"Disarming" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Josephine's tact and address in political business. She had at all times the art of mitigating his temper, and turning aside the hasty determinations of his angry moments, not by directly opposing, but by gradually parrying and disarming them. It must be added to her great praise, that she was always a willing and often a successful advocate in the cause ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... There was little to be seen; patrols came and went; armed peasants entered the village, and were dispatched in different directions; the sentinels were regularly inspected and relieved every two hours; the besiegers were busy in searching and disarming the surrounding villages, in order to make a more vigorous assault than ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... have lost your sword," said the officer contemptuously, "and spared me the trouble of disarming you for drawing within the precincts of the Court. Take my advice, sir—not that of a friend, but of one who has his duty to do towards keeping order here. Take your friends away and consult with them as ...
— The King's Esquires - The Jewel of France • George Manville Fenn
... mincemeat of it. The notion that the men of evil intent are to have all the weapons will not work. Theoretically, all our armaments should be pooled. But as we, the British Empire, will most certainly not pool our defenses with anyone, and as we have not the very smallest intention of disarming, and will go on building gun for gun and ship for ship in step with even our dearest friends if we see the least risk of our being left in a position of inferiority, we cannot with any countenance demand that other Powers shall do what we will not do ourselves. Our business ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... Hohenzollerns, the world outside Germany regards them as the embodiment of homicidal nationalism. And the settlement of Europe after the war, if it is to be a settlement with the Hohenzollerns and not with the German people, must include the virtual disarming of those robber murderers against any renewal of their attack. It would be the most obvious folly to stop anywhere short of that. With Germany we would welcome peace to-morrow; we would welcome her shipping on the seas and her flag about the world; against the Hohenzollerns ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... singled out from the rest, might transplant itself to the servants' hall, and take root for life in some mind sufficiently thoughtful to invest it with interest, and yet far removed from any opportunities, through books or society, for disarming the argument of its sting. Such a danger was quickened by the character and pretensions of Mrs. Lee's footman, who was a daily witness, whilst standing behind his mistress's chair at dinner, to the ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... ceases, and they are to be turned loose to arm and organize again for another conflict against the Union? Why, sir, it would not be more preposterous on the part of the traveler, after having, at the peril of his life, succeeded in disarming a highwayman by whom he was assailed, to immediately turn round and restore to the robber his weapons with which to make a ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... kind to listen to me," Magsie answered with disarming sincerity. "I know it is a strange thing to do." She laughed nervously. "Of course, I know THAT!" she added. "But it came to me that I would the other day. Greg and I were talking about dreams, you know—things we wanted to do. And we talked ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... instruments depicted in the woodcut are Japanese emblems of justice and are to be seen at all the guard-houses; they are used to catch runaway offenders or to pin a drunken yaconin against a wall or house, and so facilitate the task of disarming him without ...
— Sketches of Japanese Manners and Customs • J. M. W. Silver
... inoffensive Jack, that he will be delighted to see that worthy below stairs; whereupon Jack quietly steals away and finds his would-be antagonist lurking behind a half-opened door. The soldier makes a lunge with his sword at the player, who succeeds in disarming the coward, and there the ...
— The Palmy Days of Nance Oldfield • Edward Robins
... move, covering them with their rifles. The wretches fell upon their knees and howled for mercy. While Deppingham was holding his wife's limp form in his arms, calling out to her in the agony of fear, utterly oblivious to all else that was happening about him, his two friends were swiftly disarming the grovelling natives. Selim's knife severed the cords that bound Bobby Browne's hands; he was staring blankly, dizzily before him, and many minutes passed before he was able to comprehend ...
— The Man From Brodney's • George Barr McCutcheon
... up to the tree, letting out as he walked a volley of oaths. I recovered my equilibrium, sprang over the fence, crept up behind and jumped on him, knocking him down and instantly disarming him. ...
— From the Bottom Up - The Life Story of Alexander Irvine • Alexander Irvine
... at the Hotel de Ville, did their utmost to maintain order with the strong support of Baron D'Hoogvoort and the Civic Guard. But it was in vain. On the evening of September 20 an immense mob rushed the Hotel de Ville, after disarming the Civic Guard; and Rogier and Ducpetiaux were henceforth masters of the city. The Committee of Public Safety disappeared and is heard of no more. Hoogvoort resigned his command. On receipt of this news Prince Frederick at Vilvoorde ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... just in time to prevent the catastrophe. The despair portrayed in the face of the criminal prevented reproach or remonstrance, for Captain Truck was a man of few words when it was necessary to act. Disarming the intended suicide, he coolly counted out to him thirty-five pounds, the money paid for his passage, and told ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... muse Shouts paeans to the earth-born giant, Whose brows Apollo's wreath refuse, Whose strength to Charis is unpliant. Demos distrusts the debonair, Yet Demos found himself disarming To gracious GRANVILLE; unaware Won by the calm, ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100, April 11, 1891 • Various
... several of the councils called in consequence of the old Sheik's retirement from active leadership of the tribe, and he had been struck by Said's restrained and conciliatory attitude toward his headmen. He had met them half-way, sinking his own inclinations and disarming their suspicions of him. At the same time he had let it be clearly understood that he meant to be absolute as his father had been. In spite of the civilisation that had bitten so deeply he was still too much an Arab, too ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull
... violent daughter with any great severity. But even so, Erebus did not receive these milder rebukes in the proper meek spirit. Unlike the philosophic Terror, who for the most part accepted his mother's just rebukes, after a doubtful exploit, with a disarming sorrowful air, Erebus must always make out a case for herself; and ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... have her own way, she became less anxious for it, and several times made small concessions, which were apparently unconscious, but amusing, nevertheless. She had none of the wiles of the coquette; she was transparent, and her friendliness was disarming. If she wanted Winfield to stay at home any particular morning or afternoon, she told him so. At first he was offended, but afterward learned to like it, for she could easily have instructed Hepsey to say ...
— Lavender and Old Lace • Myrtle Reed
... man, his expression was not to be read at a glance. Its major message seemed to be goodfellowship, but the seeming failed to strengthen into certainty on closer inspection. Here was a man who could think hiddenly, speak guardedly, wait for others to show their cards, and do all this with a disarming appearance of ingenuous friendliness. The atmosphere he radiated as he sat waiting for his host to explain himself was one of ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... by the Russians to bring the forest tribes under their authority were bitterly resented; and in 1824 two of their generals were fatally stabbed in Tchetchnia by one of several villagers whom they were disarming. This murder was avenged by Yermoloff, as usual, relentlessly, but it was his last campaign in the Caucasus. In 1826 the Persians, who had been incensed by Yermoloff's rough ways on their frontier and by his insolent diplomacy, invaded Russian territory with a strong army. The Russians were ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... works be good, and death doth serve As nature's work, why should we fear to die? Since fear is vain but when it may preserve, Why should we fear that which we cannot fly? Fear is more pain than is the pain it fears, Disarming human minds of native might; While each conceit an ugly figure bears Which were we ill, well viewed in reason's light. Our owly eyes, which dimmed with passions be, And scarce discern the dawn of coming ...
— Penshurst Castle - In the Days of Sir Philip Sidney • Emma Marshall
... said Cicely in her most disarming manner, "it's just as well to be perfectly frank about the whole matter. If one wants to live in the London of the present day one must make up one's mind to accept the fait accompli with as good a grace as possible. I do want to live in London, and I don't ...
— When William Came • Saki
... taller than her mother, she was of a marked slenderness; a completed slenderness, I might say—a slenderness so palpably finished as to details that I can only describe it as felicitous in the extreme. It seemed almost certain that her appearance had once been disarming, that the threat in her eye-flash and tilted head was a trick learned by contact with many young ladies who needed finishing more ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... Mrs. Stuart laughed, and, woman-like, observed that she supposed it was only people who, like Forbes, had succeeded in disarming the critics, who could afford to scoff at them,—a remark which drew a funny little bow, half-petulant, half-pleased, out of the artist, in whom one of the strongest notes of character was his susceptibility ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... with wrongs unspeakable to revenge, were out in the heather. The hills that seemed so lonely were not bare of human life. A man was seldom so solitary but that eyes might be on him from cave, corry, wood, or den. The Disarming Act had been obeyed in the usual style: old useless weapons were given up to the military. But the spirit of the clans was not wholly broken. Even the old wife of Donald Ban, when he was "sair hadden down by ...
— The Book of Dreams and Ghosts • Andrew Lang
... either in England, peace with the Spaniards being there as good as determined upon, or in Holland, for the same reason, or in the Hanseatic towns, which were all exhausted of wealth, or in Denmark, which had lost heart and was daily disarming, or in France, whence he got not a word on which he could place certain reliance." The emperor, on his side, was seeking to make peace with Sweden, "and the people of that country were not disinclined to ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume V. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... in warfare, no man yet had been able to stand before him. With skilled arm and eye and with every muscle of his body trained, his sword sought a vital spot in his opponent. There was no thought now in the mind of Vince about disarming the pirate and taking him prisoner; this terrible wild beast, this hairy monster must be killed or he himself must die. Through the whirl and clash and hot breath of battle he had been amazed that Kate Bonnet's father should be a ...
— Kate Bonnet - The Romance of a Pirate's Daughter • Frank R. Stockton
... clasping me, my mouth she kist. If to my inmost heart the arrow goes, Which Love directs, may well by you be wist. She leads me to her chamber of repose In haste, not suffers others to assist In taking off my panoply of steel; Disarming me herself from head ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... of life's whole armory of weapons the means of disarming Hope, she could have found nothing so effectual as nature had supplied in her unconsciousness. Helplessness conquers. There was a quality in Emilia which would have always produced something very like antagonism in Hope, had ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... nation a living conspiracy against her liberty; if the nation suspected him of regretting in his soul too much the loss of supreme power—of causing the new constitution to stumble, in order to profit by its fall—of conducting liberty into snares to rejoice in anarchy—of disarming the country because he secretly wished it to be defeated—then the nation had a right to make him descend from the throne, and to call him to her bar, and to depose him in the name of her own dictatorship, and for her own safety. If the nation had ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 1 July 1848 • Various
... breeding inferior to that of his companion, but he had so sturdy and swinging a gait, so stalwart and goodly a build, so engaging a manner, and so florid a smile, that the very sight of him was disarming, despite the patent crafty deceit in his face. It seemed as if it could not be very deep or guileful, it was so frankly expressed. It was suggestive of the roguish machinations of a child. He had twinkling brown eyes, and reddish hair, plaited in a club and tied with a thong of leather. His ...
— The Frontiersmen • Charles Egbert Craddock
... disarming a people thus broken into several tribes, and thus remote from the seat of power, more good than evil has been produced, may deserve inquiry. The supreme power in every community has the right of debarring every individual, ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson
... more disarming than such genuine sorrow; and Sophy, pardoning him with all her heart, and mourning for her past want of charity, watched him, longing to do something for his comfort, and to evince her tenderness; but only succeeded in encumbering every ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Josie. Josie's intimates had often wondered at her histrionic powers when she pretended to be stupid, which was her usual way of disarming persons who might have been suspicious of her. She had found out much about those archvillains Felix and Hortense Markle by an assumption of supreme dullness. But no one of her acquaintances had ever seen Josie assume the role of a skittish, dressed-up miss, painted ...
— Mary Louise and Josie O'Gorman • Emma Speed Sampson
... interest. Her elder brother Fred was standing alert and ready but not quite poised for a leap. Mrs. Macklin had a motherly-looking smile on her face which for some unknown reason she was aiming at me in a disarming manner. The twins were standing close together, both of them puzzled-looking. I wondered whether they were esper or telepath (twins are always the same when they're identical, and opposite when fraternal). The thing that really bothered ...
— Highways in Hiding • George Oliver Smith
... China; in Italy; in England. Mr. Wedgwood's works at Etruria in Staffordshire. Cameo of a Slave in Chains; of Hope. Figures on the Portland or Barberini vase explained, 271. 2. Coal; Pyrite; Naphtha; Jet; Amber. Dr. Franklin's discovery of disarming the Tempest of it's lightning. Liberty of America; of Ireland; of France, 349. VII. Antient central subterraneous fires. Production of Tin, Copper, Zink, Lead, Mercury, Platina, Gold and Silver. Destruction of Mexico. Slavery of Africa, ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... friends and partisans among the discontented caciques, secretly justifying them in their resistance to the imposition of tribute, and promising them redress. He secured the devotion of his own soldiers by great acts of indulgence, disarming and dismissing such as refused full participation in his plans, and returned with his little band to Isabella, where he felt secure of a strong party among ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... as the play proceeds: the impression he gives at the moment is one of totally disarming good humour and childlike unself-consciousness. It would need a very close observer to suspect that there is something wrong somewhere—that this personality is completely assumed. DORA shuts the front door and comes to the back ...
— Night Must Fall • Williams, Emlyn
... unusual?" cried Adelaide, who wanted to add, "The only question is, does your wretched son possess it?" But she didn't; she asked instead, with a tone of disarming sweetness, "Shall we be perfectly ...
— The Happiest Time of Their Lives • Alice Duer Miller
... But disarming the mere conscript soldiers was not quite so simple, although Maga managed it. They had less regard for their own skins than handicapped their officer, and yet more than his contempt for the female of ...
— The Eye of Zeitoon • Talbot Mundy
... a man of imperturbable temper, dauntless courage and consummate skill in fence, his life would have been a short one. But neither anger nor danger ever deprived him of his presence of mind; he was an incomparable swordsman; and he had a peculiar way of disarming opponents which moved the envy of all the duellists of his time. His friends said that he had never given a challenge, that he had never refused one, that he had never taken a life, and yet that he had ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... was no reason why Nora could not be a princess or a duchess. So she planned accordingly. But the child puzzled and eluded her; and from time to time she discovered a disquieting strength of character behind a disarming amiability. Ever since Nora had returned home by way of the Orient, the mother had recognized a subtle change, so subtle that she never had an opportunity of alluding to it verbally. Perhaps the fault lay at her own door. She should never have permitted Nora to come ...
— The Place of Honeymoons • Harold MacGrath
... grins around him. At her horrified exclamation he began to shrivel away towards the door, ushering himself out with the propitiatory words, "Good morning. Good night. T'ank you. Water!" A most effectual method of disarming reproof. ...
— Punch, 1917.07.04, Vol. 153, Issue No. 1 • Various
... them, but he used them with great effect, while amusing the audience, to give life to an abstraction, to explode an absurdity, to clinch an argument, to drive home an admonition. The natural kindliness of his tone, softening prejudice and disarming partisan rancor, would often open to his reasoning a way into minds ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... Not very. I have been more so." Peter Junior smiled a disarming smile as he looked in his father's face. "I've tramped many a mile on two sound feet when they were so numb from sheer weariness that I could not feel them or know what they were doing. What did you want to say to ...
— The Eye of Dread • Payne Erskine
... equivocal proof; and of what avail would be the rapid and brilliant career of the king in Bohemia and Austria, if Tilly should recover his superiority in the Empire, animating the courage of the Roman Catholics, and disarming, by a new series of victories, the allies and confederates of the king? What would he gain by expelling the Emperor from his hereditary dominions, if Tilly succeeded in conquering for that Emperor the rest of Germany? Could he hope to ...
— The History of the Thirty Years' War • Friedrich Schiller, Translated by Rev. A. J. W. Morrison, M.A.
... trigger and take his treacherous assailant's life. The revolver went off as it struck the floor and wounded the consul himself in the leg-broke it. The servant now rallied sufficiently to come to his assistance, and together they succeeded in disarming the robber, who, however, escaped and bolted up-stairs, followed by the servant with the sword. The consul's wife, with praiseworthy presence of mind, now appeared with a second revolver, which her husband grasped in his left hand, ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... either case. That was shown (1) in Tullamore on March 20th, when an attempt at disarming the small local corps of Irish Volunteers was met with revolver shots and a policeman was wounded—fortunately not seriously; (2) in Dublin, on March 24th and following days, when, at the rumour of an intended raid on the Workers' ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... are certain seasons when the real danger of the master may not only excuse, but render laudable, the servant's officiousness. I therefore flatter myself that the congress will receive with indulgence and lenity the opinion I shall offer. The scheme of simply disarming the tories seems to me totally ineffectual; it will only embitter their minds and add virus to their venom. They can, and will, always be supplied with fresh arms by the enemy. That of seizing the ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... vigorously attacking and disarming Bavaria, but slowly advanced, and permitted the Bavarians to withdraw unharassed for the purpose of forming a junction with the other troops of the Rhenish confederation under Napoleon, who had hastened from Spain on the first news ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... took my horse which the good vavasor was holding; and I saw coming toward me a very fair and gentle maid. On looking at her narrowly I saw she was tall and slim and straight. Skilful she was in disarming me, which she did gently and with address; then, when she had robed me in a short mantle of scarlet stuff spotted with a peacock's plumes, all the others left us there, so that she and I remained alone. This pleased me well, for I needed naught else ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... the scenes, wherever mischief brews for mortal man. She comes down the ages, loaded with accusations; and yet, somehow or other, they do not seem to have done her much harm. And the reason is, that she possesses, in supreme perfection, the art of disarming her antagonist, having been very cunningly constructed by the Creator for that very purpose: she is like a cork; she will not drown, under any flood of charges: she floats, quand meme: (two words ...
— The Substance of a Dream • F. W. Bain
... own fortune; teaching, in early youth, under the shackles of indigence, the way to wealth, and, in the shade of obscurity, the path to greatness; in the maturity of manhood, disarming the thunder of its terrors, the lightning of its fatal blast; and wresting from the tyrant's hand the still more afflictive sceptre of oppression: while descending the vale of years, traversing the Atlantic Ocean, braving, in the dead of winter, the battle and the breeze, bearing in his hand the ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... efforts. For that gentleman, personally, we believe him to be nearly extinct. Two months ago we expressed our conviction, so much the stronger in itself for having been adopted after some hesitation, that Sir Robert Peel had taken the true course for eventually and finally disarming him. We are thankful that we have now nothing to recant. Progress has been made in that interval towards that consummation, quite equal to any thing we could have expected in so short a lapse of weeks. Mr O'Connell is now showing ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... 3rd of November Bute appeared in his new capacity as prime minister in the House of Lords, where he had not been seen for twenty years. Though he had succeeded in disarming all organized opposition in parliament, the hostility displayed against him in the nation, arising from his Scottish nationality, his character as favourite, his peace policy and the resignation of the popular hero Pitt, was overwhelming. He was the object of numerous attacks ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... taught them other things than speech. "Here, Waldron!" Galbraith would say. "This is no cake-walk. All you've got to do is to cross to that chair and sit down in it like a lady. Show her how to do it, Dane." And Rose, with her good-humored disarming smile at the infuriated Waldron, would go ahead ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... rotund, jovial, bade everyone make himself at home. Now and then through his smoked spectacles there stole an ambiguous look which might have given an analyst pause, but the man's bonhomie, quite ecclesiastical, was instantly disarming. Madame was no beauty, but possessed a certain bizarre charm and was always surrounded. She, however, remained silent and did nothing to encourage her voluble admirers. As void of prudery as her husband, she listened impassively, absently, with her thoughts evidently afar, to ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... dispersed. Knowing your discretion, I apprehended that, finding the tables turned against you, you would not desire to play a losing game, and I therefore counselled apparent submission as the best means of disarming your antagonist. Whatever arrangement you have made with Mistress Nutter is neither morally nor legally ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... looked at the man keenly. If his surprise was not genuine, it was as good a bit of acting as I ever saw, on or off the stage, and it was exactly the most disarming thing he could possibly say. Indeed it turned the tables on me completely and it was I who was now left in the position of having ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... thereupon determined to arrest the hunters, but knowing their desperate nature, hesitated as to the safe means of doing so. They finally hit upon a rather ingenious, though unfair means of disarming the white men: they began giving them "fire water" to drink, refusing to accept pay therefor. Those who lead lives of hardship and peril are generally fond of such indulgence, and, though the trappers could not fail to understand the purpose of the Mexicans, ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... desire, one object, that of unifying the Church, of drawing all the dissident communities to it in order that it may be invincible in the coming social struggle. He seeks to obtain recognition of the moral authority of the Vatican in Russia; he dreams of disarming the Anglican Church and of drawing it into a sort of fraternal truce; and he particularly seeks to come to an understanding with the Schismatical Churches of the East, which he regards as sisters, simply living apart, whose return his paternal heart entreats. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... oblige, even while she sees that that loyalty is costing her own happiness. But most of all the soul of this little play is in that triumph of simple girlish naivete, Leonie, so true, so artless, disarming all rivalry, and winning every spectator's heart, as she all but loses and then gains her lover's. These traits are Legouve's. They are not qualities that will stand on the stage alone. They need the setting ...
— Bataille De Dames • Eugene Scribe and Ernest Legouve
... insignificant little man well past middle life, with a gray beard, Starr saw him mentally. He should have known better than to let his imagination paint him a portrait of any man, in those ticklish times. But they were Americans, which was disarming in itself. And the plump sister, who had talked for ten minutes with Starr when he called at the ranch one day to see if they had any stock they wanted to sell, had further helped to ward ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... "My dear Cousin," and her frank American way was disarming. She wrote four pages of apology for herself and her husband, explaining why they had neglected "looking up Mrs. Nelson Smith when she was Miss Annesley Grayle." ...
— The Second Latchkey • Charles Norris Williamson and Alice Muriel Williamson
... "Venus disarming Cupid," of the Wallace collection, we have, in my opinion, the wreck of a once splendid Giorgione. In the recent re-arrangement of the Gallery, this picture, which used to hang in an upstairs room, and was practically unknown, has been hung prominently ...
— Giorgione • Herbert Cook
... astonished at the commands of the young king, but the presence of the unknown guests whom they regarded as the most powerful sorcerers in the world had the effect of disarming all opposition. The older people, however, were displeased with the new customs, and both fetish-men, understanding that their prosperous days were forever over, swore in their souls a terrible revenge against the king ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... meaning, a more precise direction, and a closer application. The two kinds of War are, first, those in which the object is the OVERTHROW OF THE ENEMY, whether it be that we aim at his destruction, politically, or merely at disarming him and forcing him to conclude peace on our terms; and next, those in which our object is MERELY TO MAKE SOME CONQUESTS ON THE FRONTIERS OF HIS COUNTRY, either for the purpose of retaining them permanently, or of turning them to account as matter of exchange in the settlement of a ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... Oxford, especially in early days; in later days he was a venerable and splendid monument. But as tutor of his college, before his great disappointment—his failure to be elected to the Rectorship—he evidently lived a highly practical and useful life. There is something disarming about the naive way in which he records that he became aware that he was the possessor of a certain magnetic influence to which gradually every one in the place, including the old ...
— The Upton Letters • Arthur Christopher Benson
... fiercely or resentfully, but in a sort of meditative, passive despair. A sense of the wickedness, the cruelty there was in the world, the hopelessness of struggling against it, of disentangling fact from falsehood, of silencing malice and disarming envy, came upon Christian in a fit of bitterness uncontrollable. She felt as if she could cry out, like David, "The waters have overwhelmed me, the deep waters have gone over ...
— Christian's Mistake • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... pretty good district attorney,' he said, disarming possible resentment at this cross-examination. 'I guess you're wondering if I'm ever going to stop asking you questions. Well, what would you ...
— The Man with Two Left Feet - and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... didn't come near the hotel for a few days, and not until the Doctor had met him and treated him very nicely, thus entirely disarming him ...
— Twenty Years of Hus'ling • J. P. Johnston
... that I seized the fine opportunity he had given me of disarming all future suspicion. I took a high tone on the spot, and met him with the old lady's letter. He politely refused to look at it. I insisted on his looking at it. 'I don't choose to be mistaken,' I said, 'for a woman who may be a bad ...
— Armadale • Wilkie Collins
... angered and encouraged Lucille. She perceived the futility of polite, introductory phrases here; she could go straight to her purpose, be brutally frank. She gave Mrs. Brace a brilliant, disarming smile, a proclamation of fellowship. Her confidence ...
— No Clue - A Mystery Story • James Hay
... chances of disarming him with a sudden leap. Suddenly the girl Dallisa leaped from her seat with a harsh musical ...
— The Door Through Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... with unaccustomed tenderness. For the Colorado girl had about her a certain modesty that was disarming, an appeal of helplessness ...
— The Big-Town Round-Up • William MacLeod Raine
... oppose secession by force. They had arranged for their diplomatic influence on the other side of the Atlantic, and bargained for the subversion of Democracy in the South. It planned beforehand for arming treason and disarming the Union, and most adroitly were its plans in this respect carried into effect. It had gained over to its side most of the Southern material in the little army and navy of the country, and prepared it for perfidy, in committing ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. II. July, 1862. No. 1. • Various
... Ravenna existed no more, having been driven away by the Longobards. He asked help from the Emperor in Byzantium, but obtained none. He was thrown upon his own resources, and succeeded by the power of his eloquence in disarming King Agilulf, ...
— Historical Miniatures • August Strindberg
... chiefs set out for Charleston, in order to propitiate the anger of the whites, and arrest the threatened invasion of their country. Whether they were sincere in their professions, or simply came for the purpose of deluding and disarming the Carolinians, is a question with the historians. It is certain that Governor Lyttleton doubted their sincerity, refused to listen to their explanations, and, carrying them along with him, rather as hostages ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... successively implanted in him. His childish piety, his education at the seminary, the faith of his early priesthood, had all vanished, had been carried off, and their place was bare and empty. In truth, it could be hell alone that had thus prepared him for the reception of evil, disarming him of all his former weapons, and reducing his body to languor and softness, through which sin ...
— Abbe Mouret's Transgression - La Faute De L'abbe Mouret • Emile Zola
... very long discussion, Sir Jacobus de Wet was asked if he did not consider the Boer Government capable of an act of treachery such as disarming the community and then proceeding to wreak their vengeance upon those whom they might consider responsible for the agitation. According to the evidence of a number of those who were present, his reply was that 'not a hair of the head of ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... warmth of Harriet's presence. He had been doubtful of me; of Harriet, I could see, he was absolutely sure. And how he did eat, saying nothing at all, while Harriet plied him with food and talked to me of the most disarming commonplaces. I think it did her heart good to see the way he ate: as though he had had nothing before in days. As he buttered his muffin, not without some refinement, I could see that his hand was long, a curious, lean, ineffectual ...
— Adventures In Contentment • David Grayson
... negotiated a secret treaty with France on that occasion—not with the Allies as a whole, but with France. As a seasonal fruit of that treaty came the Silesian adventure supported by France. The disarming of the population in Upper Silesia, conducted under French auspices, had taken the arms away from the Germans but left arms with the Poles. Added to that, guns, machine-guns, rifles, and ammunition, were run over into the plebiscite area, and a mercenary "insurrectionary" ...
— Europe—Whither Bound? - Being Letters of Travel from the Capitals of Europe in the Year 1921 • Stephen Graham
... which shall remove the danger of monopoly. In its perfectly secure form monopoly as yet scarcely exists, but what does exist is a great number of partial monopolies able to handle competitors roughly and extort profits from the people. Directly connected with the adjustment of wages is the disarming of such monopolies. The preventing of strikes may often be accomplished without this, but the insuring of just wages requires it. With a solution of the problem of monopoly in view, all other needs of the situation might well be met by ...
— Essentials of Economic Theory - As Applied to Modern Problems of Industry and Public Policy • John Bates Clark
... better than you—than one might suppose," Hilda returned, moving toward the door. "Some of the situations are really almost novel, in spite of all your centuries of preaching." She sent a disarming smile with that, looking over her shoulder in one of her most effective hesitations, one hand holding ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... intimated a doubt of it, dear?" The tone was very disarming, and warm-hearted, quick tempered just-souled little Beverly succumbed. Throwing her arms about her mother's neck she buried her head upon ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... stake, to constitutional law and public common sense. Before dismissing Roland and Servan, he desires to furnish some striking proof of his pacific intentions by sanctioning the dissolution of his guard and disarming himself not only for attack but for defense; henceforth he sits at home and awaits the insurrection with which he is daily menaced; he resigns himself to everything, except drawing his sword; his attitude ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... a new German war-ship, the Eber, of tragic memory, came to Apia from the Gilberts, where she had been disarming turbulent islands. The rest of that day and all night she loaded stores from the firm, and on the morrow reached Saluafata bay. Thanks to the misconduct of the Mataafas, the most of the foreshore was still in the hands of the Tamaseses; and ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ply the tired heroes with refreshments. The town is in transports of joy. Days pass. The news spreads, and burghers come in from all sides to deliver up their arms to the Captain. He soon has no fewer than twelve hundred rifles, of which he makes a glorious bonfire, thus disarming at one stroke a number of Boers fifty times greater than his own force. There is no sign of the overwhelming forces of the British, but their early arrival is daily predicted, and the delay explained away. Meanwhile, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers
... for the disarming of the State-guard, Morgan determined to save his guns at all hazards. The State-guard was by this time virtually disbanded, many of its officers of high rank, elected under the impression that they were Southern men, had declared for the other side, and various ...
— History of Morgan's Cavalry • Basil W. Duke
... his hat from where it lay on the melodeon and fingered it a bit, smiling at him in the ingenuous manner that was utterly disarming. ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe
... and the clerical in his gait and air suggested to me Sir Richard Steele's story, in the "Tattler," of the old officer who, acting in the double capacity of major and chaplain to his regiment, challenged a young man for blasphemy, and after disarming, would not take him to mercy until he had first begged pardon of God upon his knees on the duelling ground, for the irreverence with which he had treated His name. My curiosity regarding the stranger ...
— My Schools and Schoolmasters - or The Story of my Education. • Hugh Miller
... was sudden and unlooked-for, though neither Nature nor the woman could have been blamed for the shock poor Laval experienced. Death had fairly surrounded her, disarming her at every point, so that when he called ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 12, October, 1858 • Various
... we attacked him with the big knives, and getting excited we slashed and lunged at him with all our power, while he danced and jumped and flew about a la Jack the Killer, using his knife only to guard himself and to try and knock ours out of our hands; but in one such attempt at disarming me his weapon went too far and wounded my right arm about three inches below the shoulder. The blood rushed out and dyed my sleeve red, and the fight came to an end. He was greatly distressed, and' running off to the house, quickly returned with a jug of water, sponge, towel, and linen to ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... could hardly make up his mind to produce the treasure to his partner, he returned with an old leathern hat-box, into which he had put the other box, for the better preservation of commonplace appearances, and for the disarming of suspicion. 'But I don't half like opening it here,' said Silas in a low voice, looking around: 'he might come back, he may not be gone; we don't know what he may be up to, after ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... which Chatty heard this strange plea was beyond description; but she would ask no more questions, and hear no more, though Lizzie seemed ready enough to furnish her with all details. She went back with the girl to the shop, thus disarming Mrs. Bagley, who was always full of suspicions and alarm when Lizzie was out of the way, and stood talking to the old woman while Lizzie stole into the parlour behind and got rid of the traces of her tears. Chatty felt very solemn as she stood and ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... Something curious was suddenly possessing me, something that for weeks I had seemed fighting and resisting. An overmastering desire to give in; to surrender, to yield to his love for me, to mine for him, was disarming me, and swift, inexplicable impulse to marry him and give up the thing I was trying to do urged and swept over me. And then I remembered his house with its high walls. And I remembered Scarborough Square. Until there was between them sympathy and understanding there could ...
— People Like That • Kate Langley Bosher
... to this barefaced revival of 'bachelor habits' within six months of marriage; and more than once—waking in the small hours to find herself alone—she had slipped on her dressing-gown and boldly invaded his study; a disarming vision enough, her face flushed with sleep, looking absurdly young in a halo of tumbled hair, her eyes alight with tenderness and enjoyment of her own daring. On each occasion she was reproved without severity; established herself in the deck-lounge of old days; fell asleep promptly, and was carried ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... Russell, but with discretion as to time and he had ventured to postpone them as inopportune. Professing entire agreement with the justice of Seward's complaints he nevertheless wrote that to press them "at this moment would be only playing into the hands of the mischief-makers, and disarming our own friends[1277]." The day before this was written home Seward, at Washington, on March 8, recalled his instruction as to the agreement of 1817, stating that Russell might be informed the United States ...
— Great Britain and the American Civil War • Ephraim Douglass Adams
... read day after day by a people who understood nothing, neither the cautious arming nor the bold disarming, nor the silent fall of fortified places, nor the swift dismantling of tall ships—nor did they comprehend the ceaseless tremors of a land slowly crumbling under the subtle pressure—nor that at last the vast disintegration of the matrix ...
— Ailsa Paige • Robert W. Chambers
... shrewd man, this father of Sylvia, and of my old friend; and I have no doubt that the tactics I found so disarming had served him well before that day in the City. At the same time, instinct seemed to forbid ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... committed to the care of his servants. The horse was of a sable colour, as well as his whole accoutrements, and apparently of great beauty and vigour. He remained with his keepers till cock-crowing, when, with eyes flashing fire, he reared, spurned the ground, and vanished. On disarming himself, Osbert perceived that he was wounded, and that one of his steel boots was full of blood. Gervase adds, that as long as he lived, the scar of his wound opened afresh on the anniversary of the eve on ...
— The Mysteries of All Nations • James Grant
... to the bell. He had seen that the pistol was pointed at himself, and had once thought of rushing across the room at his adversary, calculating that a shot fired at him as he did so might miss him, and that he would then have a fair chance of disarming the madman. But his chief object was to avoid any personal conflict, to escape the indignity of a scramble for the pistol,—and especially to escape the necessity of a consequent appearance at some police-office, where he would have ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... history of the ancient republics, the study of Roman and Grecian authors; Luther, although he publicly and resolutely condemned the severity and arbitrary conduct of princes, and warned them with boldness and power, was yet far more inclined to the doctrine of passive resistance against evil, the disarming of the enemy by innocent suffering, submission to every existing form of government, even though unjust and tyrannical—a doctrine which lies in the spirit of the Gospel, and was not only preached but practised by Christ himself, and confirmed by his own example. ...
— The Life and Times of Ulric Zwingli • Johann Hottinger
... and found that guileless youth ready to poke him in the back with the muzzle of a gun. Lone, he observed, had another. He looked back at Al, whose eyes were ablaze with resentment. With an effort he smiled his disarming, senatorial smile, but Al's next words froze it on ...
— Sawtooth Ranch • B. M. Bower
... generous emotion, "the regent has chosen precisely the best means for disarming us! She has manifested a noble confidence in me, she has discredited the whisperings of her minister and counsellors, and instead of destroying me, as she should have done, she has warned me with the kindness and ...
— The Daughter of an Empress • Louise Muhlbach
... its effect on the younger man. If Bassett had been a weakling timorously making overtures for help, Harwood would have been sensible of it; but a man of demonstrated force and intelligence, who had probably never talked thus to another soul in his life, was addressing him with a candor at once disarming and compelling. It was not easy to say to a man from whom he had accepted every kindness that he had ceased to trust him; that while he had been his willing companion on fair-weather voyages, he would desert without a qualm before the tempest. But even now Bassett had asked nothing of him; ...
— A Hoosier Chronicle • Meredith Nicholson
... prejudicial to his race, than this extravagant theory; which, as we shall prove, has become the source of innumerable evils. Man has been for thousands of years trembling before idols of his own creation—bowing down before them with the most servile homage—occupied with disarming their wrath—sedulously employed in propitiating their kindness, without ever advancing a single step on the road he so much desires to travel. He will perhaps continue the same course for centuries to come, unless by some unlooked for exertion on ...
— The System of Nature, Vol. 2 • Baron D'Holbach
... the operation of moral causes, have taken away from the poor slave his habit of loyalty and obedience to his master, which lightened his servitude by a double operation; beguiling his own cares and disarming his master's suspicions and severity; and now, like true empirics in politics, you are called upon to trust to the mere physical strength of the fetter which holds him in bondage. You have deprived him of all moral restraint; you have ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... go to Madame de Choisy's assembly. She was the wife of the Chanceller of the Duke of Orleans, and gave a fete every year, to which all the court went; and, by way of disarming suspicion, all the cavaliers who were in the great world were to attend to order that their ...
— Stray Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... "Practical Harmony," imparts a, to us, novel method of disarming the bugaboo of altered chords of many of its notorious terrors. He also attacks the pedantry of music "so constructed that it appeals to the eye rather than the ear,—paper-work," a most praiseworthy assault on what is possibly the heaviest incubus on inspiration. In ...
— Contemporary American Composers • Rupert Hughes
... figure of a fine man. The baronet glancing over the lamp rose at Mrs. Berry's signification of a woman's personality. Austin stepped back and led Lucy to him by the hand. "I have brought Richard's wife, sir," he said with a pleased, perfectly uncalculating, countenance, that was disarming. Very pale and trembling Lucy bowed. She felt her two hands taken, and heard a kind voice. Could it be possible it belonged to the dreadful father of her husband? She lifted her eyes nervously: her hands were still detained. The baronet ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... this time, when the distinction first came to him, he defines these two natures of war as follows: "First, those in which the object is the overthrow of the enemy, whether it be we aim at his political destruction or merely at disarming him and forcing him to conclude peace on our terms; and secondly, those in which our object is merely to make some conquests on the frontiers of his country, either for the purpose of retaining them permanently or of turning them ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... under cover of lighting her candle, she said, with a disarming smile,—"You are very reserved, Bluebell. May I guess what Lubin said to you in ...
— Bluebell - A Novel • Mrs. George Croft Huddleston
... just, and independent administration of the latter, the disarming of the citizens decreed by the royal edict was ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... in the many clubs he now neglected. The "squabble" in St. John's, as it was generally referred to, had been aired in the press, but such was the magic in a name made without conscious effort that Phil Goodrich's participation in the struggle had a palpably disarming effect: and there were not a few men who commonly spent their Sunday mornings behind plate-glass windows, surrounded by newspapers, as well as some in the athletic club (whose contests Mr. Goodrich sometimes refereed) who went to St. John's out of curiosity and who waited, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... armour now announced that the newcomers had dismounted and entered the castle, and were in the act of disarming the small garrison. Earl Douglas himself appeared on the battlements, with a few of his followers, and signed to them to take Ramorny and Dwining into custody. Others dragged from some nook the ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... into the air if he did not surrender in one minute's time. There was little parley. The pirate captain's flare of resistance had burned out and pale and strangely shaken he handed over his sword and submitted to the disarming ...
— The Black Buccaneer • Stephen W. Meader
... over the Lech were destroyed; the whole course of the stream protected by strong garrisons as far as Augsburg; and that town itself, which had long betrayed its impatience to follow the example of Nuremberg and Frankfort, secured by a Bavarian garrison, and the disarming of its inhabitants. The Elector himself, with all the troops he could collect, threw himself into Tilly's camp, as if all his hopes centred on this single point, and here the good fortune of the Swedes was to suffer ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. III • Kuno Francke (Editor-in-Chief)
... communication of the 2d instant from the Secretary of the Interior, inclosing certain papers in relation to the present condition of the Cheyenne and Arapahoe Indians in the Indian Territory, and recommending that some provision of law be enacted for disarming those and other Indians when such action may be found necessary for their advancement in civilized pursuits, and that means be provided for compensating the Indians for the weapons so taken ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... this, Seguis had counted without Buxton. Because of the passive actions of the two men upon his appearance the half-breed considered them cowards, and, after disarming them, had kept a careless watch over their movements, though always holding them in sight. In relieving them of rifles and revolvers, he thought he had silenced them, but Buxton was provided against ...
— The Wilderness Trail • Frank Williams
... their children. Very little is said in our histories about the sufferings of the Episcopalians when it was their turn to be under the harrow. They were not violent, they murdered no Moderator of the General Assembly. Other measures were the Disarming Act, the prohibition to wear the Highland dress, and the abolition of "hereditable jurisdictions," and the chief's right to call out his clansmen in arms. Compensation in money was paid, from 21,000 pounds to the Duke of Argyll to 13 pounds, 6s. 8d. to the clerks of the Registrar of Aberbrothock. ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang |
