"Defiant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... were tender, the youth may be said to have preferred this question sternly, and in something of a defiant manner. But Mr Pecksniff, without taking umbrage at his bearing put a card in his hand, and bade him take that upstairs, and show them in the meanwhile into a room where there ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... on the floor, Matilda and Comfort," repeated Miss Tabitha, and out the two little girls stepped. Comfort's knees shook, and she was quite pale. Matilda looked very sober, but her black eyes gave a defiant flash when she was out on the floor and saw that her sister Rosy had lowered her arm and was looking at her with gentle triumph. "You see what you've got because you called my ring brass," Rosy seemed to say; and ...
— Comfort Pease and her Gold Ring • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... retrimming a white chip hat, encircled by a garland of artificial dog-roses, blue glass grapes and assorted foliage—an occupation somewhat ill-adapted to tragedy. In addition to making her ex-pupil—against whom they were mainly directed—first miserable and then naughtily defiant by these manoeuvres, she alienated any sympathy which her red-rimmed eyelids and dolorous aspect might otherwise have engendered in the younger and less critical members of the establishment, by sending Alfred, the hall-boy, up to the vicarage with a note ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... in this woman attracted me, dead as I supposed my heart to be. There was an indescribable freshness and vigor about everything she said and did, so different from the manner of the ladies I had lately seen,—a merry, defiant way which invited battle, and made one feel bright and springy. How can I tell what it was? I loved the woman from that very morning, and I love the memory of her now,—she stood so unembarrassed, so full of life, as we two ate our breakfast in the little, sunny room,—she was so lithe, so symmetrical. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... sport, I am!" was the defiant remark. "So was Mr. Carwell—Old Carwell we used to call him. But he had more pep than some of ...
— The Golf Course Mystery • Chester K. Steele
... the West End of London. The clergymen, as they file in along with the gayly-accoutred young guards-men, have a meek and gentle air which makes one feel that they had better have stayed away. They do not look half defiant enough. No person who is not already in such a position as to need no pushing could becomingly make his appearance at court. I remember in Shropshire to have heard a family who went down to London to be presented made the target for the ridicule ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XII. No. 30. September, 1873 • Various
... must respect them, on penalty of your displeasure?" His tone was airily defiant. "Well—make me out a list of irreproachables, and I'll work them ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... trespassed on ground which was too dangerous for him to tread any further, and so, with a defiant "Bah!" he threw his jacket over his ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various
... Goose Luna went straight to the superintendent's office. He was nettled rather than worried by Pierre's cautions. Worry implied doubt of his own wisdom, as well as fear of the old man. Superintendents had come to, and departed from, the Rainbow. Defiant fanfares had heralded their coming, confusion had reigned during their sojourn, their departure had been duly celebrated at the Blue Goose. This had been the invariable sequence. Through all these changes Pierre was complacently confident, but he never lost ...
— Blue Goose • Frank Lewis Nason
... the pride of his queen, Cunegunda, Ottocar violated his oath, refused to execute the treaty, imprisoned in a convent the daughter whom Rhodolph had given to his son, and sent a defiant and insulting letter to the emperor. Rhodolph returned a dignified answer and prepared for war. Ottocar, now better understanding the power of his foe, made the most formidable preparations for the strife, and soon took ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... not. Until it is demonstrable that no evil exists, or threatens the world, which cannot be obviated without recourse to force, the obligation to readiness must remain; and, where evil is mighty and defiant, the obligation to use force—that is, war—arises. Nor is it possible, antecedently, to bring these conditions and obligations under the letter of precise and codified law, to be administered by a tribunal; and ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... was never such a bonnet as Suzette's in the world. It was black, and full of white roses, and floating a defiant ostrich-plume, and tied with broad red ribbons, whereby she could be recognized from one end of the ...
— Bohemian Days - Three American Tales • Geo. Alfred Townsend
... herself upon knowing as much as any one of her age, when she was called to the blackboard to write out a sentence. At her feeble effort which resulted in a crooked scrawl, there was a subdued titter from the others. For one moment the new scholar stood, her cheeks flaming, then with defiant face she turned to Miss Dorothy. "I can spell it every word," she said, "if ...
— Little Maid Marian • Amy E. Blanchard
... tenant. Very soon, however, his doubt concerning that was set at rest. He saw a disturbance of the shadows cast by the thick boughs over the cart path by a long outreach of darker shadow which he knew at once for that of a man. He sat upright, and his face at first assumed a defiant, then a pleading expression, like that of a child who desires to retain possession of some dear thing. His heart beat hard as he watched the advance of the shadow. It was slow, as if cast by an old man. The man was old and very stout, supporting ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... at the center and a Princeton tackle fell through for two yards. The Princeton cheers rang out redoubled in intensity, sharp, entreating, only to be met with the defiant slogan of Yale. Pemberton shuffled his scarred brown leather shoes uneasily and gnawed harder at his knuckles. Princeton was playing desperately, fighting for the twenty-yard line. A play that looked ...
— The New Boy at Hilltop • Ralph Henry Barbour
... his turn gazed searchingly at the Count, but the latter's visage had already assumed a stony and defiant look that seemed to oppose an insurmountable barrier to further conversation on this subject. There was an awkward pause, during which the two men continued to gaze at each other. M. Morrel, though much embarrassed and disconcerted by the prompt check he had received, was the first ...
— Monte-Cristo's Daughter • Edmund Flagg
... Tita at the top of her young voice, from the other end the court. It would be useless to pretend she doesn't shout it. She is elated—happy. She has won. She tears off the little soft round cap that, defiant of the sun, she wears, and flings it sky-high, catching it deftly as it descends upon the top of her dainty head, a little sideways. Her pretty, soft, fluffy hair, cut short, and curled all over her head by Mother Nature, is flying a little wildly across her ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... a venture, he paused, doubtful of his wisdom. A glance at Derek's face confirmed his doubt. It was closer than ever, more defiant. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... by a crowd of admiring lads who thought him quite a hero. He had completely fascinated Louis, who was blind to his faults and attached great weight to every word he uttered. Phil encouraged the younger boy to be as defiant as possible, telling him he was a coward to stand being badgered by old "goggle-eyes," as he called Professor Horner. So Louis was under a very bad influence, the real danger of which neither he nor ...
— A Dear Little Girl • Amy E. Blanchard
... in this passage of arms: and above all the senate and the burgesses had lost the spirit, which had formerly borne them to victory through all the crises of the Hannibalic war. They still doubtless began war with the same defiant arrogance as then, but they knew not how to end it as they had then done; rigid obstinacy, tenacious persistence had given place to a remiss and cowardly disposition. Already after the first year of war their outward and inward policy became suddenly changed, and betook itself to compromise. ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... peace, my friend, on a certain source of income that I possess." He tapped his breast-pocket with a slight, defiant laugh. "In these days," said he, "even queens must be careful about their letters. We ...
— Rupert of Hentzau - From The Memoirs of Fritz Von Tarlenheim: The Sequel to - The Prisoner of Zenda • Anthony Hope
... stand with mandibles extended, as if defying attack. The large ones stand thus at bay whilst the youngsters hollow out a run half an inch wide, and about an inch deep. They remained with us till late in the afternoon, and we put hot ashes on the defiant hordes. They retire to enjoy the fruits of their raid, and ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume II (of 2), 1869-1873 • David Livingstone
... [Footnote: 2 Bk. VI, 488-489.] But this wistful admission, though it protects him against whatever was the Greek equivalent for the charge that he lacked a sense of humor, furnished a humiliating tailpiece to a solemn thought. He becomes defiant and warns Adeimantus that he must "attribute the uselessness" of philosophers "to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him—that is not the order of nature." And with this haughty gesture, ...
— Public Opinion • Walter Lippmann
... the world, all this brought repose and harmony into spirits that the hollow thunders of universal rebellion against tyrants and priests had worn into thinness and confusion. Again, at the bottom of the veriest frondeur with English blood in his veins, in his most defiant moment there lies a conviction that after all something known as common sense is the measure of life, and that to work hard is a demonstrated precept of common sense. Carlylism exactly hits this and brings it forward. We cannot ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. I - Essay 2: Carlyle • John Morley
... a hurtin' in the chest to see either Barbie or the ol' man himself those days. The' was a set look in Barbie's eyes; cold an' unflinchin' an' defiant. I once saw the same expression in the eyes of a trapped mountain lion. The ol' man's face was all plowed up too. He reminded me of an Injun up to Port Bridger. A Shoshone he was from the Wind River country, an' he had the look of an eagle; but he got a holt of some alcohol an' ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... I set fire to the horoscope scroll, placing the ashes in a paper bag on which I wrote: "Seeds of past karma cannot germinate if they are roasted in the divine fires of wisdom." I put the bag in a conspicuous spot; Ananta immediately read my defiant comment. ...
— Autobiography of a YOGI • Paramhansa Yogananda
... fields of Pennsylvania, and men's hearts failing them for fear of danger, not alone to the political capital, Washington, but also to the financial capital, New York; and that, even while the words fell from the speaker's lips, that defiant enemy, already beaten, was rapidly retreating before the magnificent old Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg: while victorious Grant had already broken the left of the rebel line, and was celebrating the nation's anniversary in the triumph of Vicksburg. Even so, let ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and personal situation; and then, with such a force of contrast and effect of relief, the great sheltered sun-flares and colour-patches of scenic composition and design where a couple of hands centuries ago turned to dust had so wrought the defiant miracle of life and beauty that the effect is of a garden blooming among ruins. Discredited somehow, since they all would, the destroyers themselves, the ancient piety, the general spirit and intention, but still bright and assured and sublime—practically, ...
— Italian Hours • Henry James
... gentleman, suddenly sitting up in his chair in a defiant manner, 'drop these personalities and come to business; what's to be done? Vandeloup is firmly established there, but there's not the slightest chance of my wife falling in ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... sobriety. Mr. Wilmot attributes this to Paumotuan frugality and the love of hoarding; it goes far deeper. I have mentioned that I made a feast on board the Casco. To wash down ship's bread and jam, each guest was given the choice of rum or syrup, and out of the whole number only one man voted—in a defiant tone, and amid shouts of mirth—for 'Trum'! This was in public. I had the meanness to repeat the experiment, whenever I had a chance, within the four walls of my house; and three at least, who had refused at the festival, greedily drank rum behind a door. But there were ...
— In the South Seas • Robert Louis Stevenson
... be a dancing man. Too lazy. Now I'll undertake to steer any girl and dance down any fellow you please. Dancing's my forte.' And Dolly glanced from his trim feet to his flashing gem with the defiant air of a ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... that hung from its side seemed to say, "If you please, I am here to protect my master's property from the hand of any thieves; and to the extent that it is within my power, I shall perform my duty." Its bold front and defiant appearance did not, however, daunt the purpose of the boys. After giving it a brief examination, they slipped around to the opposite side of the chest, and by the aid of the screw-driver, removed the lower ...
— How John Became a Man • Isabel C. Byrum
... more triumphant and rampant, more brimming over with hope and defiant of all conditions, hygienic and otherwise. I am rooming with an Irish family whose floor space is limited, so we all have shake-downs, and in the morning can clear the decks for action with no bedsteads in the way. I am very 'crummy,' badly flea-bitten, overrun with bed bugs, somewhat ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... argued with him, and pled with him, but to no avail, and finally told him plainly that they would not allow him to bring the woman to their house, and more than that, if he persisted in his determination he would have to leave them; and angry and defiant he did take his departure the next ...
— The Moravians in Georgia - 1735-1740 • Adelaide L. Fries
... wilderness. There is less heresy hunting; persecution is frequently reluctant and can be evaded by slight concessions. The world as a whole is less harsh and emphatic than it was. Customs and customary attitudes change nowadays not so much by open, defiant and revolutionary breaches as by the attrition of partial negligences and new glosses. Innovating people do conform to current usage, albeit they conform unwillingly and imperfectly. There is a constant ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... stupid opposition, set as obstacles in his way! There were the motives—the pure, the noble motives—which animated him, as I know them now. There is the right reading of the dogged language that mystified me, of the defiant manner that offended me; interpreted by the one light that I have to guide my pen—the light of ...
— Poor Miss Finch • Wilkie Collins
... consequence" are loosed into the aerial abyss, and only this imperial horror can curb and subdue them, you knew that this Mephistopheles was a sufferer not less than a mocker; that his colossal malignity was the delirium of an angelic spirit thwarted, baffled, shattered, yet defiant; never to be vanquished; never through all eternity to be at peace with itself. The infinite sadness of that face, the pathos, beyond words, of that isolated and lonely figure—those are the qualities that irradiated ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... accord, Satan and his host threw the blame of their rebellion wholly upon Christ, declaring that if they had not been reproved, they would never have rebelled. Thus stubborn and defiant in their disloyalty, seeking vainly to overthrow the government of God, yet blasphemously claiming to be themselves the innocent victims of oppressive power, the arch-rebel and all his sympathizers were at last ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... Sir Victor said, holding her close, and looking with flashing, defiant eyes at his enemy; "this coward has told a monstrous falsehood. Deny it, my love. I ask no more, and my servants shall ...
— A Terrible Secret • May Agnes Fleming
... Laura's early infancy, about whom she had passed so many, many nights talking with Helen (who recited endless stories of the boy's virtues, and love, and bravery, when he was away at school), was a very different person from the young man whom now she knew; bold and brilliant, sarcastic and defiant, seeming to scorn the simple occupations or pleasures, or even devotions, of the women with whom he lived, and whom he ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... young man said these words, as if he threw a defiant look towards the quiet strangers ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... bad ride there, b'y," he commenced, speaking in a hard, dry, defiant tone; "a bad ride, an' no mistake. Mind I'm not sayin' ye could a-won, but ye might a-tried," and ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... to me. A brief flash of something, from her eyes to mine—from mine back to hers. The poets write that love can be born of such a glance. The first meeting, across all the barriers of which love springs unsought, unbidden—defiant, sometimes. And the troubadours of old would sing: "A fleeting glance; a touch; two wildly ...
— Brigands of the Moon • Ray Cummings
... this time with Mary Godwin. Clare Clairmont chose to accompany them. Godwin was totally opposed to the whole transaction, and Mrs. Godwin even pursued the fugitives across the Channel; but her appeal was unavailing, and the youthful and defiant trio proceeded in much elation of spirit, and not without a good deal of discomfort at times, from Calais to Paris, and thence to Brunen by the Lake of Uri in Switzerland. It is a curious fact, and shows ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... is, Peter!" exclaimed Nancy; "Mr Chalk said we was to stay here, and stay we will for all the scraps of paper in the world!" And Nancy, seating herself in a chair, folded her arms, and cast defiant looks at the officers ...
— Peter Trawl - The Adventures of a Whaler • W. H. G. Kingston
... of the kitchen-wing, in which had been the room whence Gibbie carried Ginevra. The newer part of the house was gone from its very roots; the ancient portion, all innovation wiped from it, stood grim, desolated, marred, and defiant as of old. Not a sign of life was about the place; the very birds had fled. Angus had been there that same morning, and had locked or nailed up every possible entrance: the place looked like a ruin of centuries. With difficulty they got down into the gulf, with more difficulty ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... felt a sense of fatality bound up in these words of defiant pretense, once they had escaped him...a fatality which the blazing contempt of his wife's retort had emphasized. Even now his cheeks burned with the ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... am very glad to hear that. Then, perhaps, after all I have been tattooed to some purpose. Well; I suppose you had better see it," and with a gesture that was half shy and half defiant she drew the lace shawl from her shoulders, and turned her back towards him so that he might see what was ...
— Mr. Meeson's Will • H. Rider Haggard
... sound principles as if they were sullen prejudices. They almost secrete their small property as if it were stolen property. Often a poor woman will tell a magistrate that she sticks to her husband, with the defiant and desperate air of a wanton resolved to run away from her husband. Often she will cry as hopelessly, and as it were helplessly, when deprived of her child as if she were a child deprived of her doll. Indeed, a child in the street, ...
— Eugenics and Other Evils • G. K. Chesterton
... thrust her hands into the pockets of the small ruffled apron she wore, and her elbows assumed an argumentative air. The black ribbon which tied her lengthening curly locks into a knot upon her head seemed to acquire a defiant effect. Evidently she was prepared to take sides in this matter. "If rich men's sons can learn railroading and mining and every other kind of business that soils their hands, I don't know what's to prevent one of them from ...
— Strawberry Acres • Grace S. Richmond
... that perfection, that made the total effect of her so bewildering. I can't find words for the total effect (I don't know that you ever got it all at once, and I certainly didn't get it then), and if I were to tell you that what struck me first about her was something perverse and wilful and defiant, this would be misleading. ...
— The Belfry • May Sinclair
... woke Finn in the morning he did not fling himself against the partition which hid the tiger from him. He did not even bark or snarl a defiant reply. He only bared his white fangs in silence, and breathed somewhat harshly through his nostrils, while the hair over his shoulders rose a little in token of instinctive resentment. This comparatively mild demonstration ...
— Finn The Wolfhound • A. J. Dawson
... the defiant cry of Nevers, "I am here!" which was immediately echoed by Lagardere. "I am here!" he shouted; and then added for ...
— The Duke's Motto - A Melodrama • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... took up the chase. Mauled in the scuffle he ran with his meek face upside down! Lost to all reason, defiant of all morale, he proceeded to ...
— Peace on Earth, Good-will to Dogs • Eleanor Hallowell Abbott
... then, the adjutant of a banished leader might hand him down arrows to shoot on the city that had exiled him. And indeed the success of their conspiracy had been marvellous. In old times they had looked out of this house under lowered and defiant brows, knowing there was none without who knew of them who did not despise them. But now they could smile tenderly and derisively out into this hushed moonlight that received the uncountable and fatuously peaceful breaths of the sleepers who had been their enemies and were to be their ...
— The Judge • Rebecca West
... done. When I next saw Thekla, her eyes were swollen up with crying, but she was silent, almost defiant towards me. A look of resolute determination had settled down upon her face. I learnt afterwards that parts of my conversation with Herr Mueller had been injudiciously quoted by him in the talk he had had with her. I thought I would leave ...
— The Grey Woman and other Tales • Mrs. (Elizabeth) Gaskell
... brown eyes were fastened upon his face, eager to understand his attitude, a little defiant, a little appealing. There was nothing to be gathered from his expression, however. After that first moment he was entirely himself—well-mannered, ...
— The Box with Broken Seals • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... of Warwick" and of "Syr Eglamoure of Artoys." Many of the cuts are extremely picturesque and excellently suited to the general tone of the story. On the title-page the hero of the tale usually sits on his horse, and indomitable he looks with his sword drawn, his plume full spread, his mien defiant. A faithful squire sometimes follows him, sometimes only his dog; between the feet of the horse fabulous plants spread their unlikely leaves, and give the sole and very doubtful clue to the country in which the knight ...
— The English Novel in the Time of Shakespeare • J. J. Jusserand
... her defiant word and openly challenged his interference, but he met her once more quietly. "I am sorry to hear it," he rejoined. "But that won't make any difference. You can't ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... majority of French-Canadians. The struggle of Bourassa to oust Laurier began with the Boer War. It was fated not to end until either leader or the other should quit. Before the war Bourassa was flamboyant and defiant. After it began he was openly and brazenly disloyal, when the doctrines he preached were inflammably acceptable to people uneducated to citizenship in so conglomerate a thing as Empire. The easiest thing ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... this find-fault mood, offensive as is this defiant attitude, we must beware of overlooking the truths enunciated, in dislike of the advocacy. It is an unfortunate hindrance to all innovation, that in virtue of their very function, the innovators stand in a position of antagonism; and the disagreeable manners, ...
— Essays on Education and Kindred Subjects - Everyman's Library • Herbert Spencer
... the Government, but by ill luck his arrival coincided with the receipt of the despatch. The effect of this document was prodigious. Molteno considered that he had been personally insulted. The Legislative Assembly was defiant, and greeted the recital of Carnarvon's words with ironical laughter. A Ministerial Minute, signed by Molteno and his colleagues, protested against the Colonial Secretary's intrusion, and especially against his rather ill ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... defiant. The crowd moves towards the Minster. Enter ANSELM the priest, with a little acolyte,—the two bearing a large illuminated Gospel-book. ANSELM, eyeing the PIPER gravely, opens the book, which the boy supports on ...
— The Piper • Josephine Preston Peabody
... himself at the table, scowled at the embossed alphabet, and then clamped a piece of the heavy paper into the slate. He grasped the little punch firmly, and, with a manner vigorous, if not defiant, ...
— The Happy Venture • Edith Ballinger Price
... mankind— Beheld with envy their true peace of mind, And most maliciously employed his skill To work them woe—defiant of God's will. Their worldly property he did not touch, For loss of this would not be felt so much As trouble with their brethren in the church, Severed from whom they might be left in lurch. His plan succeeded, as I know too well, For some deemed ...
— The Emigrant Mechanic and Other Tales In Verse - Together With Numerous Songs Upon Canadian Subjects • Thomas Cowherd
... I would go to bed sick at heart and with my mind half made up to drop it all, only to wake in the morning more resolute and hopeful than ever. Hopeful and defiant. It was as though somebody—the whole world—were jeering at my brazen-faced, piteous efforts, and I was bound to ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... sang nervously, with defiant recklessness as though half intoxicated, and she chose sad, mournful songs which dealt with wasted hopes, the past, old age, as though in mockery of another's grief. "'And old age comes nearer and nearer' . . ." she sang. And what ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Chief Fleck carelessly, "that is not my end of the work. It is up to the Naval Intelligence Bureau to clean out the spies in the navy. I'm after the boss-spy. After we land him it will be easier to get the small fry. A defiant German prisoner once boasted to me that Germany had a man on every American ship, in every American regiment, and in every department in Washington. I suspect it comes pretty near being true. A country that has so many ...
— The Apartment Next Door • William Andrew Johnston
... leading Whigs that his pet measure was the purchase of glebes for the Irish priesthood by the funds of the state, and the further endowment of Maynooth College on an enlarged scale. After various addresses, especially one in a very defiant strain by Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell briefly replied, and the motion was carried by a majority of three hundred and twenty-two against ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... answered with loud enthusiastic shouts. When the vivats had died away, an old veteran came out of the ranks, and with countenance half-defiant, half- smiling, looking at the little general, he asked: "General, what must we do that the roasted partridges, which are promised to us, may fly into ...
— The Empress Josephine • Louise Muhlbach
... the defiant answer, and then we were in the midst of them. We had made a gap, but ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... affection and oversight. But the moment she finds a worm or a crumb or a splash of dough, the note changes into a quick, eager "Here! here! here!" and away rushes the brood pell-mell and topsy-turvy. If a stray cat approaches, or danger in any form, her defiant, menacing "C-r-r-r-r!" shows her anger ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... cried Katie, looking defiant. "If I good would her put me in the closet? I don't like ...
— Dotty Dimple at Her Grandmother's • Sophie May
... and somewhat startled at these defiant words. It was clear that Ida was not going to be a meek, submissive child, whom they might ill-treat without apprehension. She was decidedly dangerous, and her insubordination must be nipped in the bud. She seized Ida roughly ...
— Jack's Ward • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... conflict between two persons or parties, the peripety is generally a double one—the sudden collapse of Shylock's case implying an equally sudden restoration of Antonio's fortunes. Perhaps the most striking peripety in Ibsen is Stockmann's fall from jubilant self-confidence to defiant impotence in the third act of An Enemy of the People. Thinking that he has the "compact majority" at his back, he assumes the Burgomaster's insignia of office, and lords it over his incensed brother, only to learn, by blow on blow of disillusionment, that ...
— Play-Making - A Manual of Craftsmanship • William Archer
... of nearly a minute, the attitude of neither changed, nor was the silence broken. Twice during the time did Mr. Howland lift his eyes to those of his wife, and each time did they fall, after a few moments, under the strange half-defiant look they encountered. At last he said firmly, yet in a ...
— The Iron Rule - or, Tyranny in the Household • T. S. Arthur
... 1st Round.—Beppo defiant, no attitude at all. Buttons assumed an elegant pose. Beppo made a succession of wild strokes without any aim, which were parried without effort. After which Buttons landed four blows, one on each peeper, one on the smeller, ...
— The Dodge Club - or, Italy in 1859 • James De Mille
... raised his head, conscious of a disturbing factor, and then arose and closed the door into the hall. Closing the door muffled the strains that floated down from upstairs, where Zephania, oppressed, but defiant ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... Canterbury Cathedral. In the altercation which took place before the consummation of the terrible deed, the Primate was asked to absolve the bishops whom he had excommunicated, but he refused in a defiant and insulting manner. "Then die," exclaimed FitzUrse, striking at Becket's head with his weapon; but the devoted cross-bearer warded off the blow with his own arm, which was badly cut, so that the Archbishop was but slightly ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... persuasion of the dignity of human nature. This leads him to combat with vigour, and satirise with merciless wit, the Epicurean theory of life; and while his strong common sense forbids him to accept the Stoic doctrine in all its defiant harshness, he strengthens the Peripatetic view, to which he on the whole leans, by introducing elements drawn from it. The peculiar combination which he thus strives to form takes its colour from his own character and from the terms of his native language. The Greeks ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... drove up, we saw that there were two people inside. There alighted from it, with some cloaks and wrappers, first the Frenchwoman whom I had seen in church, and secondly the pretty girl, the Frenchwoman with a defiant confidence, the pretty ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... was sued in the Courts by a Victim who wanted a final look at his Money, the Reporters came around and he was so stiff-necked and defiant that all of them referred to him as ...
— Knocking the Neighbors • George Ade
... he had no part in or knowledge of it. I accept myself the full and sole responsibility for what has been done. But also tell Gordon that this is China, not Europe. I wished to save the lives of the Wangs, and at first thought that I could do so, but they came with their heads unshaved, they used defiant language, and proposed a deviation from the convention, and I saw that it would not be safe to show mercy to these rebels. Therefore what was done was inevitable. But Gordon had no part in it, and whatever he demands to ...
— The Life of Gordon, Volume I • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... spoke very lightly, but there was something in his tone that made Nancy want to turn and look at him intently. She seemed to see for the first time a shade of defiant cruelty in his ...
— Outside Inn • Ethel M. Kelley
... charges comfortable. Once, while he was so engaged, the placid sleepers whom he had noiselessly quitted were aroused to terror—sudden, bewildering night-terror—by a gasping cry from his lips, followed by the leaping and rushing of some brute in flight, and by a screech which was one defiant note of ...
— Camp and Trail - A Story of the Maine Woods • Isabel Hornibrook
... the men of Thomas still grim and defiant. The dead lay in heaps along their front, but as the darkness settled down on the unfinished battle they meant to fight with equal valor and tenacity on the morrow. The first day had favored the South, had favored ...
— The Rock of Chickamauga • Joseph A. Altsheler
... than behind his back!" cried the defiant Princess. "And to thy face, Harry of Bolingbroke, I do thee to wit that thou art no king of mine, nor I owe thee no allegiance! Wreak thy will on me for saying it! After all, I can die but once; and I can die as beseems a King's daughter; and I would as lief die and be rid of thee as 'bide in ...
— The White Rose of Langley - A Story of the Olden Time • Emily Sarah Holt
... now stood grimly surveying them. Oola was crying and squealing; Wombo stood upright—a scowl of hate on his face. His whole nature seemed changed. A flogging will rouse the semi-civilised black's evil passions like nothing else. There was something of savage dignity in the defiant way in which he faced his ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... a broad promenade, where the ground glistened with autumn damps, and the unlighted lamps looked wan and spectral. There was a bear-pit hard by, over the railings of which Ada leaned and shouted a defiant "Boo;" but the bears had turned in for the night, and the stone re-echoed her voice with a hollow ring. Indistinct bird forms were roosting in cages; but her umbrella had no effect ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... ticked on, and at intervals there was the rumble of trains passing to and from Ravenscourt Park station, and the clang of distant tram-bells. The voice of mighty London mocked at Jack's misery, and he conquered his emotions. He lifted a defiant face, much flushed. ...
— In Friendship's Guise • Wm. Murray Graydon
... blow would be as hard to bear as the knowledge that his own act has placed you where you are and made him what he is? Silent contempt is the law now, so let this insult pass, unclench your hand and turn that defiant face to me, while I console you ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... and the great tears glittered in his eyes, as he stood up, brave and defiant, and resentful ...
— Tracy Park • Mary Jane Holmes
... again. It would have been comforting to be dramatic in this war against stupidity and malice and blindness. Especially since this particular battle seemed to be lost. One could send back an eloquent, defiant message to Earth saying that the four of them did not regret their journey into space, though they were doomed to be killed by the enemies of their country. It could have been a very pretty gesture. But Joe happened to have a job to do. Pretty gestures were not a part of it. He ...
— Space Tug • Murray Leinster
... transformation scene. But it is no easy matter to know much of the buttercup. Her whole charm lies in her freedom from self-consciousness; she has a reserved force of shyness behind all her familiarity, and of a very defiant sort of shyness. Her character in fact is one of which it is easier to feel the beauty than to analyse or describe it. Like all transitional phases, girlhood is full of picturesque inequalities, strange slumbers of one faculty and stranger developements of another; ...
— Stray Studies from England and Italy • John Richard Green
... he would fling himself upon his brother, his figure erect now, defiant and menacing; his face ashen, his eyes wild. "It ends not thus!" he repeated, and his voice ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... teaching her to throw a heavy stone like a discus. When it was Fred's turn, he sent a triangular-shaped stone out into the air with considerable skill. Thea watched it enviously, standing in a half-defiant posture, her sleeves rolled above her elbows and her face flushed with heat and excitement. After Fred's third missile had rung upon the rocks below, she snatched up a stone and stepped impatiently out on ...
— Song of the Lark • Willa Cather
... talk," said Reuben, with a half-defiant, half-scrutinizing look at Ferdinand, as if he charged him in his own mind with having suggested ...
— Aunt Rachel • David Christie Murray
... when the train was coming in; and the more he thought about it, the surer he felt that some day he would have to do it. He was well acquainted by that time with the engines, and the engineers too, and his trick of standing astride the rail and looking up with sparkling, defiant eyes at the engine's noble front was only a sort of preparation for ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... him, drawn to the full of her splendid height, and if her face was pale, yet it was as composed and calm as his own; if her bosom rose and fell to betray her agitations yet her glance was contemptuous and defiant, her voice calm and steady, when she answered him with the question—"What is ...
— The Sea-Hawk • Raphael Sabatini
... glance, but not a defiant one; a resolute gleam, but yet a sad one. For days afterwards Mr. Colquhoun remembered ...
— A Little Hero • Mrs. H. Musgrave
... put on the cover of the sugar bowl with a defiant clash. "Surely, you don't mean to stay buried in this little ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... sympathetic reaction in his favour. One can imagine the ghost of Byron rebuking his critic with the words of the Miltonic Satan, 'Ye knew me once no mate For you, there sitting where ye durst not soar'; for in his masculine defiant attitude and daring flights the elder poet overtops and looks down upon the fine musical ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... banished the Cid from the kingdom. Rodrigo was highly enraged at the injustice of the king whom he had served so faithfully, even to the sacrifice of Urraca's cherished friendship. But in silence, though pale and defiant, he ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... them, and a council might lead only to additional complications. My refusal left them without hope of securing better terms, or of even delaying matters longer; so henceforth they were more than ever reckless and defiant. Denunciations of the treaty became outspoken, and as the young braves grew more and more insolent every day, it amounted to conviction that, unless by some means the irritation was allayed, hostilities would surely be upon us when the buffalo returned to their summer feeding-grounds ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... romance stands in a new field and brings an almost unknown world in reality before the reader—the world of conflict between Greek and Turk on the Island of Crete. The "Helen" of the story is a Greek, beautiful, desolate, defiant—pure as snow. ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... little strangers, accompanied by Mary and Ann, went upstairs, where Simpson was waiting for them. Simpson was feeling very cross at the arrival of four additional children, but when she saw Diana's tired face, and the tears on Iris' pale cheeks, and the defiant, and yet baby look in Orion's bright eyes, something came over her which she could not quite account for, and she suddenly ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... not feel it as much as if she were bigger. She will get over it, darling. Very little girls do not remember things long." Oh, how coarse and crass and stupid it sounded—how course and crass and stupid to say it to this small defiant scrap of what seemed the inevitable ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... thou at all!" cried here the old magician with defiant voice, "who dareth to speak thus unto ME, the greatest man now living?"—and a green flash shot from his eye at Zarathustra. But immediately after he ...
— Thus Spake Zarathustra - A Book for All and None • Friedrich Nietzsche
... possession; the vagrant desires of Amarillis and Alexis are dispelled by the 'sage precepts' of the priest and Clorin; Daphnis' innocence is seemingly unstained by the hours he has spent with Cloe in the hollow tree; while the Sullen Shepherd, unregenerate and defiant, is banished the confines of pastoral Thessaly. What we have witnessed was no more than the comedy of errors of a ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Prairie dogs live in holes, dug by themselves. Twenty to fifty of these holes may be seen within a radius of a few yards, and such communities are known to plains people as "towns." On the approach of anything they fear the little fellows sit erect, look defiant and chatter saucily. If the intruder comes too near, the commanding individual of the group, the mayor of the town, so to speak, gives an alarm, plainly interpreted as, "Beware; make safe; each man for ...
— Crossing the Plains, Days of '57 - A Narrative of Early Emigrant Tavel to California by the Ox-team Method • William Audley Maxwell
... traps in fish-oil and beaver-grease, and made their moccasins, and mended snow-shoe and sledge, for the cry of the loon said that winter was creeping down out of the North. And the swamps grew silent. The cow moose no longer mooed to her young. In place of it, from the open plain and "burn" rose the defiant challenge of bull to bull and the deadly clash of horn against horn under the stars of night. The wolf no longer howled to hear his voice. In the travel of padded feet there came to be a slinking, hunting caution. ...
— Nomads of the North - A Story of Romance and Adventure under the Open Stars • James Oliver Curwood |
