"Defensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in the streets, little crowds of women, surrounding muddy, tired men who had come in from the Duke. People were going about in a hurried, aimless way which showed that they were scared. Many houses were shut up. Many men were working on the city walls, trying to make the place defensible. If ever a town had the fear of death upon it that town was Taunton, then. As far as I could make out it was not the actual war that it feared; though that it feared pretty strongly, as the looks on the women's faces showed. It feared that the Duke's army would ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... took them to Almeida, where the breaches caused by the great explosion had been repaired, and the place put into a defensible position. Tom and Peter had been afraid that there would be at least four months of enforced inactivity before the spring; but they soon found that the post of aide-de-camp to Wellington was no sinecure. For the next month they almost lived in the saddle. The greater portion of the English ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... is about 100 yards broad, and still keeps up its character of a rapid stream, with sandy banks and islands: the latter are generally occupied, as being defensible when the river ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... might be conveyed to the Castle under a sufficient guard, to remain there in security until his ultimate fate should be determined. Habituated, however, by his office, to overawe the rabble of the city, Porteous could not suspect them of an attempt so audacious as to storm a strong and defensible prison; and, despising the advice by which he might have been saved, he spent the afternoon of the eventful day in giving an entertainment to some friends who visited him in jail, several of whom, by ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... is often defensible and sometimes even desirable. If the trees are growing too rapidly, they may be "slowed down" by seeding to grass for a time; and pasturing with hogs, and possibly with sheep, may afford a way of keeping the area in condition and of adding fertilizer. Sheep that ...
— The Apple-Tree - The Open Country Books—No. 1 • L. H. Bailey
... matter of fact, it was the intervention of this spiritual power which restrained the anarchy, internal and external, of the ferocious and imperfectly organised sovereignties that figure in the early history of modern Europe. And as a matter of theory, what could be more rational and defensible than such an intervention made systematic, with its rightfulness and disinterestedness universally recognised? Grant Christianity as the spiritual basis of the life and action of modern communities; supporting both the organised structure of each of them, and the interdependent system composed of ...
— Critical Miscellanies (Vol. 2 of 3) - Essay 4: Joseph de Maistre • John Morley
... therefore ample evidence for believing that this commanding height was used by the Romans as a military post, although subsequently there were no further attempts to fortify the place, Scarborough, so much more easily defensible, being chosen instead. A rather pathetic attempt to foster the establishment of a watering-place has, however, been lately put on foot, but beyond some elaborately prepared roads and two or three isolated blocks of houses, ...
— Yorkshire—Coast & Moorland Scenes • Gordon Home
... the Marke, and Glasse, Coppy, and Booke, That fashion'd others. And him, O wondrous! him, O Miracle of Men! Him did you leaue (Second to none) vn-seconded by you, To looke vpon the hideous God of Warre, In dis-aduantage, to abide a field, Where nothing but the sound of Hotspurs Name Did seeme defensible: so you left him. Neuer, O neuer doe his Ghost the wrong, To hold your Honor more precise and nice With others, then with him. Let them alone: The Marshall and the Arch-bishop are strong. Had my sweet Harry had but halfe their Numbers, To day might ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... same time sprouting new ones in such ratio, where is the Zoologist that will give account of it? There was not anything considerable of fighting; but of bullying, plundering, murdering and being murdered, a frightful amount. There are seizures of castles, convents, defensible houses; marches at a rate like that of antelopes, through the Lithuanian parts, boggy, hungry, boundless, opening to the fancy the Infinitude of Peat, in the solid and the fluid state. This, perhaps, is the finest species of feats, though they never ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Southern Congressmen. A letter had been elicited from General Jackson, declaring with his usual vehemence in favor of the project, and urging it upon the ground that Texas was absolutely necessary to us, as the most easily defensible frontier against Great Britain. Using the favorite argument of the Southerners of his school, he said: "Great Britain has already made treaties with Texas; and we know that far-seeing nation never omits a circumstance in her extensive intercourse with the world which can be turned to ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... the riding-rod which he carried in his hand, after the manner of a half-bred man who affects ease in the society of his betters, he delivered his unasked opinion as follows:—"This house of yours, now, Sir Duncan, is a very pretty defensible sort of a tenement, and yet it is hardly such as a cavaliero of honour would expect to maintain his credit by holding out for many days. For, Sir Duncan, if it pleases you to notice, your house is overcrowed, ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... is at any rate well worth considering. According to this version, which is based on what actually passed between Bucharest and the capitals of the Entente Powers, the central idea of Roumania's strivings was to achieve national unity together with defensible military frontiers as far as appeared feasible, and to obtain in advance implicit assurances that the Entente Powers, if victorious, would allow her claims without demur or delay. The territories occupied by the Roumanians of Transylvania, the Bukovina, and the Banat were to be united under the ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... unharmed, unscathed; on sure ground, at anchor, high and dry, above water; unthreatened[obs3], unmolested; protected &c. v.; cavendo tutus[Lat]; panoplied &c. (defended) 717[obs3]. snug, seaworthy; weatherproof, waterproof, fireproof. defensible, tenable, proof against, invulnerable; unassailable, unattackable, impenetrable; impregnable, imperdible|; inexpugnable; Achillean[obs3]. safe and sound &c. (preserved) 670;scathless &c. (perfect) 650[obs3]; unhazarded[obs3]; not dangerous &c. 665. unthreatening, harmless; friendly (cooperative) ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... perfect. There are also traces of extensive foundations in various directions, and of great out-works. Chateau Gaillard was, in fact, a citadel, supported by numerous smaller fortresses, all of them communicating with the strong central hold, and disposed so as to secure every defensible post in the neighborhood. The wall of the outer ballium, which was built of a compact white and grey stone, is in most places standing, though in ruins. The original facing only remains in those parts which are too elevated to admit of its being ...
— Architectural Antiquities of Normandy • John Sell Cotman
... including the Guides, was left at Pallosin to guard camp, equipage, and stores. Knowing the enemy he had to deal with, and his predilection for, and skill in executing the unexpected in war, Lumsden drew in his camp, so as to make it as snug and defensible as possible, and putting out strong picquets with their supports all round, he awaited the few days' absence of the main column. During the interval no signs of the enemy could be seen, nor could ...
— The Story of the Guides • G. J. Younghusband
... centre, and terminating at both ends in clusters of towers which protect the sally-ports. On the outside is a moat spanned by a double drawbridge. The northern part of this front, which was probably occupied by stables, would in dry weather be the least defensible part of the castle; but it was cut off from the rest by an embattled wall running from the gate-house to the inner moat and pierced only by one small and portcullised gate. The southern half was more important and stronger. It crossed the stream at the dam, the walls being 15 feet thick ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... central position, at first in Italy, and then in the whole of the Mediterranean. It combined almost all the advantages necessary for a town: it was in the bend of a river, yet accessible from the sea; its natural hills made it easily defensible, as Hannibal found to his cost; while its central position in the Latian Plain made it the natural resort of all the Latin traders. The Romans soon found it necessary to utilise their central position by rendering ...
— The Story of Geographical Discovery - How the World Became Known • Joseph Jacobs
... arches as buttresses, supporting entablatures which marked the divisions into stories (Fig. 45). This combination has been assailed as a false and illogical device, but the criticism proceeds from a too narrow conception of architectural propriety. It is defensible upon both artistic and logical grounds; for it not only furnishes a most desirable play of light and shade and a pleasing contrast of rectangular and curved lines, but by emphasizing the constructive divisions and ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... it extend not beyond college duties, is a perpetual remembrancer of the high moral end for which the student is placed within its precincts. His only allurement to extravagance is the desire of vying with those who make a greater display than himself, or else it arises from, if possible, a less defensible motive, namely, that of becoming himself an object of emulation to others. It is not the duty of the college authorities to compensate by their watchfulness the effects of a weak understanding, or that lax principle, or the want ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... Certain apparently defensible prejudices that prevail in the minds of even advanced musical critics against the idea of Form in music, originate in a very manifest mistake on the part of the "formalists" themselves, who (I refer to unimpassioned theorists and advocates ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... definition as this would in a way be defensible. Religion, whatever it is, is a man's total reaction upon life, so why not say that any total reaction upon life is a religion? Total reactions are different from casual reactions, and total attitudes are ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... growing clamorous, they presented a petition to the house of commons, disclosing their distresses, and imploring such assistance as should enable them not only to pay their debts, but also to maintain the forts in a defensible condition. This petition, recommended to the house in a message from his majesty, was corroborated by another in behalf of the company's creditors. Divers merchants of London, interested in the trade of Africa and the British plantations in America, petitioned the house, that as ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... knew nothing of war the place seemed defensible enough. I have said that the road down which Long Gregory came with his tidings went north; and that was its general direction; but its first reach was nearly east, so that the low sun was not in the eyes of any of us, and where Will ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... They had intended him to be a tool, and he was determined to be master of all the land. There was a contest for power, which ended in the coup d'etat of 1851. Victory waited on the heir of her old favorite. The contest was marked by many deeds, on both sides, not defensible on strict moral grounds, but which bear too close a resemblance to the ordinary course of French politics to admit of the actors being sweepingly condemned, as if they had poisoned a pure fountain. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... the foe, and drove them out. At this the Indians withdrew, forming themselves into three parties, and camped a short distance off, making the night hideous with fiendish yells and the horrid music of their war dances. During the night the garrison retreated into a still smaller and more defensible part of the town, committing the rest to flames. A brief demonstration was made by the enemy on the following morning, but finding the whites so well posted, they finally abandoned the contest and withdrew. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... item of much importance in the financial administration of Charles's reign—could not, under such a system, be applied to new exigencies without a further warrant from Parliament. The whole system of appropriation, however defensible on the modern maxims of sound finance, was inconvenient in working, and tended to increase the dependence of the Crown on Parliament, and to diminish at once the discretion and the responsibility of ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... battle-ground. This decision the General in command seems to have arrived at, as the flaming telegrams in the Dailies, in the course of a day or two, announced that the Rebels were discovered in great force, strongly posted in a most defensible position. After the lapse of an hour or two, the order for the homeward march was given, and strange to say, that although marching by the flank the last man had disappeared from their view, behind the cover of the wood, before they opened fire. ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... former are established and conducted by the ordinary powers of men; the latter is heaven descended, and was founded by the incarnate Son of God, and his inspired Apostles. The former are sustained, as far as defensible, by the ordinary evidences of human wisdom, manifest in their adaptation to secure our material interests; the divinity of the latter is established by the most stupendous miracles of Jesus and his Apostles, as well as by internal evidence of superhuman wisdom, goodness and knowledge, ...
— American Lutheranism Vindicated; or, Examination of the Lutheran Symbols, on Certain Disputed Topics • Samuel Simon Schmucker
... were as complete as possible—flanking works, covered ways, splinter and shell-proof covers were dug or erected, and the main trenches had been turned into defensible barracks with head cover ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... were "men" at all, in any real sense of the word, may well be questioned. For of the many attempts which philosophers in all ages have made to define the word "man," the only one which is truly defensible is that which differentiates him from other animals, not by his physical or intellectual, but by his spiritual superiority. Many other creatures are as well adapted in bodily conformation for their environment, and the lowest savages are intellectually ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... of a cook's shop chopping-knives and spits, and made their way through the city, and lighting by the way on several wagons that were carrying gladiator's arms to another city, they seized upon them and armed themselves. And seizing upon a defensible place, they chose three captains, of whom Spartacus was chief, a Thracian of one of the nomad tribes, and a man not only of high spirit and valiant, but in understanding, also, and in gentleness, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... occasions he acted in accordance with this declaration, and on a very remarkable one showed that he was justified in the dependence which he had on his own judgment; but whether his acting on it was defensible, must be left to the martinets to determine. In the year 1771, during the campaign, when he held the rank of major-general, he found that the Grand Marshal of Lithuania was assembling the Poles at Halowitz, of which he ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... Better. This is not defensible as an idiom, as those who always used it before their attention was directed to it take the trouble to point out. It comes of such contractions as he'd for he would, I'd for I would. These clipped words are erroneously restored as "he had," "I had." So we have such monstrosities ...
— Write It Right - A Little Blacklist of Literary Faults • Ambrose Bierce
... purely Biblical subject. And he may have thought, if he thought about the question at all, that the contemptuous tone adopted about classical culture in the speech of Christ was not only dramatically defensible, but balanced by the far finer passage, evidently written from his {205} heart, in which Satan exalts the glories of Athens. It is, perhaps, the most famous thing in ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... on rigidly keeping sensibility to the wrongs of the French people out of the discussion, on the ground that the whole subject was one for positive knowledge and logical inference, his position would have been intelligible and defensible. He followed no such course. His pleading turns constantly to arguments from feeling; but it is always to feeling on one side, and to a sensibility that is only alive to the consecrated force of historic associations. How much pure and uncontrolled emotion had to do with what ought to have been ...
— Burke • John Morley
... the broad waters of the Altamaha to the music of these curious chants, I have been reading Mr. Moore's speech about the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia; and I confess I think his the only defensible position yet taken, and the only consistent argument yet used in any of the speeches I have hitherto seen upon ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... their own stronghold; for amidmost of their country, on the highest of a certain down above a bottom where a willowy stream winded, was a great earthwork: the walls thereof were high and clean and overlapping at the entering in, and amidst of it was a deep well of water, so that it was a very defensible place: and thereto would they drive their flocks and herds when war was in the land, for nought but a very great host might win it; and ...
— The Roots of the Mountains • William Morris
... it, was thinking particularly of Colin Clout—that he intended, that is, to call his poems 'the calender of the shepherd' (see first line of postscript), rather than 'the calender for shepherds.' I have therefore adopted the singular form. 'Calender' is, I think, a defensible spelling. ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Neumann he approved of Bourmont's going, whereas he thought it an objectionable nomination, because he had formerly deserted from the Portuguese service.[6] He had never had any communication with these agents, and did not believe Aberdeen had had any either: he said Lisbon was more defensible than Oporto, but required more men. Talking of Miguel, the Duke related that he was at Strathfieldsaye with Palmella, where in the library they were settling the oath that Miguel should take, Miguel would pay no attention, and instead of going into the business and saying what oath ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. III • Charles C. F. Greville
... as they are uncouth. Murray, it seems, found none for his Exercises, but made up a couple to suit his purpose. The following might have answered as well for an other: "Monsieur D'acier observes, that Zeno's (the Founder of the Sect,) opinion was Fair and Defensible in these Points."—Colliers ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... of conversation invite us to try every mode of argument, and every art of recommending our sentiments, we are frequently betrayed to the use of such as are not in themselves strictly defensible: a man heated in talk, and eager of victory, takes advantage of the mistakes or ignorance of his adversary, lays hold of concessions to which he knows he has no right, and urges proofs likely to prevail on his ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... lodge, moved in much of the wood where it would be more convenient for Suzanne, cleaned and polished the guns and revolvers in the little armory, inspected the limousine and put it in perfect order, and did everything else that he could think of to make their mountain castle luxurious and defensible. ...
— The Hosts of the Air • Joseph A. Altsheler
... fancy myself marrying again—if my husband, in the course of nature, had died still loving me, still faithful to me. So you see the cases are not identical. And that only remarriage after divorce is defensible." ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... this searching analysis and the biting wit which accompanies it, I cannot think the epithet cynical, which I have heard ascribed to Earle, is defensible. There is a vast difference between recognising our frailty which is a fact, and insisting that our nature is made up of nothing else, which is not a fact. The severe critic and the cynic differ chiefly in this: ...
— Microcosmography - or, a Piece of the World Discovered; in Essays and Characters • John Earle
... the Greeks from the provinces of Upper Egypt, a considerable force was collected in the Island of Delta; the natural and artificial channels of the Nile afforded a succession of strong and defensible posts; and the road to Alexandria was laboriously cleared by the victory of the Saracens in two-and-twenty days of general or partial combat. In their annals of conquest, the siege of Alexandria [111] is perhaps the most arduous and important enterprise. The first trading city in the world was abundantly ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... current and escape capture; but a still greater advantage would be its tendency to cut the enemy's lines in two by reaching the Memphis and Charleston railroad, threatening Memphis, which lies one hundred miles due west, and no defensible point between; also Nashville, only ninety miles northeast, and Florence and Tuscumbia, in North Alabama, ...
— A Military Genius - Life of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland • Sarah Ellen Blackwell
... question is, unto or towards which of the said two extravagant states it is best to bend the present state by degrees, viz., Whether it be best to lessen or enlarge the present city? In order whereunto, we inquire (as to the first question) which state is most defensible against foreign powers, saying, that if the above- mentioned housing, and a border of ground, of three-quarters of a mile broad, were encompassed with a wall and ditch of twenty miles about (as strong as any in Europe, which would cost but a million, or about ...
— Essays on Mankind and Political Arithmetic • Sir William Petty
... of view, this seems to be the only defensible provision, as it would tend to discourage usury, a common evil in money transactions between Europeans and Natives; but because it interfered with Mr. Jabavu's personal aims, that is the only flaw. The cold-blooded evictions and the Draconian principle against living anywhere, ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... mouth of that narrow stream, where it joins the main river, some twenty miles from the coast. This point was known to be further protected by a battery of unknown strength, at Wiltown Bluff, a commanding and defensible situation. The obstructions consisted of a row of strong wooden piles across the river; but we convinced ourselves that these must now be much decayed, and that Captain Trowbridge, an excellent engineer officer, ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... But that is a very large question, and we needn't go into it. I confess that my method was unconventional; a little more summary than that of the usurers and the strictly legal robbers, but quite as defensible. For they rob the poor and the helpless, while I merely dispossessed one rich corporation of a portion of its exactions ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... For the business of the powders, which so many have censured, is, I am relieved to say, not mine at all but the Brownies'. Of another tale, in case the reader should have glanced at it, I may say a word: the not very defensible story of OLALLA. Here the court, the mother, the mother's niche, Olalla, Olalla's chamber, the meetings on the stair, the broken window, the ugly scene of the bite, were all given me in bulk and detail as ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... all the Phoenician colonies, Carthage. The advantages of the locality are indicated by the fact that the chief town of Northern Africa, Tunis, has grown up within a short distance of the site. It combined the excellences of a sheltered situation, a good soil, defensible eminences, and harbours which a little art made all that was to be desired in ancient times and with ancient navies. These basins, partly natural, partly artificial, still exist;[591] but their communication with the sea is blocked ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... determination which animates every votary of freedom, to rest all our political experiments on the capacity of mankind for self-government. If the plan of the convention, therefore, be found to depart from the republican character, its advocates must abandon it as no longer defensible. ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... proposition that an 'originating Mind' is the cause of evolution is a proposition that can be entertained so long only as no attempt is made to unite in thought its two terms in the alleged relation. That it should be accepted as a matter of faith may be a defensible position, provided good cause is shown why it should be so accepted; but that it should be accepted as a matter of understanding—as a statement making the order of the universe comprehensible—is a ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... insulting character of the principal clauses. 'The intention which inspired this document,' he said, 'is legitimate if you pursued no aim other than the protection of your territory against the intrigues of Serbian anarchists; but the procedure to which you have had recourse is not defensible.' He concluded: 'Take back your ultimatum, modify its form, and I will guarantee you ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... visible or sensuous, if you will, last as first, thinking of that as essentially the one vital and lively thing, really worth our while in a short life, we may recognise sincerely what generalisation and abstraction have done or may do, are defensible as doing, just for that—for the particular gem or flower—what its proper service is to a mind in search, precisely, of a concrete and intuitive knowledge such ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... Amherstburg"—on the Detroit River, a little below Detroit—"but most probably the whole country, must be evacuated as far as Kingston."[407] This place is at the foot of Ontario, close to the entrance to the St. Lawrence. Having a good and defensible harbor, it had been selected for the naval station of the lake. If successful in holding it, there would be a base of operations for attempting recovery of the water, and ultimately of the upper country. Failing there, of course the British must fall back upon the sea, touch with ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... conquest restricted themselves to a settlement of the frontier—measured, it is true, by his own great scale—which should secure the line of the Euphrates, and, instead of the fluctuating and militarily useless boundary of the empire on the north-east, should establish and render defensible the line of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... form of fatality, or fatal justice, is less defensible, and less acceptable too, than the ancient and elementary power, which, being general and undefined, and offering no too strict explanation of its actions, lent itself to a far greater number of situations. In the special case selected by Ibsen, ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck
... narrow "Upper Country" terminates, and Egypt opens out into the wide smiling plain that thence spreads itself on every side to the sea. Hence there would be easy access to both regions; both would be, in a way, commanded; here, too, was a readily defensible position, one assailable only in front. Experience has shown that the instinct of the first founder was right, or that his political and strategic foresight was extraordinary. Though circumstances, once and again, transferred the seat of government ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... colonies, and from the first a faithful record of her proceedings has been made. The foundations of New Plymouth and Massachusetts were laid more than two centuries ago; the circumstances of this occasion lead us to consider the least defensible portions of their history; yet the world cannot charge them with suppressing any fact necessary to a true appreciation of their policy and character. Whatever they did was in the fear of God and without the ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... optimist resents it also, because it is an anomaly; a contradiction to his conception of the course of things. And it is not at all unimportant, but on the contrary most important, that this course of things in politics and elsewhere should be lucid, explicable and defensible. When people have got used to unreason they can no longer be startled at injustice. When people have grown familiar with an anomaly, they are prepared to that extent for a grievance; they may think the grievance ...
— All Things Considered • G. K. Chesterton
... Being rather unthinking, He'd scarce sleep a wink in A night, but addict himself sadly to drinking; And what moralists say, Is as naughty—to play, To Rouge et Noir, Hazard, Short Whist, Ecarte; Till these, and a few less defensible fancies Brought the Knight to the ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... stop running until he was in what seemed to him a strongly defensible position near Luna Island. Then he took ...
— The War in the Air • Herbert George Wells
... dangerous follies. Essex did not see it so, and in the subjoined correspondence had the advantage; but Bacon's position, though a higher one might be imagined, where men had been such friends as these two men had been, is quite a defensible one: ...
— Bacon - English Men Of Letters, Edited By John Morley • Richard William Church
... advanced to the edge of the ditch, which in many parts presented a smooth and level passage to the breach; and his fourscore galleys almost touched, with the prows and their scaling-ladders, the less defensible walls of the harbor. Under pain of death, silence was enjoined: but the physical laws of motion and sound are not obedient to discipline or fear; each individual might suppress his voice and measure his footsteps; but the march and labor ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... 'and I will look to points which can be made defensible; and the old powder-plot boys could not have made a more desperate resistance than we shall. Redgauntlet,' continued he, 'I see some of our friends are looking pale; but methinks your nephew has more mettle in his eye now than when we were in ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... American history and American politics they were of one mind. "Nor are the ethics of the manner of our acquisition of a part of Panama and the Canal," wrote Mr. Churchill in 1918 in his essay on The American Contribution and the Democratic Idea, "wholly defensible from the point of view of international democracy. Yet it must be remembered that President Roosevelt was dealing with a corrupt, irresponsible, and hostile government, and that the Canal had become a necessity not only for our own development, but for that of the civilization of ...
— Contemporary American Novelists (1900-1920) • Carl Van Doren
... greedily swallowed. It is not of course a case necessarily of want of scholarship, or want of ear, for there are few better scholars or poets than Mr Robert Bridges, who, though not a mere Guestite, holds theories of prosody which seem to me even less defensible than Guest's. But it is, I think, a case of rather misguided patriotism, which thinks it necessary to invent an English prosody for ...
— The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory - (Periods of European Literature, vol. II) • George Saintsbury
... for aid. Philip, an arch politician, contrived by his intrigues to prevent Athens from giving assistance. The neglect of Athens was a great mistake, for Amphipolis commanded the passage over the Strymon, and shut up Macedonia from the east, and was, moreover, easily defensible by sea. Deprived of aid from Athens, the city fell into the hands of Philip, and was an acquisition of great importance. It was the most convenient maritime station in Thrace, and threw open to him all the country east ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... at himself for the exaggerated precaution he took to cover a perfectly defensible action. Why shouldn't he visit at the house of P. C. Frome? Entirely clear as to his right, he yet preferred his call not to become a matter of public gossip. For he did not need to be told that there would be ugly rumors ...
— The Vision Spendid • William MacLeod Raine
... too far back but inadequately covering those portions of the front which they were engaged to defend. Moreover, practical means of communication to and by these support platoons were likely to prove, in event of need, negligible. They were, in fact, isolated in places themselves not defensible and equally remote from company and battalion commanders. This situation was bad enough as point d'appui for an advance; to resist a counter-attack or raid it was deplorable. Like many similar situations, it was due to the lack of habitable trenches ...
— The Story of the 2/4th Oxfordshire and Buckinghamshire Light Infantry • G. K. Rose
... Edward's landing in Normandy reached Paris, Phillip despatched the Count d'Eu, Constable of France, with the Count of Tankerville and 600 men-at-arms, to oppose Edward at Caen. The Bishop of Bayeux had thrown himself into that city, which was already garrisoned by 300 Genoese. The town was not defensible, and the only chance of resistance was by opposing the passage of the river Horn, which flowed between the suburbs and the city. The bridge was barricaded, strong wooden towers were erected, and such was the confidence of the inhabitants and their leaders that Edward's promise of protection for ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... inspired the Athenians. After the winter in which the Persians were finally beaten at Plataea, the Athenians began to rebuild. For a while their efforts were confined to rendering the city habitable and defensible, since the activity of the little state was largely political. But when th leadership of Athens in Greece had become firmly established under Theistocles and Cimon, the third president of the democracy, Pericles, found leisure to turn to the artistic development of the ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... actress of the Palais Royal. My friend, too, is an evocation, he was one of those whose pride is not to spend money upon women, whose theory of life is that "If she likes to come round to the studio when one's work is done, nous pouvons faire la fete ensemble." But however defensible this view of life may be, and there is much to be said for it, I had thought that he might have refrained from saying when I looked round the drawing-room admiring it—a drawing-room furnished with sixteenth-century bronzes, Dresden figures, etageres ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... exasperated by the perfidy practised on them, were themselves not always models of international virtue. They seized a French vessel in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, on the charge—probably true—that she was carrying arms and ammunition to the Acadians and Indians. A less defensible act was the capture of the armed brig "St. Francois," laden with supplies for a fort lately re-established by the French, at the mouth of the River St. John, on ground claimed by both nations. Captain Rous, a New England officer ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... bloody footstep left of old upon the threshold. The result of all his cogitation was, as the reader will have foreseen, that he decided to continue his researches, and, his proceedings being pretty defensible, let the ...
— The Ancestral Footstep (fragment) - Outlines of an English Romance • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... to the town. Marshal Horn threw a barricade across this and defended it until nightfall. Tilly had then fallen back before the advance of Gustavus to a very strong position on the Lech. This was an extremely rapid river, difficult to cross and easily defensible. Tilly had broken down the bridges, and was prepared to dispute till the last the further advance of the Swedes. He placed his army between Rain, where the Lech falls into the Danube, and Augsburg, a distance of ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... of Strathbogie, Dr. Chalmers, and all,—came to a unanimous or quasi-unanimous resolve to submit to the Archbishop of Canterbury as their patriarch, this doubtless would be an exercise of private judgment perfectly defensible on Scripture precedents. ...
— Prose Masterpieces from Modern Essayists • James Anthony Froude, Edward A. Freeman, William Ewart Gladstone, John Henry Newman and Leslie Steph
... taxation, put themselves under the protection of the great, and settled on their lands. They became thus colons (coloni). In the later times of disorder of which we are now speaking, farmhouses in the country gave place to fortified castles on hill-tops or other defensible sites, about which clustered in villages the dependents of the lord, who tilled his land, fought for him, and, in turn, were protected ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... am a politician because I cannot help myself; it is the trade I am fittest for, and ambition is my resource to make it tolerable. In politics we cannot keep our hands clean. I have done many things in my political career that are not defensible. To act with entire honesty and self-respect, one should always live in a pure atmosphere, and the atmosphere of politics is impure. Domestic life is the salvation of many public men, but I have for many years ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... the reason put forward for it is a desire to improve and develop the salt industry and at the same time to add to the national revenue. Whether a monopoly in what is a necessary of life is economically defensible is a question, to my mind, hardly open to argument. That the revenue of the country will benefit by the salt monopoly ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... their good father was very exact in what related to the wearing of their coats; yet was it no less penal and strict in prescribing agreement, and friendship, and affection between them. And therefore, if straining a point were at all defensible, it would certainly be so rather to the advance of unity than ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... conclusions that in most cases the mentally ill weren't helped by conventional treatment. Most of them rapidly became social problems after discharge. It seemed the mental hospital's only ethically defensible function was incarceration—providing temporary relief for the family and community from the mentally ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... Sully, Stumpf, James Ward, William James, Stuart Mill, Ribot, Fouillee, Guyau, Bain, Lechalas, Balmes, Dunan and endless others—have been unable to tame it; and that, however much their theories may contradict one another, they are all equally defensible and alike struggle vainly in the darkness against shadows that are ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... promise sometimes amicable terminations. But I intreat you to observe the utmost silence on this point, as it may lead me into an awkward situation; for I have acted solely on my own responsibility, and without orders; the causes and reasoning on which, upon general principles, may be defensible, but as applying to our own country, may not be borne out, the old mercantile ...
— The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth • Edward Osler
... honor means keeping out of the workhouse. It resolves itself either into discouraging that system of prompt and patchwork generosity which is a daily glory of the poor, or else into hazy advice to people who have no money not to give it recklessly away. Nor is the exaggerated glory of athletics, defensible enough in dealing with the rich who, if they did not romp and race, would eat and drink unwholesomely, by any means so much to the point when applied to people, most of whom will take a great deal ...
— What's Wrong With The World • G.K. Chesterton
... idleness is only a renewal of trouble. If, however, there must be a wall, the private houses had better be so arranged as to form one wall; this will have an agreeable aspect, and the building will be safer and more defensible. These objects should be attended to at the foundation of the city. The wardens of the city must see that they are carried out; and they must also enforce cleanliness, and preserve the public buildings from encroachments. Moreover, they must take care to ...
— Laws • Plato
... sloping grass banks in others, to produce a picture at once grand and picturesque; but it was a picture of which the eye soon wearied and the appreciation palled. There, as throughout the whole march to Niksich, the country abounds with the most magnificent defensible positions; natural parapets, whence a most destructive fire might be poured upon an advancing foe, and incapable of being turned by any flank movement; positions, in short, constructed for the enactment ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... on hand came the men into the Dale, and the very first stead they came to was Wethermel, for it lay first on their road. And now was Wethermel a well-manned stead, for besides Stephen the Eater, there were twelve carles defensible dwelling there, whereof five were ...
— The Sundering Flood • William Morris
... position is characteristic and easily definable. If it is not quite defensible on the strictest principles of plain speaking, it is also certain that we could not condemn him without condemning many of the best and most catholic-spirited of men. The dogmatic system in which he had presumably been educated had softened under the influence of the cultivated thought ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... organized nations tend to obtain just this character. They are fought for a defensible purpose, and they accomplish a definite result. The penalties of defeat are so disastrous that warfare is no longer wantonly incurred; and it will not be provoked at all by nations, such as Italy or France, who have less to gain from victory than they have to lose ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... the letter will see how unfair and untrue this is. Calef keeps to the point, which was not whether there were, or could be, witches; but whether the methods Mather was attempting, in the case of Margaret Rule, and which had been used in Salem, the year before, were legitimate or defensible. He was determined not to suffer the ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... all the general officers present, not less than fifteen hundred men would be requisite for its defence; and, from the nature of the works, which were opened toward the river, a great deal of labour and expense must have been incurred, and much time employed to make them defensible by us. The enemy, depending on their shipping to protect their rear, had constructed the works solely against an attack by land. We should have had to apprehend equally an attack by water, and must have inclosed ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... cause, he had been banished in the days of Edward or of Harold. He now came back to lead his countrymen against William. He was the soul of the movement of which the abbey of Ely became the centre. The isle, then easily defensible, was the last English ground on which the Conqueror was defied by Englishmen fighting for England. The men of the Fenland were zealous; the monks of Ely were zealous; helpers came in from other parts of England. English leaders left their shelter in Scotland ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... much as they shewed themselues much more giuen vnto couetousnesse, then vnto the seruice of their Prince: But seeing mine answere tended vnto none other ende but to make our Fortresse strong and defensible, they determined to trauaile in the worke, and made an ensigne of olde linnen, which ordinarily they bare vpon the rampart when they went to woorke, alwayes wearing their weapons, which I thought they had done to incourage themselues to worke the better. (M462) But as I perceiued afterwards, ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques and Discoveries of - the English Nation. Vol. XIII. America. Part II. • Richard Hakluyt
... men occasionally feel called upon to resent criticism by an appeal to battle without weapons. The killing of critics at the whim of the criticized is the evil against which protest is made. Plain assault and battery is easily defensible on the ground that no one can be expected always to have his temper in control. It makes writers careful, and it is not followed by the regret which follows killing. Writers are expected to keep within ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... been the Wife of Hector, for the sake of a Kingdom, to marry the Enemy of her Husbands Family and Country; and indeed who can deny but she might be still an honest Woman, but no Heroine? That may be defensible, nay laudable in one Character, which would be in the highest Degree exceptionable in another. When Cato Uticensis killed himself, Cottius a Roman of ordinary Quality and Character did the same thing; upon which one said, ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... Aristotelianism, with its consequences for thought and life, was filtering into Europe and forcing Christian thinkers to defend the bases of their faith. Since these, so far as defensible at all, depended upon the Platonic doctrine of universals, and this could be maintained only by dialectic, this science became extremely popular,—indeed, almost the rage. Little of the real Aristotle was at that time known ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the sons of tenants, or substitutes provided by them, and will only give two or three days' service a month. It is probable, however, that half will be regular retainers at the castle. I know nothing about the castle at present, or how large it is, or whether it is defensible or not; still, it was spoken of as a castle, and 'tis, I suppose, one ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... discussion had sharpened all wits in that direction. Thoroughly Calvinistic, it is also a wonderfully clear and precise statement of Calvinism. Framed after long controversies, it had the advantage of all the distinctions which are made only during controversy. It is a fortress made defensible at all points, because it has been attacked so often that all its weak places have been seen and marked. It is a masterpiece ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... their experience; the cavalry they had met before in Cuba and did not fear, nor did they reckon themselves much worse than the Spanish foot; but they saw that the Spaniards outnumbered them by more than two to one, and they recognised the advantage they had in having a defensible city to fall back upon. The buccaneers were worn with the long march, and in poor case for fighting. They halted at this point, while Morgan formed them into a tertia, or division of three battalions or troops, of which he commanded the right ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... in order to strike into a land rich in the comforts of life; but in such a land they were sure to find a crowded population, of which every arm was raised in unrelenting hostility, with all the advantages of local knowledge, and with constant preoccupation of all the defensible positions, mountain passes, or bridges. Sometimes, again, wearied out with this mode of suffering, they took a circuit of perhaps a hundred miles, in order to strike into a land with few or no inhabitants. But in such a land they were ...
— Narrative And Miscellaneous Papers • Thomas De Quincey
... of the old four-wheeler, upon whose massive manhood descended something of the tremendous tradition of Tony Weller. But I am not so certain as I should like to be, that I should at that moment enjoy the personality of the Copt. For these reasons it seems really desirable, or at least defensible, to defer any premature reconstruction of disputed things, and to begin this book as a mere note-book or sketch-book of things as they are, or at any rate as they appear. It was in this irregular order, and in this illogical disproportion, that things did in ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... there is a place called Verrua near the Po in Piedmont (about 20 miles east of Turin). 'Situated upon an abrupt and insulated hill, in a most defensible position, it opposed an obstinate resistance to the Emperor Frederick II. In more recent times (1704), the Duc de Vendome attacked it without success' (Murray's 'Guide to Northern Italy,' p. 51). No doubt this ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... desperate enterprise—an enterprise the most extraordinary that has ever taken place between enemies of an equal degree of civilization. It was a war of a general with a small escort, but literally without an army, against able officers with thousands of disciplined troops and numerous defensible towns and positions, against enormous difficulties of country, against want and fatigue in every shape, and above all, ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... accomplished their entrance into Kurdistan without opposition, and crossed one of the most defensible passes that they were almost destined to meet. * * * The recesses—left between the hills are in the present day the seat of villages, as they were in the time of Xenophon, and the crags in front, and in the rear, bristle with the small and rude rock-forts of the Kurds." Ainsworth, ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... the defence of a fort not rationally defensible; but it was over hardly construed against a gallant gentleman. Grey was a fierce, stern man. It was Grey who hung the priests in Oxfordshire from their church towers. It was Grey who led the fiery charge upon the Scots at Musselburgh, and with a pike wound, which laid ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... work of devastation, a brilliant thought flashed through his brain. After all the demolitions of Totila, the ruin was not irretrievable. By repairing the rents in the walls, Rome might yet be made defensible. He would re-occupy it, and the Goths should find that they had all their work to do over again. The idea seemed at first to his counsellors like the suggestion of delirium, but as it rapidly took shape under his hands, it was recognised as being indeed ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... Certain poets, especially among the moderns, may be said to choose imperfect rimes deliberately, both as a fresh means of securing variety and avoiding the monotony of hackneyed rimes, and also as a means of subtly suggesting the imperfection and futility of life. A few famous examples, defensible and indefensible, are: Wordsworth's robin: sobbing, sullen: pulling; Tennyson's with her: together, valleys: lilies; Keats's youths: soothe, pulse: culls; Swinburne's lose him: bosom: blossom. Keats and Rossetti are noted ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... poor piece of clay, that he may tell us how he came by his fatal death; and then let the corpse be decently swathed in a clean shroud, as becomes an honest citizen, and placed before the high altar in the church of St. John, the patron of the Fair City. Cease all clamour and noise, and every defensible man of you, as you would wish well to the Fair Town, keep his weapons in readiness, and be prepared to assemble on the High Street at the tolling of the common bell from the townhouse, and we will either revenge the death of our ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... miles and a half, the ends resting on the river. It was strengthened by thirty towers, and at its forts was a deep dry ditch. The town was largely built of wood. There were no heavy guns upon the walls, and the city, which was completely commanded by surrounding hills, was in no way defensible, but Barclay de Tolly felt ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... sixth of our entire tonnage belonging to Massachusetts alone. From the Essex Junto and its sympathizers came nullification utterances not less pointed than the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions, although, considering the sound rebukes which the latter had evoked, they were far less defensible. Disunion was freely threatened, and actions either committed or countenanced bordering hard upon treason. The Massachusetts Legislature in 1809 declared Congress's act to enforce embargo "not legally binding." Governor ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... Hastings, and long before the conquest of the Saxon aristocracy was complete, he held his Court at Windsor and summoned a synod there, and, though we do not know when the keep was completed, we can conjecture, from the rapidity with which all Norman work was done, that the walls were defensible even at that time. Of his building perhaps nothing remains. The forest to the south, with its opportunities for hunting, and the increasing importance of London (which was rapidly becoming the capital of England) made Windsor of greater value than ever in the eyes of his son. Henry ...
— The Historic Thames • Hilaire Belloc
... and victory in Lombardy was sure to take his army to the Mincio. Verona and Venetia were to be the complement of Milan. Then there was the story that he frightened the Kaiser into giving his consent to the truce by proving to him that the fortresses upon which he relied were not in good defensible condition, his commissaries having placed the funds in their pockets that should have been devoted to the purchase of stores,—a story that wears a very probable air, in view of the discovery subsequently made of the malversations of some of the highest persons at Vienna, ...
— Atlantic Monthly Volume 7, No. 39, January, 1861 • Various
... been for many years convinced that the demand made by women for the right of suffrage is just, and that of all the distinctions which have been made between citizens in the laws which confer or regulate suffrage the distinction of sex is the least defensible. ...
— Debate On Woman Suffrage In The Senate Of The United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, And January 25, 1887 • Henry W. Blair, J.E. Brown, J.N. Dolph, G.G. Vest, Geo. F. Hoar.
... not sleep that night. He was busy sorting up his ideas of life and revising them in the light of the day's experience. The more he thought of his behavior the less defensible it appeared. By midnight he was admitting that he had got just ...
— Dennison Grant - A Novel of To-day • Robert Stead
... acquainted with Biblical criticism knows that Mr. Wheeler simply put the conclusions of nearly all reputable scholars in a bright, satirical way; and a century hence people will be astonished to learn that such a piece of defensible irony, every line of which might be justified by tons of learning, was included in an indictment for blasphemy, and considered heinous enough to ...
— Prisoner for Blasphemy • G. W. [George William] Foote
... incredibly narrow a fringe of population was strung out on the southern border, could not but feel that some attempt to add a second storey to the structure, to give breadth as well as length, was a national necessity. Perhaps least defensible was the Quebec-Moncton section; true, it was essential, if freight was to reach the Maritime ports, that a shorter line with better grades than those of the Intercolonial should be secured if possible. Grades were bettered ...
— The Railway Builders - A Chronicle of Overland Highways • Oscar D. Skelton
... serious controversy the right is seldom or never all on one side; and in the normal course of events both theories undergo some modification through the influence of their opponents, until a compromise, not always logically defensible, brings to an end the acute stage of the controversy. Such a tension of rival movements is very apparent in the religious thought of our day. The quickening of spiritual life in our generation has taken two forms, which appear to be, ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... Austria, whether the latter were right or wrong. Such was its policy, and it carried it out with fatal consistency. To support its ally in actual war without respect to the justice of the quarrel may be defensible, but to support it in a time of peace in an iniquitous demand and a policy of gross discourtesy to friendly States offends every ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... sometimes been the custom thus to acquire smallpox. Such methods are decidedly heroic, and of course to be heartily condemned. But the principle that a mild type of the disease conveys protection has been made use of in a more logical and defensible way. ...
— The Story Of Germ Life • H. W. Conn
... made nearly the whole outrage of the Boston "trained mob" that the Governor talked about. Yet he affected to be in fear of an insurrection, and on the last day of the month whiningly wrote,—"The town is at present just as defensible as it was two years ago,—not a sergeant's guard of real soldiers within two ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... Thomas Norreys, the President, was surprised, and retired to Cork, bringing down on himself a severe reprimand from the English Government. "You might better have resisted than you did, considering the many defensible houses and castles possessed by the undertakers, who, for aught we can hear, were by no means comforted nor supported by you, but either from lack of comfort from you, or out of mere cowardice, fled away from the rebels on ...
— Spenser - (English Men of Letters Series) • R. W. Church
... this institutional scheme of civilised life. This count comes under the head of what may be called capitalistic sabotage. "Sabotage" is employed to designate a wilful retardation, interruption or obstruction of industry by peaceable, and ordinarily by legally defensible, measures. In its present application, particularly, there is no design to let the term denote or insinuate a recourse to any expedients or any line of conduct that is in any degree legally dubious, or that is ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... supposed it possible, that you might number yourself with those, who defend slavery on the ground of its alleged conformity with human laws. It occurs to me, that you may, also, take hope, that slavery is defensible in the supposed fact, that a considerable share of the professing Christians, in the free States, are in favor of it. "Let God be true, but every man a liar." If all professing Christians were for slavery, yet, if God is against it, that is reason enough why ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... of change in her corresponding to his own; now that his own foothold was strengthening, his longing for a new union was overpowering that old dread. The proselytising instinct may be never quite morally defensible, even as between husband and wife. Nevertheless, in all strong, convinced, and ardent souls it exists, ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... perceive how much more defensible the new doctrine is than the old one. Even could the supporters of the Development Hypothesis merely show that the origination of species by the process of modification is conceivable, they would be in a better position than their opponents. But they can do much more than this. They ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... to democratic and socialistic ideas of the preceding considerations shows that it matters little that these ideas have no defensible basis. They impress and influence men's minds, and that is sufficient. Their results may be disastrous in the extreme, but we ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... at Kunaxa, but still more the undisputed march throughout so long a space, left them no serious apprehension. In spite of this great extent, population, and riches, they had been allowed to pass through the most difficult and defensible country, and to ford the broad Euphrates, without a blow: nay, the King had shrunk from defending the long trench which he had specially caused to be dug for the protection of Babylonia. But the difficulties which stood between them and their homes were ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... this type from the preceding one is to a certain extent arbitrary, as the location of a ruin is sometimes determined solely by convenience, and convenience may dictate the selection of a high and defensible site, when the tillable land on which the village depends is of small area, or when it is divided into a number of small and scattered areas; for it was a principle of the ancient village-builders that the ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... stood the house of Ensign John Sheldon, a framed building, one of the largest in the village, and, like that of Stebbins, made bullet-proof by a layer of bricks between the outer and inner sheathing, while its small windows and its projecting upper story also helped to make it defensible. ...
— A Half Century of Conflict - Volume I - France and England in North America • Francis Parkman
... inflow of energy in the form of power, or to its outflow in the form of work done." My theory of the relation of body and bodily energy is, in fact, an extension of James' "transmission theory" of consciousness to the whole of our life and vital energy. And I believe the one is as defensible ...
— The Problems of Psychical Research - Experiments and Theories in the Realm of the Supernormal • Hereward Carrington
... declared that this would precipitate a conflict. Towards the end of the year Major Anderson, not having men enough to hold all the forts if, as he expected, they were attacked, withdrew his whole force to Fort Sumter, which he thought the most defensible, dismantling the principal other fort. The Governor of South Carolina protested against this as a violation of a supposed understanding with the President, and seized upon the United States arsenal and the ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... breaks, etc., they had satisfied all the Board of Trade regulations, and the injured passengers can get nothing. The real way to protect the passengers is to allow the company to make their own arrangements, and to compel them to pay heavily for killing and maiming passengers. This is quite defensible in theory, as in the case of manslaughter by an individual we give him some punishment out of our civilised respect for human life, though he may have been little to blame. Great cost is thrown on ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke
... disappointment, sour grievance, cynicism, and misanthropic resistance to any attempt to better a hopeless world. The wise man knows that imagination is not only a means of pleasing himself and beguiling tedious hours with romances and fairy tales and fools' paradises (a quite defensible and delightful amusement when you know exactly what you are doing and where fancy ends and facts begin), but also a means of foreseeing and being prepared for realities as yet unexperienced, and of ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... the country toward Poitiers, defended by the hedges of a vineyard, and accessible from the city only by a hollow way scarcely wide enough to admit four men abreast, presented to him a most defensible position. Here he encamped, and early next morning, disposed his troops for battle. He dismounted his whole force; placed a body of archers, drawn up in the form of a harrow, in front, the men-at-arms ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... of a castle: to an ancient round tower, discomfortably habitable, had been added in the last century a rather large, defensible house. It stood on the edge of a gorge, crowning one of its stony hills of no great height. With scarce a tree to shelter it, the situation was very cold in winter, and it required a hardy breeding to live there in comfort. There was little of a garden, ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... days before Copernicus, the conception of the "universe" was defensible on scientific grounds: the diurnal revolution of the heavenly bodies bound them together as all parts of one system, of which the earth was the centre. Round this apparent scientific fact, many human desires rallied: ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... rarely formed for any long period a portion of any settled monarchy. Full of torrents, of deep ravines, or rocky summits, abrupt and almost inaccessible; containing but few passes, and those narrow and easily defensible; secure, moreover, owing to the rigor of its climate, from hostile invasion during more than half the year; it has defied all attempts to effect its permanent subjugation, whether made by Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, Parthians, ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson |
