"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... forgive the sparrow his other crimes, if he would only lie abed in the morning; if he would occasionally listen, and not forever break the peace of the opening day with his vulgar brawling. But the subject of English sparrows is maddening to a lover of native birds; let us not defile the magic hour by ...
— A Bird-Lover in the West • Olive Thorne Miller
... 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 ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... things were self-inflicted. Germany symbolised the culmination of materialism, "the triumph of the Bull." To Germany had been attracted all those entities, converging through the ages, whose progress had been retarded by abandonment to materialism. "Caligula and Nero defile the earth to-day, and others even mightier in evil. A Messalina and a Poppae do not survive individually, for such as these are not human in the strictest sense, in that they lack what is called a soul which is a property common to humanity. ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer
... insurrection was 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 army to ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... these disguises. Do thou, therefore, O Vipula, protect this slender-waisted spouse of mine with great care. O foremost one of Bhrigu's race, do thou take every care for seeing that the chief of the celestials may not defile this spouse of mine like a wretched dog licking the Havi kept in view of a sacrifice. Having said these words, the highly-blessed Muni, viz., Devasarman, intend upon performing a sacrifice, set out from his abode, O chief of the Bharatas. Hearing these words of his ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... 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
... and near, the profusion of its fruit showing the natural richness of the soil. This part of the road is sometimes infested with robbers, and once, when I saw two individuals waiting for us in a lonely defile, with gun-barrels thrust out from under their black cloaks, I anticipated a recurrence of a former unpleasant experience. But they proved to be members of the guardia civil, and ...
— The Lands of the Saracen - Pictures of Palestine, Asia Minor, Sicily, and Spain • Bayard Taylor
... meantime Tell had concealed himself in a defile in the mountain through which Gessler would have to pass on his way to Kussnacht. There he lay in wait for his persecutor who followed ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... passage of his foe across the grass. The odd smile with which Diane went out! The dull silence in which George came home! The manufactured conversation! The forced gayety! The startling pause! The effort to begin again, and keep the tone to one of common intercourse! The long defile of guests! The strangers who came, grew intimate, and disappeared! The glances that followed Diane when she crossed a room! The shrug, the whisper, the suggestive grimace, at the mention of her name! All these were as an alphabet ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... wilt defile these tubs with the linen of bandoleros? Hast thou had thy silly head turned with a kiss? Not one shirt shall ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... to give the question: "Doth original sin wholly defile you, and is it sufficient to send you to hell, though you ...
— John Ward, Preacher • Margaret Deland
... the teetotal lecturer on the road there say that a glass of brandy defiled a man; and I am sure a quart or two of it would cause a man to sin, and thus defile him. And as the apple in the garden defiled Eve, not by its nature, but by reason of the prohibition of God, so the meat on Friday does not defile of itself, but by reason of the prohibition of ...
— The Cross and the Shamrock • Hugh Quigley
... is no time for marrying and giving in marriage, when the unclean swine is sacrificed on God's altar, and the shadow of the idol darkens the Temple, and the sons of Abraham are given but the alternative to defile themselves or to die. The day of vengeance is at hand! may all the enemies of Judah perish as that poor ...
— Hebrew Heroes - A Tale Founded on Jewish History • AKA A.L.O.E. A.L.O.E., Charlotte Maria Tucker
... exulting song Sound their great names from year to year; Ye, who invoke the chisel's breathing grace, In marble majesty their forms to trace; Ye, who the sleeping rocks would raise, To guard their dust and speak their praise; Ye, who, should some other band With hostile foot defile the land, Feel that ye like them would wake, Like them the yoke of bondage break, Nor leave a battle-blade undrawn, Though every hill a sepulchre should yawn— Say, have not ye one line for those, One ...
— An Ode Pronounced Before the Inhabitants of Boston, September the Seventeenth, 1830, • Charles Sprague
... happened that a carrier who lodged at the inn came into the yard to water his mules, and this he could not do while the armor lay in the horse-trough. As Don Quixote saw the man come up, "Take heed, rash Knight," he cried. "Defile not by a touch the armor of the most brave knight-errant that ever wore ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 3 (of 12) - Classic Tales And Old-Fashioned Stories • Various
... remarked to me, "and blessed be His Prophet, who forbade us faithful, even though we hunger, to defile ourselves with the flesh of creatures whose blood did not flow from the knife ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... had to pass through a gorge in which for a considerable distance the turnpike extends towards Winchester. Sheridan's plan at first was to bring his army, except Merritt's and Averell's Divisions of Torbert's Cavalry, through the defile, post the Sixth Corps on the left, the Nineteenth on the right, throw Crook's Army of West Virginia across the Staunton turnpike (leading southwest from Winchester), and so cut off all retreat up the valley. Meanwhile those two cavalry divisions were to make a long detour ...
— Lights and Shadows in Confederate Prisons - A Personal Experience, 1864-5 • Homer B. Sprague
... night we entered the famous pass of Dunghye. The road bears the appearance of a deep sandy ravine; the banks are rocky and woody, and in many places quite overhung by the forest-trees. We had accomplished about half the defile, when I was suddenly and rudely awakened from a dozing sleep by the shock of my palankeen coming to the ground, and by the most discordant shouts and screams. I jumped out to ascertain the cause of the uproar, and found, on inquiry, that ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... sea also came idle rumors, as false reports steal into history and defile fair fames. Was it longer ago than yesterday that I walked with my cousin, then recently a widow, and talked with her of the countries to which she meant to sail? She was young, and dark-eyed, and wore great hoops of gold, barbaric gold, in her ears. The hope of Italy, the ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... the enemy were seen retreating before a small detachment of the 92nd Highlanders and 3rd Sikhs, which had been sent out from Karatiga, and which was, with excellent judgment and boldness, led up a steep spur commanding the defile. The energy and skill with which this party was handled reflected the highest credit on Colour-Sergeant Hector Macdonald, 92nd Highlanders, and Jemander Shere Mahomed, 3rd Sikhs. But for their excellent services on this occasion, it might probably have been impossible to carry out ...
— Khartoum Campaign, 1898 - or the Re-Conquest of the Soudan • Bennet Burleigh
... lips defile Heaven? O my love, in sight of her and thee I marvel how the sun should look on me And spare to turn his beams ...
— Locrine - A Tragedy • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the country beyond which Alexander could not pass when he wished to penetrate to the region of the Ponent, because that the defile was so narrow and perilous, the sea lying on the one hand, and on the other lofty mountains impassable to horsemen. The strait extends like this for four leagues, and a handful of people might hold it against all the world. Alexander caused a very strong tower to ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... British officer, he had fought for the Empire. As Roy Sinclair—son of Lilamani—he had fought for the sanctities of Home and Beauty—intrinsic beauty of mind and body and soul—against hideousness and licence and the unclean spirit that could defile the very sanctuaries ...
— Far to Seek - A Romance of England and India • Maud Diver
... 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 contemptible ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... to some arrangement; but the attorney was so enraged at the conduct of the father, that instead of listening to the son, he began abusing the whole family, and, as you have heard, applied the most shameful epithet to the sister with which the tongue of a man can defile the name of a woman. He afterwards struck the prisoner, who was unarmed, heavily with his stick; and I have no hesitation in telling you, that that quarrel, in which no blame appears to have been attributable to the young man, placed ...
— The Macdermots of Ballycloran • Anthony Trollope
... of necessity, sometimes merely as a matter of tactical prudence. At Nachod (June 27, 1866) the Prussian Advanced Guard hurriedly established a defensive position and kept at bay the whole Austrian Army, while the Prussian Army emerged in security from a defile and manoeuvred into battle array. The Pass of Thermopylae was occupied in B.C. 480 by 1,400 Greeks under Leonidas, King of Sparta, to withstand the Persian hosts of Xerxes, and although the Greek force was destroyed by an attack from the rear (through the disclosure of a secret ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... towered above this protection were in a trice shorn of their tops, as though a gigantic scythe had swept across them. The storm was now at its height. The lightning filled the defile, and the thunderclaps had become one continued peal. The ground, struck by the concussion, trembled as though the whole Ural chain was ...
— Michael Strogoff - or, The Courier of the Czar • Jules Verne
... contact with the air does not putrefy. In other respects Bees are very careful about the cleanliness of their dwellings; they remove with care and throw outside dust, mud, and sawdust which may be found there. Bees are careful also not to defile their hives with excrement, as Kirby noted; they go aside to expel their excretions, and in winter, when prevented by extreme cold or the closing of the hive from going out for this purpose, their bodies become so swollen ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... we again entered a narrow defile and here with difficulty the vessels were forced along against a strong current; and over the pebbly bottom, against which they were constantly striking. At Nan-gan-foo, where we arrived in the evening, the river ceases to be navigable. Indeed the whole of the three last ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... and books and names and lands Disgust my reason and defile my hands. I had as lief respect an ancient shoe, As love old things for age, and hate the new. I spurn the Past, my mind disdains its nod, Nor kneels in homage to so mean a God. I laugh at those who, while they gape and gaze, The bald ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... became. If a morsel of bread was left uneaten on the table, if an unexpected dish was served up at table, if she put a piece of ribbon into her hair, he used to heap violent, spiteful reproaches on her, torrents of rage which defile the mouth, and violent threats like those of a madman, who is tormented by some fixed idea. Monsieur d'Etchegorry had dismissed the servant and engaged a char-woman, whom he intended to pay, merely by small sums on account, and he used to ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... never, while memory holds her seat, shall I forget the sight which presented itself. Six distinct St. Pauls lifted themselves through the cloudless morning air (so pure, that the smoke of a single cigar would defile it: I extinguished mine in awe) towards the blue transparent sky; nearer, and beneath this stately city of temples, were four Waterloo Bridges, piling their long arcades in graceful and harmonious regularity one above the other, with the chaste and lofty symmetry of a mighty aqueduct; while ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... anything before Him?— could we bear 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 ...
— The White Lady of Hazelwood - A Tale of the Fourteenth Century • Emily Sarah Holt
... settlers 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 ...
— Sketches From Memory (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... eat blackberries? A question not to be ask'd. Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? a question not to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch: this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest: for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also:—and yet there is a virtuous man, whom I have often noted in thy company, but I ...
— Characters of Shakespeare's Plays • William Hazlitt
... below, and the same is the case above the Bayou Pierre. To land an army at such a place, when its only means of marching upon the country was through this narrow cut, of about one hundred feet in width, with high, precipitous sides, forming a complete defile for half a mile, and where five thousand men could have made its defence good against fifty thousand, is certainly as little evidence of military genius as was the permission of them to pass through it without an effort ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... a feature in the romantic German landscape, as in the romantic German tale. It is not only a mill, but likewise an ale-house and rural inn; so that the associations it suggests are not of labor only, but also of pleasure. It stands in the narrow defile, with its picturesque, thatched roof; thither throng thepeasants, of a holiday; and there are rustic ...
— Hyperion • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... And if you wish, if this be your will, punish me, but spare my son. Spare him, I beg you. Not for mercy, not for pity do I pray you. I pray for justice. You are old, and I am old too. You will understand more easily than I. Bad people wanted to kill him, people who insult you by their deeds and defile your earth—bad, heartless people, who throw stones from behind corners. From behind corners, the scoundrels! Do not then, I pray you, permit the fulfilment of this evil deed. Stay the blood, give back the life—give back the life to my noble ...
— Savva and The Life of Man • Leonid Andreyev
... to himself, "a handful of resolute men may defend any defile in these mountains against such a small force as this is, providing that their bravery is equal to ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... into the regions of speculation, some have thought that, if sin defile any of these worlds, its inhabitants may share in the benefits of the atonement which Christ offered in ours; and that beings further removed than we from the scenes of Calvary, and differing more ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... startled at his own saying, and rode silent till they crossed the drawbridge of St. Bertin, and entered that ancient fortress, so strong that it was the hiding-place in war time for all the treasures of the country, and so sacred withal that no woman, dead or alive, was allowed to defile it by her presence; so that the wife of Baldwin the Bold, ancestor of Arnulf, wishing to lie by her husband, had to remove his corpse from St. Bertin to the Abbey of Blandigni, where the Counts of Flanders lay in glory for many ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... restrain those senses and those passions with which we have been endowed, that we may fully enjoy the beauty, the variety, the inexhaustible bounty of a gracious heaven. All was made for enjoyment and for happiness; but it is we ourselves who, by excess, defile that which otherwise were pure. Thus, the fainting traveller may drink wholesome and refreshing draughts from the bounteous, overflowing spring; but should he rush heedlessly into it, he muddies the source, and the waters ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... chance of his missing the opportunity of presenting himself to Miss Mowbray at all. He was himself sensible of this, formed a hasty and desperate resolution not to suffer the present moment to escape, and, just as the ascent induced the pony to slacken its pace, Tyrrel stood in the middle of the defile, about six yards ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... point, which gave out a tinkling sound as I picked it up. I let it fall again as though it had scorched me, the memory of what stood between Madonna Paola and me rising like a warning spectre in my mind. I would not again defile myself by the garb of folly; not again would I incur the shame of playing the Fool for the amusement ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... youth, "purposed in his heart not to defile himself with the King's meat or the wine which he drank," or be swerved from his fidelity to the living and true God by threats of the lion's den. When the lives of the wise men of Babylon were in danger of being suddenly taken by ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... "The world, the flesh, with their infection vile Pollute the thoughts impure, thy spirit stain; Not Po, not Ganges, not seven-mouthed Nile, Not the wide seas, can wash thee clean again, Only to purge all faults which thee defile His blood hath power who for thy sins was slain: His help therefore invoke, to him bewray Thy secret faults, ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... mouth of a river, outlet of a wood, defile, or narrow pass. In military language, troops ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... retreat gradually; with his face always to the enemy, sending the men down; and having our drums and trumpets sounded, until we reached the house which Adjutant Don Martin had fortified. When all were there, we saw on one side a great number of Moros coming down a defile to prevent our retreat to the camp. A few cannon-shots were fired at them, and they quickly hurried back to the hill. His Lordship wished to halt here and await the attack by Nicolas Gonalez, but ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 (Vol 27 of 55) • Various
... was gone; that he and the other trappers would be compelled to seek some other employment. In company with five men of a decidedly higher order than the common run of trappers, he struck for the head waters of Arkansas river. Following this stream down along the immense defile which nature seems to have opened for it through the Rocky mountains, they approached Fort Bent, which is about one hundred and fifty miles east of that ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... some forty yards behind, he saw the light of hope. Not far ahead, the water looked black and still, as it glided through a narrow defile, shut in by the rocks. That meant deep water; but if he could reach that, he would have to swim, and the men probably ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... them. And now, in the perfect mercy of God, there is no man but may dwell in the house of God alway and feel life's sacredness amidst a thousand desecrations, and know its preciousness amidst all that seeks to obscure, defile, and ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... the tiger. I naturally wished to join in the chase, but Van Deck entreated me to stop, telling me that I should very likely, if I went, be picked off by another tiger on my return. As it would have been folly to disregard his advice, we pushed on as fast as we could to get out of the narrow defile. We could for several minutes hear the shouts of the natives still in pursuit of the tiger. After some time they rejoined us, but they had not saved the poor man, and had, moreover, lost another of their number, who had been carried off ...
— James Braithwaite, the Supercargo - The Story of his Adventures Ashore and Afloat • W.H.G. Kingston
... gone up the valley for several miles, when suddenly the Indian turned aside down a dark and narrow defile, ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... the forest, they left the main body behind, and soon reached the end of the defile. The woods were still dense on their left and front; but on their right lay a great marsh, covered with alder thickets and rank grass. Suddenly the air was filled with yells, and a rapid though distant fire was opened from the thickets and the forest. Scores of painted savages, stark naked, some ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... here, the Philistines came on a foraging expedition as far as Bethlehem, and with so large a force that David and his few followers were shut up in their fortress—for how long we do not know—probably for some days. It was very dull and wearisome business, imprisoned in a rocky defile and unable to do anything, while the Philistines were stealing the harvests that grew on the very spot where ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... road led through a defile, called Hormut Em-halla (the pass of the army); then passing a range of table-mountains, running north-east and south-west, called Elood, it crossed a stony and very uneven plain, encircled with mountains, to the pass of Hormut Tazzet. Having cleared ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... contrast to the scenery opposite—grass-grown elevations rise one above another in blooming terraces. Hemmed in by these stupendous barriers, the valley would be altogether shut out from the rest of the world, were it not that it is accessible from the sea at one end, and by a narrow defile ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... G.K. Gilbert, whose intimate study of its recesses has become a geological classic, declared it "the most wonderful defile" that it had been even ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard
... formidable. 'The stream of the Bolan river was tainted by the bodies of the camels that had sunk beneath their loads. The Beloochee freebooters were hovering about, cutting off our couriers, murdering stragglers, carrying off our baggage and our cattle. Among the rocks of this stupendous defile, our men pitched their tents, and toiled on again day after day, over a wretched road, covered with loose flint-stones, surmounting, at first by a scarcely perceptible ascent, and afterwards by a difficult acclivity, the great Brahoo chain of hills. The Bolan Pass is nearly sixty ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... attempt to enter Cilicia; but the sole entrance was a road broad enough only for a single carriage, very steep, and impracticable for an army to pass, if any one opposed them. Syennesis, besides, was said to be stationed on the heights, guarding the defile; on which account Cyrus halted for a day in the plain. The next day, a messenger came to inform him that Syennesis had quitted the heights, on receiving information that Menon's army was already in Cilicia within the mountains, and hearing that Tamos had a number of galleys, belonging to ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why; and I clasped the hand of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair from off my brow, kissed my throbbing temples, ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... "hog" are still highly popular terms of abuse. The Rabbis will not defile their lips with "pig;" but say "Dabhar ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... not till the seventh of July that they neared the mouth of Turtle Creek, a stream entering the Monongahela about eight miles from the French fort. The way was direct and short, but would lead them through a difficult country and a defile so perilous that Braddock resolved to ford the Monongahela to avoid this danger, and then ford it again ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... up by the river ran his lands; And here, within a green-roofed kirk of woods, The slave found that seclusion he desired. His only treasure was a Testament Hid in the friendly opening of a tree. Often the book was kept within his cot, At times lay next his heart, nor did its beat Defile the fruity knowledge on the leaves. The words were sweet as wine of Eshcol grapes To his parched lips. He saw the past arise. Vague were the people, and the pageant moved, Uncertain as the figures in ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... our serious destination. It was Brunow who suggested this lingering method of approach, and it was he also who gave a semblance of nature to our proceedings by pausing here and there to set up his camp-stool and easel in some picturesque defile, or in the streets of some quaint village. Twice this innocent blind brought us into collision with the military police, who were in a condition of perpetual disquiet, and suspected everybody. Our papers, however, were in perfect order, and Brunow in particular ...
— In Direst Peril • David Christie Murray
... Bridge, one beheld staggering changes. The mountainous motor bus put on speed and scampered past the churches left like rocky islets in the midst of a swift river of traffic. Once past Temple Bar and in the narrow defile of Fleet Street the author's thoughts darted up Fetter Lane and hovered around a grimy building where he had pursued his studies with the relentless fanaticism of youthful ambition. There, under the lamp-post ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... threatened to cudgel him, and he to kick Brissac. The President, fearing these words would end in blows, got between us. The First President conjured the Prince pathetically, by the blood of Saint Louis, not to defile with blood that temple which he had given for the preservation of peace and the protection of justice; and exhorted me, by my sacred character, not to contribute to the massacre of the people whom God had committed to my charge. Both the Prince and I sent out two gentlemen to order ...
— The Memoirs of Cardinal de Retz, Complete • Jean Francois Paul de Gondi, Cardinal de Retz
... Their ears would retain the sound of his voice, and the familiar furniture would provoke remembrances of him. Ashamed of their weakness, their eyes would seek the chair he used to sit in: it is away in a far corner, lest a casual visitor should draw it forward and defile it with his presence—a thing that happened once (the unhappy twain remember how they lacked moral courage to beg him to choose another chair). The table, laid for two, was too painful to behold, and they never enjoyed a meal, hardly could they ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... defile about forty feet in breadth, with perpendicular granite rocks on both sides. The ground is covered with sand and pebbles, brought down by the torrent which rushes from the upper region in the winter time. In a broader part of the pass an insulated rock, about five feet high, ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... broke cold and gray. The choking sand was left behind, and we approached a narrow valley shut in by two gigantic ranges of hills. Here a voice hailed us from the rocks, the guide answered the challenge, and the whole party passed through the defile to the valley beyond. ...
— At the Point of the Sword • Herbert Hayens
... and asked him, "Whither ride you so hastily?" "Little dandyprat," replied the Prince, "what do you want to know for?" and he rode off without looking round. The Dwarf, however, enchanted him, and it happened to him as it had to his Brother: he came to a defile where he could move neither forward nor backward. Such is the fate of all ...
— Grimm's Fairy Stories • Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm
... above all as he looked down that 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 ...
— Dawn of All • Robert Hugh Benson
... the woods, we emerge into a cleared field that stretches up from the valley 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 ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... darkness visible. The two men passed rapidly along the little footpath that led from the colony to the more open country beyond. This gained, they turned abruptly to the right, and, entering a narrow defile, proceeded at a more cautious pace into the gloomy recesses ...
— The Golden Dream - Adventures in the Far West • R.M. Ballantyne
... bicycle and he asked me if I could furnish 'im with particulars about the mutiny in the Army. You false-'earted proletarian publicist," he says, shakin' his finger at 'im—for he was reelly annoyed—"I'll teach you to defile what you can't comprebend! When my regiment's in a state o' mutiny, I'll do myself the honour of informing you personally. You particularly ignorant and very narsty little man," he says, "you're no better than a dhobi's ...
— A Diversity of Creatures • Rudyard Kipling
... of the myths relating to him have already been told, and there remain but two episodes of his life to relate, one showing his better side before he had degenerated into the arch deceiver, and the other illustrating how he finally induced the gods to defile their peace-steads ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... the lights moving on the top of the hills he commenced his march. The African infantry led the way; they were followed by the cavalry; then came the baggage and booty, and the rear was covered by the Spaniards and Gauls. The defile was found deserted by its defenders, and the army marched through unopposed. Meanwhile Fabius with his main army had remained inactive. The Roman general had seen with astonishment the numerous lights making their way up the mountain side, but he feared that this was some device on the part ...
— The Young Carthaginian - A Story of The Times of Hannibal • G.A. Henty
... the spot out of breath, saw nobody, then returned in order to gain the fields through a defile, which Bouvard, no ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... voice of joy prevail, And echo wide from hill to vale; Ye warlike clans, arise and hail Your laurell'd chiefs returning. O'er every mountain, every isle, Let peace in all her lustre smile, And discord ne'er her day defile With sullen ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel , Volume I. - The Songs of Scotland of the past half century • Various
... wide, But still Thou mak'st them up. Sometimes they use alluring wiles To draw into their power; And sometimes weep like crocodiles; But all is to devour. Thus they beset my feeble heart With fraud, deceit, and guile, Alluring her from Thee to start, And Thy pure rest defile. But, oh! the breathing and the moan, The sighings of the seed, The groanings of the grieved one, Do sorrows in me breed. And that immortal, holy birth, The offspring of Thy breath (To whom Thy love brings life and mirth, As doth thy absence, death); ...
— The History of Thomas Ellwood Written by Himself • Thomas Ellwood
... said. "Ned, you were a most timely herald. If it had not been for you our surprise would have been total. Look how they defile upon the plain." ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... more practicable opening. This at length was found; and as the valley was much broader, and the sand slanted more gradually on either side, there appeared a fair prospect of our being able to pass through. The whole caravan then entered the defile between the sand-hills; but we were fully three hours travelling between those prodigious masses of sand. Sand was below our feet, sand in front and behind, sand on each side. A sudden blast would inevitably cover us with it for many feet. It was nervous ...
— Saved from the Sea - The Loss of the Viper, and her Crew's Saharan Adventures • W.H.G. Kingston
... from the discharge of musketry, on whose wing, at every round, he dreaded might be carried the fate of his grandfather. At last the firing ceased, and the troops were commanded to go forward. On approaching near the contested defile, Thaddeus shuddered, for at every step the heels of his charger struck upon the wounded or the dead. There lay his enemies, here lay his friends! His respiration was nearly suspended, and his eyes clung to the ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... detained the vessel in Eden Harbor till a late hour in the morning, but the afternoon was favorable for the passage through the English Narrows, the most contracted part of Smythe's Channel. It is, indeed, a mere mountain defile, through which the water rushes with such force that, in navigating it, great care was required to keep the vessel off the rocks. Her anchorage at the close of the day was in Connor's Cove, a miniature harbor not unlike Borja Bay in the Strait. It was a tranquil retreat. The water-birds ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... are weapons in these contests Keener than the Damask blade, There are metals of such temper As no crucible e'er made; For the dross must be extracted In the furnace of the soul Till no refuse or pollution Shall defile the perfect whole. ...
— Our Profession and Other Poems • Jared Barhite
... the confederates must either have fought at a very great disadvantage, or surrendered themselves prisoners of war, had not the duke de Gramont, who commanded the enemy, been instigated by the spirit of madness to forego these advantages. He passed the defile, and advancing towards the allies, a battle ensued. The French horse charged with great impetuosity, and some regiments of British cavalry were put in disorder; but the infantry of the allies behaved with such intrepidity and deliberation, tinder the eye of their sovereign, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... at the precise spot where we had met on my outward journey, but I did not pause there, pushing some twenty miles into the defile where we had seen the man-monkeys before we outspanned for the night. Two days later we passed the grave of the unhappy Siluce, and I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing that, thus far, it had not been disturbed ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... time), to speak of precisely those matters of which I wished to hear. It was not treasonable talk, for the ale had not driven all the sense out of him; but it was as near treasonable as might be; and it was above all against the Catholics that he raged. I would not defile this page by writing down all that he said; but neither Her Majesty nor the Duke of York escaped his venom; there appeared nothing too bad to be said of them; and he spoke of other names, too, of the Duchess of Portsmouth whom he called ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... Of God! For Spain or vengeance!' And forthwith On either side along the whole defile, The Asturians shouting: 'In the name of God!' Set the whole ruin loose: huge trunks, and stones, And loosened crags, down, down they rolled with rush And ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... carry out the sentence. The necessity of appeal to it was a bitter pill, but it had to be swallowed, for the right of capital punishment had been withdrawn. A 'religious' scruple, too, stood in the way—very characteristic of such formalists. Killing an innocent man would not in the least defile them, or unfit for eating the passover, but to go into a house that had not been purged of 'leaven,' and was further unclean as the residence of a Gentile, though he was the governor, that would stain their consciences—a singular scale of magnitude, which saw no sin in condemning ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... man was engaged to her daughter, and wrote to him more than once declaring that it was so. She wrote, indeed, very often, sometimes abusing him for his perfidy, and then, again, imploring him to return to them, and not to defile the true old English blood of the Caldigates with the suds of a washerwoman and the swept-up refuse of a porter's shovel. She became quite eloquent in her denunciation, but always saying that if he would only come back to ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... and so we would quietly allow our February plannings to lapse. One man Tawabinisay had honoured. But this man, named Clement, a banker from Peoria, had proved unworthy. Tawabinisay told how he caught trout, many, many trout, and piled them on the shores of Kawagama to defile the air. Subsequently this same "sportsman" buried another big catch on the beach of Superior. These and other exploits finally earned him his exclusion from the delectable land. I give his name because I have personally ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and the black coffin. Terror of the people in the street sat down before his mind like a besieging army. It was impossible, he thought, but that some rumor of the ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... school place their poets in a strange position. On the one hand they cry incessantly: "Copy the models!" On the other hand they have a habit of declaring that "the models are inimitable"! Now, if their craftsman, by dint of hard work, succeeds in forcing through this dangerous defile some colourless tracing of the masters, these ungrateful wretches, after examining the new refaccimiento, exclaim sometimes: "This doesn't resemble anything!" and sometimes: "This resembles everything!" And by virtue of a ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... added. "I know that Boston Harbor water was far from being clean enough for bathing in your day, but all that is changed. Your sewerage systems, remember, are forgotten abominations, and nothing that can defile is allowed to reach sea or river nowadays. For that reason we can and do use sea water, not only for all the public baths, but provide it as a distinct service for our home baths and also for all the public fountains, ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... which a man may clothe himself—the most elevating feeling with which the mind can be inspired. One of Pythagoras' wisest maxims, in his "Golden Verses," is that with which he enjoins the pupil to "reverence himself." Borne up by this high idea, he will not defile his body by sensuality, nor his mind by servile thoughts. This sentiment, carried into daily life, will be found at the root of all the virtues—cleanliness, sobriety, chastity, morality, and religion. "The pious and just honoring of ourselves," said Milton, ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... a little, which affected them some, but we gave them some fat bacon, which is said to be good for them. Great sign of buffalo here; also saw one today galloping away through a gap[69] in the mountains. [June 23—71st day] To day we passed through a narrow defile in the mountains, where we were compeled to ford the river 3 times,[70] in less than 2 miles, we had to block up our waggon bed several inches; it is a very bad place, there is a way to go around, but I am told that it is about 10 ms. & very sandy. There ...
— Across the Plains to California in 1852 - Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell • Lodisa Frizell
... swung too wide, men said there must be another attracting world beyond; and, looking there, Neptune was found. So, when individual men are so strong that nations or armies cannot break down their wills; so brave, that lions have no terrors; so holy, that temptation cannot lure nor sin defile them; so grand in thought, that men cannot follow; so pure in walk, that God walks with them—let us infer an attracting world, high and pure and strong as heaven. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... bedroom, and the game was now to be played beyond my ken. This was more than I could stand, so I stole out at the back door and took to the thickest bush on the hillside. My notion was to cross the road half a mile down, when it had dropped into the defile of the stream, and then to come swiftly up the edge of the water so as to effect a back ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... at our right the mountains of Jaen, we passed through Andujar and Bailen, and on the third day reached Carolina, a small but beautiful town on the skirts of the Sierra Morena, inhabited by the descendants of German colonists. Two leagues from this place, we entered the defile of Despena Perros, which, even in quiet times, has an evil name, on account of the robberies which are continually being perpetrated within its recesses, but at the period of which I am speaking, it was said to be swarming with banditti. We of course expected to be robbed, ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... do their impure deeds when they have shut the doors. If then everything else is common to all that I have mentioned, there remains that which is peculiar to the good man, to be pleased and content with what happens, and with the thread which is spun for him; and not to defile the divinity which is planted in his breast, nor disturb it by a crowd of images, but to preserve it tranquil, following it obediently as a god, neither saying anything contrary to the truth, nor doing anything contrary to justice. And if all men refuse to believe that he lives a simple, ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... dipping towards growing regions still beyond. A zigzag road, half overgrown with blueberry bushes, here turned among the cliffs. A rent was in their ragged sides; through it a little track branched off, which, upwards threading that short defile, came breezily out above, to where the mountain-top, part sheltered northward, by a taller brother, sloped gently off a space, ere darkly plunging; and here, among fantastic rocks, reposing in a herd, the foot-track wound, half beaten, ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... the battle at Dettingen: notwithstanding the fatigue we had undergone, our regiment was one of those that were ordered next day to cross the river, under the command of the Duc de Grammont, to take possession of a narrow defile, through which the allies must of necessity have passed at a great disadvantage, or remain where they were, and perish for want of provision, if they would not condescend to surrender at discretion. How they suffered themselves to be pent up in this manner it is not my ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett
... 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
... those so often noticed on Alpine glaciers, only that these tremendous cracks in the surface are produced by the shrinkage of the crust consequent on cooling. Can we point out some analogies to this on the Earth? Certainly. The defile of the Jordan, terminating in the awful depression of the Dead Sea, no doubt occurs to you on the moment. But the Yosemite Valley, as I saw it ten years ago, is an apter comparison. There I stood on the brink of a tremendous chasm with perpendicular walls, a mile ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne
... my own daughter dear?' 'O mother dear, 'twas a lord so proud, A lord so rich of gentile blood, That on a mettled stallion rode— 'Twas he gave me this heavy load.' 'Thou harlot young, thou harlot vile, Begone! my tent no more defile; Had gypsy seed within thee sprung, No angry word had left my tongue, But thou art a harlot base and lewd, To stain ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... succeeded in winning Joseph's love, she pretended that it was anger at the immoral conduct of the slave. She accused him in the following words: "O husband, mayest thou not live a day longer, if thou dost not punish the wicked slave that hath desired to defile thy bed, that hath not kept in mind who he was when he came to our house, to demean himself with modesty, nor hath he been mindful of the favors he hath received from thy bounty. He did lay a privy design to abuse thy wife, and this at the time of observing a festival, when thou wouldst be absent."[132] ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... 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
... indelible records on the memory, that awful and mysterious power of recalling past things out of the oblivion in which they seem to lie. How solemn and miserable it is to defile it with the pictures of things evil! Many a man in his later years has tried to 'turn over a new leaf,' and has never been able to get the filth out of his memory, for it has been printed on the old page in such strong colours that it shines through. I beseech you all, and especially ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Isaiah and Jeremiah • Alexander Maclaren
... most native-born Canadians, is the result of the same very reasonable mode of arguing. The unpeopled wastes of Canada must present the same aspect to the new settler that the world did to our first parents after their expulsion from the Garden of Eden; all the sin which could defile the spot, or haunt it with the association of departed evil, is concentrated in their own persons. Bad spirits cannot be supposed to linger near a place where crime has never been committed. The belief in ghosts, so prevalent in old countries, must first have ...
— Roughing it in the Bush • Susanna Moodie
... terminus of a military railway which meets the Hungarian state line at Jasenovac, 30 m. N.N.W. Banjaluka is the seat of Roman Catholic and Orthodox bishops, a district court, and an Austrian garrison. It is at the head of a narrow defile, shut in by steep hills on the east and west but expanding on the north to meet the valley of the Save. A small stream called the Crkvina enters the Vrbas from the north-east and in the angle thus formed stand the citadel and barracks, with the 16th-century Ferhadiya ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 2 - "Baconthorpe" to "Bankruptcy" • Various
... grander every moment; the brook was working its way deeper below the level of the road, while here and there in this sombre defile a splash of yellow aspen gleamed like living gold on the face of the precipice. The wild and beautiful gorge interested him in spite of himself; it disengaged his thoughts alike from his personal grievance, and from his dissatisfied ...
— Peak and Prairie - From a Colorado Sketch-book • Anna Fuller
... village, are various peculiar rock formations, known by such names as the Salt-cellar. Ashopton, another village lower down the dale, is a favourite centre, and here the main valley is joined by Ashop Dale, a bold defile in its upper part, penetrating the heart of ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... cold, the most miserable modes of death." Those who were experienced in the events which had occurred in Spain, added, that "he would not have to engage with Caius Nero, the general, as an unknown person, whom, when accidentally caught in a difficult defile, he had eluded and baffled like a little child, by drawing up fallacious terms of peace." Under the dictation of fear, which always puts the worst construction upon things, they magnified all the advantages which the enemy possessed, and undervalued ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... are rain-clouds, which will certainly close over the clear sky, and bring on rain before midnight: but there is no power in them to pollute the sky beyond and above them: they do not darken the air, nor defile it, nor in any way mingle with it; their edges are burnished by the sun like the edges of golden shields, and their advancing march is as deliberate and majestic as the fading of the twilight itself into a darkness ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... down, man, and put your fists in your pockets; you haven't the pluck to strike me. I wish you had"—his eyes flashed ominously—"for I might be tempted to give you the thrashing you deserve and I'm longing to give you. And yet—no, I shouldn't; for I wouldn't defile my hands ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... Perhaps a star twinkles over it, and you muse on soft eyes far away; while below at the threshold—No, phantoms! we see you not from our attic. Note, yonder, that precipitous fall,—how ragged and jagged the roof-scene descends in a gorge! He who would travel on foot through the pass of that defile, of which we see but the picturesque summits, stops his nose, averts his eyes, guards his pockets, and hurries along through the squalor of the grim London lazzaroni. But seen above, what a noble break in the sky-line! It would be sacrilege to exchange that fine gorge for a dead flat of dull ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Constantius, sons to Constantine the Great, treading in the steps of their pious father, adhered to the truth professed by him, and so did as far ennoble the Western Empire with the truth as the other did defile the Eastern with his countenancing of error and heresy.' The preacher here asks his hearers to make no laws against religion and piety, and 'recall such as have been made in time of ignorance against the same, and study to uphold and maintain such profitable and wholesome laws as have been formerly ...
— East Anglia - Personal Recollections and Historical Associations • J. Ewing Ritchie
... seas it is constricted to only 60 miles by a geographical and geological gulf, which penetrates from the steppes of Russia almost to the heart of the system.[1224] This gulf forms the high valley of the Terek River, beyond whose headstream lies the Dariel defile (7503 feet or 2379 meters), which continues the natural depression across to the short southern slope. All the other passes of the Caucasus are 3000 meters or more high, lie above snow line and are therefore open only in summer. The Dariel Pass alone ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... make the body the object of our reverent care. "Your bodies are members of Christ." The body "is for the Lord, and the Lord for the body." "Your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost, which is in you, which ye have of God." "If any man defile the temple of God, him will God destroy." Yield "your members as instruments of righteousness unto God." Sin is not to "reign in your mortal body." "Glorify God in your body." We are to "present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which ...
— Life and Conduct • J. Cameron Lees
... before them were broken and ragged, those coming from the east overlapping the cliffs from the west. Into the defile formed by this overlapping the party filed. I could see them climbing upward for a few minutes, and then they disappeared from view. When the last of them had passed from sight, I rose and bent my steps in the direction of the pass—the ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... the autograph original of a modern work is a literary curiosity, it 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 devotion ...
— The Book of Delight and Other Papers • Israel Abrahams
... still maintains The old Hellenic spirit and some likeness Of the fair Commonwealth which ruled the world. Surely, my father, 'tis a glorious spring Drawn from the heaven-kissed summits whence we come; And shall we, then, defile our noble blood By mixture with this upstart tyranny Which fouls the Hellenic pureness of its source In countless bastard channels? If our State Ask of its children sacrifice, 'tis well. It shall ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... the workshops, and afterwards went into a large court to see the men defile in gangs, and march into their dining hall, in which we afterwards saw them assembled at dinner, and a capital savoury dinner it seemed to be. They have as much bread as they choose to eat, and meat twice a day; ...
— First Impressions of the New World - On Two Travellers from the Old in the Autumn of 1858 • Isabella Strange Trotter
... the performance of the rites of paganism. [305:1] At a subsequent period all provisions sold in the markets, in some parts of the empire, were sprinkled with the water or the wine employed in idolatrous worship, that the Christians might either be compelled to abstinence, or led to defile themselves by the use of polluted ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... strange musical rout of the nations. Stannum saw defile before him Silence, "eldest of all things"; Brahma's consort Saraswati fingered her Vina; and following, Siva and his hideous mate Devi, who is sometimes called Durga; and the brazen heavens turned to a typhoon that showered appalling evils upon mankind. ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... northward route, Tontz's band were struggling wearily on when they were met by a solitary Indian, who, though he carried a long bow, had not an unfriendly aspect. He eyed the little band silently as they passed by him in defile, then ran after them, and inquired if the Pere Francois Xavier, of Mission St. Ignace, was not of their number. He was informed that the reverend father had remained a short distance behind to write in his journal, but that he would soon overtake them; and he was warmly ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... yet cleared a difficult pass close to the khan, running between an abrupt face of the hill and the river, when the advanced guard came back at full speed with the announcement that a body of the enemy's infantry was near at hand. Closely jammed in a narrow defile, between inaccessible cliffs and the precipitous banks of the Jordan, with nothing but cavalry at my disposal, I was placed in rather a disagreeable position. There remained, however, no alternative but to put spurs to our horses, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... Mimoseous tree. There is apparently very little diminution in the volume of water, though several minor streams were passed between this and the Mookh. Liriodendron is becoming more frequent. The views of the mountains are very varied; and that of the Koond defile or Chasm, very beautiful; water- falls seem to be distinctly visible down one hill or mountain, in particular. The finest view however is on the Lohit, opposite Dyaroo Mookh, at which place the three huge, ever snowy peaks, characteristic ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... licentious and predatory habits, and learnt now for the first time to distinguish between right and wrong? Do they understand what it is to commit sacrilege? To intrude into the sanctum sanctorum of the meat-safe? To rifle and defile the half roseate, half lily-white charms of a virgin ham? To touch with unhallowed proboscis the immaculate lip of beauty, the unprotected scalp of old age, the savoury glories of the kitchen? To invade with the most reckless indifference, and the most wanton malice, the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... the shrew-mouse, and devote himself to the salvation of the jaws of his race. This would have been a laudable thing in a man, but it was far more so in a mouse, belonging to a tribe who live for themselves alone, barefacedly and shamelessly, and in order to gratify themselves would defile a consecrated wafer, gnaw a priest's stole without shame, and would drink out of a Communion cup, caring nothing for God. The mouse advanced with many a bow and scrape, and the shrew-mouse let him advance rather near—for, to tell the truth, these animals are naturally ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 2 • Honore de Balzac
... were also highly commended by Mencius. In one place he writes to this effect: "Though you denude yourself and insult me, what is that to me? You cannot defile my soul by your outrage." Elsewhere he teaches that anger at a petty offense is unworthy a superior man, but indignation for a great ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... whisper. Did you ever hear of Jezebel and her fate? Oh, you recall how the dogs worried her bones, do you? So far your evil work has been confined to glittering generalities. To-day you took a new tack. Now you must answer to me. Let it once become known that you tried to defile the innocent, to work harm to one of mine, and you may suffer the fate of the unclean things to which you belong by nature. The mob kills without delicacy. It will tear you as the dogs ...
— The Art of Disappearing • John Talbot Smith
... very estimable man,—but he is not shocked at intemperance, he would not have slavery disturbed, he sees a necessity for war. Does Christ know who and what sort of a woman it is that touches him? Will he defile himself by such a contact? Can he expect to accomplish anything by familiarity with such matters? Why is he not satisfied with ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Flodden ridge The Scots beheld the English host Leave Barmore Wood, their evening post, And heedful watched them as they crossed The Till by Twisel Bridge. High sight it is, and haughty, while They dive into the deep defile; Beneath the caverned cliff they fall, Beneath the castle's airy wall. By rock, by oak, by hawthorn tree, Troop after troop are disappearing; Troop after troop their banners rearing; Upon the eastern bank you see. Still pouring down the rocky den, Where flows the sullen Till, ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... the steep and craggy mountains of the Danube, in its wild outlines and dilapidated castles, the imagination embraces a bolder range. At one time the river is confined within its narrowest limits, and proceeds through a defile of considerable altitude, with overhanging rocks menacing destruction. At another it offers an open, wild archipelago of islands. The mountains have disappeared, and a long plain bounds on each side of the river ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... has ever had. She was killed above two hundred and fifty years ago, about twelve miles from Jubbulpore, while gallantly leading on her troops in their third and last attempt to stem the torrent of Muhammadan invasion. Her tomb is still to be seen where she fell, in a narrow defile between two hills; and a pair of large rounded stones which stand near are, according to popular belief, her royal drums turned into stone, which, in the dead of night, are still heard resounding through the woods, and calling the spirits of her warriors from their thousand graves ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... back among the Russians—I don't remember seeing much of the Servians later on that day—Andreas explained that he had passed himself for the Turkish dragoman of a British correspondent whom the Padishah delighted to honour, and that, after expressing a burning desire to defile the graves of their collective female ancestry, he had assured my captors that they might count themselves as dead men if they did not immediately release me. To his ready-witted conduct I undoubtedly owe the ability to write now this record of a ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... the consequences which this word implies, I only have offered to my thoughts a husband, children, and a home; and I see nothing in all this to defile the imagination, or ...
— The Learned Women • Moliere (Poquelin)
... to distinguish Dougal among the victors. I had little doubt that the part he had played was assumed, on purpose to lead the English officer into the defile, and I could not help admiring the address with which the ignorant, and apparently half-brutal savage, had veiled his purpose, and the affected reluctance with which he had suffered to be extracted ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... 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 ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... as the 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 startled ...
— The Celtic Magazine, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1875 • Various
... threatened him with war and conquest. He farther represented, that on the late occasion, when the general of the Calicut forces was in full march for the relief of Cranganor, the rajah of Tanor had placed 4000 of his nayres in ambush in a defile in their line of march, who had defeated the troops of Calicut, and hod slain 2000 of them. On this account the rajah of Tanor was in great fear of the zamorin, and humbly requested assistance from the admiral, promising in return to become subject ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... warn thee never to defile Beauty with gold? For every wise man knows That riches only mantle with a smile A thousand sorrows and a ...
— The Elegies of Tibullus • Tibullus
... open valley, whence they might emerge at the lower level of the prairie round about. He led the team for a distance down this floor of the coulee, until he could see the better going in the improving light which greeted them as they came out from the gully-like defile. Cursing his ill fortune, and wretched at the thought of the danger and discomfort he had brought upon the very one whom he would most gladly have shielded, Franklin said not a word from the beginning of the mad dash down the coulee until he got the horses again into harness. ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... was, he knew it was madness, and he tramped on through the darkness in the faint hope of finding help, but with his heart sinking as he grasped the fact that fate or the management of the gang had driven him onward farther into the defile, and away from the aid he might have found if he had made his way back to his ...
— To Win or to Die - A Tale of the Klondike Gold Craze • George Manville Fenn
... understood the beatings of his heart in every page! And now!—it so chanced that the work was reviewed in the paper he read—it was not only a hostile criticism, it was a personally abusive diatribe, a virulent invective. All the motives that can darken or defile were ascribed to him. All the mean spite of some mean mind was sputtered forth. Had the writer known the awful blow that awaited Maltravers at that time, it is not in man's nature but that he would have shrunk from this petty gall upon the ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... from easy, the banks being steep, and treacherous with their covering of newly-fallen snow. Once or twice Amos, in his declaration of the Divine will, nearly lost his footing, and narrowly escaped falling into the defile, the entrance to which they sought to gain. Oliver manifested his anxiety and parental care in sundry oaths, while Moses Fletcher, who had loved the child ever since saving him from the Lodge, said little and retained ...
— Lancashire Idylls (1898) • Marshall Mather
... conquered the passes of the Vosges, but the conquest was vigorously opposed and took more time than the French had reckoned on. As soon as it had become master of the Donon and the passes, the first French army pushed forward into the defile of Saarburg. At St. Blaise it won the first German colors, took Blamont and Cirey (August 15, 1914), seized the defiles north of the canal of the Marne and the Rhine, and reached Saarburg. Here a connection was established with the army of Lorraine, which had commenced its operations on the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... For many weeks with a few hundred followers he held the fields in the Marais, but he was at last hemmed in and captured by one of the monster Thureau's Colonnes Infernales, those hellish legions with an account of whose deeds,' so says this gallant gentleman our friend, 'I will not defile my pen, but whose boasts are like those of Attila the Hun, and who in their malice have invented obscene tortures worthy of Iroquois savages for all who fall into their clutches, be they men, women, or children.... But, by Heaven's mercy, dear Madame,' says ...
— The Light of Scarthey • Egerton Castle
... of planks had enabled the infantry to cross the waters almost in single file, while the cavalry had floundered through as best they might. Those who were acquainted with the country reported that beyond this defile there was an upland heath, a league in extent, full of furze and thickets, where it would be easy enough for Varax to draw up his army in battle array, and conceal it from view. Maurice's scouts, too, brought information that the Spanish commander ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... consultation was that Yellow Hair left the girl, and making a swift circuit, came upon the precipice from the farther side, and crouched low upon its summit. The girl ran along the path at the bottom of the declivity for some distance, then, entering a defile which crossed it at right angles, herself made a turn, climbed the hill and joined Yellow Hair. From where they were lying they could see the glade they ...
— The Wolf's Long Howl • Stanley Waterloo
... my master again," said Louise, "he acted toward me as usual, cross and harshly; he said not a word of the past; the housekeeper continued to torment me; she hardly gave me enough to eat, locked up the bread; sometimes, out of wickedness, she would defile the remains of the dinner before my eyes, for she always ate with Ferrand. At night I hardly slept. I feared at each moment to see the notary enter my room! He had taken away the drawers with which I had barricaded my door; ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue |
