"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bowed submission, dumb a little while. Then said my soul: "Thy will I dare not balk; I reach my hands to labours that defile, And help to rear ...
— The Jessica Letters: An Editor's Romance • Paul Elmer More
... sallied forth again to badger his arch enemy. He hoped only to exist till that day when the French should leave Empire and Republic face to face, on equal terms. It had taken tenacious faith and gloomy years, but the day came at last. The news sifted through defile and gorge. The invader had embarked for Toulon. Nearer at hand Mendez had evacuated Morelia, and was marching to Queretero. And at Queretero was Miramon, driven there from the north by Escobedo. At Queretero was the Emperor—was ...
— The Missourian • Eugene P. (Eugene Percy) Lyle
... sandal, Halbert Glendinning, hallooing at intervals, in answer to the sound which he had heard, ran with the speed of a hunted buck down the rugged defile, as if paradise had been before him, hell and all her furies behind, and his eternal happiness or misery had depended upon the speed which he exerted. In a space incredibly short for any one but a Scottish mountaineer having his nerves strung by the deepest ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... our natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion. Corporeal attributes and necessities are thrown on one side, as they would destroy the charm of perfectability. Nothing can soil, or defile, or destroy my heroine; suffering adds lustre to her beauty, as pure gold is tried by fire: nothing can kill her, because she is all mind. As for my men, you will observe when ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... not decidedly admitted, when the masses disowned the movement, all was over with the combatants, the city was changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... the mountainous districts of Savoy; but, with experienced guides to lead them, the dragoons were able to defile through secret passes unknown to any but the natives, and to arrive unsuspected ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... heard the enemy was advancing. He immediately dispatched his aid, Capt. Francis Kinloch, to reconnoitre; while he moved forward on the road to Beaufort ferry. Kinloch returning soon, stated the supposed force of the British, and that they were near upon the road; Moultrie now pushed on to gain a defile, but found it occupied by the enemy. There being no alternative, he then drew up his men in open ground, with two field pieces in the centre, and one on the right. The British force was two companies of picked light infantry, posted under cover of a swamp. The militia engaged them, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... to disband their army, clearly in view of a general engagement; he therefore felt justified in marching his troops into Boeotia. The point of ingress which he adopted was not that which the Thebans anticipated from Phocis, and where they were keeping guard at a defile; but, marching through Thisbae by a mountainous and unsuspected route, he arrived before Creusis, taking that fortress and capturing twelve Theban war-vessels besides. After this achievement he advanced from the seaboard and encamped in Leuctra on Thespian territory. The Thebans ...
— Hellenica • Xenophon
... smalls-of-their-backs, circumgyrate from little churruck-posts for the edification of infatuated little crowds and the honor of horrid little goddesses; where plucky little widows perform their little suttees for defunct little husbands, grilling on little funeral piles; where mangy little Pariah dogs defile the little dinners of little high-caste folks, by stealing hungry little sniffs from sacred little pots; where omnivorous little adjutant-birds gobble up little glass bottles, and bones, and little dead cats, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... below, and just laps over the back of the mountain. It is a broad belt of white that drops down and down till it joins other fields that sweep along the base of the mountain, a mile away. To the east, through a deep defile in the mountains, a landscape in an adjoining county lifts itself up, like a bank of ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... of the true Church, and deliver up unto Satan, James, Duke of York, and that for his idolatry (for I shall not speak of any other sin but what hath been perpetrated by him in Scotland), and for setting up idolatry in Scotland to defile the Lord's land, and for his enticing and encouraging to do ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... conventions devised to prop up the weak and untrustworthy? If Jim can't trust me, I may as well learn it now as any other time. Besides, it doesn't matter to me greatly whether he does or not. If for any reason he should begin to think evil of me—well, the filthy thought in another's mind can't defile me. I can't recall that I was ever greatly afraid of what other people might think of me, so long ...
— The Hidden Places • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... into the park, though girded by the same line of paling, but, in reality, a close pheasant preserve, occupying the banks of a ravine, which, after a deep and tortuous course, terminated in the declivity heretofore described as forming the park boundary. Luke plunged into the heart of this defile, fighting his way downwards, in the direction of the brook. His progress was impeded by a thick undergrowth of brier, and other matted vegetation, as well as by the entanglements thrown in his way by the taller bushes of thorn and hazel, ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Who shall tell how He between whom and the Woman God put enmity forged deadly plots to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall record the long strife between Serpent and Seraph:—How still the Father of Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, grossness into glory, pain into bliss, poison into passion? How the ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... 8. Minu'tius, one of the consuls who succeeded Cincinna'tus, was sent to oppose them; but being naturally timid, and rather more afraid of being conquered than desirous of victory, his army was driven into a defile between two mountains, from which, except through the enemy, there was no egress. 9. This, however, the AE'qui had the precaution to fortify, by which the Roman army was so hemmed in on every side, that nothing remained but submission to the enemy, famine, or immediate death. 10. Some knights ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... so I came not in your sight awhile, You gave no thought, and I passed not away; But like some traveller in a deep defile ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... Gurmab, eight and a half miles. Country continues the same. The defile after crossing some rather broad water three feet deep, opened out into a rather large valley, near the south end of which Gurmab is situated, and it is ornamented with a good many Rairoo trees, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... great rage; and her eyes flashed like the eyes of her father himself, as she rose to her feet and looked down on Monsieur de Merosailles as he knelt imploring her. Now her face turned pale from red, and she set her lips, and she drew her gown close round her lest his touch should defile it (so the unhappy gentleman understood the gesture), and she daintily picked her steps round him lest by chance she should happen to come in contact with so foul a thing. Thus she walked toward the door, and, having reached it, she turned and ...
— McClure's Magazine, January, 1896, Vol. VI. No. 2 • Various
... the drooping branches of a tree, a bird stirred in its nest with a sleepy cheep. He made his way around the house at the back, absentmindedly feeling for his coat pocket and his pipe. He had left it upstairs, but no matter. Why should one want to defile such a night as this with tobacco-smoke, anyway? He stopped once under a pear-tree and wondered why ...
— The Lilac Girl • Ralph Henry Barbour
... shook the bridle in his hand, and the eight-footed, with a bound, leaped forth, rushed like a whirlwind down the mountain of Asgard, and then dashed into a narrow defile between rocks. ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... dawn of morning the Austrian army—the first that ever entered the country—made its appearance in the pass, headed by Duke Leopold and his formidable cavalry. Suddenly, when the whole narrow defile was blocked with horse and foot, thousands of heavy stones and trees were hurled among them from the neighboring heights, where the peasant band, forming the Swiss force, lay concealed. The suddenness and vigor of this unexpected attack quickly threw the first ranks of the invaders into confusion, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... of Yule's force was effected without more trouble than that which was caused by the nature of the country and the alternations of the climate. Van Tonder's Pass—a difficult defile which would have been impassable under opposition—was crossed, and a sudden spate on the Waschbank river only temporarily checked the retirement. A column was sent out from Ladysmith by White to check the Free Staters who had re-occupied ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... that would breed horrors and yet would never die. What the worm was to the corpse, his sins would be to the painted image on the canvas. They would mar its beauty, and eat away its grace. They would defile it, and make it shameful. And yet the thing would still live on. It would be ...
— The Picture of Dorian Gray • Oscar Wilde
... commonweal; And, for my wife, I know not how it stands. Sorry I am to hear what I have heard; Noble she is; but if she have forgot Honour and virtue, and convers'd with such As like to pitch defile nobility, I banish her my bed and company, And give her as a prey to law and shame, That ...
— King Henry VI, Second Part • William Shakespeare [Rolfe edition]
... Retschel into the beech-woods of Itchkeria. Then began the fight. The hostile tribes of all the region round were up in arms, and waiting in the depths of the woods for the enemy. As his vanguard reached the first narrow and precipitous defile they were received by a murderous fire from behind numerous trunks of trees which, felled across the way, served as breast-works for the one party and obstacles to the progress of the other. Besides these barricades, the ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... in excellent spirits and willing to go after the savage animal. They advanced with caution among the rocks, until they came to a narrow defile, partly choked with snow and ice. On one side was a big shelving rock, with ...
— Guns And Snowshoes • Captain Ralph Bonehill
... hundred; these I divided into equal parts, and, leaving one to defend the lines, I placed the other in ambuscade along the neighbouring woods. Scarcely were these dispositions finished before the Iroquese appeared, and, imagining they were rushing upon an unguarded foe, entered the defile without hesitation. As soon as the whole body was thus imprudently engaged, the other party of the Saukies started from their hiding-places, and, running to the entrance of the strait, threw up in an instant another fortification, and had the ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... battle's din, 495 That deep and doubling pass within.— Minstrel, away! the work of fate Is bearing on; its issue wait, Where the rude Trossachs' dread defile Opens on Katrine's lake and isle.— 500 Gray Benvenue I soon repassed, Loch Katrine lay beneath me cast. The sun is set, the clouds are met, The lowering scowl of heaven An inky hue of livid blue 505 To the deep lake has given; Strange gusts of wind from mountain-glen Swept ...
— Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... worthy of attention from native and barbarian alike. The very antagonism of the few foreign manners and habits he is obliged by his position to cultivate, tend rather to confirm him in his own sense of superiority than otherwise. For who but a barbarian would defile the banquet hour "when the wine mantles in the cups" with a white table-cloth, the badge of grief and death? How much more elegant the soft red lacquer of the "eight fairy" table, with all its associations of the bridal hour! ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... the cause, but appears in the worst form when it is the act of attorneys or counsel, who are the sworn officers of the court, whose duty it is to act as guardians of the fountains of justice, and who are false to their charge when they defile or taint those waters, which they are pledged to keep pure and unpolluted. Such conduct in counsel is a gross breach of trust, for which a removal from the trust is but an ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood
... through a narrow defile which broke up the formation, double quick over the chevaux de frise, into the ditch and over it, as best they could, and up the rampart with Fort Sumter, which had seen them, playing on them, and Fort Wagner, now one mighty mound ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... defile, Eloia! Eloia! Pray you, gentles, do not smile If we shout, in classic style, Eloia! Ludwig and his Julia true Wedded are each other to— So we sing, till all is blue, Eloia! Eloia! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... storm, and tramped for two hours with a driving sleet in his face, his thoughts a fury of holy anger against unholy things, and back of it all the feeling that he was the knight of true womanhood. She had sent him forth and no man in his presence should defile the thought of her. It was during that tramp that he had made up his mind to ally himself with God's people. Whether it would do any good in the long run in his search for God or not, whether he even was sure he believed ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... it,' then said Aurelian in his fiercest tones, 'how is it that again, for these paltry gains, already rolling in wealth—thou wilt defile thy own soul, and bring public shame upon me too, and Rome! Away to thy tent! and put in order thine own affairs and mine. Thou hast lived too long. Soldiers, let him be strongly guarded.—Let Virro now receive his just dues. Men call me cruel, and ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... overtaken the Indians as well as the horses. They had continued the pursuit alone after Fuentas left them, and towards nightfall entered the mountains into which the trail led. After sunset, the moon gave light until late in the night, when it entered a narrow defile, and was difficult to follow. Here they lay from midnight till morning. At daylight they resumed the pursuit, and at sunrise discovered the horses; and immediately dismounting and tying up their own, ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... immeasurable line, that roadway of a god, along which presently at least the Vicar of a God should come—all this and a thousand memories more—memories of events such as few experience in a lifetime, crowded into twelve months—passed in endless defile, coherent and consistent at last under the pointing finger of Him who had directed and ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... military barrier, the Balcan is a fabulous mountain. Such seems to be the view of Major Keppell, who looked on it towards the east with the eye of a soldier, and certainly in the Sophia Pass, which I followed, there is no narrow defile, and no ascent sufficiently difficult to stop, or delay for long time, a train of ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... woody country on his left might favor the enemy's attempts against his flank and rear; that his first line, being backed against a ravine, might be precipitated into it; that, in short, the position which he then occupied, in advance of a defile, was dangerous, and rendered a retrograde movement absolutely necessary. But Napoleon would not consent to this step, though he had at first pointed out Woronowo as a more secure position. In this war, still in his ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... we stood the ground sloped rapidly downward until the dense darkness at the foot of the steep defile shrouded everything from view. The descent appeared rocky and impracticable, and I could distinguish the sound of rapid water far below. On the opposite side stood a dense wood, the outer fringe of trees overhanging the road, and through the waving leaves the moonlight ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... however, dangerous, on account of the shelter which the wooded mountains afford to the knights of the road, and to whose predilection for these wild solitudes, the number of crosses bore witness. In a woody defile there is a small clear space called "Las Cruces," where several wooden crosses point out the site of the famous battle between the curate Hidalgo and the Spanish General Truxillo. An object really in keeping with the wild scenery, was the head of the celebrated robber ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... our purpose spread out on it. The problem of mastering the Straits was examined entirely from the point of view of a military operation based upon, and supported by, naval power. If the question of a fleet attack upon the defences within the defile was mentioned at all, it was ...
— Experiences of a Dug-out, 1914-1918 • Charles Edward Callwell
... flight the Spaniards had to traverse again the defile by which they had ascended. Lantaro had sent men to obstruct it by felled trees, and the few remaining Spaniards had a severe fight before they could escape. The Araucanians pursued them to the Biobio, fatigue preventing their following ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume III • Charles Morris
... a narrow and rocky defile, at whose narrowest part the banks rise in precipitous walls. Down this ravine the stream rushes in rapids and cascades, at one point forming a picturesque waterfall seventy-five feet in height. Only through this straitened ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... the flag, save it before you do me!" The Turks fled before the charge of this squadron of iron. A Febrer from the island, entitled "the rich," a remote ancestor of Jaime's, had twice rushed in between the Emperor and the enemy, saving his life. At the exit of a narrow defile the fire from the Turkish culverins decimated the cavalry. The Duke of Alva grasped the bridle of his monarch's horse. "Sire, your life is more important than a victory!" and the Emperor, growing calmer, turned back, and with a stately gesture of gratitude re moved the gold chain from ...
— The Dead Command - From the Spanish Los Muertos Mandan • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... the wrong voice we should close them to the true one. I should think there was a great chance of being led to stop short at the material beauty, or worse, to link human passions with the glories of nature, and so distort, defile, profane them.' ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... but in the hosts themselves! Here crowds of black archers rush down troop after troop from the mountain with the rage of a foaming torrent; on the other side high upon the rocks in the far distance a scattered crowd of flying men are turning round in a defile. The point of the greatest interest stands out brilliantly from the centre of the whole—Alexander and Darius both in armour of burnished gold; Alexander on Bucephalus with his lance in rest advances before his men and presses on the flying Darius, whose charioteer has already ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... poor motherless working girl's reputation. As my father is a Christian preacher I feel I have a right to protest against his being placed on a clerical parity with bilkers of hack bills and crapulous associates of two-for-a-penny prostitutes. If Harman attempts to defile the Christian pulpit with his presence, I hope to the good Lord that the decent members of that denomination will tie him across a nine-rail fence and enhance the torridity of his rear elevation with a vigorous application ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... When they inform the rani of this fact, she declares, if Damayanti is her niece, she can easily be recognized, as she was born with a peculiar mole between her eyebrows. She, therefore, bids her handmaid wash off the ashes which defile her in token of grief, and thus discovers the birth-mole ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... this joy was well nigh alloyed by a great loss sustained in Samnium. For the consul Cornelius, having set out from Saticula, incautiously led his army into a mountainous tract, passable through a deep defile, and beset on all sides by the enemy; nor did he perceive the enemy stationed over his head, until a retreat could no longer be made with safety. Whilst the Samnites delayed only till he should bring down his entire army into the valley; Publius Decius, a tribune of the soldiers, espies in ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... found it necessary to veil the "secret of secrets," lest the unworthy (because unready) defile it with his gaze, even as the sinful devotee prostrates himself hiding his face, while the priest raises the chalice containing the holy eucharist in the ceremony ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... at court; Don Calixto wanted to take his nap, and after he had escorted Caesar to the garden, he went away. The two married ladies were alone, because the young people had gone with Amparito's father on an excursion to the Devil's Threshold, a defile where the river flows between some red ...
— Caesar or Nothing • Pio Baroja Baroja
... became more and more exposed to the northeast gale, and felt with increasing dread how great was the peril to which Burt must be exposed had he not found refuge in some of the dwellings nearer to the scene of his sport. The roar of the gale up the rugged defile was perfectly terrific, and the snow caught up from the overhanging ledges was often driven into their faces with blinding force. They could do little better than give the horses their heads, and the poor brutes floundered ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... his men marched stealthily on them in the night, passing through the woods and up a narrow defile. It was about one o'clock in the morning that they gained Wayne's left. Grey was a most cruel wretch, called the no-flint general because of his orders to his soldiers to take the flints from their guns; his object being to compel them to use the bayonet; his ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... is a gloomy mountain pass cut through the rough rocky slope in the hills between the Toomies and the Macgillicuddy's Reeks. It is a magnificent defile, four miles long. The rough bridle-path running through it, at times almost on the edge of precipices, beneath which the wild goats flock. It is approached by a winding road, embroidered on one side by a shady little grove of fir, larch, ...
— The Sunny Side of Ireland - How to see it by the Great Southern and Western Railway • John O'Mahony and R. Lloyd Praeger
... sprung on the cliffs. His brave peasants followed him; and taking their rapid march by a near cut through a hitherto unexplored defile of the Cartlane Craigs, leaping chasms, and climbing perpendicular rocks, they suffered no obstacles to impede their steps, while thus rushing onward ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... and the colonel mentions his having been once an eyewitness of some rough treatment received by a chumar, or leather-dresser, (one of the lowest castes,) at the hands of some high caste sepoys, who were highly indignant that so mean a carcass should presume to defile the holy ground! Leaving the ghats and devotees behind him, however, and floating down the stream in his capacious three-roomed budgerow, he passed Mirzapoor, Chunar, and even the holy city of Benares, (which he perversely spells Bunarus,) without halting; and reached without adventure or mishap ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... come forward and direct our movement! However, if you appoint me your commander-in-chief, I shall not shrink; I mean to do my duty as a man. I tell you, gentlemen, if once I pledge my hand to the diggers, I will neither defile it with treachery, nor render it ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... delights that any creature may think, and more than any can tell, to all His lovers, without end. It is much easier to come to that bliss than to describe it. Also think what pain and what sorrow and tormenting they shall have who love not GOD above all things that one sees in this world, but defile their body in the pleasures and lusts of this life, in pride and greed and other sins; they shall burn in the fire of hell with the devil whom they served, as long as GOD is in heaven with His servants, that ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... through a defile into the valley and his men, now mounted, led the pursuit. Jackson in his eagerness rode with him and Harry was there, too. Behind them came the famous foot cavalry. Thus pursuer and pursued rolled down the valley, and ...
— The Scouts of Stonewall • Joseph A. Altsheler
... a tract of hilly country, forming a sort of margin to the vast, sealike expanse of champaign savannas, steppes, and occasionally of sandy deserts, which stretched away on each side of this margin both eastwards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 10 centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through which passed the nearest and the most practicable route to the River Torgau (the farther bank of which river offered the next great station of security for a general halt). It was the more essential to gain this pass before ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... the capabilities of those opposed to him, and refused peremptorily to listen to the advice of more experienced men. Hastening south, his advanced guard was caught by Baltinglass and the other insurgents in the valley of Glenmalure. A well-directed fire was poured into the defile; the English troops broke, and tried to flee, and were shot down in numbers ...
— The Story Of Ireland • Emily Lawless
... wrath of the deep Corryvreckan, Far-booming o'er Scarba's lone wave-circled isle, As mountain rocks crash to the vale, thunder-stricken, Their slogan arose in Glen Spean's defile;— As clouds shake their locks to the whispers of Heaven; As quakes the hushed earth 'neath the ire of the blast; As quivers the heart of the craven, fear-riven, So trembled Argyle at the sound as it passed;— Over the ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... ascent of the famous St. Gothard Road. The higher we went, the more wildly roared the storm. There was something appalling in the fierce volleyings of the wind along the stark and broken faces of the precipice: it was like the rattle of thunder. In the sombre defile of the Schoellenen the air rushed as through a funnel. We could see nothing save the thread-like road illuminated by our steadfast lanterns—the sole beacon of safety in this welter. We had a ghostly impression ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... 17. Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? If any man defile the temple of God, him shall God destroy: for the temple of God is holy; which ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... come on, and suddenly, when you see cover, make a dash for it and escape. 3. Do not get lost. 4. Do not allow yourself to think of the enemy as being in one direction only. 5. In entering or passing through woods take an extended skirmish line formation. 6. In passing any short defile bridge or ford, send one man ahead. 7. If you suspect the presence of the enemy under certain cover, a good way to find out is to let one man approach within a reasonable distance and then, acting as though he had been discovered, turn and run. This ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... commanded by the lamented Reynolds, and reached the village of Frederick as the sun was setting. The clouds had cleared away, and a more enchanting vision never met human eye than that which appeared before us as we debouched from the narrow defile up which the road from lower Maryland ran, on the commanding heights that overlooked the valley. The town was in the center of a most charming and fertile country, and around it thousands of acres of golden grain were waving ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... represent the principle of evil, but one to which yours is utterly abhorrent. Can you mix light with darkness, or filthy oil with water? As well hope to merge your life, black as it is with every wickedness, with that of the splendid creature you would defile. Do you suppose that a woman such as she will ever be really faithless to her love, even though you trap her into marriage? Fool, her heart is as far above you as the stars; and without a heart a woman is a husk that none but such miserables as yourself would own. ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... Father! that mine ear Upon this earth so evil, Against Thy name and pow'r should hear The wicked rage and cavil. Let not the poison and the gall Of slanderers defile me; If I such filth should touch at all It surely would beguile me, ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... but it is that which goeth out; and if disobedience be not amongst the evils which defile, then Adam did not fall in Paradise when he ate the forbidden fruit. Elfric could not touch flesh on fast days without the instinctive feeling that he was doing wrong, and no one can sin against the conviction of the ...
— Edwy the Fair or the First Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... superstitiously they place worship in them; for quaecunque observatio quasi necessaria commendatur, continuo censetur ad cultum Dei pertinere, saith Calvin.(455) The Rhemists think,(456) that meats of themselves, or of their own nature, do not defile, "but so far as by accident they make a man to sin; as the disobedience of God's commandment, or of our superiors, who forbid some meats for certain times and causes, is a sin." And they add, "that neither flesh nor fish of itself doth defile, but the breach of the church's precept ...
— The Works of Mr. George Gillespie (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Gillespie
... second-hearing," says Lord Byron, "fell once under my own observation. On my third journey to Cape Colonna, as we passed through the defile that leads from the hamlet between Keratea and Colonna, I observed Dervish Tahiri (one of his Albanian servants) riding rather out of the path, and leaning his head upon his hand as if in pain. I rode up and inquired. 'We are in peril!' he answered. 'What ...
— The Life of Lord Byron • John Galt
... the Leaves are all too few It's Nectar to defile as Others do - Ah, shun the Solecism and the Plug For Cattle-Kings ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... defile and deface it, be sure, No longer their wrong or their fraud we endure; We will scatter in scorn every link of the chain, With which they would fetter our free souls ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... robbing me, and I am inflicting upon it the doom of a thief." "Lord," said he, "rather than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom." "By my confession to Heaven, neither will I sell it nor set it free." "It is true, lord, that it is worth nothing to buy; but rather than see thee defile thyself by touching such a reptile as this, I will give thee three pounds to let it go." "I will not, by Heaven," said he, "take any price for it. As it ought, so shall it be hanged." And ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... the plains of Dauphine. This period coincides well with what might have then been required to ascend, as the country was, on the neighbourhood of Grenoble or Echelles; while the ascent to the summit of the Little St Bernard, would not require more than half the time. 2. The narrow defile of St Jean de Maurienne, which leads from the plain of Montmelian to the foot of Mont Cenis, corresponds much more closely with the description, given both in Livy[25] and Polybius[26], of that in which the first serious engagement took place between Hannibal and the Mountaineers, two days ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... defile through the kraal gateway in perfect silence, a fatigue party only remaining behind to drag away the corpses of ...
— King Solomon's Mines • H. Rider Haggard
... to rise upon both the just and the unjust. And surely but for the saving clause, Doone Glen had been in darkness. Now, as I stood with scanty breath—for few men could have won that climb—at the top of the long defile, and the bottom of the mountain gorge all of myself, and the pain of it, and the cark of my discontent fell away into wonder and rapture. For I cannot help seeing things now and then, slow-witted as I have a right to be; and perhaps ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... leading up the mountain side and through a narrow defile, known as Crampton's Gap, constituted one of the two passages to the other side of the range; South Mountain Gap being the other. The enemy had planted batteries and posted troops behind barricades, and in such positions as most effectually to ...
— Three Years in the Sixth Corps • George T. Stevens
... the coach entered the dark defile known as the "Devils' Descent." And, in fact, it needed all the noon sunshine to light up the gloom of that fearful pass. Here the delight of the impressible young foreigner ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... was in the saddle, "the way by which I shall lead you to rescue the King is narrow; therefore follow me in good order, two and two, all those who have sure-footed horses. But beyond the defile as many as a thousand may fight without hindering each other. The rest encamp here and protect the ...
— Via Crucis • F. Marion Crawford
... wore oriental tunics or robes, and a long beard; the women painted their faces. Ivan the Terrible said that to shave the beard was "a sin that the blood of all the martyrs could not cleanse. Was it not to defile the image of man ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... trenches lay within a few yards of the Turks, they were now practically cleared of men in order to avoid casualties from our own gunfire. The scheme laid down for our Battalion required a north-east advance by C and B Companies out of the narrow defile known as Krithia nullah. A gap was therefore made overnight in the barrier that had hitherto crossed the mouth of the defile and linked our fire trenches with those neighbouring. A machine gun was placed at the north-west corner of this gap under cover of the end ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst
... I was, unexpectedly left the route of Fezzan to the east, and turned sharp round to the south, through the gorge of a low mountain range, which we had had all along to the right. In this defile we proceeded an hour, but it had no natural opening at the end. We came at last to a very abrupt ascent of some hundred feet high, and mounted an elevated plateau. Once on the plateau, all was plain ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... fire behind them. By the time the troops have formed in some attempt at military order, the woods around them are empty, and their agile and noiseless foes have settled themselves into ambush again, farther up the defile, ready for a second attack, if needed. But one is usually sufficient;—disordered, exhausted, bearing their wounded with them, the soldiers retreat in panic, if permitted to escape at all, and carry fresh dismay to the barracks, the plantations, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 5, No. 28, February, 1860 • Various
... give battle, and imagining, that he could dispense with their assistance, attempted to force the defile of Saulces, in advance of Gap, supported only by his royal volunteers: but this attack, as rash as it was useless, did not succeed, and he was forced to ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... millions of human beings; which erected altars to the living God, yet denied to creatures, formed in the image of God and charged with the custody of immortal souls, the common rights of humanity; he declared that the hateful inconsistency should cease to defile the prayers of Christians and stultify the advocates of freedom. No dreamer was he, no mere theorist, but a worker, and a strong one, who did well the work committed to him. He entered upon his self-imposed task when surrounded ...
— Oration on the Life and Character of Henry Winter Davis • John A. J. Creswell
... the inspired shingler fulfilled his promise to the letter, so that before many months the Dorcas Society proceeded, with incredible exertion, to earn more money, and the interior of the church was neatly painted and made as fresh as a rose. With no smoke, no rain, no snow nor melting ice to defile it, the good old landmark that had been pointing its finger Heavenward for over a century would now be clean and fragrant for years to come, and the weary sisters leaned back in their respective rocking-chairs and ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... ancient, is that holy place, Its walls and windows richest traceries grace; While clusters of the lightest columns rise, And beauties all unlooked for, there surprise. ’Twas well, when Ruin smote the neighbouring Pile, It spared this humbler Beauty to defile. . . . . . . . . . O! ’Tis a gem of purest taste, I ween, Though little it ...
— Records of Woodhall Spa and Neighbourhood - Historical, Anecdotal, Physiographical, and Archaeological, with Other Matter • J. Conway Walter
... this time my reader is well aware, by that narrow defile reached from Redman's Farm by a pathway which scales a flight of rude steps, the same which Stanley Lake and his sister had mounted on the night of Mark ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... contrives to wring a splendid privy purse, throw back with contumely, the "tribute" of his own countrymen from this land of "miscreants." These people may exhaust their slang, and make blackguards of themselves, but they cannot defile us. And as for the suggestion to exclude slaveholders from your London clubs, we scout it. Many of us, indeed, do go to London, and we have seen your breed of gawky lords, both there and here, but it never entered into our conceptions to look on them as better than ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... conspire to take your life; but the Lord will protect you.—Now I can safely leave, for I see lightnings flash from your eyes and tongues of fire flickering over your head. (As he is leaving.) There comes the Lord of Flies: don't let him defile your ...
— Master Olof - A Drama in Five Acts • August Strindberg
... comes out of a man on any inducement or provocation, or for any purpose of good, that man is the worse for it. The lie is evil, and its coming out of the man is harmful to him. "The things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man,"[1] said our Lord; and the experience of mankind bears witness to ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... through the defile, entered another portion of the valley, forded a fork of the Shenandoah, crossed the Luray Valley, and then entered the steep passes of the Blue Ridge. Here they found autumn gone and winter upon them. As the passes rose and the mountains, clothed in pine forest, hung over them, the soft haze ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... the time was September of 1790, two months after the passing—on the motion of that downright Breton leveller, Le Chapelier—of the decree that nobility should no more be hereditary than infamy; that just as the brand of the gallows must not defile the possibly worthy descendants of one who had been convicted of evil, neither should the blazon advertising achievement glorify the possibly unworthy descendants of one who had proved himself good. And so the decree had been passed abolishing hereditary nobility ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... five dead cows were stretched out was the beginning of a long, narrow defile, or gorge which ran back into the hills. Some of these hills were quite high and were covered with a growth of timber. Others consisted of big rocks piled in fantastic fashion as though there had been a volcanic eruption some time when the world ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... joined since Jim came. They make a strong party, all armed, and determined to fight their way through. They are already twenty miles away; but we will overtake them to-morrow. I am to guide them. I know every cave and defile. ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... trail began to ascend the hills, from the top of which they had an extended view of the surrounding country. Not the sign of an Indian was to be seen, but they did not feel secure and kept a very vigilant watch upon every ravine and defile as they approached it. Making twenty-one miles that day, they encamped on the bank of another stream still running north. While there an alarm of Indians was given, and instantly every man was on his feet with rifle ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... regiment of a woman, that which they approve shall I not further disallow than within my own breast; but shall be as well content to live under your Grace as Paul was to live under Nero. And my hope is, that so long as ye defile not your hands with the blood of the saints of God, neither I nor my book shall hurt either you or your authority." All this is admirable in wisdom and moderation, and, except that he might have hit upon a comparison less offensive than that with Paul and Nero, hardly to be bettered. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and beasts for ages, aided by torrents of water in the rainy season. As we ascend, this changes to a rocky staircase, so strait that one must throw up his legs to save them from being crushed, and so steep that horse and rider run the risk of turning a somersault. It is fearful to meet in a narrow defile, or where the road winds around the edge of a precipice, a drove of reckless donkeys and mules descending the mountain, urged on by the cries and lashes of the muleteers behind. Yet this has been the highway of Ecuadorian commerce for three hundred years. ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... unless man had a power to raise his understanding into the light of heaven, and to see how he ought to live in order that his love, as well as his understanding, may be elevated into wisdom. By means of the understanding, love, that is, the man, sees what the evils are that defile and corrupt the love; he also sees that if he flees from those evils as sins and turns away from them, he loves the things that are opposite to those evils; all of which are heavenly. Then also he perceives the ...
— Angelic Wisdom Concerning the Divine Love and the Divine Wisdom • Emanuel Swedenborg
... no vision that heals division of love from love, and renews awhile Life and breath in the lips where death has quenched the spirit of speech and smile, Shows on earth, or in heaven's mid mirth, where no fears enter or doubts defile, ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... sufficient quantity of gold to foster hope, though not to pay expenses. Thus they progressed through many a scene of loveliness, where the hand of God had sown broadcast all the forms and hues of grace and beauty which render this world attractive; they also passed through many a savage defile and mountain gorge—dark, gloomy, almost repulsive—which served to enhance their enjoyment of the beautiful ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne
... indeed, my burthen is great, that Plato's name is laid upon me, whom, I must confess, of all philosophers I have ever esteemed most worthy of reverence; and with good reason, since of all philosophers he is the most poetical; yet if he will defile the fountain out of which his flowing streams have proceeded, let us boldly examine with what reason ...
— A Defence of Poesie and Poems • Philip Sidney
... indeed, my burden is great; now Plato his name is laid upon me, whom I must confess, of all philosophers, I have ever esteemed most worthy of reverence, and with great reason, sith of all philosophers he is the most poetical. Yet if he will defile the fountain, out of which his flowing streams have proceeded, let us boldly examine with what reasons he did it. First, truly, a man might maliciously object that Plato, being a philosopher, was a natural enemy of poets; for, indeed, after ...
— English literary criticism • Various
... is the law; we must seek a youth or a maiden of clean life, and under age, to receive messages and admonitions.' We conversed with many more words, but it is not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would degrade and defile the thoughts she uttered, and which my mind received that day. I broke the ring, and she passed, but to return once more next day. At even-song, a long discourse with that ancient transgressor, Mr B. Great horror and remorse; entire atonement ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... ye shall serve God upon this mountain" (Exod. 3:12); God's threatened judgments upon the house of Eli with the accompanying sign (1 Sam. 2:34); the warning that David received by Urim and Thummim of Saul's approach to destroy him (1 Sam. 23:9-12); the prediction that Josiah should defile Jeroboam's altar at Bethel with men's bones (1 Kings 13:2); etc. Minute events, in themselves unimportant, sometimes come within the sphere of prophetic revelation, but always in connection with and subserviency to important transactions affecting the interests ...
— Companion to the Bible • E. P. Barrows
... because as the supreme artist he filled it with the breath of poetry where others in general spoke the word of prose. Turgenev's horizon always broadens before our eyes: where Fielding and Richardson speak for the country and the town, Turgenev speaks for the nation. While Balzac makes defile before us an endless stream of human figures, Turgenev's characters reveal themselves as wider apart in the range of their spirit, as more mysteriously alive in their inevitable essence, than do Meredith's or Flaubert's, ...
— The Jew And Other Stories • Ivan Turgenev
... him with such a god-like mixture of fire, of tenderness, of flattery, of tact; she did so serpentinely approach and coil round the soldier and his mental cavity, that all the males in creation should have been permitted to defile past (like the beasts going into the ark), and view this sweet picture a moment, and infer how women would be wooed, and then ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... at the sacred dairy and may never visit his home or any ordinary village. He must be celibate; if he is married he must leave his wife. On no account may any ordinary person touch the holy milkman or the holy dairy; such a touch would so defile his holiness that he would forfeit his office. It is only on two days a week, namely Mondays and Thursdays, that a mere layman may even approach the milkman; on other days if he has any business with him, he must stand at a distance (some say a quarter of a mile) and shout his message ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... to profane His name, to neglect His commands, to go contrary to His will? Should we then bear ill-will to other men who love Him, and whom He loveth? Should we speak falsely in His ears who is the Truth? Should we suffer pride to defile our souls, knowing that He dwelleth with the lowly in heart? Answer me, ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... used to be astounded by the inroads of the Northern Indians, coming down upon them from this mountain rampart through some defile known only to themselves. It is, indeed, a wondrous path. A demon, it might be fancied, or one of the Titans, was travelling up the valley, elbowing the heights carelessly aside as he passed, till at length a great mountain took its stand ...
— Sketches From Memory (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... distant tramp of horses, and the voices of the foe; Down we crouch'd amid the bracken, till the Lowland ranks drew near, Panting like the hounds in summer when they scent the stately deer. From the dark defile emerging, next we saw the squadrons come, Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers marching to the tuck of drum; Through the scatter'd wood of birches, o'er the broken ground and heath, Wound the long battalion slowly till they gain'd the field ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - April 1843 • Various
... flank by the last brigades of Johnston's army, which arrived at the critical moment from the railway. They gave way at once, tired out, and conscious that the day was lost, and after one rally melted away slowly to the rear, the handful of regulars alone keeping their order. But when, at the defile of the Cub Run, they came under shell fire the retreat became a panic flight to the Potomac. The victors were too much exhausted to pursue, and the U.S. regulars of the reserve division formed a strong and steady rearguard. The losses ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... individuals composing the band one by one from among the gypsy performers in Hungary and Bohemia. Half-civilized in appearance, dressed in an unbecoming half-military costume, they are nothing while playing Strauss' waltzes or their own; but when they play the Radetsky Defile, the Racoksky March, or their marvelous czardas, one sees and hears the battle, and it is easy to understand the influence of their music in fomenting Hungarian revolutions; why for so long it was made treasonable to play or listen to these ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... security of her life and person, she is put on the same footing with the king. It is equally treason (by the statute 25 Edw. III.) to compass or imagine the death of our lady the king's companion, as of the king himself: and to violate, or defile, the queen consort, amounts to the same high crime; as well in the person committing the fact, as in the queen herself, if consenting. A law of Henry the eighth[z] made it treason also for any woman, who was not a virgin, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... fleshy pride! We will promote an universal Christian education—we will teach charity by examples, and live unto all men by a personal abstinence from the bickerings and malice of civil life. We will not defile the sacred lawn with the mud of turnpike acts—we will no longer sweat in the House of Lords, but labour only in the House ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... We were in the defile of Despenaperros, the most terrific and, at the same time, the noblest gorge of Spain; and I should have known it from stories told by my father, who had once fought with bandoleros upon this very road. Down into the river that tossed up white plumes of ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... knew nothing about this narrow defile through which the party traveled. But he agreed that they were breaking through the wall of the glacier on the right side. Aleukan, the big native settlement, was in ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... reveals the author's mechanism, not his mind. But old manuscripts are in a different case; their age has increased their charm, mellowed and confirmed their graces, whether they be canonical books, which "defile the hand" in the Rabbinical sense, or Genizah-grimed fragments, which soil the fingers more literally. And when the dust of ages is removed, these old-world relics renew their youth, and stand forth as witnesses to Israel's unshakable ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... scrupling to defile Bulika with my presence, I took advantage of the shelter, poor ...
— Lilith • George MacDonald
... wars which defile the page of history, we find that soldiers, utterly reckless of the works of God, will destroy his masterpiece, man, with unsparing brutality, but linger with respect round the beautiful works of art. They will slaughter women and children, but spare a picture; will hew down the sick, the helpless, ...
— Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds • Charles Mackay
... days, and was mad with thirst, so much salt had it eaten. When she was mounted, the cavaliers went first, making their horses caracole, and thus did all the company pass through the town into the country, and on till they came to a defile through which the great river Rhone rushes with marvellous swiftness. And when the mule which had drank nothing for eight days saw the river, it sought neither bridge nor ford, but made one leap into ...
— One Hundred Merrie And Delightsome Stories - Les Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles • Various
... the sovereigns placed themselves under a tree, in front of the palace of the Thuilleries, within a few yards of the spot where Louis XVI. and many other victims of the revolution had perished; and they saw the last man of their armies defile past the town, and proceed to take a position beyond it, ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison |
