"Defenceless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hev a goot chance o' bein' in need o' sparin' yoursels; an' it iss not much o' the blood o' the Grants, either, that's in your veins, or ye would scorn to consort wi' such fire-raisin' cut-throats. It iss the fortune of war—whatever, and we can't affoord to leave our weemen an' bairns defenceless. So we accept your terms, if we are not hindered from ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... this blindness abates within a few days. The port of Carthagena lies four hundred and fifty-six miles from the port of Hispaniola called Beata, where preparations are generally made for voyages of discovery. Immediately on landing, Hojeda attacked the scattered and defenceless natives. They had been conceded to him by royal patent because they had formerly treated some Christians most cruelly and could never be prevailed upon to receive the Spaniards amicably in their country. Only a small quantity of gold, and that of poor quality, was found amongst them; ...
— De Orbe Novo, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Eight Decades of Peter Martyr D'Anghera • Trans. by Francis Augustus MacNutt
... not a boy, and you must allow me in these matters to judge for myself." As he spoke his spirit rose; the image of the head on his shoulder, defenceless against attack save for him, became clearer and clearer, and words escaped him which he never afterwards forgot, nor did his father forget. "And it is a shame—I say it is a shame to speak against her. ...
— Miriam's Schooling and Other Papers - Gideon; Samuel; Saul; Miriam's Schooling; and Michael Trevanion • Mark Rutherford
... supreme. The faint familiar perfume that stole about his room filled him with a kind of frenzy. Was this the chivalric devotion of which he had so boasted? this the desire to protect a young and defenceless woman? He no longer dared question himself. He seemed to feel her warm breath against his cheeks. He threw up his arms with a gesture of despair. A sigh stirred the deathlike stillness. At last! She was there, just within his doorway; the pale glimmer of the veiled moon fell upon her. Her trailing ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... the ridiculous I have when they are made ridiculous. For you were not brought up in that strange house from a mere baby. I was. You had not your little wits sharpened by their intriguing against you, suppressed and defenceless, under the mask of sympathy and pity and what not that is soft and soothing. I had. You did not gradually open your round childish eyes wider and wider to the discovery of that impostor of a woman who calculates her stores of peace of mind ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... scattered the slave-traders on all sides, and, for the time being, effectually broke up their power. The slave-traders of the Sudan were of Arab nationality, and were in the habit of advancing farther, year by year, upon the villages of the defenceless Africans, and spreading their ravages into the heart of Africa. They always attacked the less warlike tribes, and, upon breaking into a negro settlement, would carry off the whole population, except ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... the new champion aimed a fierce blow at Sigmund, which the old hero parried with his sword. The shock shattered the matchless blade, and although the strange assailant vanished as he had come, Sigmund was left defenceless and was soon wounded unto death ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... century the Saxon King Horsa, with his brother Hengist, who had greatly improved the fort at Horncastle, were defeated in a fight at Tetford by the Britons under their leader Raengeires, and the British King caused the walls to be nearly demolished and the place rendered defenceless. (Leland's Collectanea, vol i, pt. ii, ...
— A History of Horncastle - from the earliest period to the present time • James Conway Walter
... dusk, thunder Rolling and battering and cracking, The caverns shudder with a terrible glare Again and again and again, Till the land bows in the darkness, Utterly lost and defenceless, Smitten and blinded and overwhelmed By the crashing rods ...
— Georgian Poetry 1918-19 • Various
... Also, deceiving her would have been like deceiving a child; hurting her was like hurting a child. (That was what enraged me when he hurt her, and I had to stand by, and listen.) She was so simple, and direct, and defenceless. So, you see, as soon as I realised what had happened, I told her. It wasn't a dramatic avowal, and it had no very immediately dramatic consequences. In fact, for a while its only effect was to bring me across the room from my habitual arm-chair, to sit on the floor near her with my ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... divine protection, I set out defenceless. Such was my terror, however, that at first I halted every four or five yards, looking fearfully towards the spot where I had left the Indians, lest they should wake and miss me. But when I was about two hundred yards off I mended ...
— The Red True Story Book • Various
... actors alone who are subject to the hiss. The orator may provoke it by a bold speech in support of an unpopular measure or an unpopular man. But here the hisser is not so safe, nor the hissee—to coin a convenient word—so defenceless. The orator is not hampered by the studied words of a written part: he has the right of free speech, and he may retort upon his sibilant surrounders. Macready records that on one occasion, when Sheil was hissed, he "extorted the applause of ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various
... a good many of them—will be ashore to-night; but, recognising the fact that Russia and Japan are at war, do you, gentlemen, as reasonable, sensible men, really believe for a moment that the Russian fleet will be left defenceless in an open roadstead, or that the vigilance of the lookouts will be relaxed? I do not. And, if not, the approach of such a formidable array as ours would assuredly be detected, and the alarm given, long before we could arrive ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... for the solitary vessel,—an anxiety which I have now ceased to feel,—for the flag of truth waves brightly through the smoke of the battle, and my antagonists, wholly intent on the destruction of the leading ship, have lost their position, and exposed themselves in defenceless disorder to the ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... against their own constitutional rights, and, aided by the rebellious Servian hordes, commenced a course of Vandalism and extinction, sparing neither women, children, nor aged men; murdering and torturing the defenceless Hungarian inhabitants; burning the most flourishing villages and towns, among which, Nagy-Igmand, the seat of learning for Transylvania, was reduced to a ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... thinking of the shop was evident, for Miss Sarah was now heard remarking, "You left us defenceless, Caroline, and we ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... summer of 1808, of some despatches from the Governor of Martinique to the French Ministry asking for supplies and additional troops, and describing the condition of the island as almost defenceless, first directed the attention of the British Government to the reduction of this French colony. Preparations for the attack began at Barbados in November, 1808, the expedition assembled at Carlisle ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... delinquency he had not himself remarked; irate at his wife's imputation, and fearful of having forfeited her respect, he starts out to redeem his reputation in her eyes, and to maker her retract any insinuation she had made. Erec is simply angry with himself, but he expends his wrath upon his defenceless wife until he is reassured of her love ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... thou no longer livest, and that I Shall never see thee on the earth again, Incredible it seems! Alas, alas! What is this thing, that they call death? Oh, would That I, this day, the mystery could solve, And my defenceless head withdraw from Fate's Relentless hate! I still am young, and still Feel all the blight and misery of age, Which I so dread; and distant far it seems; But, ah, how little different from age, The flower of my years!"—"We both were born," ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... themselves in their plaids for sleep, but it was likely on the ground. They sadly missed the cozy bed their mother used to make. Where they had to stop was so shelterless, silent, chilly, and lonely. They were weary, hungry, defenceless, trembling like nestlings cast violently out of the nest. Margaret the oldest was a mother to the others. She loved her Bible. It contained God's many promises, one especially precious on a night like this: "Fear thou not; for I am ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters
... loose, we cannot know what lives of harmlessness, of innocence, of virtue, they are going to destroy. You find your range, you fix your elevation, you touch a button: you hear your gun go off. And over there, among the unarmed—the weak, the defenceless, the infirm—it has done—what? Singled out for destruction what life or lives; ten, twenty, a hundred?—you do not know. So with nations, when once they have gone to war; their imprecision becomes—horrible; though the cause of your war ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... had now come forth thus early, hoping so to anticipate the visit of his numerous clients, and take him at advantage, unprepared and defenceless. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... and they fell fast around their king. But Sigmund stood as in a trance, and the war rage faded from his face. All-Father Odin had come to claim the sword he had given all those many years ago, and had left him defenceless against the foe who now ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... he was carrying. I was in the porch. The beautiful girl who formerly made my affliction so bitter to me was passing at the moment, with her arm drawn affectionately through her father's. She saw the stumble, and sprang forward with a cry of alarm. It looked, certainly, as if my defenceless feet must receive the crash, and I attempted instinctively to withdraw them,—partially succeeding! I saw this at the same time that I heard the sweetest words that ever fell into my heart, in the most joyful, self-forgetful tones ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 6, April, 1858 • Various
... saw the commencement of the Indian Mutiny, a terrible outbreak of cruelty and fanaticism which, while it inflicted unspeakable anguish upon hundreds of our defenceless countrywomen and their children, desolated many an English home, and evoked the horror and compassion of the civilised world, was also the occasion of numberless acts of heroism and devotion, not only on the part of British soldiers and their native allies, ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... cat's back, and cuddled down in the soft fur near her neck, feeling very safe and warm there. The owl would certainly not attack him there, he thought, and the cat could not possibly hurt him. It was one thing to pounce down on a defenceless little creature running on the ground amongst the barley, quite another to try and snatch him from the ...
— Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit • S. M. Mitra and Nancy Bell
... dangers Lady Davenant protected him, and she took care that nobody hurt him in his defenceless state, before his shell was well formed and hardened. She was further of peculiar service in keeping all safe and smooth between the ward and guardian. All Beauclerc's romance the general would have called by the German word "Schwaermerey,"—not fudge—not humbug—literally "sky-rocketing"— visionary ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... own security and for the good of the cause in which I labor, I ought to seal your lips forever, for what is the life of one man compared to the end I seek? The occasion is fitting; no one knows that I have come here; I am armed; you are defenceless; your death would be attributed to the outlaws, if not to more supernatural causes—yet I'll let you live and trust that I shall not regret it. You have toiled, you have struggled with energetic perseverance, and like myself, you have your scores to settle with society. ...
— The Reign of Greed - Complete English Version of 'El Filibusterismo' • Jose Rizal
... ferocious banter. He showed a skill I should never have credited him with in finding the places where the unhappy Dutchman was most sensitive. Strickland employed not the rapier of sarcasm but the bludgeon of invective. The attack was so unprovoked that Stroeve, taken unawares, was defenceless. He reminded you of a frightened sheep running aimlessly hither and thither. He was startled and amazed. At last the tears ran from his eyes. And the worst of it was that, though you hated Strickland, and ...
— The Moon and Sixpence • W. Somerset Maugham
... him; his wife is regarded with jealousy; your frankest speech covers in his view some hidden and sinister meaning. You must be careful of your attentions to Mrs. Abercrombie to-night, for he will construe them adversely, and pour out his wrath on her defenceless head when ...
— Danger - or Wounded in the House of a Friend • T. S. Arthur
... the moment that he was deprived of his command, the triumphant cause of the Emperor had fallen, fallen until now it lay in utter ruin. The Saxons held Bohemia; all Western Germany was in Gustavus' hands; nothing interposed between the conquerors and defenceless Austria—nothing but Wallenstein. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 11 • Various
... time to think, a second Indian had sprung through the open window. A feeling of helpless rage swept over him at being cornered, defenceless; and, expecting every instant to be despatched with no more consideration than if he had been a rat, he stood at bay, determined not to be ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... had a keen-cutting weapon, and used it unsparingly. Being alone, with no male relative to defend her; being poor, and so further defenceless; being old, thus lacking weak woman's usual protection of beauty, she had absolutely nothing to fall back on when her ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... a Christian duty to forgive—that when a bad man smites one defenceless cheek, we are taught to offer the other to his upraised hand. But the Lord of Heaven and earth promises no forgiveness of transgression unless it is followed by repentance; and where God himself draws the strict line between Justice and Mercy, let no merely ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... she cried shrilly, the two scraggy muscles of her neck standing out long and thin as she screamed; "ye muckle lump—to strike a defenceless wean!—Dinna greet, my lamb; I'll no let him meddle ye.—Jock Gilmour, how daur ye lift your finger to a wean of mine? But I'll learn ye the better o't! Mr. Gourlay'll gie you the order to travel ere the ...
— The House with the Green Shutters • George Douglas Brown
... were lyrical about engine-drivers, telephone- repairers, stretcher-bearers, and so on. The story which had the most success concerned a soldier (a schoolmaster) who in an engagement got left between the opposing lines, a quite defenceless mark for German rifles. When a bullet hit him, he cried, "Vive la France!" When he was missed he kept silent. He was hit again and again, and at each wound he cried, "Vive la France!" He could not be killed. ...
— Over There • Arnold Bennett
... Waarenlexikon—a work of great accuracy and value (Leipzig, 1870), article Haifisch.] the pike, the trout family, and other ravenous fish, as well as of the fishing birds, the seal, and the otter, by man, would naturally have occasioned a great increase in the weaker and more defenceless fish on which they feed, had he not been as hostile to them also as to ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... certain of her fate; they could only be the desperate remnant of the decimated tribes, the foraging raiders of starving and desperate men, hunted from refuge to refuge, and carrying fire and sword in their vengeance wherever an unprotected caravan or a defenceless settlement gave them the power of plunder and of slaughter, that spared neither age nor sex. She was known throughout the length and the breadth of the land to the Arabs: she was neither child nor woman to them; she was but the soldier ...
— Wisdom, Wit, and Pathos of Ouida - Selected from the Works of Ouida • Ouida
... the fine sentiments and ennobling customs of the Teutonic nations, particularly with respect to the gallantry and generosity of the male toward the female sex, grew into beautiful combination with the rule of protecting the weak and defenceless everywhere, and how these elements were blended with the spirit of religious devotion which entered into the organization and practices of chivalry, forms one of the most fascinating features in the study of its development; and this gentler ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... that ever dogs the optimistic feast, warns us of a sack under our beds, and robbers about to try a barely-bolted door. . . Then do we, who have so sweetly sung our senses to sleep, start up, in their grip, rush to the doctor and the blacksmith, rig alarums, proclaim ourselves intestinally torn, defenceless, a prey to foes within and without. It is discovered to be no worse than an alderman's dream, but the pessimist frenzy of the night has tossed a quieting sop to the Radical, and summoned the volunteers to a review. Laudatory articles upon the ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... danger, had not altogether crowded out. And as the sense of peril dulled, the craft of sophistry grew clumsy. Remorse laid hold upon him in these dim watches of the night. Self-reproach had found him out here, defenceless so far from the specious wiles and ways of men. All the line of provocations seemed slight, seemed naught, as he reviewed them and balanced them against a human life. True, it was not in some mad quarrel that his skill had taken it and had served to keep his own—a duel, a fair fight, ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... would it not be better that we should all be together, even if we are obliged to conceal ourselves in consequence of not being prepared? Suppose the savages were to overrun the island, and find my mother, my little brother, and sister, defenceless, at the time we were obliged to retreat from our house; ...
— Masterman Ready • Captain Marryat
... arms and wrapped his cloak about him, while his heart stirred with shame and anger against the gratuitous cruelty of the instruments in this persecution. In the awakened warmth of his feelings, he resolved that, at whatever risk, he would not forsake the poor little defenceless being whom Heaven had confided to his care. With this determination, he left the accursed field, and resumed the homeward path from which the wailing of the boy had called him. The light and motionless burden scarcely ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... resist the clamour to withdraw the Cruisers from the Western Coast of Africa, and that they will NOT WITHDRAW the British Cruisers. If a blow is to be struck, let it be struck at Cuba, or the Brazils, and not on the defenceless Africans, because they are defenceless. If a burglar prowls about, a whole neighbourhood is on the alert to protect itself against his depredations. If a band of pirates swarm in a sea or infest our coasts, a fleet is fitted out to capture them. But it is attempted ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... any emergency, firmness to resist temptation when presented in its most alluring form, was blended with that genuine kindness of manner, that deference towards the weak and defenceless, which renders its fortunate possessor not only esteemed, but beloved. Yet with so much that was admirable in mind and heart, of him it might be said, as it was of one of old, "One thing thou lackest." Strange, that the subject of the greatest ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... elements of danger to the state and the nation. Ignorance and vice, disease and crime, crowd themselves into cities. There they find their best hiding-places, their surest protection, and their most defenceless victims. It makes one tremble to think of the thousands of youth in our cities whom the school and the church do not reach, and who are moulded by these influences into the worst and lowest forms of humanity. They can not and will not go out into the country themselves, except upon some ...
— Parks for the People - Proceedings of a Public Meeting held at Faneuil Hall, June 7, 1876 • Various
... the contradiction between his first assertions and those that followed, all become clear in the light of this new theory. He had seen his wife kill a defenceless woman before his eyes, and whether influenced by his old affection for her or by his pride in her good name, he could not but be anxious to conceal her guilt even at the cost of his own truthfulness. ...
— That Affair Next Door • Anna Katharine Green
... I anticipate, as I rolled heedlessly along in the chaise to —— Hall? Sensual gratification at the expense of a poor defenceless orphan, whose future life would be clouded with misery. I could see my wickedness, and moralise upon it; but the devil was triumphant within me, and I consoled myself with the vulgar adage, "Needs must when the devil drives." With this, I dismissed the subject ...
— Frank Mildmay • Captain Frederick Marryat
... Sarah Brown would have been very susceptible to such a drug; her mind was always on the brink of innocent intoxication. Perhaps she was only half a woman, so that half a joy could make her heart reel and sing, and half a sorrow break it. She was defenceless against impressions, and too many impressions make the heart very tired. Therefore, I think, she was a predestined victim of magic, and it seems unlikely that the witch should have missed such an ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... undertaking to govern boys and men—they always have, and they always will. Nor am I opposed to the claim that women have equal rights with men. I rather claim that they have the sacred superior rights that God and good men accord to the weak and defenceless, by which they have the easiest work, the most safe and comfortable places, and the largest share of all the most agreeable and desirable enjoyments of this life. My main objection to the Woman-Suffrage organization is this, that a wrong mode is employed to gain a right object. ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson
... the fittest; the preying of the stronger on the weaker—of the tiger on the feebler beasts of the jungle; the eagle on the smaller birds of the air; the wolf on the sheep; the shark on the poor, defenceless fish, and so on; neither could He be the Creator that deals in diseases—foul and filthy diseases, common, not only to all divisions of the human species, but to quadrupeds, birds, fish, and even flora; that brings into existence ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... beheld, asylum. Alas! Why do I blame thee! the terror of Ananga's shaft has rendered thee a fugitive;—let me implore his pity. Lord of the flowery bow, victor of demons and of gods! dost thou not blush to waste thy might upon a weak defenceless maiden, or art thou truly without form and sense? Ah me, I fear my death impends, and this the fatal cause." She looks at the picture and goes on, "No one approaches; I will try and finish the likeness I am here attempting to portray. My heart beats high, my hand trembles, yet I must try, ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... take part in all the festivities with which he ostentatiously celebrated his happiness. She had the courage to receive his cutting coldness, his cruel sarcasm, his contempt, with calm composure and sweet submission. With the smile of a stoic, she offered her defenceless breast to his poisoned arrows, and even the tortures she endured were precious in her sight. She was convinced that the prince had not relinquished or forgotten her—that his indifference and contempt was assumed to hide his living, breathing ...
— Frederick The Great and His Family • L. Muhlbach
... venture. Before surrendering to his desire for silence and rest, he glanced under lowered lids at his host's blue-tinged, loosely-hanging cheeks. Conscientiously silent when his wife wished to discuss literature with her new discoveries, Lord Poynter became dutifully loquacious when exposed defenceless to the task of entertaining them and took refuge in gusty, nervous geniality or odd, sly confidences on matters of ...
— The Education of Eric Lane • Stephen McKenna
... he been called Devil's Own by his former comrades and playfellows. A defenceless girl—my daughter! By good St. Anthony, if he crosses my path again it shall be for the last ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... round, she saw him leaning back in his chair, a defenceless animal without his spectacles, his eyes small and purpled ringed, his hair tossed about, his spruceness gone. 'I am sure you ...
— The Trial - or, More Links of the Daisy Chain • Charlotte M. Yonge
... unaware of his danger, was holding out his hands to the flames; it was not until the man was close behind him that be heard his footsteps and turned his head. His face was frozen; the frost had bound him hand and foot, making him defenceless, so that he could hardly stir; the only means of appeal he had was the expression ...
— Murder Point - A Tale of Keewatin • Coningsby Dawson
... strike Rob's defenceless hand, for Shaddy's keen knife-blade met it a couple of inches below the gaping jaws, cut clean through its scale-armed skin, and the head dropped among the lovely petals of the orchis, while the body, twisting ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... isolated, escape the contagion. The pagan Indians, rendered desperate under the terrible scourge which was so rapidly cutting them off, and being powerless to check it, resolved to wreak their vengeance upon the defenceless whites. So they sent a band of warriors to destroy every white person in the country. The first place they reached, where dwelt any of the pale-faces, was the Victoria Mission on the Saskatchewan River. ...
— By Canoe and Dog-Train • Egerton Ryerson Young
... leather jerkin lined with steel rings, mail as stout as any forged. Some one had stabbed once and again at the coat without avail, and had then torn it open and stabbed his defenceless breast. Though we had killed two of their men, they had rained blows enough on this man of ours ...
— Helmet of Navarre • Bertha Runkle
... a brazen thing! You know that he is dead, and you know that I know it. Oh, to rob the living of name and honors for a selfish and temporary advantage is crime enough, but to rob the defenceless dead—why it is more ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... accomplished? Unseen in the heights above, the Tyrolese peasantry hurl down rocks, roots, and trunks of pine trees, as well as sending a "deadly hail" from their rifles along the "whole line" of the defenceless ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... who all of a sudden surrounded them, and in the Catalan tongue bade them stand and wait until their captain came up. Don Quixote was on foot with his horse unbridled and his lance leaning against a tree, and in short completely defenceless; he thought it best therefore to fold his arms and bow his head and reserve himself for a more favourable occasion and opportunity. The robbers made haste to search Dapple, and did not leave him a single thing of all he carried in the alforjas and in the valise; and lucky it was for Sancho ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... so rarely does, a gentleman, will soon begin to find himself at home. And when that essentially modern creature, the English or American girl-student, began to walk calmly into his favourite inns as if into a drawing-room at home, the French painter owned himself defenceless; he submitted or he fled. His French respectability, quite as precise as ours, though covering different provinces of life, recoiled aghast before the innovation. But the girls were painters; there was nothing to be done; and Barbizon, when I last saw it and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... battle lost. And the war too was lost by the deaths of Harold and his brothers, which left England without leaders, and by the unyielding valour of Harold's immediate following. They were slain to a man, and south-eastern England was left defenceless. ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... another at Augusta, Georgia,[71] three years afterward had like plans of setting houses afire at night and then attacking other quarters of the respective towns when the white men had left their homes defenceless. Both plots were betrayed, and several participants in each were executed. These conspiracies were eclipsed in turn by the elaborate Vesey plot at Charleston in 1822, which, for the variety of the negro types ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... little; do as little as possible; and endeavor to appear insensible to their insults. I would say to you, if you will excuse the triviality of the comparison, imitate those feeble insects who simulate death when they are touched. They are defenceless; and that is their only ...
— The Clique of Gold • Emile Gaboriau
... insidious hostilities to its government, their various practices to withdraw the affections of the people from it, the evident tendency of their arts and those of their agents to countenance and invigorate opposition, their disregard of solemn treaties and the laws of nations, their war upon our defenceless commerce, their treatment of our minister of peace, and their demands amounting to tribute, could not fail to excite in me corresponding sentiments with those which my countrymen have so generally expressed in their ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... cried the cook, struggling with the inspector. "Whatever do you mean? Shame—shame to 'old a defenceless lady. 'Elp!" ...
— The Secret Passage • Fergus Hume
... ease with which it avoided his best-aimed blows, only served to rouse his spirit, and at length striking with increased force his stick came to the ground and was broken to pieces. For some moments he now stood within two yards of the animal perfectly defenceless and not knowing what to do. Suddenly it sprang past him, actually brushing against his arm with its side, and began pursuing the dogs round and round among the bushes. In the end my informant's partner appeared on the scene with his rifle, and the ...
— The Naturalist in La Plata • W. H. Hudson
... emperor Su Tsung died, in 762, Tengri, the khan of the Uighurs, decided to make himself ruler over China. The events of the preceding years had shown him that China alone was entirely defenceless. Part of the court clique supported him, and only by the intervention of P'u-ku Huai-en, who was related to Tengri by marriage, was his plan frustrated. Naturally there were countless intrigues against P'u-ku Huai-en. He entered ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... eight hundred horse, being landed, Antony sent most of his ships back to Italy, to transport the remainder of the soldiers and horse. The pontons, which are a sort of Gallic ships, he left at Lissus with this object, that if Pompey, imagining Italy defenceless, should transport his army thither (and this notion was spread among the common people), Caesar might have some means of pursuing him; and he sent messengers to him with great despatch, to inform him in what part of the country he had landed his army, and what number of troops he had ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... who knows the laws. Well, it was in this way: You know my history; Barbet is an usurer; he has the keen glance and the shrewd action of that breed of men. His money was always at my heels to help me over my worst needs. Strange to say, on the days I was most defenceless against despair ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... crept up the portrait line by line As it lay on the coals in the silence of night's profound, And over the arm's incline, And along the marge of the silkwork superfine, And gnawed at the delicate bosom's defenceless round. ...
— Moments of Vision • Thomas Hardy
... nothing more frequently than meekness, patience, and a contempt of this world, is it not plain what the meaning of the place is? Namely, that he might now dismiss his ambassadors in a more naked, defenceless condition, he does not only advise them to take no thought for shoes or scrip, but even commands them to part with the very clothes from their back, that so they might have the less incumbrance and entanglement ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... and of the causes of the change, about men there is not much, and that little is more to the purpose. Deprived of the care of God, who had possessed and tended them, they were left helpless and defenceless, and were torn in pieces by the beasts, who were naturally fierce and had now grown wild. And in the first ages they were still without skill or resource; the food which once grew spontaneously had failed, and as yet they knew not how ...
— Statesman • Plato
... never tainted, while standing waters easily grow corrupt, so a fluency of expression washes away the censures of the caviller, while the narrow limits of a discourse which is too concise is almost defenceless; for the arguments which I am enlarging upon are thus briefly ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... to be ashamed of yourself, sir," said Mrs. Gruppins, turning on him indignantly; "to think that you should take advantage of a poor and defenceless widow, and me so inexperienced and ignorant of ...
— A Knight Of The Nineteenth Century • E. P. Roe
... have at length found their commemoration in an historical act. History, which will represent Mr. Parnell sitting silent under the appeal of Mr. Forster, and Gordon setting forth upon his tragic enterprise, will not forget Mr. Cole carrying the dynamite in his defenceless hands, nor Mr. Cox coming coolly to ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... on, the sun slanted its rays cruelly through the little skylight on to the spot where he lay, and the flies, attracted by the rare chance, swarmed in under the door and through the cracks to make merry with their defenceless victim. Had the sun been seven times as hot, or the flies venomous and deadly, he would have preferred it, for it would have shortened his misery considerably. When at last the sun got across the window, and left him at peace, he was scarcely in a position ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... Ponce de Leon in Andalusia, being revived, carried new division into the cities, whose streets literally ran with blood. [32] In the country, the nobles and gentry, issuing from their castles, captured the defenceless traveller, who was obliged to redeem his liberty by the payment of a heavier ransom than was exacted even by the Mahometans. All communication on the high roads was suspended, and no man, says a contemporary, ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott
... the unfortunate Federico, when again in dismal solitude, and with the prospect of a cruel death before his eyes, to reflect on the firmness he had shown, and on the agony of jealous doubt he had inflicted on his rival. In his defenceless and desperate circumstances, such revenge was doubly sweet; and for a while he dwelt on it with pleasure. Then his thoughts took other direction, and an active and excited imagination transported ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... the people of the house what has happened," said our good-hearted student; "they would be most awfully offended, and there is no knowing what they might do with defenceless travellers in ...
— Through Finland in Carts • Ethel Brilliana Alec-Tweedie
... of my brother alone with a property exposing her to the machinations of prowling selfishness! Would it atone for the wrong of depriving her of one uncle, to take the other from her, and so leave her defenceless with a burden she could not carry? Must I take so-called justice on myself at her expense—to the oppression, darkening, and endangering of her life? Were I accused, I would tell the truth; but I would ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... were slaughtered promiscuously, a special ferocity was always displayed by the barbarous conqueror toward the unarmed and defenceless ministers of religion. They took a particular delight in their case in adding insult to cruelty; and not without reason did the Church at that time consider as martyrs the priests and monks who were slain by the pagan Scandinavians. Their sanguinary and hideous ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... at the local art competitions, and had afterwards come to Paris as the town laureate, with an allowance of eight hundred francs per annum, for a period of four years. In the capital, however, he had found himself at sea, defenceless, failing in his competitions at the School of Arts, and spending his allowance to no purpose; so that, at the end of his term, he had been obliged for a livelihood to enter the employment of a dealer in church statues, at whose establishment, for ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola
... placing pretty Miss Débutante next young Strongboys instead of giving her over into the clutches of old Mr. Boremore will never enter these obtuse entertainers’ heads, any more than that of trying to keep poor, defenceless Mrs. Mouse out ...
— The Ways of Men • Eliot Gregory
... living world around him—he has lost it all; he retains only its sources of pain, and the unfading memory of his own crime. Scoffed at by the unfeeling, pitied by some, by all shunned—contempt and commiseration and scorn are the smarting scourges to which he stands defenceless for ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... by Governor Pickens of South Carolina to induce Major Anderson by his demands and threats to return to his defenceless position at Fort Moultrie. President Buchanan, at the instigation of his Secretary of War, Floyd, was on the point of ordering him to do so, but when the matter was considered in a Cabinet meeting, other counsels prevailed, and Floyd made this ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... coming!" the soldier cried in a terrified whisper. "My God, they are coming! Come back! Come back!" For Claude had their only weapon, and the guard was defenceless. Defenceless by the side of the stairs up which the foe ...
— The Long Night • Stanley Weyman
... troublesome times Captain Stephens can no more return to our cottage. Do you know, my little friend, that I cannot bear being cooped up here during all this strife and tumult, when brave men and defenceless women are at the mercy of savages and ill-advised men of our own class. There have been evil and oppressive doings by government and its agents, but I do not think that Monsieur Riel and my father have taken the prudent course to remove the wrongs. It will not be fair or honorable ...
— Annette, The Metis Spy • Joseph Edmund Collins
... assured, but unless you bind fast your sword, I dare not come in." Then Canneloro, who wished to become friends with the doe, bound his sword as a countryman does, when he carries it in the city for fear of the constables. As soon as the ogre saw Canneloro defenceless, he re-took his own form, and laying hold on him, flung him into a pit at the bottom of the cave, and covered it up with a stone—to keep him ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... cavalry from Suffolk to cut the Weldon Railroad. He also sent out detachments to destroy the railroad between Petersburg and Richmond, but no great success attended these latter efforts. He made no great effort to establish himself on that road and neglected to attack Petersburg, which was almost defenceless. About the 11th he advanced slowly until he reached the works at Drury's Bluff, about half way between Bermuda Hundred and Richmond. In the mean time Beauregard had been gathering reinforcements. On the 16th he attacked Butler with great vigor, and with ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... too, that the officers of this Branch of the service should have all misbehaved in exactly the same manner. Their acts of oppression and outrage were always perpetrated in defence of some supposed right of a defenceless and friendless race, overwhelmed with poverty—the bondmen of ignorance—who had no money with which to corrupt, no art with which to beguile, and no power with which to overawe these representatives of authority. For the first time in the history of mankind, ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... is," said Hinman, shaking hands with both of us, "I thought I'd drop in to find out if there was anything I could do. No reasonable person," he went on, turning to Swain, "believes you killed that defenceless old man; but those ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... reminded the people that the Indians were not exterminated, that they still hung in numerous hordes about the frontiers, and that it needed but a single word from the Crown, to bring them, once more, with tomahawk and scalping-knife, upon their defenceless homes. Already, indeed, had the emissaries of Great Britain taken measures to this end. The savage was already shaking off his apathy, scenting the carnage from afar, and making ready for the onset. ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... her daughter's head encircled with a wreath of sainted glory, and she placed her in the Ursuline convent, in hopes that the example of the nuns might induce her to join their sisterhood— Josepha was in my power defenceless! ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Vol. I. No. 3. March 1810 • Various
... Burlington Heights, to destroy a quantity of British stores at that place, which was the principal depot of Vincent's army. A body of Glengury Fencibles had been sent from York to protect the depot, thus leaving the capital defenceless. Chauncey therefore sailed for York, and Scott, landing without opposition on the 23rd of July, burned the barracks, and such public buildings as had previously escaped, broke open the jail, and plundered both private and public stores. Chauncey then sailed for the Niagara. On the 8th of ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... of near relations compelled by torture to be the murderers of each other, of corpses outraged and mutilated, were told and heard with full belief and intense interest. Then it was added that the dastardly savages who had by surprise committed all these cruelties on an unsuspecting and defenceless colony had, as soon as Oliver came among them on his great mission of vengeance, flung down their arms in panic terror, and had sunk, without trying the chances of a single pitched field, into that slavery which was their fit portion. Many signs indicated ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... occasion; it was now very good, as being modest, gracious, and ready. Yet the something never left it. It has been written of men who have undergone a cruel captivity, or who have passed through a terrible strait, or who in self-preservation have killed a defenceless fellow-creature, that the record thereof has never faded from their countenances until they died. Was there any such ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... called their own, or are pensioners on the bounty of those strangers by whom their fortunes have been overthrown. They who were noble and gentle for ages are now merged in the common mass of the people. All over those vast regions there are countless millions, helpless and defenceless, deprived of their natural leaders and their ancient chiefs, looking with only some small ray of hope to that omnipresent and irresistible Power by which they have been subjected. I appeal to you on behalf of that people. I have ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... church recognised as the only cause for divorce. There was no escape from his obligation, provided his wife would forgive him and take him back. Her wrong to him had borne the bitter fruit of his wrong to this defenceless girl. Let her come back—she could not come too soon—and face him with his faithlessness. He would tell her what she had done, and bid her to forgive him ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... Knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, If deed of honour did thee ever please, Guard them, and him within protect from harms. He can requite thee, for he knows the charms That call fame on such gentle acts as these, And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas, Whatever clime the sun's bright circle ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... accept such an estimate of the Dyak character with reservations. From all that I could learn, head-hunting is a sport, like fox-hunting in England. Nor does it, as a rule, involve any great risk to the hunters, for the head-hunting raids are usually mere butcheries of defenceless people, the Dyaks either stalking their victim in the bush and killing him from behind, or attacking a village when the warriors are absent and slaughtering everyone whom they find in it—old, men, women, and children. The head of an orang-utan, by the ...
— Where the Strange Trails Go Down • E. Alexander Powell
... poor privilege, sir, that of insulting the defenceless. You know I am doubly so—defenceless from age, defenceless in virtue of my sacred profession; but if I am defenceless against your insults, Sir Thomas Gourlay, I am not against your threats, which I despise and defy. The integrity of my life is beyond your power, the serenity of my conscience beyond ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... fattening on its spoils; and the world was presented with the astounding spectacle of a great municipality whose civic mechanism was largely employed in trading in the bodies and souls of the innocent and defenceless. What has been published in this connection is but the merest hint of what exists—and exists, most appalling of all, as the evidence has come to me under the seal of confidence in overwhelming volume and force to demonstrate—under ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... welcome, for all ghosts are supposed to be mischievous and to take no delight but in injuring the living. Hence, for example, a widower in mourning goes about everywhere armed with an axe to defend himself against the spirit of his dead wife, who might play him many an ill turn if she caught him defenceless and off his guard. And he is subject to many curious restrictions and has to lead the life of an outcast from society, apparently because people fear to come into contact with a man whose steps are dogged by so dangerous a ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... Mrs. Kent. "That dreadful man is downstairs now! Eliza threw him out once this afternoon, but he's here again. He may have murdered Mr. Carter by this time. Oh, inspector, do hurry down at once and see what's happened! There's a defenceless high-church curate in the cellar with him. Mary, show ...
— Kathleen • Christopher Morley
... name, am the son of one of these, and was brought up to be a robber like them. Since I have been grown up I have often assisted in plundering expeditions, when they would fall suddenly on some defenceless village, and carry away not only all the property on which they could lay their hands, but several of the richest of the inhabitants, whom they would keep prisoners till a ransom had been paid, or till, compelled by torture, they confessed ...
— Hindoo Tales - Or, The Adventures of Ten Princes • Translated by P. W. Jacob
... a few Italian officials—he built up a figure, typical, representative, according to him, of the New Italy, small, insolent, venal,—insulting and despoiling the Old Italy, venerable, beautiful and defenceless. And then a natural turn of thought, or a suggestion from one of the group surrounding him, brought him to the scandals connected with the Abyssinian campaign—to the charges of incompetence and corruption which every Radical paper was ...
— Eleanor • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... facing realities.... It was just when the Germans were taking Bruges, the Uhlans broke into this convent.... But I think it was in Louvain, not Bruges.... I have a wretched memory for names.... Well, they broke in, and took all those poor defenceless ...
— One Man's Initiation—1917 • John Dos Passos
... harassed, so trampled upon, so plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase, as 'pirates,' The spoliations of their incessant guerilla warfare upon his defenceless rights have unquestionably amounted to millions. In the very front rank of this predatory band stands one who sustains in this case the double and most convenient character of contestant and witness; and it is but a subdued ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... she answered with passion, "because I was forced into it, bullied into it, starved into it. What would you do if you were a defenceless, motherless girl of eighteen, with a drunken father who beat you—yes, beat you with a stick—apologised in the most gentlemanlike way next morning and then went and got drunk again? And what would you do if that father were in the hands of a man like my husband, body and ...
— Colonel Quaritch, V.C. - A Tale of Country Life • H. Rider Haggard
... name, don't say that!" urged Theron. He raised his voice in agitated entreaty. "You don't know what these people are—how they would leap at the barest hint of a scandal about me. In my position I am a thousand times more defenceless than any woman. Just a single whisper, ...
— The Damnation of Theron Ware • Harold Frederic
... instead of twenty. My dreamy life, into which no knowledge of evil had been allowed to penetrate, in which I had been guarded from all pain, shielded from all anxiety, kept, innocent on all questions of sex, was no preparation for married existence, and left me defenceless to face a rude awakening. Looking back on it all, I deliberately say that no more fatal blunder can be made than to train a girl to womanhood in ignorance of all life's duties and burdens, and then to let her face them for the first time away from all the ...
— Annie Besant - An Autobiography • Annie Besant
... achieved by the Hungarian arms before the fatal blow was aimed at the country. The fortress of Buda was taken after a gallant assault, in the course of which the Austrian commandant bombarded the defenceless city of Pest on the opposite bank of the Danube, and thus the capital, too, was restored to the country. Yet after this last glorious feat of war, good fortune deserted the national banners. The grand heroic epoch was hastening to its tragic end. Two hundred thousand Russians crossed the borders ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... to turn them over to the political control of the common enemy of the government and of the negro. But of this let nothing be said in this place. Waiving humanity, national honor, the claims of gratitude, the precious satisfaction arising from deeds of charity and justice to the weak and defenceless,—the appeal for impartial suffrage addresses itself with great pertinency to the darkest, coldest, and flintiest side of the human heart, and would wring righteousness from the unfeeling calculations of ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... lashed to the principal masts, and ropes were given to the others around her, as indispensable precautions; for the deck of the bark, now cleared of every particle of its freight, was as exposed and as defenceless against the power of the wind, as a naked heath. Such was the situation of the Winkelried, when the omens of the night changed ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... mother's devotion, she mistook this first test of marriage for life itself, and the refractory child cursed life, unknown to me, nor daring to complain to me, out of sheer modesty perhaps! In so cruel a position she would be defenceless against any man who stirred her deeply.—And I, so wise a judge as they say—I, who have a kind heart, but whose mind was absorbed—I understood too late these unwritten laws of the woman's code, I read them by the light of the fire that wrecked my roof. Then I constituted my ...
— Honorine • Honore de Balzac
... invasions of the north. The aim of the former was to conquer, that of their antagonists to convert, if antagonists those can be called who sought to turn them from their evil ways. The monk penetrated through their most gloomy forests unarmed and defenceless; he found his way alone to their fortresses. Nothing touches the heart of a savage so profoundly as the greatness of silent courage. Among the captives taken from the south in war were often high-born women of great beauty and purity of mind, ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... had prepared myself to receive blows and insults with a calm brow, but I had no armour with which to oppose the noble weapons of sympathy and good fellowship. They overcame the stubborn hatred with which I was accustomed to meet life, and left me defenceless. I felt as if I had been face to face with the hero ...
— The Ghost Ship • Richard Middleton
... the loss of Palestine. By the command of the sultan, the churches and fortifications of the Latin cities were demolished: a motive of avarice or fear still opened the holy sepulchre to some devout and defenceless pilgrims; and a mournful and solitary silence prevailed along the coast which had so long resounded with the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... first time, perceived the ruse, and began to calculate its results. Those giant ships, that but a moment ago seemed rushing to destruction, had rounded to at a safe distance, and were preparing, with the speed and skilfulness of a perfect discipline, to pour a hostile host upon the defenceless shores. In vain the cavalry bugle called their horsemen to the saddle; in vain the artillery car rattled along the streets; both ...
— The Rifle Rangers • Captain Mayne Reid
... against the license of private war; the Truce of God [16] was confirmed, a suspension of hostilities during four days of the week; women and priests were placed under the safeguard of the church; and a protection of three years was extended to husbandmen and merchants, the defenceless victims of military rapine. But a law, however venerable be the sanction, cannot suddenly transform the temper of the times; and the benevolent efforts of Urban deserve the less praise, since he labored to appease some domestic quarrels that he might spread the flames of war from the Atlantic ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... childish widow and the vapourish child; This nature prompts; minds uninform'd and weak In such alliance ease and comfort seek: Push'd by the levity of youth aside, The cares of man, his humour, or his pride, They feel, in their defenceless state, allied; The child is pleased to meet regard from age, The old are pleased e'en children to engage; And all their wisdom, scorn'd by proud mankind, They love to pour into the ductile mind, By its own weakness into error led, And by fond age with prejudices fed. The Father, ...
— Tales • George Crabbe
... first to arrive. However, Rougon sent them all back to their posts, after reprimanding them severely for abandoning the gates of the town. Thrown into consternation by this reproach—for in their panic, they had, in fact, left the gates absolutely defenceless—they again set off at a gallop, hurrying through the streets with still more frightful uproar. Plassans might well have thought that an infuriated army was crossing it in all directions. The fusillade, the tocsin, the marches and countermarches of the ...
— The Fortune of the Rougons • Emile Zola
... first Lot, with seventeen more of all Sorts and Sizes, but not one of Quality with him. When he saw this, he found what they meant; for, as I said, he understood English pretty well; and being wholly unarm'd and defenceless, so as it was in vain to make any Resistance, he only beheld the Captain with a Look all fierce and disdainful, upbraiding him with Eyes that forc'd Blushes on his guilty Cheeks, he only cry'd in passing over ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume V • Aphra Behn
... entreated him to have pity on his defenceless state. The king raised him up and promised his protection, and kept his word. Themistocles was taken by two guides safely across the mountains to Pydna, where he found a merchant ship about to sail for Asia. A storm drove it to the island of Naxos, which was besieged ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... grow virtuously zealous in an instant on behalf of the lovely dame who tells them bewitchingly, she is alone and defenceless, with pitiful dimples round the dewy mouth that entreats their ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... Shakspeare assign the same place to them in his play, which they occupy in the history of Macbeth as related in the old chronicles? A monstrous crime is committed: Duncan, a venerable old man, and the best of kings, is, in defenceless sleep, under the hospitable roof, murdered by his subject, whom he has loaded with honours and rewards. Natural motives alone seem inadequate, or the perpetrator must have been portrayed as a hardened villain. Shakspeare wished to exhibit a more sublime picture: an ambitious but noble ...
— Lectures on Dramatic Art and Literature • August Wilhelm Schlegel
... rid himself of her. But, after all, it was only some three hundred and fifty pounds a year, and depended on the life of a lady of forty-odd, who might live to be a hundred. A girl with no more than that is nearly as defenceless as she ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... but more active and supple in its movements than the male. They prey upon kangaroos, opossums, bandicoots, and other native animals; hunting by night, their exquisite sense of smell enables them to steal cautiously upon these defenceless animals, in the thick covers of the low grassy flats and scrubs, or to run them down on the more open hill and forest land. They are not very fleet, but follow the track with untiring perseverance, occasionally ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West
... What the Hague Convention desired to prevent was the destruction without chance of escape of human lives en masse, which would have been the case if shells with poisonous gas were rained down on a defenceless enemy who did not see them coming and was exposed to them irremediably. The changing forms of warfare make new ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... gone—through a door at the rear of the desk, a door that he had not noticed before, that was not even in evidence now, that was simply a movable section of the wall panelling—and for an instant Jimmie Dale experienced a sense of sickening impotence. It was as though he stood defenceless, unarmed, and utterly at the mercy of some venomous power that could crush what it would remorselessly and at will ...
— The Adventures of Jimmie Dale • Frank L. Packard
... Jeremias. "I have inquired particularly. The bird in the wood is not more defenceless than that child. Poverty there will be in the house; and what little there is, that monster of a housekeeper ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... would judge the matter fairly. Herdonius, if nothing else, by avowing himself an enemy, in a manner gave you notice to take up arms: this man, by denying the existence of war, took arms out of your hands, and exposed you defenceless to your slaves and exiles. And did you, (without any offence to Caius Claudius and to Publius Valerius, now no more let me say it,) did you advance against the Capitoline hill before you expelled those enemies from the forum. It is shameful before gods ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... where they fell on their knees and began to say a litany. I stood at the door looking at them. It was a pitiful sight. There were one or two old men and some women, and some little children and a young girl who was in hysterics. They seemed so helpless, so defenceless against the rain ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... acts of violence and murder; and some Catholic priests, who had imprudently signalized their zeal, were tortured by the fanatics with the most refined and wanton barbarity. The spirit of the Circumcellions was not always exerted against their defenceless enemies; they engaged, and sometimes defeated, the troops of the province; and in the bloody action of Bagai, they attacked in the open field, but with unsuccessful valor, an advanced guard of the Imperial cavalry. The Donatists who were taken in arms, received, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... defend the girl from the anger of his secretary, but when she said, with a certain challenge, "Through the door," he doubted if she were so defenceless as she seemed. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... and comfort. As it was, we were forced to await the issue without counsel. Polly Ann and I talked it over many times while Tom sat, morose and silent, in a corner. He was the pioneer pure and simple, afraid of no man, red or white, in open combat, but defenceless ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... regularly and frequently undertaken. Occasionally a trader establishes himself in a village for months together, driving a profitable trade in hardware, cloth, tobacco, etc. These traders usually travel in a small boat with a company or crew of only two or three men, and they are practically defenceless against any small party of the natives who might choose to rob or murder them. Such traders have now and again been robbed, and sometimes also murdered, by roving bands of Sea Dayaks, but we know of no such act committed by Kayans or Kenyahs. ...
— The Pagan Tribes of Borneo • Charles Hose and William McDougall
... that Pignaver's agents must have seized her as soon as he himself had been taken away, and he dared not think of what would happen when they brought her back to Venice and delivered her up to her uncle. That they would murder the defenceless girl he did not believe, and besides, it was much more likely that Pignaver would prefer to torment her to death at his leisure, after assassinating her lover. Stradella guessed as much as that from what he knew ...
— Stradella • F(rancis) Marion Crawford
... raised, the body's attitude, not studied surely, but the apparent and seemingly sudden effect of patriotic daring. Such one's fancy forms young Isadas the Spartan; who, hearing the enemy's approach while at the baths, starts off unmindful of his own defenceless state, snatches a spear and shield from one he meets, flies at the foe, performs prodigies of valour, is looked on by both armies as a descended God, and returns home at last unhurt, to be fined by the Ephori for breach ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... she flew to do Jacob's bidding. She had a terrible fear of London streets, at night, as well she might, and the open country beyond was even worse to her excited imagination. And Cherry was so pretty, so simple, so credulous, and withal so utterly defenceless should there be any sort of attack made upon her. Keziah's hands shook as she lighted the lantern; and as minutes were fast slipping away and still there was no sign of the truant, she was rather relieved than terrified to hear the sharp accents of her aunt's voice mingling with ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... full of its juice. Was he not smiting hip and thigh? He longed, I am sure, to be in the thick of the actual fighting, but age debarred him, and he was not of that more sensitive type which shrinks from smiting the defenceless if it cannot smite anything stronger. I remember saying to ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... appalled. The sudden, paralysing conviction flashed upon her that the palace had been deserted by its guards and was in the hands of murderers. She seemed to hear them swarming everywhere, unopposed, yet lusting for blood, while she, a defenceless woman, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... Herrera devoured its contents. From them he learned all that Rita herself knew of the place and reasons of her captivity. She detailed the manner in which she had been decoyed from Segura, described what she conjectured to be the position of the convent, and implored Zumalacarregui to protect a defenceless orphan, and rescue her from the prison in which she was unjustifiably detained. After twice reading the letter, the handwriting of which recalled a thousand tender recollections, although the information it contained filled him with alarm and ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... removed, in order, at the proper time, to make way for this impostor. You know not, sir, but there may be a base and inhuman murder involved in this matter—nay, a double murder—that of my cousin, too; yes, and the worst of all murders, the murder of the innocent and defenceless. As a man, as a magistrate, but, above all, a thousand times, as a father—as the father and uncle of the very two children that have disappeared, it becomes your duty to examine into ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton |
