"Self-defence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... their own way, we may safely confederate the whole country. The Dutch will be in the majority, and the Dutch method of management will more or less prevail. They will be left wholly to themselves for self-defence, and prudence will prevent them from trying really harsh or aggressive measures. In other respects the Dutch are politically conservative, and will give us little trouble." If, on the other hand, native policy was to be directed from home, or, in other words, if adequate precautions were to be taken ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... occasion, his Majesty's (Louis XVI) last words to me, de sa propre bouche, when I took leave of him at Versailles, were: 'It is my express injunction, that you always treat the Indian nations with kindness and humanity. Gratify their wishes, and never, but in a case of the last necessity, when self-defence requires it, shed human blood.' Are these the sentiments of a tyrant, of ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... which by the admission of all civilized nations in all ages is honourable as a pursuit, and glorious as an attainment; what of all that relates to himself and his family, if only we except his moral character, can have fairer claims to his protection, or more authorize acts of self-defence, than the elaborate products of his intellect and intellectual industry? Prudence itself would command us to show, even if defect or diversion of natural sensibility had prevented us from feeling, a due interest and qualified anxiety for the offspring ...
— Biographia Literaria • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... appropriating them to the uses of the state. Untruth, as that of the loyal servant or follower for protecting the life of his master. Killing, as that of an offender by the king, or in the exercise of the right of self-defence. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... what was thought of him, and a sarcastic tongue, which no one was eager to encounter, he remained the ugly duckling who refused to paddle properly in the green ponds of Public School tradition. He played games so badly that in sheer self-defence his fellows permitted him to play without them. Of 'fives' they made an exception, for in this he attained much proficiency, owing to a certain windmill-like quality of limb. He was noted too for daring chemical experiments, of which he usually had one or two ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Now, it is just here that true poetic civilization differs from that paltry and mechanical civilization which holds us all in bondage. Bad customs are universal and rigid, like modern militarism. Good customs are universal and varied, like native chivalry and self-defence. Both the good and bad civilization cover us as with a canopy, and protect us from all that is outside. But a good civilization spreads over us freely like a tree, varying and yielding because it is alive. ...
— Alarms and Discursions • G. K. Chesterton
... parliament, until their own conduct, or at all events, the conduct of some members of the church of Rome, rendered it absolutely necessary. The laws, respecting which so much has been said by Roman Catholic writers, were enacted in self-defence. Had there been no treasons no such laws would have been devised; but when the members of the church of Rome planned, and endeavoured to execute, treasons, and of such a nature that the existing laws did not meet them, it became necessary to devise ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury
... that argument I used," said Swain. "I told her that, since he was clearly mad, she must, in self-defence, place herself beyond his reach. But she refused to leave him. Then, I argued, in kindness to him she must have him committed to some institution where he would be taken care of, and where he might, in time, regain ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... publication on his arrival on the telegraph line, and had not been compiled after their return to Adelaide, as some people supposed from the delay in their publication. He made these statements partly in self-defence, as remarks had been made by members in the House to the effect that the Government had fitted out an expedition at an enormous expense which had done comparatively nothing, though his map showed 50,000 square ...
— Explorations in Australia • John Forrest
... the use of force to restrain a man found in actual violence. We may not have time to reason with him. But even for self-defence there are other resources. "The powers of the mind are yet unfathomed." He tells the story of Marius, who overawed the soldier sent into his cell to execute him, with the words, "Wretch, have you the temerity to kill Marius?" Were we ...
— Shelley, Godwin and Their Circle • H. N. Brailsford
... sing a few bars in order to bring out the quality of a song, improvise an accompaniment, praise a melody, or explain the peculiarity of a certain rhythm, he surprised the little slave, and drove him into an attitude of self-defence. All this was fundamentally new to Wurzelmann. If Daniel proved that the new was not new after all, that the trouble lay in the fact that the deranged and shattered souls of the present century had lost the power to assimilate unbroken ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... the case," said Arthur, "I suppose I must 'go on,' in self-defence; and as I believe that twenty minutes will suffice for what remains, I will ...
— The Island Home • Richard Archer
... Throughout the Eastern world this idea prevails, and both Sir Moses Montefiore and M. Cremieux were utterly at fault and certainly knew it when they declared that Europe was teaching it to Asia. Every Israelite community is bound in self-defence, when the murder of a Christian child or adult is charged upon any of its members, to court the most searching enquiry and to abate the scandal with ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... herself that no one was in sight, she returned to the house, and the baby's voice rose louder than before. The mother, as she set out her ironing table, raised a dirge-like hymn, which she chanted, partly from habit and partly in self-defence. She ironed carefully the ragged shirt she had just taken from the line, and then, after some search, finding a needle and cotton, she drew a chair to the door and proceeded ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... down stairs. They allowed a very liberal table to Mr. and Mrs. Pocket, yet it always appeared to me that by far the best part of the house to have boarded in would have been the kitchen,—always supposing the boarder capable of self-defence, for, before I had been there a week, a neighboring lady with whom the family were personally unacquainted, wrote in to say that she had seen Millers slapping the baby. This greatly distressed Mrs. Pocket, who burst into ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens
... did not stay to explore the recesses of Sarah's mind, but ran with little pattering, undignified steps across the front garden and down the steps to where Mr. Backhouse the carrier stood, bracing himself for self-defence. ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... was up and swords drawn, when no one, as De Pean remarked, would be able to find an i undotted or a t uncrossed in a fair record of the transaction, which would impose upon the most critical judge as an honorable and justifiable act of self-defence. ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... after Gryson again. The little woman's hint hit the bull's-eye as true as a rifle bullet. Tom meant to give us away to Blount. He haunted Blount's up-town office the better part of the day; and finally, in sheer self-defence, I had to tip him off to the police, as I had threatened to. Another little mystery bobbed up there. Chief Robertson winked one eye at me and said: 'You're too late, Mr. Kittredge; your man has already been piped off and ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... you must fall, Self-preservation is the first of laws; And if, when subjects are oppressed by kings, They justify rebellion by that law, As well may monarchs turn the edge of right To cut for them, when self-defence requires it. ...
— The Works of John Dryden, Vol. 6 (of 18) - Limberham; Oedipus; Troilus and Cressida; The Spanish Friar • John Dryden
... form which persistency takes that is peculiarly trying: I mean that persistency of opinion which deems it necessary to stop and raise an argument in self-defence on the slightest ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various
... the opposite direction. On landing in February, 1820, he found that some of the missionaries had been using muskets and powder as articles of barter. It was very hard to avoid doing so, for the Maoris were no longer satisfied with hoes and axes. Guns were becoming necessary to self-defence in New Zealand, and guns they would have. Marsden took a firm stand and informed the chiefs that if there were any more trading for firearms the mission would be withdrawn. The Maoris were far too keenly ...
— A History of the English Church in New Zealand • Henry Thomas Purchas
... the words of his instructions, 'with the ships under his charge, and the Dutch squadron, to anchor near the entrance of the harbour, to take care that the ships riding near Cadiz do not escape,' and he took up a position that commanded St. Lucar as well as Cadiz. He was 'not to fight, except in self-defence,' without express instructions. At the mouth of St. Lucar he found some great ships, but they lay so near shore that he could not approach them, and finally they escaped in a mist, Raleigh very nearly running his own vessel aground. Meanwhile Essex and Charles Howard, a little in front of ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... but only in self-defence. Now we'll just examine our position, for it is always good to have ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... distinguish the old and young of the two or three separate families till all leave the grass and the gravel together and hie to the stubble-fields beyond our ken. Of the one mocking bird who made night hideous by his masterly imitations of the screaking of a wheel-barrow (regreased at an early period in self-defence) and the wheezy bark of Beppo, the superannuated St. Bernard, there could of course be no doubt. There was none of his kind to compare him with—not even a mate, for "sexual selection" could not possibly operate in face of so inharmonious a love-song. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, October, 1877, Vol. XX. No. 118 • Various
... complete that which I alone of mortal men have rightly understood. Why is it this link is broken off in my mind, and the cipher I myself wrote darker than before? Would the creature but have given it up quietly! It was in self-defence I struck at last. What was it to repent of? Some have held that such as he are not human—only animals a little more sagacious than the ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... fox-hunter and a good all-round sportsman. I abhorred shooting, and was badly bored by coursing and fishing. Indeed, I believe I can say with literal truth that I have never killed anything larger than a wasp, and that only in self-defence. But Woburn is an ideal country for riding, and I spent a good deal of my time on an excellent pony, or more strictly, galloway. An hour or two with the hounds was the reward of virtue in the schoolroom; and cub-hunting in a woodland country at 7 o'clock on a September morning still remains ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... I seized the flute in self-defence, and it came in half in my hand, and he then dragged me from the room, and with gigantic strength, hurled ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... been provocative to the last degree; yet Leslie had been animated by no vindictive feeling when he had attacked the man, still less had he intended to inflict any serious injury upon him; he had, indeed, acted solely in self-defence in taking the fellow's revolver away from him; and as to the violence that had accompanied the act—well he himself considered it perfectly excusable under the circumstances; and so, he believed, would any unprejudiced person. Nevertheless, he regretted the incident; he would much rather ...
— Dick Leslie's Luck - A Story of Shipwreck and Adventure • Harry Collingwood
... glades and avenues, and the situation altogether very picturesque. Since the famous trial has made everything bearing the name of Tichborne a target for curiosity, the occupants have been sadly annoyed, and access to the house was at last, in self-defence, denied to strangers who came simply as gaping sight-seers. The "dole" distribution, as we have said, takes place every year. Last spring it was attended with less show than usual, owing to the illness of the little boy who now represents the old name (the nephew of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 87, March, 1875 • Various
... dishonesty; if he tells stories about Mrs. Clermont, {205b} to which his sister offers a public refutation,—is it to be supposed that he will always tell the truth about his wife, when the world is pressing him hard, and every instinct of self-defence is on ...
— Lady Byron Vindicated • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... Richard's life, though not unmarked by violence, had been free from violence to his own flesh and blood. Even his most unjustifiable measures were somewhat in the nature of self-defence; or if in any case he had stained his hands with the blood of persons absolutely innocent, it was not in his own interest, but in that of his brother, Edward IV. The rough and illegal retribution which he dealt out to Rivers, Vaughan, Hawte, Lord ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 8 - The Later Renaissance: From Gutenberg To The Reformation • Editor-in-Chief: Rossiter Johnson
... might almost be called common. The number of English slain in the Wars of the Roses was estimated at 100,000. Parliament made acts of attainder one day, and reversed them almost on the next. Neither life nor property was safe. Men armed themselves first in self-defence, and then in lawlessness; and a thoughtful mind might trace to the evil state of morals, caused by a long period of desolating domestic warfare, that fatal indifference to religion which must have permeated the people, before they could have departed as a nation from the ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... head. Lord Cadurcis had certainly committed a great crime: not his intrigue with Lady Monteagle, for that surely was not an unprecedented offence; not his duel with her husband, for after all it was a duel in self-defence; and, at all events, divorces and duels, under any circumstances, would scarcely have excited or authorised the storm which was now about to burst over the late spoiled child of society. But Lord Cadurcis had been guilty of the offence which, of all offences, ...
— Venetia • Benjamin Disraeli
... mount his horse and go off in search of him, to spend long hours in his company and persuade him to talk about that awful fight in a dark room with so many against him. One result of his intimacy with Jack was that he became dissatisfied with his own progress in the manly art of self-defence. It was all very well to make himself proficient with the foils and as a boxer, and to be a good shot, but he was living among people who had the knife for sole weapon, and if by chance he were attacked by a man with a knife, and had no pistol or other weapon, he would find himself in an ...
— Far Away and Long Ago • W. H. Hudson
... taken sides with Long Nolan, who without rhyme or reason had been discharged, and violently flung from the premises. There had been a wild rush on the guard, a volley, a recoil, a rally in force, and an outcry for vengeance. Then the guard had to shoot in earnest and self-defence, for their lives were at stake. Some of the men had gone to Argenta to plead with the owners, but most had remained to stir all hands within ten miles to the support of their fellows. The miscreant who had ordered "fire" had escaped across to Miners' ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... a philanthropist, or an agent for the East India Company, we do not know. He instructed Blatchford to plead guilty, and then defended him from the charge of murder, no doubt on the plea of self-defence. Blatchford was therefore acquitted of murder, but apparently sold to the East India Company as a slave. How this was condoned we do not know, but will let the poor sailor continue his ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... time awaiting the outcome of the man's hurt. Had he died it would have been manslaughter. As it was I knew it was murder, for there had been murder in my heart. He lived, but maimed for life. The lawyer, paid for by my great-uncle, set up the plea of self-defence. I was cleared in the law, and fled to America to expiate. I know now that there was but one expiation for me—to do what you are to do; plead guilty and take my punishment like a man. I failed to do it—and I preach of ...
— Flamsted quarries • Mary E. Waller
... question at once so novel and so delicate must be undertaken, not by any one Power, but by the Concert of Europe, or of the civilised world, which must devise some guarantee for the safety of any littoral Power which would be called upon in the general interest to restrict its measures of self-defence. In the meantime, we may surely say that the case is provided for neither by established international law nor by "European" Treaties; and, further, that the Treaties between Russia and Turkey, which do provide for it, are not such as it is ...
— Letters To "The Times" Upon War And Neutrality (1881-1920) • Thomas Erskine Holland
... toleration has not been passed. The era of assassination has been commenced. Be sure that any man who will excuse an assassin, will himself do foul murder when he can shoot from behind a hedge, or strike a victim in the back. It is matter of self-defence to cast such from our midst. Let us have no violence, no lawlessness, but such persons must be persuaded to depart from us. "They are gentlemen." Booth was courtly in speech and mien. Have they been ...
— Abraham Lincoln - A Memorial Discourse • Rev. T. M. Eddy
... villages were fortified, while the watch-towers, or migdols* built at the bends of the roads, at the fords over the rivers, and at the openings of the ravines, all testified to the insecurity of the times and the aptitude for self-defence ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 4 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... put in his pocket again. Thus, he was four miles from Lanark, and near a mile from his comrade, seeking his own death and got it. And for as much as we have been condemned for this, I could never see how any one could condemn us that allows of self-defence, which the laws both of God and nature allow to every creature. For my own part, my heart never smote me for this. When I saw his blood run, I wished that all the blood of the Lord's stated and avowed enemies in Scotland had been ...
— The Heart of Mid-Lothian, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... think so, if you choose," he replied, in the patient manner of one who quietly endures unjust reproaches when self-defence is useless. ...
— The Continental Dragoon - A Love Story of Philipse Manor-House in 1778 • Robert Neilson Stephens
... godfathers, godmothers, and first cousins thus perishing at the hands of miscreants in human form, and subsequently converted into food and clothing and to other "base uses" by those who took their innocent lives—they never appeared to make an effort in self-defence, either by executing a "strategical ...
— The Wreck of the Nancy Bell - Cast Away on Kerguelen Land • J. C. Hutcheson
... Spanish oath, lifted his hand and—fell, beneath the terrific fist of his slave, with a bang that jingled the candelabra. Dolorous stroke!—for the dealer of it. Given, apparently to him—poor, tipsy savage—in self-defence, punishable, in a white offender, by a small fine or a few days' imprisonment, it assured Bras-Coupe the death of a felon; such was the old Code Noir. (We have a Code Noir now, but the new one is a ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... in Reports of Bur. Am. Ethnol.) Bandolier declares that in Mexico existed neither state nor nation, nor political society of any kind, but tribes representing dialects, and autonomous in matters of government, and forming confederacies for the purposes of self-defence and conquest. The ancient Mexican tribe was composed of twenty autonomous kins. According to Brinton the social organization of ancient Peru was a government by a council of the gentes. The Inca was a war chief elected by the council to carry out its commands. Among ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... had not bled much, and he was able to get rid of the traces without much difficulty. It just then occurred to him that the owners of the house would get into trouble when the body should be discovered; so he wrote on a piece of paper—"This man attempted to kill me, and in self-defence, I, against my wish, slew him.—Pedro Alvarez;" and, opening the door of the cupboard, pinned it on the stranger's coat. He then put all the papers belonging to him into his pocket, and deliberately walked down to the quays. ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... up his long discourses by declaring he had never lied in the whole course of his seventy years, had never stolen, never betrayed, never murdered, never killed, save in self-defence. Gazing at the chief's fine features, now calm, yet showing traces of past storms, Jim believed he ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... other people our conversation dropped. I was, in fact, dead off colour, and the sight of those three Cliborough fellows almost took away my appetite. Until that moment it had never occurred to me that I had been in the habit of thinking a lot of myself at Cliborough, and in self-defence I must add that I do not see how a public school can prosper unless some of the fellows stick together and try to make things go on properly. Any "side" I may have had was certainly unconscious, but I haven't an idea ...
— Godfrey Marten, Undergraduate • Charles Turley
... acknowledged fact that the growing scale of the business has intensified and not diminished competition. In the great machine industries trade fluctuations are most severely felt; the smaller businesses are unable to stand before the tide of depression and collapse, or are driven in self-defence to coalesce. The borrowing of capital, the formation of joint-stock enterprise and every form of co-operation in capital has proceeded most rapidly in the textile, metal, transport, shipping, and machine-making ...
— The Evolution of Modern Capitalism - A Study of Machine Production • John Atkinson Hobson
... Ludamar, to the west of Timbuctoo, where a negro population is subjected to the tyranny of the Arab chieftain Ali, between whom and his southern neighbours of Bambarra and Kaarta we find a continual struggle of aggression and self-defence; and the well-known character of the Arabs would lead us to expect a similar state of things along the whole frontier of the negro population. In the pauses of such a warfare, we should expect to find no intermission of the animosity or precautions of the antagonist parties. The Arab ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... to work to pacify his old enemies of the Five Nations. A new and more dreaded enemy had to be encountered. The Puritans of Massachusetts, provoked by De Frontenac's aggressions, resolved to attack Canada, in self-defence. Sir William Phipps, afterwards the first Captain General of Massachusetts, born on the River Kennebec, a man of extraordinary firmness and great energy, who had raised himself to eminence by honesty of purpose, a strong will, and good ...
— The Rise of Canada, from Barbarism to Wealth and Civilisation - Volume 1 • Charles Roger
... or any two, sir. It's a case of self-defence. There, Dick, don't look at me as if I were a bloodthirsty savage. I have got all these muskets down and shown my men how to use them, and I am letting it be ...
— Dick o' the Fens - A Tale of the Great East Swamp • George Manville Fenn
... considered a remarkable observation when, as was subsequently found, the wound was inflicted in the part mentioned by O'Connell. Being one of the surest shots that ever fired a pistol, he could have hit his antagonist where he pleased. But his object was merely, in self-defence, to wound him in no mortal part, and he ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... wishing to disprove the truth of his own words. Norah saw his eyes brighten, and the deep lines down his cheeks relax into a smile, and knew that her suggestion had met a kindly welcome, "Well, there's no saying! If all the young people go away and leave us, we shall be bound to make a move in self-defence. You are off to London for the winter. It seems a year ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... not here to defend criminals, but to save the innocent; for if we succeeded in proving that any of the accused acted in self-defence, I hope that they will be exonerated in the eyes of your Holiness; for just as the law provides for cases in which the father may legally kill the child, so this holds good in the converse. We will therefore continue our pleadings on receiving leave from ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... them to be there within, consulting about that which had been done by Prexaspes. So when they saw that the eunuchs had been attacked and were crying aloud, they ran back 67 both of them, and perceiving that which was being done they turned to self-defence: and one of them got down his bow and arrows before he was attacked, while the other had recourse to his spear. Then they engaged in combat with one another; and that one of them who had taken up ...
— The History Of Herodotus - Volume 1(of 2) • Herodotus
... he has done this deed, unless in self-defence, or on some justifiable provocation. That he knew of the death of your son, I confess, for he pointed out the brake in which the body lay, but that he has wrongfully taken his life, nothing but his own acknowledgment ...
— The Prairie • J. Fenimore Cooper
... the church that gave birth to it, as well as of the states that have suffered from its meddling in political affairs; and second, the complete failure of the order's most cherished schemes. France, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Great Britain and other nations, have been compelled in sheer self-defence to expel it from their territories. Such a significant fact needs some other explanation than that the Jesuit has incurred the enmity of the world merely for preaching the love ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... I am right in court, without renouncing my other right of self-defence, where I have been wrongfully accused, and my sense wire-drawn into blasphemy or bawdry, as it has often been by a religious lawyer, [Footnote: Jeremy Collier. See conclusion of the Preface.] in a late pleading against the stage; in which he mixes truth with falsehood, ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... corner, and almost immediately a man who had been standing there turned and struck Ennison a violent blow on the cheek. Ennison reeled, and almost fell. Recovering himself quickly his instinct of self-defence was quicker than his recollection of Anna's presence. He struck out from the shoulder, and the man measured his length ...
— Anna the Adventuress • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... way he had cultivated a habit of the muscles which conveyed an impression that he was devoted to athletic sports. His arms occasionally swung as if brandishing dumb-bells, his chest now and then spread itself to the uttermost, and his head was often thrown back in an attitude suggesting self-defence.' ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... before morning, the 'gators and pirani, without counting the other critters, would have been having a treat. I tell you I'm ashamed of myself, and the sooner an end's made of me the better. Why, you ought to do it, sir, in self-defence." ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... think of this then; I did not even bestow a thought upon the narrowness of our escape, or the price which the darling of my heart might be called upon to pay for this supreme act of self-defence. My mind, my heart, my interest were with Felix, in whom the nearness of death had called up all that was strongest and most commanding in his strong ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... rested under a perfectly direct charge of causing his death in a dastardly manner. And you've said nothing in self-defence.' ...
— The Explorer • W. Somerset Maugham
... Wagram Battlefield: War. Great Scenes beheld by the Pilgrim: Great Events, and Great Men. Napoleon, a divine missionary, preaching La carriere ouverte aux talens. Teufelsdroeckh at the North Cape: Modern means of self-defence. Gunpowder and duelling. The Pilgrim, despising his miseries, reaches the Centre of Indifference ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... Wolseley (then Commander-in-Chief of His Majesty's troops), the best time at which to make an attack on the two Republics. Your Excellency will thus see that it was not we who drew the sword, but that we only put it away from our throats. We have only acted in self-defence—one of the holiest rights of man—in order to assert our right to exist. And therefore I think, with all respect, that we have a right to ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... unlikely that I shall get beyond the second act of the "Valkyrie" here. Such as I am, I want a soft, clinging element around me, in order to feel gladly inclined for work. This eternal need of self-condensation for the purpose of self-defence supplies me with obstinacy and contempt, but not with the ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... there right now, in self-defence," was the sober rejoinder. "And if you'll take a hint from me you'll heel yourself, too, Mr. Lidgerwood. I know this country better than you do, and the men in it. I don't say they'll come after you deliberately, ...
— The Taming of Red Butte Western • Francis Lynde
... a clean-skinned, blue-eyed Canadian Irishman, well made and sinewy, bright and open of countenance. His blond hair clung in almost flaxen tendrils to his warm forehead. No ill-nature was visible about him, yet he turned like a man in fierce self-defence on his partner, who followed Jess and stood also ...
— The Cursed Patois - From "Mackinac And Lake Stories", 1899 • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... your father, the first half of which, through the accident that led you to your discovery, has alone been carried out. I believed then, as I believe now, that I stood towards you both in the place of an injured man, whose right it was, in self-defence and self-assertion, to injure you. Judged by your ideas, this may read wickedly; but to me, after having lived and suffered as I have, the modern common-places current in the world are so many brazen images which society impudently ...
— Basil • Wilkie Collins
... the first time, gentlemen," he said, on rising to speak, "that the individual who now addresses you, has ever appeared in a high court of justice, as an act of self-defence. I have never yet been solemnly called upon to account for my past actions by any fellow-creature. My moral motives have never yet been publicly impugned. The position in which I now stand, accused of denying the just rights of another, ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper
... flames, or appealing to passions. But here is a broad ground upon which, by the very confession of our enemies, we stand on a higher platform. We went to war because we would not break a treaty, nor forsake a friend too weak for self-defence; Germany commenced the war by a treacherous act. Therefore, strong in the belief that the God of righteousness will cause the right to triumph, we can calmly look ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... dear, Epinchard arriving from Nice on purpose to vote for me. Good fellow! Then my old master went by, his broad-brimmed hat down over his eyes; he was turning over the copy of 'Without the Veil,' which I gave him, to be used if necessary. Well, self-defence is always legitimate. ...
— The Immortal - Or, One Of The "Forty." (L'immortel) - 1877 • Alphonse Daudet
... comprehend the interests of many people, or of everybody, and are in a degree outside the general law. Hence we have Scenes of Political Life. This vast picture of society being finished and complete, was it not needful to display it in its most violent phase, beside itself, as it were, either in self-defence or for the sake of conquest? Hence the Scenes of Military Life, as yet the most incomplete portion of my work, but for which room will be allowed in this edition, that it may form part of it when done. Finally, ...
— The Human Comedy - Introductions and Appendix • Honore de Balzac
... generally barren occupation of gainsaying other men. But at this point in his life he made an exception, and an unprovoked exception. When he wrote his famous vindication of the first volume of the Decline and Fall he was acting in self-defence, and repelling savage attacks upon his historical veracity. But in his Critical Observations on the Sixth Book of the AEneid he sought controversy for its own sake, and became a polemic—shall we say out of gaiety or bitterness of heart? That inward unrest easily produces an aggressive ...
— Gibbon • James Cotter Morison
... by the fire, and looked so fixedly at Martha as she poured out her tea that she offered him some in self-defence. He drew up his chair. Now that he was receiving hospitality, he felt that he must ...
— Gone to Earth • Mary Webb
... her that the best defence was to get her blow in first. Her diplomacy in July was directed towards combining this advantage with the appearance, needed to bemuse her people and the world at large, of acting in self-defence. ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... maintain the existence, stability, and prosperity of the State. Now if all the world were perfect so should the Prince be perfect too. But such are not the conditions of human life. An idealising Prince must fall before a practising world. A Prince must learn in self-defence how to be bad, but like Caesar Borgia, he must be a great judge of occasion. And what evil he does must be deliberate, appropriate, and calculated, and done, not selfishly, but for the good of the State of which he is trustee. ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... evidently exercising his brief authority over a real Whig. Up the road his prisoner had to go, sour and sulky, with much reluctance, being hurried in his march by the point of the Tory's sword. Hunter pursued his course, but constantly on the look-out for some means of self-defence. Fortunately, after they progressed a short distance, they approached a large fallen pine tree, around which lay a quantity of pine-knots, hardened and blackened by the recent action of fire. Hunter, ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... sense whereof '—the sufferings of the country—'made us choose, rather to betake ourselves to the fields for self-defence, than to stay at home, burdened daily with the calamities of others, and tortured with the fears of our own approaching ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... more dangerous, sort, which consists in a corruption of the will. Business men who have tried to set up a control in politics through the machine have more and more deceived themselves, have allowed themselves to think that the whole matter was a necessary means of self-defence, have said that it was a necessary outcome of our political system. Having reassured themselves in this way, they have drifted from one thing to another until the questions of morals involved have become hopelessly obscured and ...
— The New Freedom - A Call For the Emancipation of the Generous Energies of a People • Woodrow Wilson
... brought, as if she feared that it might be torn from her in the violence of the scene. Spinks, convulsed with anguish by the sight of his friend lying there unconscious, could only offer an inarticulate expostulation. It was the signal for the woman to burst into passionate self-defence. ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... tree tops. In this way, during these twenty days, fourteen Spaniards were killed and many more wounded. Fifty Indians also fell struck by the bullets of the invaders. De Soto allowed himself only in a war of self-defence. He strictly prohibited his followers from doing any injury to the villages or the property of the natives, or of engaging in the slightest act of violence towards any who were not in active ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... inflection of the voices of his friends in discussing his affairs. He did not mean that there were no kindly faithful hearts among them. Several might emerge as kind, as friendly as ever. But the monster of human society would behave as it always does in self-defence. It would shake itself, dislodge Edmund from its back, and then say quite kindly that it was a sad pity that he had fallen off. Every organism must reject what it can no longer assimilate, and a rich society by the law of its ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... form no opinion," he replied. "I have no idea. I was lying in a ditch inanimate. This is a degrading confession, sir; I can only say in self-defence that perhaps (in your good-nature) you have made yourself partly responsible for my shame. I am not used to these ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... who will, he grants the distinction of a share in his responsibility. Somewhat unrefined, in comparison to his lofty and simple claim to be believed on a suggestion, is the commoner painter's production of his credentials, his appeal to the sanctions of ordinary experience, his self-defence against the suspicion of making irresponsible mysteries in art. 'You can see for yourself,' the lesser man seems to say to the world, 'thus things are, and I render them in such manner that your intelligence may be satisfied.' This ...
— The Rhythm of Life • Alice Meynell
... them. Lady Joan did not like ugly things, and so shrank from evil things. She was the less in danger from liberty, because of the disgust which certain tones and words of her father had repeatedly occasioned her. She learned self-defence early—and alone, without even a dog to keep her company, and help her to the laws ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... the explorers wished to slay the natives, no matter how savage, unless compelled to do so in actual self-defence. Long had recovered from his first burst of fury, and, though the Professor could have sunk the javelin in the naked body, he withheld it, not unwilling that his assailant, now that he had ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis
... answered. "I could not help the blundering of other people. If I am regretfully compelled to kill you to-day, it is your own fault. I am only acting in self-defence." ...
— The Albert Gate Mystery - Being Further Adventures of Reginald Brett, Barrister Detective • Louis Tracy
... well as the custom-house officers. The words are: "it shall be lawful for any person or persons authorized," etc. What a scene does this open! Every man prompted by revenge, ill-humor, or wantonness to inspect the inside of his neighbor's house, may get a writ of assistance. Others will ask it from self-defence; one arbitrary exertion will provoke another, until society be involved in ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... my Lords, makes it ten times more necessary, since they cannot come to us, to keep a strict eye upon all persons who go to them. It imposes upon us a stricter duty to guard with a firm and powerful vigilance those whose principles of conscience weaken their principles of self-defence. If we undertake to govern the inhabitants of such a country, we must govern them upon their own principles and maxims, and not upon ours. We must not think to force them into the narrow circle of our ideas; we must extend ours to take in their system of opinions and rites, and the necessities which ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... those beasts of editors and playwrights. It is too big for them, they dare not face it and the consequences of it. It is strong stuff, Mr. Iglesias, strong stuff with plenty of red blood in it, and with scholarship, too. And so they pigeon-hole my stories and drames in self-defence, knowing that if these once reached the public, either in print or in action, their own fly-blown anaemic productions would be hissed off the stage or would ruin the circulation of the periodical which ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... that man. I never formally attempted to justify myself. 'Twas a subject on which I could not give utterance to my thoughts. How irksome is blame from those we love! there is instantly suspicion that blame is merited. A new process of self-defence is to be gone over, and ten to one but that, after all our efforts, there are some dregs at the bottom ...
— Jane Talbot • Charles Brockden Brown
... chastise by throwing staves at the Krooman's head. The negro fled, seeking refuge on the other side of his canoe; but the enraged officer continued the pursuit, and, in his double-sighted blundering, ran against an oar which the persecuted black suddenly lifted in self-defence. I know not whether it was rage or blindness, or both combined, that prevented the American from seeing the blade, but on he dashed, rushing impetuously against the implement, severing his lip with a frightful gash, and knocking four teeth from ...
— Captain Canot - or, Twenty Years of an African Slaver • Brantz Mayer
... corn, and toss more bundles of grain into the self-feed of a threshing machine than any other man he knew; that kept him awake thinking at night until the discordant snores of the family sent him to bed, with the covers over his ears in self-defence. ...
— A Breath of Prairie and other stories • Will Lillibridge
... fight the world with its own weapons. I spoke to Father M'Grath on the subject, and he replied—'That if anyone, by doing wrong, necessitated another to do wrong to circumvent him, that the first party was answerable, not only for his own sin, but also for the sin committed in self-defence." ...
— Peter Simple and The Three Cutters, Vol. 1-2 • Frederick Marryat
... in his way to express his thanks by more than this, still I knew by his looks that he was grateful to me. In reality I had only fought in self-defence, so I do not know that he had anything ...
— Dick Onslow - Among the Redskins • W.H.G. Kingston
... sandjak (or province) of Novi-Pazar, all of which territories, though ethnically Serb, were strongholds of Turkish influence owing to their large Mohammedan population. The energies of Montenegro, also cut off from the sea by Dalmatia and Turkey, were absorbed in self-defence, though it gave Serbia all the support which its size permitted. Communication, on the other hand, between Russia and Serbia was too difficult to permit of military help being rapidly and effectively brought to bear ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... fire in self-defence, Malachi; that is, when I have no other chance left. I had rather trust to my heels than my rifle. Were you ever hugged ...
— The Settlers in Canada • Frederick Marryat
... instruction. Even this coarse principle of control itself, it may be alleged, this prudence of reciprocal fear became refined into something worthier of moral agents. For it passed, by a compromise among the species, from the form of individual self-defence and revenge into that of institutions of law; and legislation, it will be said, is a teacher of morals. Retaining, indeed, the rough expedient of physical force, in readiness to coerce or punish where it cannot deter by ...
— An Essay on the Evils of Popular Ignorance • John Foster
... in very awe of the terrible battle of the elements, but in self-defence we were driven to fight hard and repel the continued attacks of the enemy, who, growing more enraged at our resistance, came on once more in a determined fashion, as if meaning this time to sweep us before them into the ...
— Bunyip Land - A Story of Adventure in New Guinea • George Manville Fenn
... "military necessity" justified the destruction of an innocent people, that the invasion of Belgium was necessary as a measure of "self-defence," Americans consider as striking proof of the essential barbarity of the German Government. A man who would shoot down an innocent girl in order to get at another man would be condemned as the worst kind of a brute. A Government which slaughters an innocent and peaceful people in order to get at ...
— Plain Words From America • Douglas W. Johnson
... their efforts at self-defence, faces, hands, and Cabot's bare legs were covered with blood before their task was completed, and they were once more in the boat pulling furiously for the wind-swept water of the ...
— Under the Great Bear • Kirk Munroe
... neighbour, Bellechasse, contained two hundred and twenty-seven persons, living upon three hundred and twenty arpents of cultivable land. With an arsenal of sixty-two muskets it was better equipped for self-defence. The census everywhere took more careful count of muskets than of ploughs; and this is not surprising, for it was the design of the authorities to build up a 'powerful military colony' which would stand on its own feet without support from home. They did not seem to realize that ...
— The Seigneurs of Old Canada: - A Chronicle of New-World Feudalism • William Bennett Munro
... been impregnated with sentiments of her own smallness to an uncomfortable degree of distinctness, and her discomfort was visible in her face. The whole tendency of the conversation latterly had been to quietly but surely disparage her; and she was fain to take Stephen into favour in self-defence. He would not have been so unloving, she said, as to admire an idiosyncrasy and features different from her own. True, Stephen had declared he loved her: Mr. Knight had never done anything of the ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... would have made women, and probably men, too, run indoors or out of the way, rather than interfere or pursue him. He told himself therefore that he had been unreasonably cautious, and that unless he acted quickly Lord Redin, being warned by Griggs, would take measures of self-defence which might put him beyond the reach of the clasp-knife forever. Stefanone's ideas about the power of an 'English lord' were vague in ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... souls make me shudder. In their eyes I see that calm selfish sense of their own security to the damage of another person's security which is at the bottom of a murderous madness that I myself experienced. Those men are cold men, they are murderous men. And a brutal state of self-defence but slightly veiled and suppressed is their ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... she would have made a useful and happy wife and mother; but as it was, neglected and regarded as a mere household drudge—with all her warm affections chilled and driven back upon her own heart—she became a silent schemer, an adroit dissimulator, seeking only (in self-defence as she believed) to carry out her own plans as often as possible, in spite of her ...
— The Wedding Guest • T.S. Arthur
... Self-denial is not cutting off an indulgence here and there, but laying the axe at the root of the tree of self, of which all indulgences are only greater or smaller branches. Self-righteousness and self-trust, self-seeking and self-pleasing, self-will, self-defence, self-glory—these are a few of the myriad branches of that deeply rooted tree. And what if one or more of these be cut off, if such lopping off of some few branches only throws back into others the self-life to develop ...
— George Muller of Bristol - His Witness to a Prayer-Hearing God • Arthur T. Pierson
... England; and thus the colonial church not only seceded from the national establishment, but the principle was virtually laid down that the Episcopal form of worship would not be tolerated in the colony. For the present such a step was to be regarded as a measure of self-defence on the part of the colonists. Episcopacy to them meant actual and practical tyranny—the very thing they had crossed the ocean expressly to get away from—and it was hardly to be supposed that they would encourage the growth of it in their ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... pacific system should prevail, and a system of defence and conciliation. The government there ought, therefore, in an especial manner, to avoid wars, or entering into alliances likely to create wars." It was not to forget "to pay a due regard to self-defence, or to guard against sudden hostilities from neighboring powers, and, whenever there was reason to apprehend attack, to be in a state of preparation. This was indispensably necessary; but whenever such circumstances occurred, the executive government ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... are they the same or not the same as absolute beauty?' Socrates replies that they are not the same, but each of them has some beauty present with it. 'And are you an ox because you have an ox present with you?' After a few more amphiboliae, in which Socrates, like Ctesippus, in self-defence borrows the weapons of the brothers, they both confess that the two heroes are invincible; and the scene concludes with a grand chorus of shouting and laughing, and a ...
— Euthydemus • Plato
... Sake, be silent!" said Miss Ford, writing down "Thelma Bennett Watkins," in self-defence. "This, I take it, is the name you gave at the time of the ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... just mentioned. He assured Alexander that the Queen and the majority of her council felt a strong desire for peace, and had manifested much repentance for what had been done. They had explained their proceedings by the necessity of self-defence. They had avowed—in case they should be made sure of peace—that they should, not with reluctance and against their will, but, on the contrary, with the utmost alacrity and at once, surrender to the King of Spain the territory which they possessed ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... dare not state them, he is at once met with a praejudicium. The mere fact of his having ascertained the truth is imputed as a blame to him, in a sort of prudish cant. 'What a very improper person he must be to like to dabble in such improper books that they must not even be quoted.' If in self-defence he desperately gives his facts, he only increases the feeling against him, whilst the reactionists, hiding their blushing faces, find in their modesty an excuse for avoiding the truth; if, on the other hand, ...
— Plays and Puritans - from "Plays and Puritans and Other Historical Essays" • Charles Kingsley
... himself says, that his father carried off three ladies. And let any man be a steady son after that. Properly speaking, he lived perpetually in a state of nature, and with his mode of existence the necessity for self-defence floated daily before his eyes. Hence his constant pistol-shooting. Every moment he expected to be called out. He could not live alone. Hence, with all his oddities, he was very indulgent to his associates. He one evening read his fine poem on the Death of Sir John Moore, and his noble ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 2, No. 4, March, 1851 • Various
... vent to a prolonged whistle. "I knew there was something funny about the whole business," he said as if in self-defence. ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... Darrell is in danger, and this night. Take money; to be in time you must hire a special train. Take arms, though to be used only in self-defence. Take your servant if he is brave. This young kinsman—let him come too. There is only one man to resist; but that man," she said, with a wild kind of pride, "would have the strength and courage of ten were his cause not that which may make the strong man weak, and the bold man ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... buying must be a bit of pleasant study which shall serve in the nature of self-defence. Not by books alone, however, shall this subject be approached, but by happy jaunts to sympathetic museums, both at home and abroad, by moments snatched from the touch-and-go talk of afternoon tea in some friend's ...
— The Tapestry Book • Helen Churchill Candee
... overrated the amount of the resources at his disposal for his protection from the weight of aversion he had excited. He equally underrated the inveteracy of the dislike, and the degree of additional suspicion which his measures of self-defence would awaken. James had long looked forward to a day when he should 'have account of the presumption of the base instruments about the Queen who abused her ear.' That was his way of thinking of the Queen's favourite councillors. ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... a strong fortress for this self-defence in the walls of their family vault, in the interior of which his grandmother had uttered such an awful curse against the last inhabitant. Why, that implied an obligation upon him too. And this obligation was also strong. Two opposing obligations neutralize each other. It was his duty rather to fulfil ...
— Debts of Honor • Maurus Jokai
... 'Oh, there isn't such a person. I invented her. I had to when you accused me of being like our friend the Miasma. Legitimate self-defence.' ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... engaged in hand-to-hand fighting with our infantry. Some of them penetrated to within twenty yards of the knoll on which the staff were watching the action, and so critical was the moment that Sir Donald Stewart and every man of his staff drew their swords and prepared for self-defence.' The hurried retirement of the lancers had left the left flank bare. It was turned by the fierce rush of the fanatics, who were actually in rear of the leftward infantry regiment and in the heart of the British position. The Goorkhas had ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... length Giovanni, who had been holding her hand in his own long, bony ones and sometimes putting it to his lips, dropped off to sleep (tired out, perhaps, by talking to me), and she, drawing up to where I sat by the end of the bed, resumed her self-defence, saying in a whisper that ladies like me could not possibly understand what a woman would do, in spite of herself, when the life of one she loved was threatened, I could bear her mistake no longer, but ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... or other, would make peace for her. From him she got many a stray picayune, which she laid out in nuts and candies, and distributed, with careless generosity, to all the children in the family; for Topsy, to do her justice, was good-natured and liberal, and only spiteful in self-defence. She is fairly introduced into our corps be ballet, and will figure, from time to time, in her turn, ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... the law, to the end that the will of men may thereby be the better disposed to obedience. Now, this right of punishment is not transferred by the subjects to the sovereign since they cannot surrender their right of self-defence against violence. But as all before had the natural right of hurting others, that right is left by the covenant to the sovereign alone, strengthened by the ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... could muster up the courage, or the cowardice, wantonly to take away life. I don't remember ever shooting anything, except in self-defence, which was occasionally necessary during the journeys that I used to make from Montreal to the Indian settlements ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)
... "Yes. In self-defence she left you!" Doris held him with eyes heavy with misery. "I knew everything necessary to know, George, that enabled me to ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... nor from the fear of surprises which we have often experienced. Yet how will you make sure that you can preserve your pupil from such accidents? I consider this the best advice to give him beforehand. I should say to Emile, "This is a matter of self-defence, for the aggressor does not let you know whether he means to hurt or frighten you, and as the advantage is on his side you cannot even take refuge in flight. Therefore seize boldly anything, whether man or beast, which takes you unawares in the dark. Grasp it, squeeze ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... empire may be very largely attributed. We have here a notable example of the dynamic power upon politics of revolts that are generated by religious fermentation, and a proof of the strength that can be exerted by a pacific inorganic polytheism in self-defence, when ambitious rebels proclaim themselves defenders of a faith. The Marathas and the Sikhs founded the only rulerships whose armies could give the English serious trouble in the field during the ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... will," she answered, wiping her eyes. Then she laughed bitterly. "Don't be kind to me, for I'm not used to it and it weakens my armour of self-defence. Tell me I'm horrid ...
— Master of the Vineyard • Myrtle Reed
... intend to be so!" she cried in a frenzy, for all her affection for Hugh had in those moments been redoubled. Her lover was accused and had no chance of self-defence. "Go back to my mother," she went on. "Tell her every word I have said and embroider it as much as you like. Then you can both put your wits together a little further. But, remember, I shall exert my own woman's wits against yours. And as soon as you feel it practicable, I hope you will leave ...
— Mademoiselle of Monte Carlo • William Le Queux
... long it took him. Every time he was alone he was wafted away to Egypt and set down at that Pyramid. But he could not find the inscription, and if he had found it he could not have translated it. So, in self-defence, he spent most of his waking-time with Ethel. But every night the Pyramid had its own way, and it was not till he had cut an inscription himself on the Pyramid with the broken blade of his pocket-knife, and translated ...
— Oswald Bastable and Others • Edith Nesbit
... personal pronoun serving as the first element of a dependent compound may keep the accusative ending, to indicate its construction: "sinlauxdo", self-praise. "sinekzameno", self-examination. "sindefendo", self-defence. "sinkontrauxdira", self-contradictory.] ...
— A Complete Grammar of Esperanto • Ivy Kellerman
... Mistress Martha Winter poured out the vials of her wrath, standing with arms akimbo in the doorway, and addressing a slight, pale-faced, trembling girl of twenty years, who stood before her with bowed head, and made no attempt at self-defence. Indeed, she would have been clever who could have slipped in a sentence, or even have edged in a word, when Mistress Winter had pulled out of her wrath-bottle that cork which was so seldom in it, as Agnes Stone knew ...
— For the Master's Sake - A Story of the Days of Queen Mary • Emily Sarah Holt
... to your happy disposition," he pursued, abiding by his former phrase as if there were some lingering virtue of self-defence in it: "I knew it would be, and am glad it is. However, on this travel of mine (in which I mean to pass the rest of my days, having abandoned all thought of a fixed home), I stopped, as you heard from your father, at the Junction here. The extent of its ramifications ...
— Mugby Junction • Charles Dickens
... brief from the Irish Office, Lord CURZON made a long reply, the purport of which was that many of the reprisals were bogus, many were actions undertaken in self-defence, while the rest were generally due to men "seeing red" after their comrades had been brutally murdered. The Government did not palliate such cases, and had instituted inquiries and taken disciplinary action against ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 159, October 27, 1920 • Various
... threading the mazes of a forest, sees a serpent gliding towards him, he has but to turn into a side path, and be safe. But if a snake is trodden upon, or otherwise roused to anger, it will dart forward upon its enemy, in self-defence; also, if one of the enormous snakes comes upon a man, it may seize him before he has time to run away. Waterton, however, did not know what fear was; and instead of being paralysed with terror at the sight of serpents, once [Footnote: Life of Charles Waterton, p. 55.] caught a large one, ...
— Twilight And Dawn • Caroline Pridham
... satisfied, it is abundantly clear that the British ministers, having at last grasped the value of Malta, created all the difficulties in their power, and determined to cancel this article of the treaty. They alleged, in self-defence, that the spirit of the treaty had been constantly violated by Napoleon, in repeated acts of hostility to British subjects, in the refusal of all redress for such grievances, and, above all, in that ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... so that he found himself obliged to provide for the security of his subjects; and as the encroachments made by France were hostile, it could never be unlawful, or irreconcile-able with the assurance of his majesty's peaceable disposition, to repel an aggressor; and that the same motive of self-defence had forced him to seize the French ships and sailors, in order to deprive that court of the means of making an invasion, with which their ministers in all the courts of Europe had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... provincial congress called; in Jersey the populace took possession of the treasury; and in Philadelphia, the very Quakers renounced their principles of peace, and took up arms as volunteers, under the pretence of self-defence. It was in this state of affairs that Lord North's conciliatory propositions arrived. These were read first in the assembly of Pennsylvania by governor Penn, who expressed an anxious wish that all due consideration should be given them, and that, if possible, they might become ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... and splendour of the man's powers in contrast with his continued failures. Let him show such patronage to the hero of his memoir as the English judge showed to the poor prisoner at his bar, taking care that he should suffer no shadow of injustice from the witnesses; that the prisoner's own self-defence should in no part be defeated of its effect by want of proper words or want of proper skill in pressing the forcible points on the attention of the jury; but otherwise leaving him to his own real merits in ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... one's own country every people rejects foreign interference and is guided only by considerations bearing on its own security and its own needs ('Quite right'). Of this right to self-judgment and self-defence Germany also makes use when she builds a fleet to secure the necessary protection for her coasts and her commerce ('Bravo!'). This defensive, this purely defensive character of our naval programme cannot, in view of the incessant attempts to attribute to us ...
— William of Germany • Stanley Shaw
... thing to claim self-defence and another thing to get people to believe in it. I suppose you know ...
— The Hollow of Her Hand • George Barr McCutcheon
... a good many of the squatters (they say, in self-defence) have, in turn, availed themselves of it, to secure 'the eyes' or water-holes of the country, so far as they could by means of 'dummies,' ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... quite accurate. The object of the Committee was to assist the Self-Defence groups of Russian Jews in resisting the pogroms. No arms were exported to Russia, as the groups in question, and indeed the Russian Revolutionists themselves, found it quite easy to purchase arms from the Imperial ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... I have found strong evidence for the "fiddler" derivation of the name. In 1266 it was decided by a Lancashire jury that Richard le Harper killed William le Roter, or Ruter, in self-defence. I think there can be little doubt that some, if not all, of our Rutters owe their names to the profession represented by this enraged musician. William le Citolur and William le Piper also appear from the same record (Patent Rolls) to have indulged in homicide in the course ...
— The Romance of Names • Ernest Weekley
... stimulation does not seem to matter very much, for there is a case on record where a doctor hypnotised a patient by reciting to him in a low voice a few verses of "The Walrus and the Carpenter." The psycho-analysts would probably say that the patient went to sleep in self-defence. We can well remember how we were lulled to sleep in earliest days to the following somewhat fearsome and original words sung to the tune of a ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... diplomacy. Uncertain as to whether the act would be disavowed or justified by the American government, Mr. Gallatin explained to the European ministers that the forcible occupation of the Spanish province was an act of self-defence and protection against the Indians, but Richelieu replied that the United States "had adopted the game laws and pursued in foreign ground what was started in its own." Yet, to the astonishment of Mr. Gallatin, Richelieu was moderate and friendly in ...
— Albert Gallatin - American Statesmen Series, Vol. XIII • John Austin Stevens
... fen-men, that he had let down upon Lynn the pent-up waters of the whole higher bogs; that rivers were running backwards, brooks swelling to estuaries, and the whole north-eastern fen ruinate, to be yet more ruinate by banks confusedly thrown up in self-defence, till some order was restored in 1332, and the fens prospered—such little of them as could be drained at all—for nigh two hundred years. Honour, meanwhile, to another prelate, good Bishop Morton, who cut the great learn from Guyhirn—the last place at ...
— Prose Idylls • Charles Kingsley
... the quick by these sudden blows from the sea France planned a great invasion of the British Isles. She did not hide it, hoping thereby to make the British keep their fleets at home in self-defence. But though, as always happens, there were people weak enough to want to keep the Navy close beside the coast and stupidly divided up, so that plenty of timid folk could see the ships in front of them, just where the enemy with one well handled fleet could beat them bit by bit, ...
— Flag and Fleet - How the British Navy Won the Freedom of the Seas • William Wood
... general uneasiness. And unwilling as the Romans were to extend their frontiers and their responsibilities in a direction so unknown and so unpromising, yet some interference either by arms or by authority beyond those existing limits was being pressed upon them in self-defence. ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude |
