flag - Deeding Their Lives to Uncle Sam • Victor G. Durham
... were generally accepted, and if it were enforced by assurance and demonstration from the New Revelation which is coming to us from the other side, then we should have a creed which might unite the churches, which might be reconciled to science, which might defy all attacks, and which might carry the Christian Faith on for an indefinite period. Reason and Faith would at last be reconciled, a nightmare would be lifted from our minds, and spiritual peace would prevail. I do not see ...
— The New Revelation • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of truth. But the jeweled adornments of the inner shrine had cost him more than all his other toil, for with his very heart's blood had he purchased those costly gems that sparkled on his soul's idol. Now wearied and worn with by-gone suffering he had no strength to stand forth and defy his revilers. Proudly and silently he withdrew from the world, and entered into his own beautiful fane. Presently men beheld that a heavy stone had been piled against the door of the inner sanctuary, and upon its polished surface was inscribed these words: "To ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... lawsuits than any man in England. Look here at Crawley, Bart. v. Snaffle. I'll throw him over, or my name's not Pitt Crawley. Podder and another versus Crawley, Bart. Overseers of Snaily parish against Crawley, Bart. They can't prove it's common: I'll defy 'em; the land's mine. It no more belongs to the parish than it does to you or Tinker here. I'll beat 'em, if it cost me a thousand guineas. Look over the papers; you may if you like, my dear. Do you write a good hand? I'll make you useful when we're at Queen's Crawley, depend ...
— Vanity Fair • William Makepeace Thackeray
... without employment and notice, by his domestic hearth, to the singular detriment of the public; for, so far as he was concerned, I may assure you, Monseigneur, that he was so rich in those treasures which defy fortune, that never was man more satisfied or content. I know, indeed, that he was raised to the dignities connected with his neighbourhood—dignities accounted considerable; and I know also, that no one ever acquitted himself better ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... of the world, each one boasting of himself and despising others. Prince and nobleman think that all the world is nothing in comparison with themselves. Commoner and peasant, puffed up because they have much wealth, imagine they must defy everybody, and do good to nobody. These deserve to be spit upon by all men. Such pride does not become them better than ornaments of gold or silver would become an image of stone or a wooden block. Finally, the women, with their foolish pride of dress, must not be forgotten. One prides ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... help from the kings of the world, without taking advantage of any of the secondary causes which unite men together—unity of interest or speech, or blood-relationship. I will make laws for my state which shall never be repealed, and I will defy all the powers of destruction that are at work in the world ...
— Occasional Papers - Selected from The Guardian, The Times, and The Saturday Review, - 1846-1890 • R.W. Church
... you wish to put it in that form, I defy you to arrest me. I repeat that I should be very glad ...
— Seek and Find - or The Adventures of a Smart Boy • Oliver Optic
... was full of extreme sensibility, though her head contained a stoical firmness and the virile gift of resolution. Her clear-seeing eyes knew not how to weep; but no one would have imagined that the delicate white wrist with its tracery of blue veins could defy that of the boldest horseman. Her hand, so noble, so flexible, could handle gun or pistol with the ease of a practised marksman. She always wore when out of doors the coquettish little cap with visor and green veil which women wear on horseback. Her delicate ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... a son's part. Shall I see these lawyers and learn from them what they are at? Have I your leave to tell them that you want no subterfuge, no legal quibbles,—that you stand firmly on your own clear innocence, and that you defy your enemies to sully it? Mother, those who have sent you to such men as that cunning attorney have sent you wrong,—have counselled ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... Massachusetts, said in the House: "If we are to pay this amount for Russia's friendship during the war, then give her the $7,200,000 and tell her to keep Alaska." Representative Washburn, of Wisconsin, exclaimed: "I defy any man on the face of the earth to produce any evidence that an ounce of gold has ever been ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... warn't bought at Peckaby's; our meat were got at Clark's, and it were sweet as a nut. 'Twere veal, too, and that's the worst meat for keeping. Roy 'ud kill us if he could; but he can't force us on to Peckaby's rubbish. We defy ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood
... thick brown paste, which, when perfectly dry, was used to venom the points of their arrows. The poison might be swallowed by a healthy man without fatal results. But if introduced into the system through a wound, the poison would act almost instantaneously, and defy analysis. Its effect was to sever, as it were, the connection between the nerves and the muscles, and the muscles used in respiration being thus gradually paralyzed, death followed within a brief time, proportionate to the size of the victim, man or animal, and ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... thought to strings, bow, etc. All should be in proper condition. Above all the violinist should play with an accompanist who is used to accompanying him. It seems superfluous to emphasize that one's program numbers must have been mastered in every detail. Only then can one defy nervousness, turning ...
— Violin Mastery - Talks with Master Violinists and Teachers • Frederick H. Martens
... of misery from the human heart. Thine is the hand whose piety would soothe The thorny pillow of unhappy crime, Whose impotence an easy pardon gains, Watching its wanderings as a friend's disease: 580 Thine is the brow whose mildness would defy Its fiercest rage, and brave its sternest will, When fenced by power and master of the world. Thou art sincere and good; of resolute mind, Free from heart-withering custom's cold control, 585 Of passion lofty, pure and unsubdued. ...
— The Daemon of the World • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... man is that he has no spiritual nature; and the foolishest misunderstanding of him possible is, that he has, or should have, no animal nature. For his nature is nobly animal, nobly spiritual—coherently and irrevocably so; neither part of it may, but at its peril, expel, despise, or defy the other." "Man is the metre of all ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... with a blanket spread over. Four-legged slabs made good benches, but many split bottom chairs were obtained from country chair makers. With a good log fire three or four feet long in the fire place and an old blanket hung in the doorway, soldiers were fixed to defy the coldest days of winter and sleep in comfort on the coldest nights. A good fat bed-fellow was a luxury not to be despised and on coldest nights, "spooning" was the prevailing fashion with covering well tucked under. When one wanted to turn over, it was necessary ...
— A History of Lumsden's Battery, C.S.A. • George Little
... short-lived, and dashed by the thought that this ruler, this debauchee, this drunken, swearing, roaring tavern knight was his father; dashed by the knowledge that meanwhile the Parliament was master, and that whilst matters stood so, the Ashburns could defy—could even destroy him, did they learn how much he knew; dashed by the memory that Cynthia, whom in his selfish way—out of his love for himself—he loved, vas lost to him for ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... Cipriani de Lloseta—when she was not feeling very well, perhaps. Her situation seemed to be somewhat that of a commander holding an impregnable position against a cunning foe. For every position of such a nature is impenetrable only so long as it can meet and defy each new engine of warfare that is brought against it. And one day the fatal engine ...
— The Grey Lady • Henry Seton Merriman
... all the green wilderness where beauty beat and throbbed like a heart in bliss. It was the Sabbath, and he was not sure. But he was sure of a melting tenderness in his heart for Irene Straley, and he felt that her power to feel sorry for her lover—sorry enough to defy all the laws in his behalf—was a wonderful power. ...
— In a Little Town • Rupert Hughes
... your day is already full to overflowing. How? You actually spend in earning your livelihood—how much? Seven hours, on the average? And in actual sleep, seven? I will add two hours, and be generous. And I will defy you to account to me on the spur of the moment for ...
— How to Live on 24 Hours a Day • Arnold Bennett
... nor can from you go hence; Put you in him your confidence. However many you assail, Defy them—He can ...
— Rampolli • George MacDonald
... From Sardoal, and by your leave We are come hither to defy 655 The Serra our challenge to receive With us in song and dance ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... man who still meant so much to me at my side. Then the homeward drive at night, under violet clear skies, over drifts of diamond-dust, to the warmth and peace and coziness of one's own hearth! It was often razor-edge weather, away below zero, but we had furs enough to defy any ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... rhetoric"; I speak the words of soberness and truth. Would that they in whose blood the "narrowing lust of gold" has begun to burn might be sobered by them! In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, and of all the noblest of the sons of men, let us deny and defy the sordid traditions of mammon; let us make it plain that we at least do not believe "the wealthiest man among us is the best." "Godliness with contentment," said the apostle, "is great gain;" and though these ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... had up to this moment lived strictly in accord with the laws laid down by the "Code of Crime", the rules of which, although not printed and bound into a costly volume, nor even written, are nevertheless strictly observed by those who defy ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... somehow his brother managed to do it. "He's got a Scotch Presbyterian conscience mixed with an Asiatic perception of the main chance." Lester once told somebody, and he had the situation accurately measured. Nevertheless he could not rout his brother from his positions nor defy him, for he had the public conscience with him. He was in line with convention ...
— Jennie Gerhardt - A Novel • Theodore Dreiser
... Nature so boldly. No doubt his heroines are more expansively endowed than would be thought genteel in our country, where cryptogams are so much in fashion, nevertheless there is always something very tremendous about him, and very often much that is sublime, pathetic, and moving. I defy any one of the average amount of imagination and sentiment to stand long before the Descent from the Cross without being moved more nearly to tears than he would care to acknowledge. As for color, his effects are as sure as those of ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... outside the pale of civil discussion. When will these lordly ecclesiastics learn that the time for dogmatic assertion is past, and that the intellectual temper of the present age can be satisfied only by proof? We defy the Bishop of Carlisle to indicate a single phase of man's nature which has no parallel in the lower animals. Man's physical structure is notoriously akin to theirs, and even his brain does not imply a distinction of kind, for every convolution of the brain ...
— Arrows of Freethought • George W. Foote
... better. Look sharply after your diet, take exercise and defy the blue-devils, and ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... a cloak, Captain Courtier, which can even defy the camera. Let us inhale the gratifying odour, suggestive of truffles frying in oil, which is the hall-mark of your true cafe, and is as ambergris in the nostrils of the ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... oath the man drew his sword; but the youth laughed him to scorn as he stepped back out of reach of the formidable weapon. He well knew his advantage. Light of foot, though all unarmed, he could defy any horseman in this wooded spot. No horse could penetrate to the right or left of the narrow track. Even if the knight dismounted, the twin brothers, who knew every turn and winding of these dim forest paths, could lead him a fine dance, and then break ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... unfortunate to defy the Almighty. In the other 'twas hatred for the Church that honors the image of Christ crucified as one honors the portrait of a mother. The blasphemy in the second case reached God as effectively as in the first, and the outrage contained ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... said the Mariner, approving his Albatross, "but I warn you I shall claim half the credit. When you see me swaggering, and hear me boasting of the plans my friend Brederode and I have mapped out, contradict me if you dare. I will defy you in some things, or I shall burst of sheer spite; and we can test it now, if you like, for ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... sullen persistence that the President defy all shades of Northern opinion and stand squarely by his Inaugural address. In vain he pointed out to them that the fact of a desperate and terrible war, costing two million dollars a day and threatening the existence of the Government itself, had changed ...
— The Southerner - A Romance of the Real Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... worship of Diana. The Bacchanalians strolled the country, and, in the course of that vagabond scheme, erected temporary huts, their residence being always short wherever they came. In their intoxication they seemed to defy all decency and order; affecting noise, and a kind of tumultuous, boisterous joy, in which there could never be any true pleasure or harmony. They were, in the licentiousness of their manners, a nuisance to society; which they scandalized ...
— A Treatise on the Art of Dancing • Giovanni-Andrea Gallini
... noble Scot, if speaking truth In this fine age were not thought flattery, Such attribution should the Douglas have, As not a soldier of this season's stamp Should go so general current through the world. By God, I cannot flatter; I defy The tongues of soothers; but a braver place In my heart's love hath no man than yourself. Nay, task me to my word; approve me, lord." In the first five lines of this skimble-skamble stuff I hear Shakespeare speaking in his cheapest way; with the oath, however, ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... distant situation invites and enables us to pursue a different course. If we remain one people, under an efficient government, the period is not far off when we may defy material injury from external annoyance; when we may take such an attitude as will cause the neutrality we may at any time resolve upon, to be scrupulously respected; when belligerent nations under the impossibility of making acquisitions upon us, will not lightly hazard ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 5 (of 5) • John Marshall
... fundamental question as to the substantial reality of these objects; while their solar character was demonstrated by the passage of the moon in front of them, indisputably attested by pictures taken at successive stages of the eclipse. That forms seeming to defy all laws of equilibrium were, nevertheless, not wholly evanescent, appeared from their identity at an interval of seven minutes, during which the lunar shadow was in transit from one station to the other; and the singular energy ...
— A Popular History of Astronomy During the Nineteenth Century - Fourth Edition • Agnes M. (Agnes Mary) Clerke
... Iliad in prose along with others, and was employed by Pope, whom he excelled as a Greek scholar, in translating the Odyssey, of which he Englished the 8th, 11th, 12th, 16th, 18th, and 23rd books, catching the style of his master so exactly as almost to defy identification, and thus annoying him so as to earn a niche in The Dunciad. He pub. verses of his own of very moderate ...
— A Short Biographical Dictionary of English Literature • John W. Cousin
... half-way. It thrilled with hysterical denial, with suffering, regret, horror. And so commanding was it that he had no power to defy its mandate. ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... relations of nations have been brought about by the victory of the armed force of one state over the armed force of another state. This does not mean that the fundamental causes of the changes have been physical, for they have been psychological, and have been so profound and so complex as to defy analysis; but it does mean that the actual and immediate instrument producing the changes has been physical force; that physical force and physical courage acting in conjunction, of which conjunction war is the ultimate expression, have always been the most ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... firmly for his anti-slavery convictions. The latter spoke on the 11th of March. He opposed the fugitive slave law because "we cannot be true Christians or real freemen if we impose on another a chain that we defy all human power to lay on ourselves;"[397] he declared for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, "and if I shall be asked what I did to embellish the capital of my country, I will point to her ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... mightier than themselves, the dark Fate and irresistible Necessity. For, after all, as human gods they were like men, subject to the laws of nature. Yet as men, they are free, and in the feeling of their freedom sometimes resist and defy fate. ...
— Ten Great Religions - An Essay in Comparative Theology • James Freeman Clarke
... deans, and government officers, instructed sheriffs and justices of the peace as to their duty, made provision for the keeping up of military and naval forces, and performed other duties so numerous and varied as to defy enumeration ...
— European Background Of American History - (Vol. I of The American Nation: A History) • Edward Potts Cheyney
... board of guardians, in every dispensary, in every grand jury room, at every petty sessions, in every county court, in every public institution throughout the kingdom. The land-agent is the commanding officer, his office is a garrison, dominating the surrounding district. He is able, in most cases, to defy the confessional and the altar; because he wields an engine of terror generally more powerful over the mind of the peasantry than the terrors of the world to come. Armed with the 'rules of the estate' and with a notice to quit, the agent may ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... five-inch soil covering the solid rock that forms the New York hill—the first of all, perhaps, to show its head above the pristine waters—has nourished a lofty forest which, battling with everlasting winds, resembles a body of men strong from incessant toil: its elms and beeches are so tough they defy the forester, and are fit only for water-wheel shafts. Working among these adamantine timbers, the boy stops to look across the broad and deep valley. Not at the old hill-quarries opposite, in whose depths ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, September, 1878 • Various
... for thee, that I was near taking for mine own. Thou shalt be admiral and captain of an expedition that I send with all speed to sweep out with all force the pirates that infest our Norman seas. In great pride they are gathered in Guernsey to defy my power. Take men, take ships, all that thou wilt need, and delay not thy journey, for certain monks and islanders are hard set with famine. See me again to-morrow. ...
— The Fall Of The Grand Sarrasin • William J. Ferrar
... co-mates ye of nature's wandering son— I hail the lambs that on the floor of milky pastures run, I hail the mother flocks, that, wrapp'd in their mantle of the fleece, Defy the landward tempest's roar, and defy the seaward breeze. The streams they drink are waters of the ever-gushing well, Those streams, oh, how they wind around the swellings of the dell! The flowers they browze are mantles spread o'er pastures wide and far, As mantle o'er the firmament ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume IV. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... returned she, "strike dead thy bold presumption, than to shew thee my scorn and anger thus!"—"And she unmasking surprised me," said Mr. B., "with a face as beautiful, but not so soft as my Pamela's."—"And I," said Mr. B., "to shew I can defy your resentment, will shew you a countenance as intrepid as yours is lovely." And so he drew ...
— Pamela (Vol. II.) • Samuel Richardson
... a mixture of conciliation and firmness, than by additional irritation and redoubled penalties. Are we aware of our obligations to a mob? It is the mob that labour in your fields and serve in your houses,—that man your navy, and recruit your army,—that have enabled you to defy all the world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them to despair! You may call the people a mob; but do not forget, that a mob too often speaks the sentiments of the people. And here I must remark, with what alacrity you are accustomed ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. 6 (of 6) - With his Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... present esteem, the British Executive claims to restrain our liberties, control our fortunes, and exercise over our people the power of life and death. To obstruct the recent Home Rule Bill it allowed its favourites to defy its Parliament without punishment, to import arms from suspect regions with impunity, to threaten "to break every law" to effectuate their designs to infect the Army with mutiny and set up a rival Executive backed by military array ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... tall man came straight toward that spot, looking for the missing object? Dared they rise up and defy these two scoundrels? If some one cast Ted loose would he join forces with them, and make common ...
— The Banner Boy Scouts - Or, The Struggle for Leadership • George A. Warren
... his later verse become more prosaic, but he becomes considerably less intelligible. There is a passage in "The Old Bachelor," too long to quote but worth referring to, which, though it may be easy enough to understand it with a little goodwill, I defy anybody to understand in its literal and grammatical meaning. Such welters of words are very common in Crabbe, and Johnson saved him from one of them in the very first lines of "The Village." Yet Johnson could never have written the passages which earned Crabbe his fame. The great lexicographer ...
— Essays in English Literature, 1780-1860 • George Saintsbury
... enough for a manufacturer to guarantee to build a machine of certain dimensions and according to certain specifications, but when he inserts a clause in the contract to the effect that the machine will raise itself from the surface of the earth, defy the laws of gravity, and soar in the heavens at the will of the aviator, he is to say the least contracting ...
— Flying Machines - Construction and Operation • W.J. Jackman and Thos. H. Russell
... in the meantime, the fortresses along the line of the river, where the first French attack was expected to be made, were put in a proper state of defence, and now, with strong garrisons, repaired works, ditches filled, and ramparts crowned with Krupp cannon, were prepared to defy the invader. By the first week of August three great armies had taken possession of the strip of territory, lying between the lower stream of the Moselle and the Rhine, which had for centuries been a battlefield between the German and French races, and which was now to witness fighting ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... soon be satiated, a hint that retrenchment was in order, and a better class of stock was to receive the firm's attention in its future operations. My personal contingent of steers would have passed muster in any country, and as to my consignment of cows, they were pure velvet, and could defy competition in the upper range markets. Everything moved out with the grass as usual, and when the last of the company herds had crossed Red River, I rode through to the new ranch. The north and east line of fence was ...
— Reed Anthony, Cowman • Andy Adams
... flutter of pity in the direction of Lord Fleetwood did as much. She pitied him; for his presence at Esslemont betrayed an inclination; he was ignorant of his lady's character, of how firm she could be to defy him and all the world, in her gratitude to the gentleman she thought of as her true friend, smiled at for his open nature,—called by ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Sir, most liberal of their Word to every fauning Suiter, to purchase the state of long Attendance, and cringing as they pass; but the Devil of a Performance, without you get the Knack of bribing in the right Place and Time; but yet they all defy it, Sir. ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. III • Aphra Behn
... meanwhile seen the butler reappear by the door that opened to the terrace, and though the high, bleak, impersonal approach of this functionary was ever, and more and more at every step, a process to defy interpretation, long practice evidently now enabled her to suggest, as she turned again to her fellow-visitor a reading of it. "It's the friend then clearly ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... characters, all, in a certain sense, commonplace, all such as we meet every day. Yet they are all as perfectly discriminated from each other as if they were the most eccentric of human beings.... And all this is done by touches so delicate that they elude analysis, that they defy the powers of description, and that we know them to exist only by the general effect to which they have contributed." And a new generation had almost forgotten her name before the exacting Lewes wrote:—"To make ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 3 • Various
... an architect, And castle offered to erect,— A castle high Which should defy Deep Jotun guile and giant raid; And this most wily compact made: Fair Freya, with the Moon and Sun, As ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... asked you for that map your friend from Arizona blundered in. He's not here now. I'm going to find out all you know. You think you can defy me. Before I've done with you I'll make you wish you'd never been born. There are easy deaths and hard ones. You ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... system. It could be judged only by its seeming effects. As these were pleasing, it was supposed that a great medical discovery had been made. The alchemists had been seeking a panacea for all the ills to which flesh is heir, indeed for something which would enable men even to defy Death, and the subtle new spirit was eagerly proclaimed as the long-looked-for cure-all, if not the very aqua vitae itself. Physicians introduced it to their patients, and were lavish in their praises of its curative powers. The following is quoted from the ...
— Alcohol: A Dangerous and Unnecessary Medicine, How and Why - What Medical Writers Say • Martha M. Allen
... I defy you: (To BIRDIE.) As for you, beautiful fiend that you are, you came between me and my husband; you stole him from me with your dog-faced beauty; I mean doll-faced. But I can see your finish, I can see you taking poison ...
— Writing for Vaudeville • Brett Page
... And doble charge your tongue with new opinions,— What can you doe? or can theis holly woemen That you have arm'd against obedience And made contempners of the fooles their husbands, Examiners of State,—can they doe any thing? Can they defy the Prince? ...
— A Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. II • Various
... revellers into whose lips our text is put only meant by it to brave the future and defy to-morrow in the riot of their drunkenness. They show us the vulgarest, lowest form which the expectation can take, a form which I need say ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... {143a} "the utmost that we should be entitled to say is that Greene here accuses Player Shakspere of putting forward, as his own, some work, or perhaps some parts of a work, for which he was really indebted to another" (the Great Unknown?). I do more than demur, I defy any man to exhibit that ...
— Shakespeare, Bacon and the Great Unknown • Andrew Lang
... the proletarian revolution, which knows no race, no color, no sex and no boundary lines. They are setting the heroic example for world-wide emulation. Let us, like them, scorn and repudiate the cowardly compromisers within our ranks, challenge and defy the robber-class power, and fight it out on that line to victory ...
— The Red Conspiracy • Joseph J. Mereto
... great astonishment, "what passion is this? Why, Nigel, this is King Cambyses' vein!—You have frequented the theatres too much lately—Away with this folly, man; go, dine upon soup and salad, drink succory-water to cool your blood, go to bed at sun-down, and defy those foul fiends, ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... forcing will have to be done carefully to prevent the stem from cracking. The inside of the ventilator should always be painted red, and the outside should be the same color as the boat. Ventilators made in this way absolutely defy detection and do much toward bettering the general appearance of the craft upon ...
— Boys' Book of Model Boats • Raymond Francis Yates
... hear it," answered Thomson, "for she is altogether too good to be laid up idle. As to her being satisfactory—why, that of course depends upon what Mr Saint Leger wants; the ship may be either too large or too small for him; but I'll defy any man to find a fault in her. She's a beauty, sir," he continued, turning to me, "and she's every bit ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... duty of succouring the Emperor. Since July I have not heard of any further detachments leaving, though it was said that the total would reach 10,000. Possibly the Viceroy sent the men because he did not feel strong enough to defy Peking altogether, because failure to help the court would [Page 240] have excited popular reprobation, and also in order to get rid of a considerable part ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin
... But it was finally done, and his heavy figure, draped in its military cape, went on ahead, outlined by the lamps of the car behind him. The snow was hardly more than a coating, but wet and slippery. Mettlich stalked on, as one who would defy the elements, or anything else, to hinder him ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... curiously analyse eternal farewells, and the last pressures of loving hands. Let me smile at faces bewept, and the nodding plumes and slow paces of funerals. Let me write down brave heroical sentences—sentences that defy death, as brazen ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith
... horse and went, but Fergus stood and waved The signal banner for the chief, and for awhile he braved The onset of the foe, and fought until the evening fell. Then gave the council their advice to Fionn. "It were well That Aild should himself defy the king, and man to man With sevenscore 'gainst sevenscore contend before the van." And thus they fought, and Aild fell, and Eragon defied An equal band to equal fight, for great had grown his pride. Then paused and pondered Fionn long, and doubted whom to ask To lead ...
— Memories of Canada and Scotland - Speeches and Verses • John Douglas Sutherland Campbell
... lifelong experience in Wall Street, I defy any broker to produce one customer who can show a profit after three consecutive years ...
— The Climbers - A Play in Four Acts • Clyde Fitch
... may waver. He hath wavered once. Chance only, and I, rescued him! I can do no more, for Rome must know me no longer! See, then, that thou hold him constant in the right—firm for his country! So may he defy secret spite, as ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 1 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... wanted, and as a result, I was a ten pound note out of pocket by it. I was green, but I was anxious to avoid making enemies among editors. Yet, when his paper next appears, I am referred to in it as being notorious for my immorality. Notorious, indeed! Why, I defy everybody here, or anywhere else, to say that I am, or ever was, immoral. It's not likely that, if I wanted to be immoral, I should be slaving away and earning my bread by hard work. ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... voice. You will always find in his cabin some newspaper, some book, some token of advance in education. When he questions you about the old country he astonishes you by the extent of his knowledge. I defy you not to feel that he is superior to the race from whence he has sprung in England ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... finished their work; the grave was filled up, and they were carefully replacing the turf. This done, they scattered dry leaves over the place. "And now," said the leader, "I defy the devil himself to find ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... of sky what he should do. Then suddenly he rose, as though the answer had been given, for he clapped on his hat, stood erect with shoulders squared and hands clasped behind him, facing the open door with the demeanor of a man whose mind was made up, who was ready to meet the world and defy it. This, to me, was the hero who had knocked down the constable, and I imagined him confronting a dozen like Byron Lukens and piling them one on top of the other, for surely things had come to pass that the man would have to hold the clearing against an army. But as suddenly ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd
... cushions, and sent her words fluently across the room, straight and level with the glance from between her half-closed eyelids. A fine sensuous appreciation of the indolence it was possible to enjoy in the East clung about her. "To live on a plane that lifts you up like that—so that you can defy all criticism and all convention, and go about the streets like a mark of exclamation at the selfishness of the world—there must be something very consummate in it or you couldn't go on. At ...
— Hilda - A Story of Calcutta • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... Germans broke in the door, they overpowered him, tied him and then brought back on deck. Said the German commander: 'I'll show you how we treat men who defy us.' He stepped back several paces, drew his revolver and fired. Then three of the enemy threw the body into the sea. That's when we jumped them, for it was more than ...
— The Boy Allies with the Victorious Fleets - The Fall of the German Navy • Robert L. Drake
... initials, it will be seen, I pass over in contempt and silence. When once I have made up my mind, let me tell you, sir, there lives no pock-pudding who can change it. Your anger I defy. Your unmanly reference to a well-known statesman I puff from me, sir, like so much vapour. Weg is your ...
— The Letters of Robert Louis Stevenson - Volume 1 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... from American waters, after "Chesapeake" affair, 160-161; Royal, directing commanders of British naval vessels to impress British-born seamen found in foreign merchant ships, and denying efficacy of naturalization papers to discharge from allegiance, 166; by Jefferson, against combinations to defy Embargo laws, 207; by Madison, permitting renewal of trade with Great Britain, 219, and withdrawn, 219; by Madison, announcing revocation ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... beetles along with him. Not that the thought did anything to dampen the fear which made him weak and dizzy. Shann Lantee might be tough enough to fight his way out of the Dumps, but to stand up and defy Throgs face-to-face like a video hero was something else. He knew that he could not do any spectacular act; if he could hold out to the end without ...
— Storm Over Warlock • Andre Norton
... different parties of English, by their dialect, from what particular quarter they came. A person present, who articulated with much difficulty from having nearly lost the roof of his mouth, declared that he would defy any one to identify him by his speech. We all agreed that it exceeded our powers, when he informed us with a great effort that he was ...
— Successful Exploration Through the Interior of Australia • William John Wills
... loaded to the muzzle with will. The very scullions have genius.' A steady course of Balzac reduces our living friends to shadows, and our acquaintances to the shadows of shades. His characters have a kind of fervent fiery-coloured existence. They dominate us, and defy scepticism. One of the greatest tragedies of my life is the death of Lucien de Rubempre. It is a grief from which I have never been able completely to rid myself. It haunts me in my moments of pleasure. I remember it when I laugh. ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... between the Copper-smith's Gully and the pipe-stem sellers' quarter, within a hundred yards, too, as the crow flies, of the Mosque of Wazir Khan. I don't mind telling any one this much, but I defy him to find the Gate, however well he may think he knows the City. You might even go through the very gully it stands in a hundred times, and be none the wiser. We used to call the gully, "the Gully of the Black Smoke," but its native name is altogether different of course. ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... dulce to end in sheer absurdity. The usefulness of any article or system of dress depends entirely upon climate, modified of course by the occupation or pursuits of the wearer; the beauty of it or the suitableness of the ornament to the character of the vestment. We defy all the editors of the Recueils des Modes, Petits Courriers des Dames, Belles Assemblees, &c., with even the poet-laureates of Moses and Son, Hyam and Co., with the whole host of Israelitish schneiders, to find out a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... location of the cards, you tell the party who has chosen the card that you will change the position of the cards, by pushing alternately that at the point A to B, and that at D to C, and vice versa; and you defy him to follow you in these gyrations of the card, ...
— The Gaming Table: Its Votaries and Victims - Volume II (of II) • Andrew Steinmetz
... sated with the fame And rich reward Troy gave his archery; But o'er the wine he boasted that the game That very night he deem'd to win, or die; "For scarce their watch the tempest will defy," He said, "and all undream'd of might we go, And fall upon the Argives where they lie, Unseen, unheard, ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang
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