|
|
|
More "Defensive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... multitude of persons, whose names, to this Inquest are as yet unknown, to a great number, to wit, to the number of one hundred persons and upwards, armed and arrayed in a warlike manner, that is to say, with guns, swords, and other warlike weapons, as well offensive as defensive, being then and there unlawfully and traitorously assembled, did traitorously assemble and combine against the said United States, and then and there, with force and arms, wickedly and traitorously, and with the wicked and ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... itself. The writer does not put us on the defensive by trying to argue with us. We are to be the judge and he compliments us by the inference that we "don't need to be told" but can judge for ourselves as to whether it is worth keeping. The price is held in the background and the actual ordering is nothing more ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... almost without warning, thus essaying to take advantage of him; but the quick and practised eye of the latter saved him, and the rain of blows and thrusts that Petro made at him were as harmless as hail-stones upon a slated roof. Carlton acted entirely on the defensive; had it been otherwise, he could at any moment have drawn the heart's blood of his enemy, who, only intent on the life of his successful rival, strove not at all to protect himself from the sword ...
— The Duke's Prize - A Story of Art and Heart in Florence • Maturin Murray
... of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, who had originally helped Turkey against Greece, but had since revolted and driven the Turks from Syria. On that occasion (1833) Turkey had been saved by Russian intervention, a defensive alliance, known as the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, made between Russia and Turkey, and Mehemet granted Syria as well as Egypt. On the revival of hostilities, Ibrahim, son of Mehemet, defeated the Turkish army on June 24; a week later the Sultan Mahmoud ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... no longer waste upon strangers, in your own apartments, the time which you owe us. Shall we make an offensive and defensive alliance against ...
— Ten Years Later • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... upon their position continued incessantly, the warriors continually changing their point of attack. By three o'clock, although the majority of the savages had departed down the river, enough remained to keep up a galling fire, and hold Reno strictly on the defensive. These reds skulked in ravines, or lined the banks of the river, their long-range rifles rendering the lighter carbines of the cavalrymen almost valueless. A few crouched along the edge of higher eminences, their shots crashing ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... trusted agent left here for the Tribune office. He is said to have held a long conference with Mr. GREELEY, the particulars of which have not transpired. It is supposed by many to portend an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the King of Central and the Philosopher of ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... "our return without chastising him, or greatly alarming his fears and those of his followers, would give him an eclat that would increase his followers, and we would have to wage through the winter a defensive war which would greatly distress our frontiers." The Governor's display of force on the Wabash had not had the desired effect. While some of the Weas were returning to their villages, and the Wyandots were reported to be urging ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... blue eyes, like her mother's, and her curly hair, he preserved a frozen indifference. For Camors had other anxieties, of which Madame de Tecle knew nothing. The manner of Madame Campvallon toward him had assumed a more marked character of aggressive raillery. A defensive attitude is never agreeable to a man, and Camors felt it more disagreeable than most men—being so little ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... and somewhat in features, but the taxi driver was a powerful, well-fleshed man who glared at the world aggressively, being really on the defensive against his own heart. His nephew, of the same height, was thin, well-dressed, quiet and indifferent in his manner. And yet ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... speculative dividends. The actual conditions of the workers could be described, their present precarious state, the inordinate and wasteful prevalence of hiring and firing; the policy of the unions, and their defensive and offensive tactics. Every youngster might be given some glimmering notion that neither "private property" nor "capital" is the real issue (since few question their essentiality) but rather the new problem of supplying other than the traditional motives for industrial enterprise—namely, ...
— The Mind in the Making - The Relation of Intelligence to Social Reform • James Harvey Robinson
... armies were ready—the mounted Normans, with their conical helmets gleaming in the hazy sunlight, with kite-shaped shields, huge spears and swords; the English, all on foot, with heavy axes and clubs. But theirs was a defensive part; the Normans had to begin. It fell to the lot of a wild troubadour named Taillefer to open the fight. He galloped from the Norman lines at full speed, singing a song of heroes; then checked his steed and tossed his lance thrice in the air, thrice catching it ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... highly educated Japanese mind, and as such cannot fail to arouse serious misgivings. The first part is a general review of the European War and the Chinese Question: the second is concerned with the Defensive Alliance between China and Japan, which is looked upon as the one ...
— The Fight For The Republic in China • Bertram Lenox Putnam Weale
... she said with a touch of authority—for his attitude had unconsciously put her on the defensive. "Donald has gone to the Caledonian club; there is to be a grand gathering ...
— Scottish sketches • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... projecting battery which had been begun; because a fire from it would have swept the whole, both to the right and left. In its present state, however, it was untenable, unless by a force as able to attack as to defend; consequently the Americans, who acted solely on the defensive, did ...
— The Campaigns of the British Army at Washington and New Orleans 1814-1815 • G. R. Gleig
... annoyed him not a little. And it was strange that one so settled should feel his heart leap up at the sight of an old spire. "I regard it as a public building," he told Rickie, who agreed. "It's useful, too, as a landmark." His attitude today was defensive. It was part of a subtle change that Rickie had noted in him since his return from Scotland. His face gave hints of a new maturity. "You can see the old spire from the Ridgeway," he said, suddenly laying a hand on Rickie's knee, "before rain as ...
— The Longest Journey • E. M. Forster
... Chickahominy north of Richmond. The approaches from the east, northeast, and north, were thus carefully guarded. As the Confederates held the interior line, the whole force could be rapidly concentrated, and was thoroughly in hand, both for offensive or defensive movements. ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... in an irresistible rush. Impossible for him and his friends to endeavour to hold their ground: they were too vastly outnumbered; the most they could do was to hold together and use every opportunity of retreat, standing in the meanwhile on the defensive. There was no adequate body of police on the Green; the riot would take its course unimpeded by the hired servants of the capitalist State. Redgrave little by little fought his way to within sight of Mutimer; he brought with him a small but ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... beauty, recovering her natural spirit as she went on, "but he insisted on walking with me; it was all his own doing. I am sure I didn't want him;" and here Rosa broke off abruptly, with a consciousness in her heart that she was being lectured. She rushed to her defensive weapons by natural instinct, and grew crimson all over her pretty little face, and flashed lightning out of her eyes, which at the same time were not disinclined to tears. All this Miss Dora made note of with a ...
— The Perpetual Curate • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... argument against the sedition law was, that the offences which it punished were sufficiently provided for already by the common law as it stood. But the traverser is not content with acting merely on the defensive. It appears that he is a persecuted innocent man; upon an illegal warrant, without proper evidence, attacked, robbed, put in jail; all for having a few harmless publications about him. Why does not this persecuted ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... resting upon the banks of the river. At intervals along the whole line of the army were field-pieces and Maxims, and the gunboats were within reach to aid in shelling the enemy. The British soldiers then built a square sand rampart called a zarilea, and their Egyptian allies dug defensive trenches. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... resources of the nation and of declaring war. The heterogeneous character of our population especially emphasizes the wisdom of this course, for it would be difficult, if not impossible, for an American President to make an offensive and defensive alliance with any nation or declare war against another nation without running counter to the racial interests and passions of a substantial part of the American nation. For better or worse, the United States has limited, but not ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... teeth, as he griped his dagger and prepared for the conflict. It was long and obstinate, for the Spaniard was skilful; and the Hebrew wearing no mail, and without any weapon more formidable than a sharp and well-tempered dagger, was forced to act cautiously on the defensive. At length the combatants grappled, and, by a dexterous thrust, the short blade of Almamen pierced the throat of his antagonist, who fell ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... in a fascinating search for beetles, to the exclusion of all else. She did not realize how far she and Gazan had become separated from the balance of the tribe, nor were her defensive senses upon the alert as they should have been. Months of immunity from danger under the protecting watchfulness of the sentries, which Tarzan had taught the tribe to post, had lulled them all into a sense of peaceful security based on that fallacy which has wrecked many enlightened communities ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... abatis Defensive obstacle made by laying felled trees on top of each other with branches, sometimes sharpened, facing ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... towns keep up, in peace, as well as in war, argues any thing, rather than the existence of such confidence. "For keeping or carrying a gun, or powder or shot, or a club, or other weapon whatsoever, offensive or defensive, a slave incurs, says Southern statute book, for each ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Turner (No. 7. p.100.) asks the meaning of the term pisan, used in old records for some part of defensive armour. ...
— Notes & Queries 1850.02.09 • Various
... the overwhelming numbers that would meet us before we got to Manipur, fifteen miles away, Grant determined to hold Thobal; where he could, he thought, defend himself, and afford refuge to any who had escaped the massacre. As soon as the enemy had retired, we all set to work to prepare a defensive position; by setting fire to the crops, so as to prevent the enemy from creeping up unseen, and by ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... other's shoulder, which was suddenly and significantly opposed to the advance of this handsome intruder, with a certain dignity, half real, half affected, but wholly charming. The protectress appeared—possibly from her defensive attitude—the superior ...
— A Sappho of Green Springs • Bret Harte
... singular punishments** upon such as were not only guilty, but even suspected, of infringing the association. The provincial congress also, after receiving the news of the battle of Lexington, determined upon a defensive war, and resolved to raise two regiments of infantry, and one of cavalry. Marion was elected a captain in the second regiment of these two, of which William Moultrie was colonel. Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, and Thomas Pinckney, since so much distinguished, were likewise elected ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... by-gone age of upheaval had thrust skyward a huge pillar of granite and the centuries had gathered about its base a rubble of boulders and earth in which the forest growths had taken root and spread up the slopes. On the top of this hill was a basin-like depression which made a natural rampart for defensive purposes and Phil had remarked as much on the day that he and Cristy Lawson had climbed to it. They had stood looking around at the huge broken slabs of granite and speculating upon the oddness of the formation, while their conversation had taken on an academic ...
— Every Man for Himself • Hopkins Moorhouse
... States of America. In England toleration has become an institution, and where Tory and Socialist, Bishop and Infidel, can all meet at the same dinner-table and spend an agreeable week-end together, there is no need for defensive segregations. In such an atmosphere opinion and usage change and change continually, not dramatically as the results of separations and pitched battles but continuously and fluently as the outcome of innumerable personal reactions. America, on ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... speaking—people not very well educated, or very badly off, or in rather a dependent position, and most frightfully conscious of it. They think every one is looking down on them, or patronising them, and the result is they're on the defensive all the time. Well, that's awfully pathetic, you know, all your life being on the defensive; back against the wall; can't get away; always making feeble little rushes at the mob. ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... Hebrews, still the Karasmians maintained an immense front, which was constantly supplied by fresh troops. Confident in his numbers, and aware of the weakness of his antagonists, Arslan contented himself with acting on the defensive, and wearying his assailants by resisting their terrible ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... once not less than fifty so engaged; hooting, screaming, and drumming with sticks upon old logs, which is done in the latter case with equal facility by the four extremities. They do not appear ever to act on the offensive, and seldom, if ever really, on the defensive. When about to be captured, they resist by throwing their arms about their opponent, and attempting to draw him into contact with their teeth." (Savage, l. ...
— Lectures and Essays • T.H. Huxley
... with genial temper and a happy-go-lucky nature, capable indeed of extremes, yet mostly inclined to the tolerant indifference that leaves things as they are; the other, whose martial qualities have vanished in the melting pot of time, has developed the defensive traits that come to the aid of all races who can no longer maintain their cause in the tented field. The Greek is the usurer of the East. He wins his way by using his subtle wits, and the less adroit people on whom he preys soon learn to regard him with distrust that often culminates ...
— A Son of the Immortals • Louis Tracy
... Phoebe, instantly on the defensive, "he is just exactly that, Caroline Darrah Brown—and he doesn't seem to be able to get over it. I'm afraid it's ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... whites was nearly exhausted. Had they advanced and encountered the warriors again, the latter would have swept everything before them. As it was, the mountaineers were by no means safe even when acting on the defensive. If the red men should charge upon them with their old time fierceness, it was by no means certain they would not destroy the whites. The fight would necessarily be of the most sanguinary nature, but when guns and small arms were useless for lack ...
— The Life of Kit Carson • Edward S. Ellis
... them, Burns', Meagher's, Dana's and French's brigades, of the right, were ordered to charge. The order did not come too soon for the brave fellows who had been chafing like caged lions at the necessity of fighting all day on the defensive. Right gallantly and with ringing cheers did they spring forward, until within a hundred yards of the enemy, when they halted and sent a scorching fire of musketry directly into their faces. Couch's ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford
... always conducted with the utmost secrecy till the moment of execution; and, when the workmen yield, as they sometimes do without resistance, though severely felt by them, they are never heard of by other people. Such combinations, however, are frequently resisted by a contrary defensive combination of the workmen, who sometimes, too, without any provocation of this kind, combine of their own accord to raise the price of labour. Their usual pretences are, sometimes the high price of provisions, sometimes the great profit which their ...
— Progress and History • Various
... the negotiations for an offensive and defensive alliance continued, and were ready for ratification when the Oberon arrived with Mr. (now Sir Edward) Thornton. This ship, on leaving Portsmouth, was supposed to be bound for the West Indies, and ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... in its site, itself guarded by imposing and impregnable fortifications, with powerful forts and heavy guns, perhaps even walls, castles, postern gates, moats and ditches, and all the other panoply of defensive warfare, with which romantic history had ...
— Andersonville, complete • John McElroy
... America, France, Spain, and Holland!—Not with hopes of reconquering America; not with the smallest prospect of conquering a foot of land from France, Spain, or Holland. No; we are at war on the defensive to protect what is left, or more truly to stave off, for a year perhaps, a peace that must proclaim our nakedness and impotence. I would not willingly recur to that womanish vision of something may turn up in our favour! That something must be a naval victory that ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... they did not know that I had fallen off, of course," said Rumple hastily, for there was so much reproach for the rest of the family in her tone that he was instantly on the defensive ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... you weep. But if I could not weep in any other way I would drink gin." And it was under the influence of Prothero that Benham turned from the haughty intellectualism, the systematized superiorities and refinements, the caste marks and defensive dignities of India to China, that great teeming stinking tank ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... of commerce was, however, a sea-dwelling creature whose supple and well-tanned hide formed their defensive armor and served manifold other uses. This could only be hunted by men trained and fearless enough to brave more than one danger Torgul did not explain in detail. And a cargo of such skins brought enough in trade to keep a ...
— Key Out of Time • Andre Alice Norton
... Sunday-school library books. It was quiet and pensive and hungry, and gave all its meager earnings to a small invalid brother or drunken father. But the Sawyer orphans were neither pensive nor appealing. There was a defiant belligerency about them that stifled the avenues of pity and put one on the defensive. They were wild and gay, and uproarious, too, and with the exception of Tim, the eldest, they were strong and robust. He certainly looked as though he had been starved, body and soul; but his other unorphan-like qualities were so obtrusive that he was looked upon as the ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... of the type of Benjamin Levy, a spy or emissary of the law, searching amongst his papers as Benjamin Levy had done, for the same hideous reason. Her heart sank with fear, and then leaped up with the fierce defensive instinct of a woman who sees her lover's enemies working for his ruin. She did not hesitate for an instant, but walked swiftly along the cliff-side towards ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... savage bands Lead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands; They sack the temples, the gay fields deface, And vow destruction to the Incan race. The king, undaunted in defensive war, Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar; Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood, And rouse fresh tribes for future fields ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... perhaps ten boats' lengths of Fair Island. All this time they had kept silence, and all this while we had kept silence also. But now, as if Lancelot had made up his mind exactly at what point he would take it upon him to act, we assumed the defensive. For Lancelot gave the command to make ready and to present our pieces, and his words came from his lips as clearly and as composedly as if he were only directing some drilling on an English green. In a moment all our muskets were at the shoulder, while Lancelot called out to ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... Harald Hardrada, to come and invade England. The chosen English king, Harold, had marched at full speed from Sussex to Yorkshire, and met the invaders marching at their ease, without expecting any enemy, and wearing no defensive armor, as they went forth to receive the keys of the city of York. The battle was fought by the Norsemen in the full certainty that it must be lost. The banner, 'Landwaster', was planted in the midst; and the king, chanting his last song, like the minstrel warrior he had always been, stood, ...
— A Book of Golden Deeds • Charlotte M. Yonge
... bodies, as honored clergymen solemnly warned their flocks first against the "atheism," then against the "infidelity," and finally against the "indifferentism" of the university, as devoted pastors endeavoured to dissuade young men from matriculation, I took the defensive, and, in answer to various attacks from pulpits and religious newspapers, attempted to allay the fears of the public. "Sweet reasonableness" was fully tried. There was established and endowed in the university perhaps the most effective Christian pulpit, and one of the most vigorous branches of ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... distinguished. I have known several such, and their presence lies like a blight over the most cheerful party. It is unhappily often the case that shyness is apt to exist side by side with considerable ability, and a shy man of this type regards distinction as a kind of defensive armour, which may justify him in applying to others the contempt which he has himself been conscious of incurring. One of the most disagreeable men I know is a man of great ability, who was bullied in his youth. The result upon him has been that he tends to believe that most people ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... and the father of Cyaxares was among the slain. Such was the result of the first Median expedition against Nineveh. The assailants had miscalculated their strength. In their own mountain country, and so long as they should be called upon to act only on the defensive, they might be right in regarding themselves as a match for the Assyrians; but when they descended into the plain, and allowed their enemy the opportunity of manoeuvering and of using his war chariots, their inferiority was ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... Chiboque remark, "They have only five guns;" and about midday, Njambi collected all his people, and surrounded our encampment. Their object was evidently to plunder us of every thing. My men seized their javelins, and stood on the defensive, while the young Chiboque had drawn their swords and brandished them with great fury. Some even pointed their guns at me, and nodded to each other, as much as to say, "This is the way we shall do with him." I sat on my camp-stool, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... witch was one thing—a thing scarce distinguishable from any other old woman. But this transformation of a black wand into a wide-spreading tent was so obviously the result of magic, that it was self-evident they had to do with a witch in full defensive and ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... mankind, to be removed from the chance of domination by any single power, nor become a point of invitation for hostilities or a prize for warlike ambition. An engagement combining the construction, ownership, and operation of such a work by this Government, with an offensive and defensive alliance for its protection, with the foreign state whose responsibilities and rights we would share is, in my judgment, inconsistent with such dedication to universal and neutral use, and would, moreover, entail measures for its ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... having been constructed along the road between this Legation and the Customs inspectorate. To-day, the 16th, carts are no more to be seen on these streets; foot traffic is likewise almost at an end. There is a tacit understanding that everybody must act on the defensive. ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... a comparatively small number of poets that surrenders to the enemy by conceding either the poet's deliberate indulgence in sin, or his pitiable moral frailty. If one were tempted to believe that this defensive portrayal of the sinful poet is in any sense a major conception in English poetry, the volley of repudiative verse greeting every outcropping of the degenerate's self-exposure would offer a sufficient ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... magistrates authority is now established by the act of parliament and explanatory act, that he denied the same. Being also examined anent the excommunication at Torwood, he declined to answer, as being an ecclesiastical matter, and they a civil judicatory. He owned the lawfulness of defensive arms in cases of necessity, and denied that those who rose at Bothwel, &c. were rebels; and being interrogate anent the Sanquhar declaration, he declined to give his judgment until he had more time to peruse the contents thereof. He ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... purpose being to protect Gaul from an invasion by the triumphant tribes. Yet so great was the fear inspired by the former German onslaughts, and by this destructive outbreak, that only threats of death induced the Romans to serve. As it proved, this defensive activity was not needed. The Germans, satisfied, as it seemed, with expelling the Romans from their country, destroyed their forts and military roads, and settled back into peace, with no sign of a desire to cross ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... of getting the levies formed up and set in motion, the Norsemen had arrived on the ground and had taken up a defensive position before the English reached it. Had the force contained a strong body of housecarls, Wulf, who had talked the matter over with the earls, would have advised that they should fight on the defensive and allow the Norsemen to attack; but ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... He doubted if the aliens could repair the globe if it were damaged, and he was sure that much which they had brought back from the eastern continent was irreplaceable. The bombs had not been intended for such a use. They were defensive, anti-personal weapons to be employed as he had done against the lizard in the arena. But placed properly—Without thinking his hands went to the sealed pocket in the breast ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... which excite envy, and tempt rapacity, must be put out of the possibility of danger. Then they form a natural rampart about the lesser properties in all their gradations. The same quantity of property which is by the natural course of things divided among many has not the same operation. Its defensive power is weakened as it is diffused. In this diffusion each man's portion is less than what, in the eagerness of his desires, he may flatter himself to obtain by dissipating the accumulations of others. The plunder of the few would, indeed, give but a share inconceivably ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. III. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... de plus d'un demi-pied, se termine en pointe. [Footnote: Harnois, dans la langue du temps, etoit un terme general qui signifioit a la fois habillement et armure; ici il designe une sorte de bonnet devenu arme defensive.] On le garnit de quatre clinques (lames), l'une devant, l'autre derriere, les deux autres sur les cotes, afin de garantir du coup d'epee la face, le cou et les joues. Elles sont pareilles a celles qu'ont en France nos salades. [Footnote: Salades, sorte de casque leger ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... opportunities of social advancement that opened to them, and held aloof with her. This kept him a country person in his experiences much longer than he need have remained; and tended to that sort of defensive secretiveness which grew more and more upon him, and qualified his conduct in matters where there was no question of his knowledge of the polite world. It was not until after his wife's death, and until ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... speech Venizelos defends the policy of the participation in the campaign against the Dardanelles, which he had in vain advocated, and the support of Serbia as against Bulgaria in accordance with the defensive alliance concluded with ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... for a long time, mulling the thing over. The Staff was laying tremendous stress on the enemy's strange cloud formation, even to the extent of disclosing the secret of the new defensive device. The Easterners, too, had something novel, something that would cut off absolutely the transmission of ether waves. Nothing either side had yet produced would do that. What was happening behind that screen? Would they ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... of Michael the Stammerer, was one of the most active and high-spirited princes who reigned at Constantinople during the middle age. In offensive or defensive war, he marched in person five times against the Saracens, formidable in his attack, esteemed by the enemy in his losses and defeats. In the last of these expeditions he penetrated into Syria, and besieged ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... stared at her helplessly, trying to understand herself and her surroundings. There was, in truth, something singularly alien in her mother's attitude. She seemed on the defensive, not wishing to be too closely studied. "Her manner is not even affectionate—only friendly. It is as if I were only an embarrassing visitor," the girl thought. Aloud she said: "I had no place to go after Aunt Celia died. ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland
... lines were formed according to the classes determined by the centuries. Those who were sufficiently wealthy to purchase a full suit of armour, formed the front ranks; those who could only purchase a portion of the defensive weapons, filled the centre; and the rear was formed by the poorer classes, who scarcely required any armour, being protected by the lines in front. From this explanation, it is easy to see why, in the constitution of the centuries by Servius Tullius, ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... made Oscar more determined to overcome his foe. His face red with passion, he showered blows upon Herbert, which the latter parried with ease. At first he acted wholly upon the defensive, but, finding that Oscar's impetuosity did not abate, suddenly closed with him and ...
— Try and Trust • Horatio Alger
... for Pedro de Candia, who was master of the ordnance to Don Diego. Powder was likewise easily made in great abundance, as saltpetre is to be had in every part of that country of excellent quality. At the same time he had defensive armour made for those of his people who were in want, forming corslets and helmets of silver mixed with copper, which answered amazingly well, and, were made by the native artists, who fabricated every kind of arms in imitation of, and as good as those of Milan. By these means, and by collecting ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. IV. • Robert Kerr
... Roy had skillfully avoided Dan Cassell's blow, and was aggressively on the defensive. He was a lad who did not care for fighting, but notwithstanding was a trained boxer. Something of this seemed to dawn on Dan Cassell as the boy he sought to pummel dodged his attack with ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham
... lie!" cried Vanslyperken, drawing his sword. "Traitor that you are," continued he to the corporal, "take your reward." This was a very critical moment. The corporal did not attempt the defensive, but remained in the same attitude, and Vanslyperken's rage at the falsehood of the widow and the discovery of his treason was so great, that he lost all command of himself. Had not a third party come in ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... there was an increased tendency toward the tactical maneuvering of a number of aeroplanes, a greater frequency of bombing raids, and these attempts naturally led to reprisals as well as to defensive efforts. Often the aeroplanes designed for dropping bombs were heavy and powerful machines, not armed primarily for attack, but depending for protection upon one or more fighting aeroplanes of greater maneuvering power which accompanied them and carried machine ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... vine tripped me up, and I fell headlong. To keep up an alignment was out of the question. One had to be guided by sound and not by sight. The force in front did not appear to be formidable in numbers, but had the advantage of position, and was on the defensive in a narrow mountain pass where numbers were of little avail. We had a large force, but it was strung out in a long column for miles back, and it was possible to bring only a few men into actual contact with the enemy, whatever he might ...
— Personal Recollections of a Cavalryman - With Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade in the Civil War • J. H. (James Harvey) Kidd
... men's methods in an article which recently appeared in the Railway Age. Mr. Clews seems to have but little confidence in the average railroad director. He advises stockholders to exercise constant vigilance and defensive conservatism, "lest they become the instruments by which unscrupulous and crafty directors work out schemes that are in reality nothing but frauds or robbery." And then ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... herself in a good posture for defence. The main secret of strategy, he would add, is to impose your idea of the campaign on your enemy; to take the initiative out of his hands; to throw him on the defensive and keep him nervously speculating what move of yours may be a feint and what a real attack. If the Ministry had given the Major his head, so to speak, Agincourt at ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... already held, he strengthened his garrisons, and raising an army of eighty thousand men, of which he assumed the command, he entered Hungary and marched down the Danube about sixty miles to Raab, to await the foe and act on the defensive. Solyman rendezvoused an immense army at Belgrade, and commenced his ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... Smythe of Virginia, who accomplished nothing of importance during the remainder of the season. The situation of the Americans at the close of 1812 was this: The army of the northwest was occupying a defensive position among the snows of the wilderness on the banks of the Maumee River; the army of the centre, under General Smythe, was resting on the defensive on the Niagara frontier, and the army of the north, under General Bloomfield, ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... my elbows. I sprang ten feet and whirled, on the defensive. A dark, horned form stood before me. My muscles tensed for another sprint, I held my breath. The thing moved; I made out the outline of a burro. I breathed again, relieved. Here at last was something alive, something natural in this desert of silence. I wished ...
— A Mountain Boyhood • Joe Mills
... the Scyldings'-helmet: — "For fight defensive, Friend my Beowulf, to succor and save, thou hast sought us here. Thy father's combat {7a} a feud enkindled when Heatholaf with hand he slew among the Wylfings; his Weder kin for horror of fighting feared to hold him. Fleeing, he sought ...
— Beowulf • Anonymous
... in the bravery of Americans, when well officered. Each side cherished the delusion that it had a monopoly of courage and endurance. One Southern man was thought equal to five Northern men in a fair contest, and if the former were given the advantage of a defensive position, any odds of numbers would be taken. There was nearly, though not quite, as much boasting on the part of our own press and people. The first severe battles made an end of the greater part of ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... happiness; but when men have rested for a time, boredom drives them to renewed activity. For this reason, a happy life must be one in which there is activity. If it is also to be a useful life, the activity ought to be as far as possible creative, not merely predatory or defensive. But creative activity requires imagination and originality, which are apt to be subversive of the status quo. At present, those who have power dread a disturbance of the status quo, lest their unjust privileges should be taken away. In combination with the instinct for conventionality,[1] which ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... instruction; but even of this justification the later masters of the old school were only dimly conscious. They builded better than they knew. When any teacher of the transition period was called upon to explain his manner of imparting the correct vocal action he was at once put on the defensive. No champion of the imitative faculty could be found. This lack of understanding of the basis of the empirical method, on the part of its most intelligent and successful exponents, was the first cause of the weakness of this method ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... sword-arm. Though the wound was superficial, he was transported with rage at sight of his own blood, and returned the assault with such fury and precipitation, that Gauntlet, loath to take advantage of his unguarded heat, stood upon the defensive. In the second lounge, Peregrine's weapon entering a kind of network in the shell of Godfrey's sword, the blade snapped in two, and left him at the mercy of the soldier, who, far from making an insolent use of the victory he had gained, put up his Toledo with great deliberation, like a man ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... the loyalty of these people to their caciques. The Spaniards penetrated into the interior. They found the warriors of several towns assembled in one, and drawn up in the streets with their bows and arrows, but perfectly naked, and without defensive armor. They uttered tremendous yells, and discharged a shower of arrows; but from such a distance, that they fell short of their foe. The Spaniards replied with their cross-bows, and with two or three arquebuses, for at this time they had but few firearms. When the Indians saw several of their ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... my side of the river I would keep on the same side and fight him, or act on the defensive, according as might be my estimate of his strength relatively to my own. But these are mere suggestions, which I desire to be controlled by the judgment of yourself and ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... not time to extract for you a state of the Austrian and Prussian armies. Both Courts are making the utmost possible exertions to march down fresh troops. But then, I apprehend, the amazing superiority of numbers must keep them on the defensive, unless they can cut off Custine, of which ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... of the turnpike over which the broken army dragged its way south were heavily wooded, and the road threaded through a bewildering maze of narrow valleys, gorges, and ravines—just the type of territory made for defensive ambushes to rock reckless Yankees out of their saddles. The turnpike was to be left for the use of the rear guard of fighting men, while the wagon trains and straggling mass of the disorganized Army of the Tennessee split up to follow the dirt roads ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... that made Athens great. It proved to be more than was necessary for defensive war against Persia, or even for the aggressive war which was carried on in Asia Minor and Egypt. It also more than sufficed for sending out the colonies which Athens founded in Italy and elsewhere. The remainder of the fund was used ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... and prestige of Pelopidas, he went out to him as though he were the more powerful of the two, and after greeting him and begging him to be his friend, he agreed to hold the kingdom in trust for the brothers of the deceased king, and to form a defensive and offensive alliance with Thebes. For the fulfilment of these conditions he gave as hostages his own son Philoxenus and fifty of his companions, whom Pelopidas sent to Thebes, but as he was angry at the desertion of his mercenaries, and learned ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume II • Aubrey Stewart & George Long
... the 25th Macpherson arrived on the high ground beyond the sang-i-nawishta gorge, whence he obtained a good view of Jenkins's position; and seeing that the enemy formed a complete semicircle round it, he pushed on. Jenkins had stood on the defensive from the early morning, and the Afghans, who had advanced to within a couple of hundred yards, were only kept at bay by the steadiness of ...
— Forty-one years in India - From Subaltern To Commander-In-Chief • Frederick Sleigh Roberts
... fighting of September 15, 1916, and following days was a gain more considerable than any which had attended our arms in the course of a single operation since the commencement of the offensive. In the course of one day's fighting we had broken through two of the enemy's main defensive systems and had advanced on a front of over six miles to an average depth of a mile. In the course of this advance we had taken three large villages, each powerfully organized for prolonged resistance. Two of these villages had been carried ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... Nature's utter disregard of the individual, life is everywhere. And that life is sharply armed and on the defensive. The rising heat-waves hum with insects. The bush swarms with them. Their droning murmur crowds the air. The trunks of trees, the great, pendent leaves of plants, the trailing vines, slimy with dank vegetation, ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... quarrels, and usually also to restrictions on commerce, between the states composing the Union; while, in reference to neighboring nations, the increased military strength conferred by it is of a kind to be almost exclusively available for defensive, scarcely at all for aggressive purposes. A federal government has not a sufficiently concentrated authority to conduct with much efficiency any war but one of self-defense, in which it can rely on ...
— Considerations on Representative Government • John Stuart Mill
... believed is sufficient for ordinary cruising purposes in time of peace, we have now completed and in process of construction but four first-class battle ships and but few torpedo boats. If we are to have a navy for warlike operations, offensive and defensive, we certainly ought to increase both the number of battle ships ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Volume 8, Section 2 (of 2): Grover Cleveland • Grover Cleveland
... Dutch expelled Dumouriez from their country. Curiously enough, the Transvaal War has revived national hope and confidence by showing what a well-armed people without military training can do when standing on the defensive. Time is necessary to prove whether this new sentiment will remove the fatalistic feeling of helplessness that has been creeping over Dutch public men, and brace them to ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... of that altogether misdirected industry, which is seen vigorously thrashing mere straw, there can nothing defensive be said. In so far as the Germans are chargeable with such, let them take the consequence. Nevertheless, be it remarked, that even a Russian steppe has tumuli and gold ornaments; also many a scene that looks desert and rock-bound from the distance, ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... safe but not satisfied under Henry, had felt that they were in danger after his death, and sought to transform the self-government ceded to them at Nantes into a defensive association against the sovereign. The spectre of federalism threatened the hard-won unity of France, and challenged the very essence of Richelieu's policy. The decisive struggle took place at La Rochelle. Richelieu directed ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... defensive position, the most accurate and only practicable method of determining the range will generally be to take the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... THE VOLSCIANS.—About this time Rome concluded a league with the Latins, and soon after with another people, the Hernicans, who lived farther eastward, between the, Aequians and Volscians. It was a defensive alliance, in which Rome had the leading place. Then follow the wars with the Aequians and Volscians, where the traditional accounts are mingled with many fictitious occurrences. There are two stories of special note,—the story of Coriolanus, and the story of Cincinnatus. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... it will go its own way, except during certain seasons, when the females are fearful for their young offspring. Then they will assail every intruder that comes near, whether man or animal. But when wounded or enraged they will not only act on the defensive, but attack their enemies in the most spiteful and ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... mainly in a pastoral stage, living on the produce of their herds, and eating more meat than bread. They fight and undergo hardships and willingly sacrifice their lives for their country and for liberty. They wear little defensive armour, and depend mainly on their mobility; they are not much good at a close engagement, but generally victors in a running fight, relying more on their activity than on ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... of the Hudson and the long line of the mast-fringed city on the other; then, rounding Governor's Island, the steamer pushes its way towards the Narrows, disclosing to view Fort Lafayette, so celebrated of late, the giant defensive works opposite to it, the umbrageous and lofty sides of Staten Island, covered with villas, and, beyond all, the Ocean, lighted up by Coney Island's belt of snowy sand, glistening ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... artillery is overwhelmingly stronger than the defending artillery, defensive infantry in an entrenched position cannot be ousted from its position unless the attackers outnumber their opponents by six or seven to one, and are prepared to lose heavily. The murderous zone of a thousand yards lying between the armies cannot be crossed save at fearful sacrifice, and the bayonet ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... force, for the defensive armour of the fifteenth century had reached a pitch of cumbrousness that required long practice for a man to be ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Government are resolved that the defensive measures of this country shall be prescribed by the policy of Ministers responsible to Parliament, and by the calculations, subject to that policy, of the experts on whom those Ministers rely, and not by the folly and the clamour of Party politicians or sensational journalists. In that ...
— Liberalism and the Social Problem • Winston Spencer Churchill
... but heaps of rubble; the footsteps of rare passers-by woke lonely echoes, and strips of grass outlined in parallelograms the flagstones of the roadway. The Casa Riego raised its buttressed and loop-holed bulk near the shore, resembling a defensive outwork; on my other hand the shallow bay, vast, placid, and shining, extended itself behind the strip of coast like an enormous lagoon. The fronds of palm-clusters dotted the beach over the glassy shimmer of the far distance. ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... the labour of forming which must have been enormous. The reason for the construction of these mounds is not far to seek. Just as the chiefs of a mountainous country choose the loftiest peaks for their castles, so in Assyria, which was a very flat country, the extra defensive strength of elevated buildings was clearly appreciated; and as these absolute monarchs ruled over a teeming population and had a very large number of slaves, and only had to direct their taskmasters to impress labour ...
— Architecture - Classic and Early Christian • Thomas Roger Smith
... He invaded a populous country, penetrating two hundred and sixty miles into the interior, with a force at no time equal to one-half of that opposed to him; he was without a base; the enemy was always intrenched, always on the defensive; yet he won every battle, he captured the capital, and conquered the government. Credit is due to the troops engaged, it is true, but the plans and the strategy were ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... garland, or coronet, and receiving a sword, together with a book by which he is to swear. Most of the figures, in these paintings, are depicted in armour or mail; their helmets are sometimes conical, sometimes like a broad-brimmed hat; their defensive armour is generally a round target, and a two-handed sword. This venerable volume, the noblest treasure of northern literature now existing, though wrote in a very small character, and much abbreviated, consists of 960 columns, two to ...
— The Norwegian account of Haco's expedition against Scotland, A.D. MCCLXIII. • Sturla oretharson
... 23, 1865, the governments of Chili, Bolivia, Salvador, Colombia, Peru, and Venezuela formed a defensive alliance against exterior aggression and for the guaranty of their respective autonomy. The treaty was signed in Lima by the representatives ...
— Maximilian in Mexico - A Woman's Reminiscences of the French Intervention 1862-1867 • Sara Yorke Stevenson
... war with Mexico was not looked upon with favor by the inhabitants of Rivermouth, who clearly perceived its underlying motive—the extension of slave territory. The abolition element in the town had instantly been blown to a white heat. Moreover, war in itself, excepting as a defensive measure or on a point of honor, seemed rather poor business to the thrifty Rivermouthians. They were wholly of the ...
— The Queen of Sheba & My Cousin the Colonel • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... His attitude was defensive; he expected to be called on for explanations, to be required to soothe resentment; his mental condition was more or less that of a ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... shield, And arms, had wrought; yet there no bullets flew, But shafts and darts which the weak Phrygians threw, 130 Our bolder hero on the deck does stand Exposed, the bulwark of his native land; Defensive arms laid by as useless here, Where massy balls the neighb'ring rocks do tear. Some power unseen those princes does protect, Who for ...
— Poetical Works of Edmund Waller and Sir John Denham • Edmund Waller; John Denham
... nine out of every ten men who hunt would be better and more safely carried if they rode without spurs, I certainly think that no lady should subject her hunter to "the insult of the spur," especially as she can inflict the punishment only on the near side, and thus provoke a defensive attitude which she has no ...
— The Horsewoman - A Practical Guide to Side-Saddle Riding, 2nd. Ed. • Alice M. Hayes
... the soul; a habit of discouragement; of marking time; of fighting shy on the defensive instead of jumping into the aggressive; of self-derogation; of criticism instead of construction; of foreshortened vision? A diagnosis can be made from symptoms. I set down a few of the symptoms. There may be many more, and the thinker ...
— The Canadian Commonwealth • Agnes C. Laut
... his impartiality and even his satisfaction with a little punishment of the students, if they were aggressive. "But," said he, "don't begin the fight and put yourselves in the wrong. If my boys come over, thrash them well, but let them strike the first blow." Having put them in the strongest defensive attitude, believing that they had the doctor with them, he went round to the students and applied the same inducements to the defensive, leaving them under the persuasion that he entirely approved their fighting, ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... doing a monograph, he said, for his own amusement, upon the early forms of our present offensive and defensive weapons. Could I tell him about the first Deuber spheres and the earlier disintegrator rays and the crude atomic bombs we tried back when ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... is like the Rock of Gibraltar on which waves of contrary emotions dash themselves in vain, it may be that Larry will do a little mining and sapping on his own account. Captain and Mrs. Winston and I have formed an alliance offensive and defensive, particularly the former, against the coalesced forces of Caspian and Shuster. There has been no talk of my private feelings—bien entendu—but the small nations are to be protected by our united diplomacy. We're starting off ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... immediately develop antibody-resistance. So that in interstellar medicine tormals were priceless. Let Murgatroyd be infected with however localized, however specialized an inimical organism, and presently some highly valuable defensive substance could be isolated from his blood and he'd remain in his usual exuberant good health. When the antibody was analyzed by those techniques of microanalysis the Service had developed,—why—that was that. The ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... channel two or three little forts of queer construction are seen, supplementing the larger one, placed upon jutting headlands. The Moro of Santiago is now used as a prison for political offenders; its days of defensive importance ended with the period of the buccaneers, against whose crude means of warfare it was an ample protection. As we steamed past it that sunny afternoon, stimulated by the novelty of everything ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... She was tingling with keen, rosy life, and with the sense of youthful power. She had the deep, unconscious conviction of the superiority of youth to age. And there were the two older women, waiting for her, as it were on the defensive, ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... to antlers, the tame deer and the wild fought with great fury. Each of the tame animals, every one of them large and formidable, was closely engaged in contest with a wild adversary, standing chiefly on the defensive, not in any feigned battle or mimicry of war but in a hard-fought combat. We now made our appearance in the open ground on horseback, advancing towards the scene of conflict. The deer on the skirts of the wood, seeing us, took to flight; but those actually engaged ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... support of his presence. On the 21st Frederick won the decisive battle of Burkersdorf, and a few weeks later was master of Silesia. In western Germany, where the war more immediately concerned England, Prince Ferdinand showed consummate skill in forcing the French to act on the defensive. On June 24 the allies defeated them at Wilhelmsthal. The victory was decided by Granby, who, after a fierce engagement, destroyed the pick of the French army under Stainville. A series of successes followed; Gottingen was evacuated, ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... trait of the noble animal's nature better than those of many a human acquaintance, was both surprised and touched at the instinct with which he had recognized an enemy, and the fierce courage with which he stood on the defensive. In that moment of bewilderment, he thought only of Roger, whose life hung by a thread, which his silence would instantly snap. He might have seen—had there been time for reflection—that nothing would have been gained, in any case, by the animal's ...
— The Story Of Kennett • Bayard Taylor
... in the hope that some day I may write its history, and may be able to say something which will not be open to the charge of, "Oh! Another boring book about the War!" As I conceive it, my hospital book will be an analysis of the mind and character of the British working-man with his defensive armour off, and not an attempt to give any views on military or medical reform ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... approximately 1,200 yards; on the right B Company had two platoons in the front line strung out into seven posts between Nairne and Wrangel, each containing from six to nine men. Two sections and a Lewis gun team were in Jones Street, which had been chosen as the main defensive line in case of attack. The remaining two sections with another Lewis gun were in Caber, and the fourth platoon in Worcester Street. Company Headquarters were established some 800 yards behind the front line, at Pimlico, where a platoon of A Company ...
— The War Service of the 1/4 Royal Berkshire Regiment (T. F.) • Charles Robert Mowbray Fraser Cruttwell
... Mahmoud and the Pasha of Egypt, Mehemet Ali, who had originally helped Turkey against Greece, but had since revolted and driven the Turks from Syria. On that occasion (1833) Turkey had been saved by Russian intervention, a defensive alliance, known as the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi, made between Russia and Turkey, and Mehemet granted Syria as well as Egypt. On the revival of hostilities, Ibrahim, son of Mehemet, defeated the Turkish army on June 24; a week later the Sultan Mahmoud died, and the ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... I got a very disagreeable impression of her. I didn't do much questioning—Nancy was on the defensive. She adores ...
— The Shield of Silence • Harriet T. Comstock
... exaggeration that certain mental traits and fleshly appetites induced by their consumption as an article of food may have been created, while a separate niche in our anthropological museums is reserved for the instruments of warfare, both offensive and defensive, used by their phthiriophagous hunters. Then have we not in the very centres of civilization the poor and degraded, which are most faithfully attended ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... recent decades developing a tribal complex. Robbed of their nomadic-bandit way of life by first the French Camel Corps and later by the efforts of the Reunited Nations, they were rapidly descending into a condition of poverty and defensive bewilderment. Not only were large numbers of former bedouin drifting to the area's sedentary centers, an act beyond contempt within the memory of the elders, but the best elements of the clans were often deserting Tuareg country completely and defecting ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... all defensive armour, is far the most prominent. They were often painted with devices, such as Hamlet's shield, Hildiger's Swedish shield. Dr. Vigfusson has shown the importance of these painted shields in the poetic history ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... be a programme planned for a consistent and progressive development of this great defensive arm of the nation and should be of such a kind as to commend itself to every ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... quietly: "Both are shocked alike at being accused; one because he is innocent; the other, because he is guilty. How much a person is shocked depends upon temperament and circumstance. The guilty person, always consciously in danger of being accused, is likely to be prepared and on the defensive, while the other ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... town. But, where void spaces on the walls appear, Or thin defense, they pour their forces there. With poles and missive weapons, from afar, The Trojans keep aloof the rising war. Taught, by their ten years' siege, defensive fight, They roll down ribs of rocks, an unresisted weight, To break the penthouse with the pond'rous blow, Which yet the patient Volscians undergo: But could not bear th' unequal combat long; For, where the Trojans find the thickest throng, The ruin falls: ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... You would probably look in vain through our ranks for a horse-racer, a gambler, a profane person, a rum-drinker, or a duellist. More than nine-tenths of us deny the rightfulness of offensive, and a large majority, even that of defensive national wars. A still larger majority believe, that deadly weapons should not be used in cases of individual strife. And, if you should ask, "where in the free States are the increasing numbers of ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... Edinburgh was at that time in the fulness of its strength and power. The first James had greatly enlarged and strengthened its works defensive. He had added thirty feet to the height of David's Tower, which now served as a watch-station over all the rock, and in his last days he had begun to build the great hall which the ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... drawing of destiny in the shape of Mephistopheles playing at chess with man for his soul, a game in which we may imagine the clever adversary making a feint of unintended moves so as to set the beguiled mortal on carrying his defensive pieces away from the true point of attack. The fiend makes preparation his favorite object of mockery, that he may fatally persuade us against our taking out waterproofs when he is well aware the sky is ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... still limp and bewildered when, ten minutes later, Fledra opened her eyes and looked up into her father's face. The past hour had not returned to her memory, and she drew quickly away. Of late she had become timid, always on the defensive; and when Ann spoke to her she held out ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White
... crocodile are formed of bone exquisitely jointed together like the sections of a skull; these are covered externally with a horny skin, forming, no doubt, an excellent defensive armor, about an inch in thickness; but the idea of their being impenetrable to a ball, if struck fair, is a great fallacy. People may perhaps complain because a pea rifle with a mere pinch of powder may be inefficient, but a common ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... years later the Germans, no longer on the defensive, themselves went forth from their marshy forests conquering and to conquer. For century after century they swarmed out of the dark woodland east of the Rhine, and north of the Danube; and as their force spent itself, the movement was taken ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... the man's intentions to be hostile, drew the sword from his cane, and prepared to act on the defensive, at the ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... There was the "threefold necessity" as it was called. It was necessary for the king to have money, horses, grain, supplies, etc., to defend the kingdom, and to build forts, and to maintain bridges or defensive works; and that was the only object of taxation in those times. Those were the only "aids"—they were called "aids"—those were the only aids recognized. The first word for tax is an "aid", granted voluntarily, in theory at least, by the barons to the king, and for these three purposes ...
— Popular Law-making • Frederic Jesup Stimson
... great disorder to Fort Erie. Out of a force of 5,000 men, they had lost in killed, wounded, and prisoners at least 1,500. This defeat, and the timely arrival of veteran troops from Europe, appear to have decided the British commanders to change the defensive warfare they had hitherto adopted, and the small operations they had conducted on the coast of the southern States, for offensive movements ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt
... in line of an emphatic negative will appear from what follows. I know full well the tremendous task I have set myself by this position. In doing this, I must take up the defensive as well as offensive alike against a large per cent of people, outside of the Negro race, who set themselves up as an authority on all questions affecting the Negro, and, mark you, from their decision there is no appeal; as also against the know-alls within the ranks of the race. But I am not deterred ...
— Twentieth Century Negro Literature - Or, A Cyclopedia of Thought on the Vital Topics Relating - to the American Negro • Various
... and Maryanne, when they found that no document was forthcoming, immediately gave out that they intended to take on themselves the duties of joint heiresses, and an alliance, offensive and defensive, was sworn between them. At this time Mr. Brown employed a lawyer, and the heiresses, together with Jones, employed another. There could be no possible doubt as to Mr. Brown being the owner of the property, however infatuated on such ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... system. Asked about the campaign of 1588, he has nothing to tell of any English formation. Of the crescent order of the Armada he says—and modern research has fully confirmed his statement—that it was not a battle order at all, but only a defensive sailing formation 'to keep themselves together and in company until they might get up to be athwart Gravelines, which was the rendezvous for their meeting with the Prince of Parma; and in this regard this their order ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... see to it that the defensive force's supply lines were never hampered by the weather and that the precipitation over the defensive country's breadbasket ...
— Summer Snow Storm • Adam Chase
... the difficulty of getting the levies formed up and set in motion, the Norsemen had arrived on the ground and had taken up a defensive position before the English reached it. Had the force contained a strong body of housecarls, Wulf, who had talked the matter over with the earls, would have advised that they should fight on the defensive and allow the Norsemen to attack; but with freshly-raised ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... than an adversary, to assimilate information and act on it effectively, is also an important advantage. In a NATO region-wide dynamic computer war game a few years ago, it was clear that the simulated enemy was advancing faster than the defensive chain of command could make counter moves. The tradition of sending decisions up the line was simply too slow to cope with the dynamic challenge posed by the adversary. Commanders on scene lacked the authority to respond and adjust ...
— Shock and Awe - Achieving Rapid Dominance • Harlan K. Ullman and James P. Wade
... except peacocks, turtle-doves, and crows, which are the same as we have. In their dress, the natives wear mantles or cloaks of cotton, silk, or camblet, always having one arm bare. They have no defensive armour, as they are hardly ever at war; but when they go to sea they use bows and arrows, and likewise poisoned arrows made of reeds, which they blow from long hollow canes, and the poison with which these arrows are infected is so virulent that death certainly follows from the slightest ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr
... several days. The Rebels had constructed works offensive and defensive in our front; but the greater part of their force seemed to have moved to the right. On the 22d of November, however, they returned, not having found evidently the weak place in our lines which they had sought. It ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 105, July 1866 • Various
... my military operations by stripping the department of troops to the lowest possible defensive limit. But this was what I had so earnestly urged before, when in a subordinate position; and I was glad to do it when the responsibility rested upon me. My loss of troops to Grant was returned with interest as soon as practicable ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... except as the preliminary steps of the approaching decline and fall of the empire. Instead of leading the nations of Germany and Scythia to the banks of the Danube, or even to the gates of Constantinople, the aged monarch of the Goths resigned to the brave Athanaric the danger and glory of a defensive war, against an enemy, who wielded with a feeble hand the powers of a mighty state. A bridge of boats was established upon the Danube; the presence of Valens animated his troops; and his ignorance of the art of war was compensated ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... and sneer is to put the prospective daughter-in-law on the defensive, and prepare her mind, unconsciously to herself, to regard her future husband's mother as her natural enemy. Many a girl marries with the preconceived notion that, to preserve her individual rights, and to ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... of rifle-balls checked the Indians, and they wheeled and rode away, after sending in a scattering cloud of arrows, which wounded several of the trainmen. The decision of a hasty council of war was, that a defensive stand would be useless, as the Indians outnumbered the whites ten to one, and red reinforcements were constantly coming up, until it seemed to Will as if the prairie were alive with them. The only hope of safety ...
— Last of the Great Scouts - The Life Story of William F. Cody ["Buffalo Bill"] • Helen Cody Wetmore
... conceived and executed. The service rendered by this battery has forever set at rest the question of the proper tactical use of the machine gun arm, both on the offensive and defensive. These things are now beyond the realm of theory. They are a demonstrated problem. The solution is universally acknowledged to ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... hands of the Marseilles demagogues. Camoin, Bertin and Rebecqui, the worst agitators and usurpers, rule there without control. Rebecqui and Bertin, appointed delegates in connection with matters in Arles, have themselves empowered to call for defensive troops; they immediately demand them for attack, to which the Directory vainly remonstrates; they declare to it that "not being under its inspection, it has no authority over them; being independent of it, they have no orders ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... battalion of the regiment under Major Curry was ordered to take up a defensive position on Limit Hill and to stay ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... Swiss Confederation was founded in 1291 as a defensive alliance among three cantons. In succeeding years, other localities joined the original three. The Swiss Confederation secured its independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1499. Switzerland's sovereignty and neutrality have long been honored by the ...
— The 2007 CIA World Factbook • United States
... could contrive, and that they are inherent in the innermost life of the people. Gentlemen, you may call the union which binds us an empire, you may call it a federation, you may call it an offensive and defensive alliance of the closest kind—you may call it what you will—the name is of subordinate consequence while mutual sympathy and sentiment retain that binding force which, as we have seen in this Jubilee week, you are all so generously prepared to acknowledge in your relations ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... with my father," Constance interrupted hotly, suddenly thrown upon the defensive, she knew not why. "He's been ill a great deal. I've been alarmed about him. ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... given to visitors an impression of arrogance, and perhaps no one thing had led to more unfriendly criticism of this country than this. The fact is that the Liberians, knowing that their country has various shortcomings according to Western standards, are quick to assume the defensive, and one method of protecting themselves is by erecting a barrier of dignity and reserve. One has only to go beyond this, however, to find the real heartbeat of the people. The comparative isolation of the Republic moreover, and the general stress of ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... gunfire. At Paris we had been within twenty miles of the battlefield where the German hosts were first turned back, but there was not much ruin wrought to buildings at the Marne. Men, unprotected by trenches or any of the later found defensive methods, bore the brunt ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... their clumsy boots they trod on each other's feet. And yet all were lonely strangers. No two in the mob seemed to be acquaintances. And every lad, each in his different way, was furtively on the defensive, uneasily wondering whether some misfortune might not presently come to him from one of these ...
— The Garden Of Allah • Robert Hichens
... so. 'How are things on the right?' they said to the runner. 'Bad,' said the runner, and he went back, though Lord knows what he went back to. The Boche was through right enough. 'We'll have to make a defensive flank,' said the platoon commander. He was a Daleswood man too. Came from the big farm. He slipped down a communication trench with a few men, mostly bombers. And they reckoned they wouldn't see any of them any more, ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... regulations were not so strict then as they are now, I met with a great deal of difficulty in getting all this armament through the Customs. Lord Ragnall however had letters from the Colonial Office to such authorities as ruled in Natal, and on our giving a joint undertaking that they were for defensive purposes only in unexplored territory and not for sale, they were allowed through. Fortunate did it prove for us in after days that ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... Permanence of the teachings of history 2 Unsettled condition of modern naval opinion 2 Contrasts between historical classes of war-ships 2 Essential distinction between weather and lee gage 5 Analogous to other offensive and defensive positions 6 Consequent effect upon naval policy 6 Lessons of history apply especially to strategy 7 Less obviously to tactics, ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... Plaster of diachylon and gum (c. G. cum gummi), of saffron and vinegar, defensive plaster, plaster of Paracelsus, blistering plaster, diapalma plaster, compound laudanum plaster, melilot plaster. The term "emplastrum Paracelsi", so the librarian of the Surgeon-General's Office informs me, is not given as such in the older medical dictionaries, and was probably not a ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... clever man. As a detective, I doubt if his equal exists, or has ever existed. Only, I have one advantage over him, which is that he's attacking, while I'm on the defensive. Mine is the easier game to play. Besides ..." He gave an imperceptible smile before completing his phrase. "Besides, I know his way of fighting, and he does not know mine. And I have a few sly thrusts in store for him which will give him something ...
— The Blonde Lady - Being a Record of the Duel of Wits between Arsne Lupin and the English Detective • Maurice Leblanc
... from the savage bands Lead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands; They sack the temples, the gay fields deface, And vow destruction to the Incan race. The king, undaunted in defensive war, Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar; Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood, And rouse fresh tribes for future fields ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... the Mongol governors to be tyrannical by taking away from them the power of life and death. Timour was compelled by the sustained hostility of Kaidu to continue the struggle with that prince, but he confined himself to the defensive, and the death of Kaidu, in 1301, deprived the contest of its extreme bitterness although ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... his brains be dashed out by that ponderous weapon Garnache was handling with a rare facility. But the mischief was done, in that he had reached the threshold. Backing, he defended himself and gained the anteroom. Garnache followed, but the clumsy chair was defensive rather than offensive, and Marius's sword meanwhile darted above it and below it, forcing him to ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini
... attack upon his flank compelled St. Luc to take the defensive, and put him at a certain disadvantage, but he marshaled his superior numbers so well that the battle became doubtful, with every evidence that it would be drawn out to great length. Moreover, the ...
— The Rulers of the Lakes - A Story of George and Champlain • Joseph A. Altsheler
... background to be clearly ascertainable, but near the top of it, where presumably the head was, the candle-flame shone reflected in two brilliant points of light that were directed straight upon his face, and he knew that he was looking into the eyes of a living creature that was not the very least on the defensive. It was a ...
— The Human Chord • Algernon Blackwood
... all criticism. He invaded a populous country, penetrating two hundred and sixty miles into the interior, with a force at no time equal to one-half of that opposed to him; he was without a base; the enemy was always intrenched, always on the defensive; yet he won every battle, he captured the capital, and conquered the government. Credit is due to the troops engaged, it is true, but the plans and the ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... unpleasant errands. The ancient custom was never abolished by authority, but died with the change of feeling; so that what might be demanded as a right came to be asked as a favor, and the right was resorted to only as a sort of defensive weapon, as a rebuke of a supposed impertinence, or resentment of a real injury."—Memories of Youth and Manhood, Vol. I. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... longer stand out boldly as shown in old prints and engravings, at least on the townward side of the castle. They have been gradually merged into the general mass of the building as time and progress brought greater demands for living room and lessened the need of defensive measures. The straight outlines are still broken here and there by some trace of the ancient building showing through, a mullioned window, an old stack of chimneys, but on the whole, the mass by itself is heavy and uniform. ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... opportunities for defense afforded by every change in the topography of the region. I remember one area along the front consisting of two round, grassy hills divided by a small, grassy valley whose floor rose gently to a low ridge connecting the two heights. In this terrain the defensive line began on the first hill as a semicircle edging the grassy slopes presented to the enemy, then retreated, sinking some forty feet, to take advantage of the connecting link of upland at the head of the ravine, and took semicircular form again on the flat, broad summit ...
— A Volunteer Poilu • Henry Sheahan
... scenes of the campaign, or the popular heroes of the day. This was the normal state of Rome, such as I had seen it in former years. Later on, indeed, either the force of events, or a change in the counsels of the Vatican, induced the Papacy to drop the defensive passive attitude which constituted its real strength, and to adopt an active offensive policy, which served rather to show the greatness of the dreaded danger than to avert its occurrence. Still the increased animation, though perceptible enough to a Roman, appeared to a stranger but ...
— Rome in 1860 • Edward Dicey
... planning it all out in a wonderful way. He consults Rooke almost hourly on the maritime side of the question. The Lord High Admiral has been a watcher all his life, and very few important points have ever escaped him, so that he can add greatly to the wisdom of the defensive construction. He notices, I think, that something is going on outside ourselves; but he ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... strength, in complete repair, and mounted with lombards and other heavy ordnance. His magazines were well stored with the munitions of war; he had a mighty host of foot-soldiers, together with squadrons of cavalry, ready to scour the country and carry on either defensive or predatory warfare. The Christian warriors noted these things without dismay; their hearts rather glowed with emulation at the thoughts of encountering so worthy a foe. As they slowly pranced through the streets of Granada they looked ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... very beautifully; and slender, long blowpipes [ceruatanas], through which they shot most dangerous poisoned arrows, in the manner of the inhabitants of Samatra. Such are their offensive weapons. Their defensive weapons are wooden shields and rattan or corded breastplates, and other armor helmets of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 - Volume 40 of 55 • Francisco Colin
... Germans had superiority in the air. They had concentrated on aircraft the effort which we had expended on perfecting the tank. The one can be used effectively in wet weather, but the other cannot. The German had another defensive surprise for us. Owing to the nature of the ground the deep dugout was practically an impossibility. In the place, therefore, of this the German devised the concrete blockhouse or 'pill-box' as it was called. For miles ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... circular form of the earthwork enclosing Stonehenge, as well as the straight and parallel banks of the Avenue, are specially worthy of notice. They belong to a class of earthwork quite unlike the usual planning of cattle enclosures, and defensive works, and exhibit a precision in setting out which is only associated with the sepulchral and religious earthworks of prehistoric times ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... Scotland in a year was less than what he received from England every fortnight. He had therefore only to entrench himself within the limits of his undoubted prerogative, and there to remain on the defensive, till some favourable conjuncture ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... were punishable, in full force; and, gentlemen, it is well known that the principal argument against the sedition law was, that the offences which it punished were sufficiently provided for already by the common law as it stood. But the traverser is not content with acting merely on the defensive. It appears that he is a persecuted innocent man; upon an illegal warrant, without proper evidence, attacked, robbed, put in jail; all for having a few harmless publications about him. Why does not this persecuted man bring his action for false imprisonment? Why do not his counsel ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... creep away on all-fours, but suddenly forgot my ankle and sprang erect, on the defensive, at the sound of voices. A grassy path led through the enclosure, between the graves, and at the end of ...
— Poison Island • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... glowed and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Abruptly she abandoned the defensive and blurted out the thing that had been latent so long between them. Her voice took a note of passion. "Nothing I can do ever does please you, since that Miss Heydinger ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... leadership.] The whole of these defensive and offensive arrangements would, however, be ineffectual or incomplete in their results, if the most perfect union and concert is not established in every part, so that all should conspire to the same object, although by distinct means. In order ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... her eyes so clear and direct, her manner so contained, that he was uncomfortably impressed. He felt put upon the defensive. As a matter of fact, in his first anger and surprise at what he still considered her shameless behavior, he had seriously considered the advisability of having Peter's marriage annulled. As soon as he had become calmer, his ...
— The Purple Heights • Marie Conway Oemler
... of men as we were, it was folly to keep four enemies under the same roof, who were likely at any time to overpower the one or two sentries placed over them; while, if there was nothing to fear in that way, there was still the necessity of shortening our defensive forces by a couple of ...
— Begumbagh - A Tale of the Indian Mutiny • George Manville Fenn
... Italy (of which he speaks as "the Sardinian government" with an emphasis akin to the Buonaparte of old French monarchists) are to be taken with the utmost reservation, as most readers will see for themselves after meeting his allusion to the massacre at Perugia in 1859 as in some sort a defensive action on the part of the papal troops. Mr. Hare's reasoning on all that relates to this subject is weak and illogical, sometimes puerile. Any one who loves what is venerable and picturesque must share the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science - Vol. XVII, No. 102. June, 1876. • Various
... array labor against capital, putting labor on the offensive or the defensive, for quiet and stubborn self-protection, or for angry, organized assault, as ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... struggle, and by her aid mainly contributed to the successful issue of the war. In the first part of the struggle the scene lay wholly among the low lands and cities of Holland and Zeeland, and the war was strictly a defensive one, waged against overpowering odds. After England threw herself into the strife it assumed far wider proportions, and the independence of the Netherlands was mainly secured by the defeat and destruction of the great Armada, by the capture of Cadiz and ...
— By England's Aid • G. A. Henty
... the highest pitch of romantic chivalry. The original ground of hostility, a difference of faith, gradually lost its rancor. Neighboring states, of opposite creeds, were occasionally linked together in alliances, offensive and defensive; so that the cross and crescent were to be seen side by side fighting against some common enemy. In times of peace, too, the noble youth of either faith resorted to the same cities, Christian or Moslem, to school themselves in military science. Even in the temporary truces of sanguinary ...
— Wolfert's Roost and Miscellanies • Washington Irving
... arbitrament of arms, yet the Emperor's character for resolution and energy had virtually defeated the Russians, and had given him not only a technical but a real victory. Although he fell back and assumed the defensive, feeling that without enormous reinforcements and the capture of Dantzic he could not resume the offensive, yet nevertheless he had remained for four months unmolested by his foe. Bennigsen's perplexities were great. The Russian court was rent by dissensions, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... governments that overshadow them now as mountains overshadow molehills. The Saracens captured and pillaged Genoa nine hundred years ago, but during the following century Genoa and Pisa entered into an offensive and defensive alliance and besieged the Saracen colonies in Sardinia and the Balearic Isles with an obstinacy that maintained its pristine vigor and held to its purpose for forty long years. They were victorious at last and divided their conquests equably among ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... that he would not desire a larger military force for defensive purposes than 40,000 men fit for actual service, to accomplish any military object, as such a force would always enable him to choose his positions. Two such armies of effective men could be easily maintained in the two Canadas, and concentrated rapidly and with certainty upon any ...
— Canada and the Canadians, Vol. 2 • Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... the widow, endeavoring to seize the arm of her son. But he, drunk with wine and anger, pushed his mother rudely on one side, and rushed at his brother. Martial fell back quickly, seized his heavy knotted stick, and put himself on the defensive. ...
— The Mysteries of Paris V2 • Eugene Sue
... early part of the summer of 1841, the citizens of Illinois organized a strong force in opposition; the Mormons were beaten in the contest. The disposition now manifested by the citizens appears to be to act upon the defensive, but at all ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat
... and in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months; and it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply our merchant-ships with defensive arms should that become necessary, and with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate and peaceful pursuits of ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... ferocious in their conduct. Of bows and arrows not the least indication was perceived, either at these islands or at Coen River; and the spears were too heavy and clumsily made, to be dangerous as offensive weapons: in the defensive, they might have ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... himself was known and feared. Calhoun, the Secretary of War, who was specially annoyed because his instructions had not been followed, favored a public censure. On the other hand, John Quincy Adams, the Secretary of State, took the ground that everything that Jackson had done was "defensive and incident to his main duty to crush the Seminoles." The Administration finally reached the decision to surrender the posts but otherwise to back up the General, in the hope of convincing Spain of the futility of trying longer to hold Florida. Monroe ...
— The Reign of Andrew Jackson • Frederic Austin Ogg
... upright, not availing myself in the least of my superiority in height, and only acting on the defensive. Calton played well enough for a gentleman; but he was no match for one who had, at the age of thirteen, beat the Life Guardsmen at Angelo's. Suddenly, when I had excited a general laugh at the clumsy success with which I warded off a most rapid attack of Calton's, I changed my position, ...
— Pelham, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... hungry, and gave all its meager earnings to a small invalid brother or drunken father. But the Sawyer orphans were neither pensive nor appealing. There was a defiant belligerency about them that stifled the avenues of pity and put one on the defensive. They were wild and gay, and uproarious, too, and with the exception of Tim, the eldest, they were strong and robust. He certainly looked as though he had been starved, body and soul; but his other unorphan-like qualities were so obtrusive that ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... the situation with solemn relish. By a defensive gallery, it appeared that he meant a lateral tunnel running parallel with the trench-line, in such a manner as to intercept any tunnel pushed out by ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... went to make inquiries; and now when Sir Ulick and King Corny were left alone together, a dialogue—a sort of single combat, without any object but to try each other's powers and temper—ensued between them; in which the one on the offensive came on with a tomahawk, and the other stood on the defensive parrying with a polished blade of Damascus; and sometimes, when the adversary was off his guard, making a sly cut ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth
... in which to exercise the weapons which logic had put in their hands. Here Martin and Crambe used to engage like any prizefighters. And as prize-fighters will agree to lay aside a buckler, or some such defensive weapon, so Crambe would agree not to use simpliciter and secundum quid, if Martin would part with materialiter and formaliter. But it was found, that, without the defensive armor of these distinctions, the arguments cut so deep that they fetched ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various
... the creek over the switchbacks hours ago, and they say the emergency grades are first-rate," said Marion Sinclair, on the defensive. "The stock trains must have followed right along. Your cousin is sure to be here pretty soon. Probably Mr. McCloud will know which train he is on, and Mr. Lee telephoned that Mr. McCloud would ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... so brave a man in so treacherous a manner, when he is so noble and magnanimous?" He then went up to Sudun, kissed his head, and said, "Rise up, O warrior of the age, for you and your companions are safe from me." They now all embraced each other, and made an offensive and defensive compact. "Take me with you alive, O brave man," said Sudun, "and hand me over to the King as his daughter's dowry. If he consents, well; but if not, take my head, and woo your wife." "God forbid," said Wakhs ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 10 • Richard F. Burton
... thirty. Brimfield made seven in two plunges at the left side of the opposing line and then Still fumbled. Marvin recovered and Norton kicked to Claflin's thirty. Steve and Miller upset Ainsmith where he caught. Claflin was now playing on the defensive and kicked on first down. The punt was short and Kendall got it on Claflin's forty-eight yards and made ten before ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... belonged to the former state of society, thrown away; malleable iron converted into hard steel, this steel applied to a thousand purposes of civilised life; I saw bands of men who made use of it for defensive armour and for offensive weapons; I saw these iron- clad men, in small numbers subduing thousands of savages, and establishing amongst them their arts and institutions; I saw a few men on the eastern shores of Europe, resisting, with the same materials, the united forces ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... felt a quick gust of pleasure and romance sweep across him. It was as though senses that had been for long on the defensive, tired, or teased merely by the world, gave way in a moment to joy and poetry. He looked from the face beside him to the pictured scene in which they stood—the soft air filled his lungs—what ailed him?—he only knew that after many weeks he was, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thunder of a battle going on somewhere among the mountains. Knowing the Alsatian frontier fairly well, I understood that a battle among the mountains must mean that our First Corps had been attacked, and that we were on the defensive on French soil. ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... round to where, at the head of the table, Gentleman Fox sat, in defensive gentility and the little white piping ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... inevitable moment was come. "I ordered Trumbull not to inquire further," she said, with a careful calmness which was evidently defensive. ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... papers called you such awful things. I didn't," she said, wistfully defensive. "I couldn't—not after seeing you on the beach that day, playing around like a great big kid, and not making eyes at the girls when they made eyes at you. You—you didn't act like a villain, when I saw you. ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... have not engaged in real hostilities with the Miwok or Maidu for well over a century and Paiute hostilities appear to have taken the form of occasional defensive skirmishes; thus the details of war magic are vague. However, Washo tradition repeatedly mentions a month-long period during which doctors gathered and made medicine against the enemy before launching a campaign. Usually ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... the guests, and the danger arising from the feuds into which they were divided, few of the feasters wore any defensive armour, except the light goat-skin buckler, which hung behind each man's seat. On the other hand, they were well provided with offensive weapons; for the broad, sharp, short, two-edged sword was another legacy of the Romans. Most added a wood-knife or poniard; and there were ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... prisoner. But he was not going to get it. The law had Ross sewed up tight this time. Why didn't they get about the business of shipping him off? Why had he had that afternoon session with the skull thumper? Ross had been on the defensive then, and he had not liked it. He had given to the other's questions all the attention his shrewd mind could muster, but a faint, very faint, apprehension still clung to the memory ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... is both speechless and distinguished. I have known several such, and their presence lies like a blight over the most cheerful party. It is unhappily often the case that shyness is apt to exist side by side with considerable ability, and a shy man of this type regards distinction as a kind of defensive armour, which may justify him in applying to others the contempt which he has himself been conscious of incurring. One of the most disagreeable men I know is a man of great ability, who was bullied ...
— At Large • Arthur Christopher Benson
... weapons, but fight with stones and wooden daggers; they go naked except for a defensive armour of goat-skins, which they wear in front and behind. Houses they have none, not even the poorest huts, but live in mountain caves, without faith, without God. Some indeed worship the sun and moon, and others planets, reverence certain idols; in their ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... engage an enemy force, even though it be of manifestly inferior strength, may be appropriate to the attainment of the end in view. Necessity for speed or secrecy, or other demands, may make the required operations unacceptable. (See page 75 as to the offensive and the defensive.) ...
— Sound Military Decision • U.s. Naval War College
... general-in-chief. When all others except the pickets are asleep, he is examining maps and plans, calculating distances, estimating the strength of his army, and asking himself whether it will do to attack the enemy, or whether he shall stand on the defensive? can this brigade be relied upon for a desperate charge? will that division hold the enemy in check? At such times, the good name, the valor, the bravery of the troops and of the officers who command them is reviewed. He weighs character. He knows who are reliable and who inefficient. ...
— My Days and Nights on the Battle-Field • Charles Carleton Coffin
... are to retire at once to the house. When we are once all together, we shall be able to decide, according to the number of the enemy, as to whether we shall sally out and pepper them, or stand upon the defensive.' ...
— Out on the Pampas - The Young Settlers • G. A. Henty
... neighbours out of a possession of above 1400 years, to make roome for their Trojan Horse of ecclesiastical discipline (a practice never justified in the world but either by the Turk or by the Pope): this put us upon the defensive part. They must not think that other men are so cowed or grown so tame, as to stand still blowing of their noses, whilst they bridle them and ride them at their pleasure. It is time to let the world see that this discipline ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... of this sort which now threatened Ratcliffe, there was one that, had he known it, might have made him more uneasy than any of those which were the work of senators and congressmen. Carrington entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Sybil. It came about in this wise. Sybil was fond of riding and occasionally, when Carrington could spare the time, he went as her guide and protector in these country excursions; for every Virginian, however out at elbows, has a horse, as he ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... Belfort, and here we saw the first signs of havoc wrought by gunfire. At Paris we had been within twenty miles of the battlefield where the German hosts were first turned back, but there was not much ruin wrought to buildings at the Marne. Men, unprotected by trenches or any of the later found defensive methods, bore the brunt of ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... direct his attention to this line, and, selecting an isolated post for attack, would concentrate his forces upon it. This would be a condition of affairs which the Mexicans, pursuing their favorite system of guerrilla warfare, would probably prefer to any other. Were we to assume a defensive attitude on such a line, all the advantages of such a state of war would be on the side of the enemy. We could levy no contributions upon him, or in any other way make him feel the pressure of the war, but must remain inactive and await his approach, being in constant uncertainty ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... later the Germans, no longer on the defensive, themselves went forth from their marshy forests conquering and to conquer. For century after century they swarmed out of the dark woodland east of the Rhine, and north of the Danube; and as their force spent itself, the movement was taken up by their brethren who dwelt along the coasts of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... very carefully observed such whose mind or aspect were featured with any chearful and debonair lineaments; for such he boded were they that would despatch him; to that purpose he always went secretly armed, both offensive and defensive; and never stirred without a great guard. In his usual journey between Whitehall and Hampton Court, by several roads, he drove full speed in the summer time, making such a dust with his life-guard, part before and part behinde, at a convenient distance, for fear ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... suddenly finding herself on the defensive Lady Ryehampton blinked at him somewhat owlishly: "That's all very well," she said in a less severe tone. "But is there a kittens' home at all—a kittens' home with kittens in it? That's what I want ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... was no employment for them, and further, he was anxious that the frontiers of the empire should be more extensively occupied by sending colonists, he sent colonists to Signia and Circeii, to serve as defensive barriers hereafter to the city by land and sea. While he was thus employed a frightful prodigy appeared to him. A serpent sliding out of a wooden pillar, after causing dismay and a run into the palace, not so much struck the king's heart with sudden terror, as ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... inroads from the savage bands Lead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands; They sack the temples, the gay fields deface, And vow destruction to the Incan race. The king, undaunted in defensive war, Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar; Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood, And rouse fresh tribes ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... to attract them into the church, it has, in the long run usually been ineffectual. Too often the motive has been so thinly veiled and the program of the social hour has been given such a religious atmosphere that outsiders very naturally take a defensive attitude, and although they may enjoy the occasion they are perfectly ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... before the soldier takes his stand. He is to be fully equipped first: he is to take up his position second. We may note that, in all the list of his equipment, there is but one weapon of offence—the sword of the Spirit; all the rest are defensive weapons. The girdle, which is the first specified, is not properly a weapon at all, but it comes first because the belt keeps all the other parts of the armour in place, and gives agility to the wearer. Having girded your loins (R.V.) is better than having your loins ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house Against the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... motives. Before the war was terminated I repaired to London on behalf of Russia, in order to propose to the Japanese government, in addition to the treaty of peace which was about to be discussed at Portsmouth, an offensive and defensive alliance, and to ask that Prince Ito be sent as first plenipotentiary, invested with full powers ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... no doubt that you love Timmy, but the question of whether you love your son confuses you and throws you on the defensive. You react strongly, evade answering, take refuge in exclamations and unfinished sentences. A species of stuttering. Can it be that you find it difficult to think of Timmy as your son? Do you doubt that ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... work we know from the bloody annals of the years which followed the British-American peace, when the men of the Cumberland and of Franklin were on the defensive continually. How cleverly Mire played his personal role we discover in the letters addressed to him by Sevier and Robertson. These letters show that, as far as words go at any rate, the founders of Tennessee were willing to negotiate with Spain. In a letter dated ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... am between fifty and sixty—every moment is precious at that time of life. Besides, I've said all I can say; rest quiet—act on the defensive—entangle this cursed Vaudemont, or Morton, or whoever he be, in the mesh of your daughter's charms, and then get rid of him, not before. This can do no harm, let the matter turn out how it will. Read the papers; and send for Blackwell ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... portion of the body grew upward in the form of a "visceral hump." Apparently the animal could not increase much in length and retain the advantage of the protection of the shell; and the shell was the dominating structure. It had entered upon a defensive campaign. Motion, slow at the outset, became more difficult, and the protection of the shell therefore all the more necessary. The shell increased in size and weight and motion became almost impossible. The snail represents the average result of the experiment. It can crawl, ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... the hideous reptile drew near, and, opening its jaws, let them come together with a snap! Even Jack was not proof against this. He started up, and looked about for a defensive weapon. We had nothing but our clasp-knives. ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... Parliamentarians, Sinn Feiners, Republicans and every other class of Irish Nationalist. The manifesto it issued stated: "The object proposed for the Irish Volunteers is to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to all the people of Ireland. Their duties will be defensive and protective and they will not attempt either aggression or domination. Their ranks are open to all able-bodied Irishmen without distinction of creed, politics, or social grade." And then it appealed "in the name of national unity, of national dignity, ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... illness to which for the last two years we had been subjected, Lord Wellington removed his headquarters to Visen, and the army went for the most part into cantonments on the valley of the Mondego. Lord Wellington knew that his troops were then only strong enough for defensive operations, and was therefore determined, unless strongly reinforced, not to take rash measures; but on the enemy's fresh invasion of Portugal he again shifted his headquarters to Celorico. After that we moved on to another small place, called, as far as I ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... fights as he sleeps, without the protection of anything defensive. The sounds of the alarm were, therefore, hardly uttered before two hundred men were afoot, and ready for the battle or the chase, as either might be required. The escape was soon known; and the whole tribe ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... solitude, that face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had come into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to be inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, mere defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay hold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who has learned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the depth of his hatred this morning for ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... was not accepted by the Duchess, who still made efforts to retain the services of a man who was necessary to her administration. She begged him, notwithstanding the purely defensive and watchful attitude which he had now assumed, to take measures that Brederode should abandon his mischievous courses. She also reproached the Prince with having furnished that personage with artillery ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... as he was told, but he realised they had been speaking of him and felt on the defensive. However, he sat down as near to Caesar as he could. They talked of all manner of people and things of which he knew nothing, traditional jokes cropped up, and Aymer's propensity for teasing asserted itself in a prominent manner. Renata never failed to respond and never failed ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... and French armies till we could be relieved by Sir Henry Clinton or by a fresh army and fleet from England. It was too well known from the first that the army was but ill-supplied with guns, and indeed with all the munitions of war requisite for carrying on offensive, or even defensive, operations against the enemy. This became still more evident when the guns and ammunition were landed from the ships-of-war, and the crews were summoned on shore to work them. Every effort was made to put our positions in an efficient state ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... and facility in, English can be built up on such a basis; rather the laws should be deduced from examples. Philology, etymology, syntax are derivatives, not foundations. "Practice makes perfect" is a saying that needs to be followed by the old scholastic defensive "distinguo." Practice in reading, rather than practice in writing, makes good English composition possible. The "daily theme" may be overdone; it is of little use unless thought keeps ahead ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... ancient piece of defensive armour for the head; it covered the face, leaving an aperture in the front, secured by bars: this was called the visor. The helmet is now placed over a coat of arms; and by the metal from which it is made, the form, and position, denotes the ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... to hold back any bold adventurer who attempted to penetrate into the mysterious depths of this desolate wilderness. Solitude is averse to being surprised in dishabille, and surrounds herself with all sorts of defensive obstacles. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... of anger they flung themselves upon him, and the struggle began anew. In their rage and impetuosity, however, they fought without method, and the Knight was able for a short interval, by skilful play, to sweep aside their points and to parry their blows. But it forced him to fight wholly on the defensive, and his age and wounds left no doubt as to the ultimate result. His arm grew tired, and the grip on his sword hilt weakened. . . His enemies pressed him closer and closer. . . A blow got past his guard and pierced his thigh. He had strength for only one ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... Rupert would not have judged and condemned his prospective brother-in-law on the evidence of his bridge play alone. The tragic part of it was that he smiled and fumbled through life just as fatuously and apologetically as he did at the card-table. And behind the defensive smile and the well-worn expressions of regret there shone a scarcely believable but quite obvious self-satisfaction. Every sheep of the pasture probably imagines that in an emergency it could become ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... her on the defensive, and with one of those sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a little push from her. In his ticklish position he nearly lost his balance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse, though a ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... sympathetic with his mother, and with Mary, in the dreadful hour when they supposed him lost; and had it not been for the great perplexity occasioned by his return, she would have received him, as a relative, with open arms. But now she felt it her duty to be on the defensive,—an attitude not the most favorable for cherishing pleasing associations in regard to another. She had read the letter giving an account of his spiritual experience with very sincere pleasure, as a good woman should, but not without an internal perception ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... I had been the greater fool. Your universal sceptic—if he choose to affect that character,—no man is it—is impregnable; his true emblem is the hedgehog ensphered in his prickles; that is, as long as you are observing him. For if you do not thus irritate his amour propre, and put him on the defensive, he will unroll himself. Speaking, reasoning, acting, like the rest of the world, on the implied truthfulness of the faculties whose falsity he affirms, he will save you the trouble of confuting him, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... that she was crying until a tear splashed hot upon her hand. She did not hear the door open as Benis reentered the room, but she sprang to her feet, alert and defensive, at ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... people. It is less important to us than to the {80} French. Why should we not then let Lower Canada, which desires to place a barrier against aggression by the west, decide the question and make her defensive powers as strong as she likes? It would be no great stretch of liberality on our part to accord it to her.' During the debates on Confederation in the Canadian Assembly, in the following year, Macdonald derided the notion that a government would ever 'overrule the independent opinion of the Upper ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... which no standing law can embrace. We should also join in this opinion and give up any attempt at a theory, were it not that a great number of propositions make themselves evident without any difficulty, as, for instance, that the defensive form, with a negative object, is the stronger form, the attack, with the positive object, the weaker—that great results carry the little ones with them—that, therefore, strategic effects may be referred to certain centres of gravity—that ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... last minute! And I thought I was being so nice to you. Well, I shall know better another time!" Sometime ... at the risk of annoying her, he made up his mind that he would find out where she had gone, and even dreamed of a defensive alliance with Forcheville, who might perhaps have been able to tell him. But anyhow, when he knew with whom she was spending the evening, it was very seldom that he could not discover, among all his innumerable acquaintance, some one who knew—if only indirectly—the man with whom she had ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... he saw them to be middle-aged and young—a mother and daughter evidently. The elder with a quick, defensive movement walked to the doorway and stood there, blocking it. He heard the younger exclaim, "A tramp!" and then she came forward, squeezing in beside her mother. Hostility and apprehension were ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... was of force, for the defensive armour of the fifteenth century had reached a pitch of cumbrousness that required long practice for a man to be ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a trap. For a moment Lanyard was able to accomplish no more than to smother resistance in a rib-crushing embrace; no sooner did he relax it than all attempts to shift his hold were anticipated and met half way, forcing him back upon the defensive. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... probably the suddenness and unexpectedness of it that took Walton aback. Up till now his antagonist had been fighting strictly on the defensive, and was obviously desirous of escaping punishment as far as might be possible. And then the fall at the end of round one had shaken him up, so that he could hardly fight at all at their second meeting. Walton naturally expected that it would be left to him to do the leading ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... sitting on the sofa, rushed up upon this, and went up and down the room in a violent frenzy, exclaiming—"God eternally d—n it!" etc., etc. "Flesh and blood cannot stand this. I only spoke upon the defensive, which Ripon's speech at the beginning of the session rendered quite necessary. I cannot be expected to give up my position in the country, neither do I think that it is to the Queen's ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... replied the shooter, a great red-headed, freckly faced fellow, with backward-lying whiskers, crowned in a drab rustic. 'Oh, pretty middling,' repeated he, not knowing whether to act on the friendly or defensive. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... that in this prison no swords or fire- arms, or even cudgels, are kept; nor is it probable that, so long as its present excellent management continues, any weapon, offensive or defensive, will ever be ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... tell you, that I write to you seldom -. it is a fortnight since my last; and nothing material has happened in this interval. The rebels are intrenching and fortifying themselves in Scotland; and what a despicable affair is a rebellion upon the defensive! General Hawley is marched from Edinburgh, to put it quite out. I must give you some idea of this man, who will give a mortal blow to the pride of the Scotch nobility. He is called Lord chief Justice; frequent and sudden executions are his passion. Last winter he had intelligence ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth, Renowned for their deeds ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... the darkness: but how long, O man! could you make it endure? What could you do with your artificial light, if God did not cause His sun to shine? Without it grows no grass, no corn. On the hand lying upon the book there fell a bright sunbeam. How soon, at other times, would Gellert have drawn the defensive curtain! Now he watches the little motes that play ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... Roselawn a couple of days before he had a chance to do more than observe Elise Durwent as one of the party. She had been his partner at tennis and bridge, and a dozen times he had exchanged light talk with her, but there was always about her the defensive shield of impersonal cordiality. When he spoke to her it was almost in a drawl, but no matter to what a lackadaisical level he reduced his voice, her replies were always punctuated by a retort that had in it the sense of sting, as Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana accompanies his song with ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... we can scarcely say that one quality predominates over the other. But Imogen is less imaginative than Juliet, less spirited and intellectual than Portia, less serious than Helen and Isabel; her dignity is not so imposing as that of Hermione, it stands more on the defensive; her submission, though unbounded, is not so passive as that of Desdemona; and thus while she resembles each of these characters individually, she stands wholly ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... United States should, in the course of this campaign, be in a situation to co-operate in vigorous enterprises, which may be formed. It appears that the design of the Court of London, pointed out by the debates in Parliament, is to reduce, by a defensive war, their operations upon this continent. The Minister of his Most Christian Majesty has at present no information relative to the plans of the approaching campaign. But whatever they may be, it would ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... her plump cherub cheeks had melted away under the glow of measles, and the hooping process had lengthened and narrowed her small person into a demure little thread-paper of six years old, omnivorous of books, a pet and pickle at school, and a romp at home—the sworn ally, offensive and defensive, of stout, rough-pated, unruly Bernard. Stella was the loveliest little bit of painted porcelain imaginable, quite capable of being his companion, and a perfect little fairy, for beauty, gracefulness, and quickness of all kinds. Alda was delighted ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were able to send fleets unhindered wherever they wished; and when Spain entered as an ally, in 1779, their combined navies swept the Channel, driving the humiliated British fleet into port. England was called upon to make defensive war at home, at Gibraltar, in the West Indies, and finally in India, at a time when the full strength of the country was already occupied ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... enthusiastic. The more he reflected on the incident, the more he appreciated both the extent of M. Belmont's mistake and the profundity of the wound that must rankle in his proud spirit. He, therefore, resolved to hold himself purely on the defensive and to enter upon explanations to the simple extent of direct replies to direct charges. The stake was Pauline herself. On her account he was prepared to push prudence to the limit of his own humiliation, and to make every concession ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... the defensive.] All Roberts's savin's have gone. He 's always looked forward to this strike. He says he's no right to a farthing when the others are suffering. 'T is n't so with all o' them! Some don't seem to care no more than that—so long as they get ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Camille had held herself prudently on the defensive; she had betrayed neither Calyste's secret nor that of Beatrix. The great artist was capable of treachery to every one, and Mademoiselle des Touches ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... was a secret document, but everybody knew that it required Italy to join with Austria and Germany in the event of their being compelled to engage in a defensive war. Therefore the first question for Italy was whether the war declared by Austria against Serbia and by Germany against Belgium, although apparently aggressive, was in reality defensive. There was a further question for Italy—what would happen to her if she decided against ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... State. There was trouble if not danger lurking behind it, if such two States were to join in an actual federation. Whatever was desirable for mutual advantage might be attained without offensive and defensive alliance. The two Governments, however, knew how to manipulate matters. The closer union scheme was carried through before the Jameson incursion, and soon after that event an offensive and defensive alliance completed the federation. The Afrikaner Bond then had advanced ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... history, and may be able to say something which will not be open to the charge of, "Oh! Another boring book about the War!" As I conceive it, my hospital book will be an analysis of the mind and character of the British working-man with his defensive armour off, and not an attempt to give any views on military or medical ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... property, insisted that the change of government in France had abrogated all claims which the alliance gave to monarchical France; that, even if this were not so, the United States was pledged to aid her only in a defensive war, and this war with England was entirely offensive on her part; that to give aid to the maddened revolutionists was to identify ourselves irrevocably with destructive fanatics, bloody regicides, and wild propagandists. These zealots, they said, had already ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... well officered. Each side cherished the delusion that it had a monopoly of courage and endurance. One Southern man was thought equal to five Northern men in a fair contest, and if the former were given the advantage of a defensive position, any odds of numbers would be taken. There was nearly, though not quite, as much boasting on the part of our own press and people. The first severe battles made an end of the greater part of ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... subjugation and the ruin of its neighbors. For a time, Kandar had tried to arm for its own defense. It had a space-fleet which in quality was probably equal to Mekin's, but in quantity was hopelessly less. Also it had a defensive policy. It did not dream of any but a defensive war. And no war was ever won by mere defense. There could be no defense against the building-up of tensions, the contriving of incidents, the invention of insults. It ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... that the Great Spirit is displeased with all nations who wantonly engage in war; they abstain, therefore, from all aggressive hostilities. But though thus unoffending in their policy, they are called upon continually to wage defensive warfare; especially with the Blackfeet; with whom, in the course of their hunting expeditions, they come in frequent collision and have desperate battles. Their conduct as warriors is without fear or reproach, and they can never ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... were made to remain on duty, in positions occupied only at night as a rule. Our purely defensive position was lucky that day, for we were exposed only to slight artillery fire; but on our right a regiment of our division, in one of the terrible emplacements of October 14th, received an awful punishment, of which the inconclusive result cost several hundred lives. Here in our great village, ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... country. Fortunately for all parties but the Rebels, those reverses came suddenly and with such emphasis as to create serious doubts in the European mind as to the superiority of the South as a fighting community. In an evil hour for his cause, General Lee abandoned that wise defensive system to which he had so long and so successfully adhered, and made a movement into the Free States. What was the immediate cause of his change of proceeding will probably never be accurately known to the existing generation. On the face of things no good political reason ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... of March, not only shows that statement to be erroneous, but establishes the fact that Lord Buckingham peremptorily refused to entertain the negotiation until he should have received a positive assurance that a certain defensive and hostile agreement, into which those gentlemen had entered, was to be considered as abandoned. This agreement, or association, was called the Round Robin (although not really a round robin, being merely a declaration, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... great danger, as at the time of the Persian invasions (492-479 B.C.), a number of the States would combine to form a defensive league; at other times they made war on one another. The federal principle, such as we know it in the United States in our state and national governments, never came into play. At different times Athens, Sparta, and Thebes ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... we supped together, discussing the matter all the time, I persisting that the possession of arms was my only offence, and he replying that if it were so I should have awaited the alcalde fearlessly, as it stood to reason that a man had a right to keep defensive weapons in his own room. To this I answered that I had only come to him to avoid passing the night in prison, as I was certain that the man had told ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... soon after the 10th of June. A frigate brought the orders to set all ships and cannon in defensive condition; an East Indian ship had reported the proximity of many American privateers. One of these had even been captured. The Hessian officers thereupon set all cannon in order and arranged for the distribution of the men in the case of an attack. ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... empty place near the top, opposite to the master, who, after the usual compliments, without further ceremony, asked me, 'What we meant by calling Christ, God?' War being thus unequivocally declared, I had nothing to do but stand upon the defensive. Mirza Ibraheem argued temperately enough; but of the rest, some were very violent and clamorous. The former asked 'if Christ had ever called himself God—was he the Creator or a creature?' I replied, 'The Creator.' The Moollahs looked at one another. Such a confession had never before been ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... pensive and hungry, and gave all its meager earnings to a small invalid brother or drunken father. But the Sawyer orphans were neither pensive nor appealing. There was a defiant belligerency about them that stifled the avenues of pity and put one on the defensive. They were wild and gay, and uproarious, too, and with the exception of Tim, the eldest, they were strong and robust. He certainly looked as though he had been starved, body and soul; but his other unorphan-like qualities were so obtrusive ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... that!' said Mr Pecksniff, still smiling at the fire. 'There is disinterestedness in the world, I hope? We are not all arrayed in two opposite ranks; the OFfensive and the DEfensive. Some few there are who walk between; who help the needy as they go; and take no part ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... to leave some of the best troops to confront Schwarzenberg between Nogent and Montereau, under Victor and Oudinot, hard fighters both, with instructions not to engage in any decisive battle, not to allow themselves to be trapped into that, but to stand on the defensive, to hold the River Seine, to retreat foot by foot, if pressed, to take advantage of every cover, to hold the enemy in check, to contest every foot of the way, to assume a strength which ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Grant determined to hold Thobal; where he could, he thought, defend himself, and afford refuge to any who had escaped the massacre. As soon as the enemy had retired, we all set to work to prepare a defensive position; by setting fire to the crops, so as to prevent the enemy from creeping up unseen, and by making ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... stoutly defensive. G.J. grew self-conscious. Moreover, her slang disturbed him. It was the first slang he had heard her use, and in using it her voice had roughened. But he remembered that Concepcion also used ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... The importance of defensive armor has ever been felt. The warriors of ancient times went to the field in coats-of-mail, and both Homer and Virgil dilate upon the exquisite carving of the shield. The hauberk and corselet were used by the Crusaders, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... who posed as German patriots; while the Humanist party, roused by the attacks made upon Reuchlin by the Dominicans of Cologne, backed by the Scholastic Theologians, were not sorry to see their opponents challenged in their own special department, and obliged to act on the defensive. The knights or lower nobles, too, who had been deprived of many of their privileges by the princes, were ready for any scheme of violence in the hope that it might conduce to their advantage; and the lower classes ground down for ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... little wretched mutton chops; we resented the imposition, although the sudden appearance of 4 or 5 officers of the imperial guard almost rendered it doubtful whether we ought to act too warmly on the defensive, as they seemed to patronise our hostess; however, we refused to pay ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... Patsy calmly, "there is no love-making in it, you understand—they are both too old, of course. But Julian is the handsomest and richest bachelor in our parts, and Miss Aline—well, she is Miss Aline and owner of the Balmacminto estates. So I think she and uncle make—what is it called?—a kind of defensive and offensive alliance. I know Uncle Ju had nearly to fight old Sir Bunny Bunny the other day. He interviewed the old fellow. He had come to propose his son, who is such a donkey that the very village urchins bray after him and pretend to ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... may be associated with a habit of life in which food conditions are simple and stimuli mandatory. As we rise in the scale toward backboned and warm-blooded animals, the males become larger in size; and this reversal of relation, like the development of offensive and defensive weapons, is due to the superior variational tendency of the male, resulting in characters which persist in the species wherever ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... soldier excitedly, and, forgetting all the words that had passed, he fetched the oblong, round-faced shield from the table and held it ready for Marcus to thrust his left arm through the loop and then grasp the hand-hold firmly, and draw the piece of defensive armour before his breast. "Well done! Now think that I'm going to ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... you!" muttered the boy, on the defensive. He carried a large bag of what seemed to be chocolate creams, from ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... council associated by Russia with the sovereign, freed themselves from the Russian guarantee; aided by Prussia, compelled the Russian troops to evacuate the country; devised a constitution, which they laid before the cabinets of London and Berlin; concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia on the 29th of March, 1790, and, on the 3d of May, 1791, carried into effect the new constitution ratified by England and Prussia, and approved of by the emperor Leopold. During the conference, held at Pilnitz, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... links these, that not only bind together their obligated votaries, but that recognize and embrace, because of worthiness and plighted faith, that behind the back as well as face to face, have a defensive, kindly word and a brother's generous deed; that, amid the upheavals of communities and the crumbling of nations, systems and governments, swerve not from their course, and are corralled by no arbitrary bounds, and that, whatever ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... traced back in a similar way, though it must be admitted that the racial survivals are usually less convincing than those from the infancy of the individual. The nasal expression in disgust was originally a defensive movement against bad odors; and the set lips of determination went primarily with the set glottis and rigid chest that are useful in lifting heavy weights or in other severe muscular efforts. Such movements, directly useful in certain simple situations, become linked up with analogous ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... had undergone one of its swift changes. It had grown defensive and a little fierce. She should not see Blossom!—this other child who could walk away over the sand to meet Elises, whoever Elises were. She should not see Blossom! Blossom ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... Mr. Lincoln whirled about in his long arms an imaginary dog, and pushed its tail end toward the jury. This was the defensive plea of 'son assault demesne'—loosely, that 'the other fellow brought on the fight,'—quickly told, and in a way the dullest mind would ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... pronounced discrepancy. Garments may make a little difference, but they do not account for it all. I think perhaps that man's stronger physique, naturally greater activity, and severer strokes prevent the girl from playing her own game. She has to be nearly always on the defensive, and thus plays ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... those whom he found to be untruthful or not straightforward. Naturally he did not offer any unnecessary encouragement to bores and dullards, but in his intercourse with these undesirables and wasters of his time he adopted none of the "offensive-defensive" methods of, say, Dr. Johnson or Lord Westbury. He armed himself with a cold correctitude of politeness, and lowered the social temperature instead of ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... the object of his pursuit standing irresolutely on the border of the carriage drive, evidently uncertain whether to strike across the Park or make for the bustling pavements of Knightsbridge. He turned round sharply with an air of defensive hostility when he ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... thrown suddenly on the defensive. The Irish troops, on which he counted as a balance to the Scots, had been cut to pieces by Fairfax or by Waller, and both in the North and in the South he seemed utterly overmatched. But he was far from despairing. Before the advance of Essex he had answered Newcastle's cry for aid by despatching ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... 274 above. The jack was "a horseman's defensive upper garment, quilted and covered with strong leather" (Nares). It was sometimes also strengthened with iron rings, plates, or bosses. Cf. Lyly, Euphues: "jackes quilted, and covered over with leather, fustian, or canvas, over thick plates of yron that are sowed to ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... The Sung military group was faced as early as in 1131 with furious opposition from the greater gentry, led by Ch'in K'ui, one of the largest landowners of all. His estates were around Nanking, and so in the deployment region and the region from which most of the soldiers had to be drawn for the defensive struggle. Ch'in K'ui secured the assassination of the leader of the military party, General Yo Fei, in 1141, and was able to conclude peace with the Juchen. The Sung had to accept the status of vassals and to pay annual tribute ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... somewhere in his thirties, easygoing of face, brownish of hair, bluish of eye and moderately good-looking. His posture wasn't the best and he had a slight tummy but he was a goodish masculine specimen by Mid-Western standards. He stared out at them, defensive now that it was obvious they were strangers. Were they selling something, or in what other manner were they attempting to intrude on his well being? His eyes went from the older man's thin face, to the football hero ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... an almost startling change in Philippa's face. The banter which had served her with so much effect, which she had relied upon as her defensive weapon, was suddenly useless. Lessingham had created an atmosphere around him, an atmosphere ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had schooled himself since Jack Witherspoon's departure in every defensive measure against the secret plotters. And so his voice was suave and measured as he simply said, "I think, Mr. Wade, that I shall have to regretfully decline this promotion. I am perfectly well satisfied as I am. I know nothing of the details of our ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... with kind eyes; something in his voice suddenly made her put away all thought of the defensive airs that a girl, in certain situations, is expected to assume. She perceived that he wanted to make her understand something, and now her only wish was to help him to say it. "You are not happy," she murmured, simply, her voice dying away in a kind ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... moved together up the steps of the porch, and he stood there looking at her, quelling the up-rush of admiration and avid hunger in his eyes. Then she said curtly, for in these days she was always on the defensive, and meant to be doubly so with him whom she secretly feared, "Ye're in ther house now. Ef ye wants ter mek a killin' with me, tek off yore hat. Don't folks hev no manners whar ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... was no adequate preparation for resistance. The British Navy, indeed, was an overwhelming force as compared to the French; but its hands were fully occupied, and the fleet Nelson had just left in the Baltic could not yet be recalled. It was, however, in purely defensive measures, in the possession of a force similar to that by which the proposed attack was to be made, and in dispositions analogous to coast defences, that the means were singularly defective, both in material and men. "Everything, my dear ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... that Mr. Alexander McGee was standing in the doorway, his hand resting lightly on the jamb. A sudden color suffused Wayne's cheek; his hand reached for his book, which he drew towards him hurriedly, yet half automatically, as he might have grasped some defensive weapon. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said, "whatever is harsh, aggressive, cynical, mean, sneering, selfish in me has been externally acquired. You scrape even a spineless mollusc too long with a pin, and the irritation produces a defensive crust. I began boy-like by being so damned credulous and impulsive and affectionate and tender-hearted that even my kid sister laughed at me; and she was only three years older than I. Then followed that period of social loneliness, ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... in the background, with a continual menace. It shapes the character of a people and enters into all their political and educational progress. To keep on friendly terms with a powerful next-door neighbour, or to build defensive works high enough to make hostility a safe game, is the lifework of its statesmen and its politicians. Great crises and agitations shake the nation convulsively when cowardice or treachery or laziness has allowed that ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... religion, our modern categories furnish the noblest mental formulae in which the religious spirit ever had opportunity to find expression. We who believe this have no business to be modest and apologetic about it, as though upon the defensive we shyly presented it to the suffrages of men. It is a gospel to proclaim. It does involve a new theology but, with multitudes of eager minds in our generation, the decision no longer lies between an old and a new theology, but between new theology and no theology. No longer can they ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... waltzing round the most striking curves, some of them almost elliptical. Tremendous gradients lead through tunnels and over bridges, and the swerving carriages run often in alarming proximity to the edge of precipitous ravines. What a splendid position for defensive purposes! Had the present war been declared three weeks earlier De Aar would have been quite unable to stand against the Boers, and thus the enemy might with his amazing mobility have made a swift ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... form the invading army. All were clothed in their most terror-inspiring attire, with as great a proportion of feathers and skins as could be mustered. Their arms consisted of sumpitans, spears and swords, daggers, with shields and padded jackets for their defensive armour, while each man carried his provisions in a basket on his back. This time they proposed attacking a tribe some way to the north, with whom they had ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... obliged to come armed each Sabbath, and the sentinels were ordered to keep their matches constantly lighted for use in their match-locks. They were also commanded to wear armor, which consisted of "coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indian arrows." In 1650 so much dread and fear were felt of Sunday attacks from the red men that the Sabbath-Day guard was doubled in number. In 1692, the Connecticut Legislature ordered one fifth of the soldiers in each town to come armed to each meeting, and that nowhere ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... may have had secret information—for they had their spies in every department—that the long-meditated disarmament had been determined upon, and immediately decided to anticipate the offensive by a strong defensive of their own choosing. At any rate, Monday found them fully prepared, each in his ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... wakened from his dream of foreign conquests, Louis XIV. now sought only to defend his own frontier; and the arms which had formerly been at the gates of Amsterdam, and recently carried terror into the centre of Germany, were now reduced to a painful defensive on the Scheldt and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... initiated Eloise into a new way of performing old duties, as coolly as if no indignant word or thought had ever passed between them. And meanwhile, in place of their ancient warfare, but with no later friendship, Eloise and Mrs. Arles had tacitly instituted an offensive and defensive alliance against the common enemy. This the common enemy soon perceived, laughed at it a little grimly at first, then accepted it, as a kind of martyrdom expiatory of all previous sins, that a man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... than the complete change of position which was brought about during the eight years after the death of President McKinley. At the end of that period, both the industrial corporations and the railways were on the defensive, and the public had secured the whip hand. Industry, especially the railroads, was tamed and hobbled—some thought, crippled. Many factors contributed to the revolution. President Roosevelt was its most active agent, to be sure,—its "gigantic advertiser" ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... men in all Tibet, it would be impossible to feed them for a week, there or in Sikkim. Such reports unfortunately spread a panic in Dorjiling: the guards were called in from all the outposts, and the ladies huddled into one house, whilst the males stood on the defensive; to the great amusement of the Amlah at Tumloong, whose insolence to us increased proportionally.] as we heard that the Lassoo Kajee was stationed at Namtchi with a party for that purpose, and all communication cut ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... to Connecticut concludes a general power to make defensive war with these terms: "and upon just causes to invade and destroy the natives or other ...
— Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, at January Term, 1832, Delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in the Case of Samuel A. Worcester, Plaintiff in Error, versus the State of Georgia • John Marshall
... speaker closely. When he paused, she was ready for him. "But, even without a marriage, at any time now a treaty based on the marriage may be signed. A treaty for a mutually defensive alliance. Austria encroaches daily, and has Germany behind her. We are small fry, here and in Karnia, and we stand ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... decades have been rich in stories that need only a set of notes to reveal their approximate faithfulness to things that actually happened. But there is an emphasis upon revolt and disillusion and confusion in these latest novels that is new. They are no longer on the defensive, no longer stories of boys struggling to adapt themselves to a difficult world (men of forty- odd still write such stories); their authors are on the offensive, and with a reckless desire to accomplish their objectives, they shower us with such a profusion of detail, desert the paths ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... not more or less immediately develop antibody-resistance. So that in interstellar medicine tormals were priceless. Let Murgatroyd be infected with however localized, however specialized an inimical organism, and presently some highly valuable defensive substance could be isolated from his blood and he'd remain in his usual exuberant good health. When the antibody was analyzed by those techniques of microanalysis the Service had developed,—why—that was ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... was founded in 1291 as a defensive alliance among three cantons. In succeeding years, other localities joined the original three. The Swiss Confederation secured its independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1499. Switzerland's sovreignty and ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... as we have seen with domestic disturbance, and with further danger on the side of Scotland, which Charles had succeeded in agitating, concluded, on the 23rd of June, a league, offensive and defensive, with Francis, the latter engaging to send a fleet into the Channel, and to land 15,000 troops in England if the emperor should attempt an invasion from the sea.[378] For the better consolidation of this league, and to consult ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... Northern Russia, and will lead to an easy and complete success for the Central Powers. That we lay down the frontier rectification as conditio sine qua non forms a justifiable measure to protect an important interest for the Monarchy of a purely defensive nature. It is energetically demanded by the entire patriotic public opinion of Hungary. It appears out of the question that a Minister of Foreign Affairs, had he taken up another attitude in the matter, would have been able to ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... for those Sanganians and those Mallabars and professed pirates," wrote the Directors in 1699, "we see no cause why you should not wage an offensive as well as a defensive war against them when they fall in your way: but it is hardly worth the while to keep small vessels to look after them, for they are poor rogues and nothing to be got of them to answer ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... were present representing the National League, the American Association, and the Northwestern League. At that meeting the so-called Tripartite Agreement was drawn up and agreed to, which substantially was an offensive and defensive alliance, embodying a mutual respect of all contracts and other obligations, and all rights of the parties to the agreement to territorial rights, players under ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... said Cotton Mather, now on the defensive, "just let the village-lad try it. Why, the beauty of real bait-fishing is that it requires more skill than any other kind of angling. To present your bait to the wary old trout without frightening him; to make it move in the water so that it shall ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... near the door, looking at the picture, with one hand up in a defensive sort of way, as if he thought it might swing ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... instructions of the General in Chief on September 11 and developed during the five following weeks with the ampleness we have just seen. The movements of troops carried out during this period were methodically combined with the pursuit of operations, both defensive and offensive, from the Oise to ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... National army, which had established itself on the borders of one of the southernmost States of the Confederacy, and was menacing lines of communication of prime necessity to their maintenance of the defensive line within which those commanders had withdrawn their discomfited armies. At length, one evening, on dress parade, there were read 'General orders, headquarters Fourth division,' for a march at daylight the next morning. Some days would yet be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... subtle physical elements radiating round the human body and acting in a defensive role by preventing the penetration of unhealthy elements from ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... socially, he yielded to her shrinking from the opportunities of social advancement that opened to them, and held aloof with her. This kept him a country person in his experiences much longer than he need have remained; and tended to that sort of defensive secretiveness which grew more and more upon him, and qualified his conduct in matters where there was no question of his knowledge of the polite world. It was not until after his wife's death, and until his daughters ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... British Empire. Moreover, it was very difficult of attack, for it was defended by a range of exceedingly unpleasant and precipitous hills, the passes through which were held by the Turks. Hence the agitation of the authorities and the sudden importance of Ayun Musa as a defensive barrier to Suez. ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... Italian Commanders, and at the battles of Lodi, Castiglione, Rivoli, &c. established his character as a brave and consummate general. Spain had already, towards the end of 1795, concluded not merely a peace with France, but also entered with her into a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, which was this year followed up by her declaring war against Great Britain. In Germany, a suspension of arms was concluded between France, Bavaria, Wirtemburgh, and Baden; and Saxony and Hesse agreed to a neutrality, while in Italy peace was made by Parma, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... was attainted under Richard II in 1397, but restored to his honours and liberty two years later under Henry IV. It is curious that the most interesting associations of the place should be connected with his successors in the earldom. Although built entirely for defensive purposes, we find it thus early used as a prison, and during the two following centuries it seems to have been regarded as one of the most convenient places in which to lodge prisoners of rank, and in consequence ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie
... of Italy were involved in the schemes of present and domestic ambition; and the distance or proximity of each object determined in their eyes its apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would have taught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the common enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg and his brave Albanians might have prevented the subsequent invasion of the kingdom of Naples. The siege and sack of Otranto by the Turks diffused a general consternation; and Pope Sixtus was preparing to fly ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the objects pursued by British policy on the African continent are inherently pacific and defensive. It desires no man's territory; it desires only to live in peace and develop the great African territories and populations intrusted to its care. And looking at the future from the broadest points of view, looking at the magnitude of its material African interests and the future welfare of the ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... stool on which he was wont to take his humble frugal meals. It was exactly what he needed. He had no idea of assaulting Bridget. He recognized all her admirable qualities, which filled in the shortcomings of his shiftlessness with admirable exactitude. He meant to act strictly on the defensive, a system of warfare that was familiar to him. For though he had never before risen up in open revolt, he had never counted mere self-preservation as an insult to ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... next court at Frankfort, and thither Mr. D. repaired to take revenge for the personal indignity he had suffered. Judge R. is as remarkable for resolute fearlessness as for talents, firmness, and integrity; and after having provided himself with defensive weapons, entered upon the discharge of his duties with the most philosophic indifference. On passing from his hotel to the court-house, the Judge noticed that a man of great size, and evidently of tremendous muscular strength, followed him so closely as to allow no one to step between. He ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Erastians, assuming the name of Presbyterians, Independents, Socinians, and Quakers: all of whom Kettledrummle proposed, by one sweeping act, to expel from the land, and thus re-edify in its integrity the beauty of the sanctuary. He next handled very pithily the doctrine of defensive arms and of resistance to Charles II., observing, that, instead of a nursing father to the Kirk, that monarch had been a nursing father to none but his own bastards. He went at some length through the life and conversation ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the national disaster might be turned into a blessing. Many circumstances favoured the realisation of these hopes. Prussia, on discovering that her interests no longer coincided with those of her partners of 1772, changed sides, and by-and-by even went the length of concluding a defensive and offensive alliance with the Polish Republic. She, with England and other governments, backed Poland against Russia and Austria. Russia, moreover, had to turn her attention elsewhere. At the time of Nicholas Chopin's arrival, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... prepared defensive position, the most accurate and only practicable method of determining the range will generally be to take the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... against the enemy's line-of-battle ships and steamers, falling without notice upon our coast? What will guard our cities from tribute, our merchant-vessels and our navy-yards from conflagration? Here, again, we see a wise forecast in the system of defensive measures which, especially since the close of the war with Great Britain, has been steadily followed ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... definite and practical, his mastery of the sword delightful; but he had little imagination, he did not divine, he was merely a brilliant performer, he did not conceive. I saw that if I put him on the defensive I should have him at advantage, for he had not that art of the true swordsman, the prescient quality which foretells the opponents action and stands prepared. There I had him at fatal advantage—could, I felt, give him last reward of insult at my pleasure. Yet a lust of fighting got into ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... exciting time to venture upon the continent. The very atmosphere seemed permeated with terror of Napoleon. Each country was on the defensive, struggling openly or surreptitiously to preserve its threatened liberty; while the one topic of conversation was the defeat or the success of armies. Thus the correspondence of the young travellers, so eagerly awaited and devoured ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Fort Richmond, mounting one hundred and forty guns. To the right and left of the fort, are Batteries Hudson, Morton, North Cliff, and South Cliff; mounting about eighty guns of heavy calibre. It is stated that the new work on Sandy Hook will be armed with two hundred guns, which will make the defensive armament of the Lower Bay and Narrows over six hundred and thirteen guns, which, together with the fleet of war vessels that could be assembled for the protection of the city, would render the capture of New York by an enemy's fleet a hazardous, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... just indignation of the inhabitants. At length the sovereign of Hungary, disgusted with the campaign, refused to remain any longer in Palestine,—a defection which compelled the King of Jerusalem, the Duke of Austria, and the Master of the Hospitallers to take up a defensive position on the Plain of Cesarea. The knights of the other military orders, the Templar and Teutonic, seized upon Mount Carmel, which they fortified for the occasion. But their fears were relieved in the spring of the following year by the arrival of a large body of new and most zealous ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... a high voice of defensive complaint. "No'm, Miss Julia, I ain' lef no baskit on no front po'che! I got jus' th'ee markit baskits in the livin' worl' an' they ev'y las' one an' all sittin' right where I kin lay my han's on 'em behime ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... force of arms to turne their neighbours out of a possession of above 1400 years, to make roome for their Trojan Horse of ecclesiastical discipline (a practice never justified in the world but either by the Turk or by the Pope): this put us upon the defensive part. They must not think that other men are so cowed or grown so tame, as to stand still blowing of their noses, whilst they bridle them and ride them at their pleasure. It is time to let the world see that this discipline which they so much adore, is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... and bare. There was a bed, with a blue cover, a cupboard, a great chest, a pair of joint-stools, a hinged table in the chimney-corner, and hung upon the wall the old soldier's armoury of bows and defensive armour. Hatch began ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ironclad is sunk by the torpedo. How very little margin lay between this country and starvation through action of submarines! Suppose the enemy had possessed five times as many submarines from the first, would our defensive measures have prevailed? How small an extension in the enemy's power in the air would have enabled him in a single night to leave London a mass of ruins, its whole population which had not fled dying in torment ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... seriously. "Mr. Councillor," he replied, "as to our defensive measures, we have passed the point of diminishing returns. We have more knowledge now than we are capable of employing against the plague. Had we not neglected the physical sciences as we have for the ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... Raymond. "A heavy snow like this is all in our favour, since we stand on the defensive; it makes it more difficult for the Yankee ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... heaven-instructed heroine. A second convoy arrived; the waggons and troops passed between the redoubts of the English; while a dead silence and astonishment reigned among the forces, so lately enterprising and resistless. Joan now called on the garrison no longer to stand upon the defensive, but boldly to attack the army of the besiegers. She took one redoubt and then another. The English, overwhelmed with amazement, scarcely dared to lift a hand against her. Their veteran generals became spell-bound and powerless; and their soldiers were ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... "they laugh at me because I have no hat, and they say nothing to M. Montcrabeau, who is going to supper in a cuirass of the time of the Emperor Pertinax, from whom it probably came. See what it is to have defensive arms." ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... direct message from heaven. It comes by way of the nursery, and is a child's cry. The heart of Alice Grey stops beating for several seconds. Then it says, 'My Molly!' The nurse appears, starts, and is at once on the defensive. ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... the affair, but as Rex drew back he was surrounded and hemmed in by Greif's comrades, who tore the rapier from his grasp, pressed his gloved hands, untied the strings and loosed the buckles of his jerkin, wiped the slight perspiration from his face, and divested him of all his defensive accoutrements almost before he had breath to speak. A couple of novices rubbed his arm, while twenty young fellows congratulated him in an undertone. The two who were nearest were the student whom Bauer ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... required for the actual conquest of the colonies the Boers had never cultivated or acquired. The men who in six months and six days could not rush little Mafeking hoped in vain to capture Cape Town, unless they caught it napping. But in defensive warfare, in cunningly setting snares like that at Sanna's Post, in skilful concealment as at Modder River, when all day long most of our men were quite unable to discover on which side of the stream the Boer entrenchments were, and in what they called clever trickery, ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... particularly to the Anglo-Americans, exists among them, and, unless they coalesce, no serious difficulty need be apprehended from them. Not so, however, should they be induced to unite for purposes offensive and defensive; their strength would then become apparent, create confidence, and in all probability induce them to give vent to their long-suppressed desire to revenge past wrongs, which is restrained, as they openly and freely confess, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... this phenomenon with amazement and indignation, and seemed by his looks to appeal to Mrs Chick and Miss Tox against it. Little Paul, who had come in after Florence, backed towards Miss Tox as the Captain waved his book, and stood on the defensive. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... was done, and by their complaints and accusations were wellnigh bringing the war back again, Nicias persuaded the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, besides the peace, to make a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, as a tie and confirmation of the peace, which would make them more terrible to those that held out, and the firmer to each other. Whilst these matters were on foot, Alcibiades, who was no lover of tranquillity, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... point. He is certainly planning it all out in a wonderful way. He consults Rooke almost hourly on the maritime side of the question. The Lord High Admiral has been a watcher all his life, and very few important points have ever escaped him, so that he can add greatly to the wisdom of the defensive construction. He notices, I think, that something is going on outside ourselves; but he keeps ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... impartiality and even his satisfaction with a little punishment of the students, if they were aggressive. "But," said he, "don't begin the fight and put yourselves in the wrong. If my boys come over, thrash them well, but let them strike the first blow." Having put them in the strongest defensive attitude, believing that they had the doctor with them, he went round to the students and applied the same inducements to the defensive, leaving them under the persuasion that he entirely approved their fighting, and then he went home and left ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... In contrast to the defensive tactics which other ladies of his acquaintance had adopted, tactics of a patently coy and coquettish nature, this self-collected manner was new and spicy, challenging to powers never as yet fully exerted while ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... on and the messenger found Ramsey. She had just been rejoined by her old nurse, and to both servants her questions were prompt and swift. Their low replies plainly disturbed her, and she wheeled to the bishop where he still stood addressing the Gilmores and a dozen others in a manner loftily defensive. He forestalled her speech with good-natured haste. "Now, if our gay and happy young sister will ask me to do something befitting a minister of the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... could never more be any security for him. To-day Madame Dammauville menaced him; tomorrow it would be some one else. Who? He did not know. Every one. And it was the anguish of his position to be condemned to live hereafter in fear, and on the defensive, without repose, without forgetfulness. ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... occult causes, scholastic entities are invented to explain the phenomena of nature—to the positive, when at length it is recognised that human knowledge cannot pass beyond the region of phenomena. With these stages corresponds the progress of society from militarism, aggressive or defensive, to industrialism. The several abstract sciences—those dealing with the laws of phenomena rather than with the application of laws—are so arranged by Comte as to exhibit each more complex science resting ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the clear briny depths above and beneath! If the angels ever look out of their sphere of intense spiritual realities to indulge in a laugh, methinks such a lonely tripod-sitter, cased over with his invulnerable, non-conducting cloak and hood,—shrinking, dodging, or bracing himself up on the defensive, as the crowd fans him with its rush or jostles up against him,—like the man who fancied himself a teapot, and was forever warning people not to come too near him,—might furnish a subject for a planetary joke ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the westward on both sides of the Hudson. The greater part of his army occupied a rocky and mountainous district known by the name of the Highlands. There he carried on a sort of Fabian warfare, ever avoiding a regular engagement, always on the defensive, and retreating when pursued. So ill-formed and ill-disciplined were the American forces at this time that he had no other resource than to act as he did. His army was still further weakened by the loss ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... which proposal all agreeing, they bade Pietro strip himself: but while, already divining his fate, he was so doing, an ambuscade of full five-and-twenty men at arms fell suddenly upon them, crying:—"Death, death!" Thus surprised, they let Pietro go, and stood on the defensive; but, seeing that the enemy greatly outnumbered them, they took to their heels, the others giving chase. Whereupon Pietro hastily resumed his clothes, mounted his nag, and fled with all speed in the direction which he had seen the damsel take. But finding no road ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... right well that her words had been ungrateful and unjust; yet in her heart she was more vexed with Honor for having pushed her into a corner than with herself for her defensive flash of resentment. More than all was she overwhelmed by a sense of utter helplessness, of not knowing where to turn or what ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... majority. Never, in the years following the formation of the Empire, did his speech in the German Parliament rise to a higher pathos than when he was asserting the military supremacy of the Emperor, or calling upon the parties to forget their dissensions in maintaining the defensive strength of the nation, or showering contempt upon liberal deputies who seemed to think that questions of national existence could be solved by effusions of academic oratory. Over and over, during the last decade of his official career, did he declare ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke
... the sweat of my brow than be subjected to the necessity of acting in concert with those ravagers who destroyed my country! I cannot fight by the side of the allied powers who dismembered it! I cannot enlist under the allies! I will not be led out to devastation! Mine was, and ever shall be, a defensive sword; and should danger threaten England, I would be as ready to withstand her enemies as I ardently, though ineffectually, opposed ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... head, antlers to antlers, the tame deer and the wild fought with great fury. Each of the tame animals, every one of them large and formidable, was closely engaged in contest with a wild adversary, standing chiefly on the defensive, not in any feigned battle or mimicry of war but in a hard-fought combat. We now made our appearance in the open ground on horseback, advancing towards the scene of conflict. The deer on the skirts of the wood, ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... vindictive. I was more sincere then than you were. But that has nothing to do with the present. You have spent our renewed acquaintance on the defensive against me, retorting upon me, teasing and tempting me. Be generous for once, and say Yes with a ...
— An Unsocial Socialist • George Bernard Shaw
... the principle that religious wars were just, and for five centuries the principle was indorsed with blood. Incidentally the hurling back of the Mohammedan advance occurred, but the hunger for papal dominion spurred on the popes to bless those who fought. Called defensive at first, they quickly became aggressive, and many a Crusading band hacked at the Jews before carving ...
— Peter the Hermit - A Tale of Enthusiasm • Daniel A. Goodsell
... case, the profoundest respect for my brother's judgment could not in itself alter mine. As to the whole Church being against me, I did not know what that meant: I was willing to accept the Nicene Creed, and this I thought ought to be a sufficient defensive argument against the Church. His answer was decisive;—he was exceedingly surprized at my recurring to mere ecclesiastical creeds, as though they could have the slightest weight; and he must insist on ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... imperiously demanded the docking of that stubborn queue. He decreed, therefore, that old Keldermeester should be publicly shorn of his glories in presence of the whole garrison—the old man as resolutely stood on the defensive-whereupon he was arrested and tried by a court-martial for mutiny, desertion, and all the other list of offences noticed in the articles of war, ending with a "videlicet, in wearing an eelskin queue, three feet long, contrary to orders." Then came on arraignments, and trials, and pleadings; and ...
— Knickerbocker's History of New York, Complete • Washington Irving
... "it will all be well yet. Patience and perseverance will overcome everything. Our first business must be to secure ourselves on the defensive. From the appearance of the Indians, I do not think they suspect our being in this vicinity, and I propose that our horses be secured in this thicket that skirts the bank here, where they can feed and ...
— The American Family Robinson - or, The Adventures of a Family lost in the Great Desert of the West • D. W. Belisle
... relentless anger of Czardom. In spite of his nonresistance doctrine, Tolstoy's courage was not of the passive order. It was his natural bent to rouse his foes to combat, rather than wait for their attack, to put on the defensive every falsehood and every wrong of which he was cognisant. Truth in himself and in others was what he most desired, and that to which he strove at all costs to attain. He was his own severest critic, weighing his own actions, analysing his own thoughts, and baring ...
— The Forged Coupon and Other Stories • Leo Tolstoy
... July before, the Secretary of War, in view of the formidable armaments of England, had made requisition of the several States for ninety-three thousand five hundred men for general defensive purposes, under a law of Congress enacted the previous April. The quota of Kentucky was fifty-five hundred infantry; of Tennessee, twenty-five hundred infantry; of Mississippi territory, five hundred infantry, and of Louisiana, one thousand infantry. ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... the time the real attack was made, every man was under arms. As de Lescure had said, the old soldiers of Valmy and of Jemappes were there. Men accustomed to arms, who well knew the smell of powder, and who were prepared to contest every inch of ground before they gave it up. These men, too, wore defensive armour, and the Vendeans, unaccustomed to meet enemies so well prepared, were dismayed, when they perceived that their enemies did not as usual give way ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... States. In the actual development of weapons and munitions, and of the art of quick intrenching, the attacking force in battle on land is at a great disadvantage in comparison with the force on the defensive. That means indecisive battles and ultimately an indecisive war, unless each party is resolved to push the war to the utter exhaustion and humiliation of the other—a long process which involves incalculable losses and wastes and endless ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... considering my years, and this tool, which, mayhap from long acquaintance with, I can use pretty briskly. You shall not have it all your own way, I promise you, if you play at that game. With these words he stood upon the defensive. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... inquiring, contemptuous eyes in his direction. He always adopted a defensive attitude when Sunny opened out. Toby only grinned and waited for ...
— The Twins of Suffering Creek • Ridgwell Cullum
... invaded a populous country, penetrating two hundred and sixty miles into the interior, with a force at no time equal to one-half of that opposed to him; he was without a base; the enemy was always intrenched, always on the defensive; yet he won every battle, he captured the capital, and conquered the government. Credit is due to the troops engaged, it is true, but the plans and the strategy were ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... the African saint was probably, like many others, much more important in the Middle Ages than it is now. In accordance with the building spirit of the past, so strongly pronounced throughout Aquitaine, and obviously inspired by a defensive motive, the houses are closely packed together on a steep hillside. A few ancient dwellings, notably one with a long exterior gallery, show themselves very picturesquely here and there. The town grew up at the foot of an abbey, of ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker
... one thing—a thing scarce distinguishable from any other old woman. But this transformation of a black wand into a wide-spreading tent was so obviously the result of magic, that it was self-evident they had to do with a witch in full defensive and offensive state. ...
— The Panchronicon • Harold Steele Mackaye
... country, their purpose being to protect Gaul from an invasion by the triumphant tribes. Yet so great was the fear inspired by the former German onslaughts, and by this destructive outbreak, that only threats of death induced the Romans to serve. As it proved, this defensive activity was not needed. The Germans, satisfied, as it seemed, with expelling the Romans from their country, destroyed their forts and military roads, and settled back into peace, with no sign of a desire to ...
— Historical Tales, Vol 5 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality, German • Charles Morris
... pursuit standing irresolutely on the border of the carriage drive, evidently uncertain whether to strike across the Park or make for the bustling pavements of Knightsbridge. He turned round sharply with an air of defensive hostility when he ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... peaceful pueblo dwellers "The Quaker People," but that is a misnomer for these sturdy brown heathen who have never asked or needed either government aid or government protection, have a creditable record of defensive warfare during early historic times and running back into their traditional history, and have also ...
— The Unwritten Literature of the Hopi • Hattie Greene Lockett
... be borne in mind that those peaceable doctrines leave untouched the right of defence against illegal attack, or unconstitutional violence. Referring to this admission, Mr. Duffy, in a postscript to his letter, writes—"Mr. O'Connell says his threatening language pointed only to defensive measures. I have not said anything else. I am not aware of any great popular struggle for liberty that ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... in all quarters. French cities were the greatest sufferers, although French airmen performed prodigies of valor in defending the capital and in attacks upon German defensive positions. But the stealthy Zeppelin took heavy toll on many occasions. It was shown that there was no really adequate defense against sudden attack from the air. Constant watchfulness and patrolling machines might be eluded at ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... rumbling sound came, louder than before, and we all sprang back and stood on the defensive. For myself, having forgotten my club, and not having taken the precaution to cut another, I buttoned my jacket, doubled my fists, and threw myself into a boxing attitude. I must say, however, that I felt somewhat uneasy; and my companions afterwards confessed ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... back into the river. The cavalry of either side had not as yet gained any decisive advantage over the other, because Castruccio, knowing his inferiority in this arm, had commanded his leaders only to stand on the defensive against the attacks of their adversaries, as he hoped that when he had overcome the infantry he would be able to make short work of the cavalry. This fell out as he had hoped, for when he saw the Florentine army driven back across the river he ordered the remainder ...
— The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... power at sea, has added tenfold weight to these arguments of Raleigh, On the other hand, a well-constructed system of railways, especially of coast-lines, aided by the operation or the electric telegraph, would give facilities for concentrating a defensive army to oppose an enemy on landing, and for moving troops from place to place in observation of the movements of the hostile fleet, such as would have astonished Sir Walter even more than the sight ...
— The Fifteen Decisive Battles of The World From Marathon to Waterloo • Sir Edward Creasy, M.A.
... survey of all these measures together, as parts of one great defensive scheme for the preservation of the public tranquillity and the general safety of the empire, it may, probably, be thought that, though undoubtedly suspensions of the constitution, they are not open to the ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... Prussians the support of his presence. On the 21st Frederick won the decisive battle of Burkersdorf, and a few weeks later was master of Silesia. In western Germany, where the war more immediately concerned England, Prince Ferdinand showed consummate skill in forcing the French to act on the defensive. On June 24 the allies defeated them at Wilhelmsthal. The victory was decided by Granby, who, after a fierce engagement, destroyed the pick of the French army under Stainville. A series of successes followed; Gottingen was evacuated, the larger ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... negotiations for an offensive and defensive alliance continued, and were ready for ratification when the Oberon arrived with Mr. (now Sir Edward) Thornton. This ship, on leaving Portsmouth, was supposed to be bound for the West Indies, and letters were actually on board her for the Leeward Islands; but on opening ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... distance, and a gigantic plan of General Beauregard, with the doubtful approval of General Johnston and others, was for a formidable invasion of the North. General Johnston evinced that same disposition in military tactics that he followed during the war, "a purely defensive war." In none of his campaigns did he exhibit any desire to take advantage of the enemy by bold moves; his one idea seemed to be "defensive," and in that he was a genius—in retreat, his was a mastermind; in defense, masterly. In the end it may have proven the ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... quartered in mud hovels, ravaged by disease, and reduced by desertions to three thousand, or at the most to three thousand two hundred men. They had lost nearly all their horses. Far from being able to continue the attack it was hard for them to maintain the defensive and to hold out in those miserable wooden towers, which, as Le Jouvencel said, were more profitable to the besieged than to ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... musical science has undergone in the last century," Dr. Newman continues: "Doubtless, here, too, the highest genius may be made subservient to religion," but "it is certain that religion must be alive and on the defensive, for if its servant sleep a potent enchantment will steal over it.... If, then, a great master in this mysterious science ... throws himself on his own gifts, trusts its inspirations and absorbs himself in those thoughts which, though they come to him in the way of nature belong to things ...
— Cardinal Newman as a Musician • Edward Bellasis
... stuff," said Sam, defensive but not wanting to go too far out on a limb. "We bring 'em everything—color, fact, romance, sight, sound, smell.... Next week, it's the Ball Expedition to ...
— Sjambak • John Holbrook Vance
... Mogul's, dominions; and further to engage and entrap the said prince, did assert that "our government" (meaning the British government) "was in intimate and sworn connection with Mahdajee Sindia," when no alliance, offensive or defensive, appears to exist between the said Sindia and the East India Company, nor can exist, otherwise than in virtue of some secret agreement between him, the said Sindia, and Warren Hastings, entered into by the latter without the knowledge of ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... every one is the equal of every other in the state, and that no one shall raise himself over the other. /4/ Ihering, to be sure, a man of genius, took an independent start, and said that possession is ownership on the defensive; and that, in favor of the owner, he who is exercising ownership in fact (i. e. the possessor) is freed from the necessity of proving title against one who is in an unlawful position. But to this it was well answered by Bruns, in his later work, that it assumes the ...
— The Common Law • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
... several other beasts entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, and were to live very sociably together in the forest. One day, having made a sort of an excursion by way of hunting, they took a very fine, large, fat deer, which was divided into four parts; there happening to be then present his Majesty the Lion, and only three others. After the ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... the faithful to contribute to the support of the Catholic Press. "In vain you will build churches," said Pius X, "give missions, found schools; all your works, all your efforts will be destroyed if you are not able to wield the defensive and offensive weapon of a ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... presume to make a proposal to you. Let the two powers that wish not the marriage with an Austrian archduchess conclude together a league offensive and defensive. The power France accedes to this with joy. It promises to further and support the second power in all her plans, to lend her efficient aid, that the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine may wed the Electoral Prince ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... can't allow you to tire yourself tonight, and run the risk of stiffening in the wrist tomorrow. In strength you are superior to de Mezy, and in wind far better. You should have no trouble with him. Watch his eye and stand for a while on the defensive. One of his habits, will soon wear himself down, and then he ...
— The Hunters of the Hills • Joseph Altsheler
... Cecil's proposed system. Asked about the campaign of 1588, he has nothing to tell of any English formation. Of the crescent order of the Armada he says—and modern research has fully confirmed his statement—that it was not a battle order at all, but only a defensive sailing formation 'to keep themselves together and in company until they might get up to be athwart Gravelines, which was the rendezvous for their meeting with the Prince of Parma; and in this regard this their order ...
— Fighting Instructions, 1530-1816 - Publications Of The Navy Records Society Vol. XXIX. • Julian S. Corbett
... subjects poetical or erudite, by which he meant to display his vast mental superiority over the swashbuckling Francesco. In the evening, when the heat of the day was spent, and whilst that same Messer Francesco was at some defensive measures on the walls, Gonzaga played at bowls with Valentina and her ladies—the latter having now recovered from the panic to which earlier ...
— Love-at-Arms • Raphael Sabatini
... as a general rule, in an open game, not to move your Queen's Pawn one square before you bring out the King's Bishop, as by so doing you leave him but the King's 2d square on which to move, and there his position is defensive ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... begin, he opened the attack with great energy and resolution, and was obviously intent on killing me if he could. For a minute or two it was all I could do to hold my own; and partly to test his strength and skill, partly to get my hand in, I stood purposely on the defensive. ...
— Mr. Fortescue • William Westall
... to defend themselves, Lister returned afresh to the study of methods. He knew that he had to reckon with germs in the wound itself, if the skin was broken, with germs on the hands and instruments of the operator, and with germs on the dust in the air. He must find some defensive power which was able to kill the germs, at least in the first two instances, without exercising an irritating effect on the tissues and weakening their vitality. The relative importance of these various factors in the problem only time and experience could ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... words that had passed, he fetched the oblong, round-faced shield from the table and held it ready for Marcus to thrust his left arm through the loop and then grasp the hand-hold firmly, and draw the piece of defensive armour before his breast. "Well done! Now think that I'm going ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... you have the first and proper idea of a walled town,—a place into which the pacific country people can retire for safety, as the Athenians in the Spartan war. Your fortress of this kind is a religious and civil fortress, or burg, defended by burgers, trained to defensive war. Keep always this idea of the proper nature of a fortified city:—Its walls mean protection,—its gates hospitality and triumph. In the language familiar to you, spoken of the chief of cities: "Its walls are ...
— Val d'Arno • John Ruskin
... has grown much of late in importance as well as in numbers, and in such a wild region there is need for defensive arrangements. It has other arrangements, also, of a much more important kind in which the Word of God plays the chief part, and Conrad of the Mountains lends a helping hand. That earnest rover has built a church and a schoolhouse, and, when at home, ...
— The Rover of the Andes - A Tale of Adventure on South America • R.M. Ballantyne
... stockade at which they now were standing a ladder, used in some repairing job, still leaned against the high, wooden fence. Coyote Pete, struck by a sudden idea, clambered up it, and gazed over the top of the defensive barricade. As his head topped the summit, he gave a shout and rapidly ducked. At the same instant a sound, like the hum of an angry bee, buzzed ...
— The Border Boys Across the Frontier • Fremont B. Deering
... Or, if her devotion to Larry is like the Rock of Gibraltar on which waves of contrary emotions dash themselves in vain, it may be that Larry will do a little mining and sapping on his own account. Captain and Mrs. Winston and I have formed an alliance offensive and defensive, particularly the former, against the coalesced forces of Caspian and Shuster. There has been no talk of my private feelings—bien entendu—but the small nations are to be protected by our united diplomacy. We're starting off on another expedition planned with a certain bold audacity. ...
— The Lightning Conductor Discovers America • C. N. (Charles Norris) Williamson and A. M. (Alice Muriel)
... Eastchurch. Eastchurch, during the months before the war, had been active in rehearsal; fighting in the air had been practised, and trial raids, over Chatham and the neighbouring magazines, had been carried out, two aeroplanes attacking and six or eight forming a defensive screen. Work of this kind had knit together the Eastchurch unit and had fitted it for active service abroad. In the meantime, at the outbreak of the war, attacks by German aircraft were expected on points ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... disposed to commence the attack upon man. If left alone, it will go its own way, except during certain seasons, when the females are fearful for their young offspring. Then they will assail every intruder that comes near, whether man or animal. But when wounded or enraged they will not only act on the defensive, but attack their enemies in the most ...
— The Castaways • Captain Mayne Reid
... been square?" the other replied, on the defensive, what of the treachery already ...
— Brown Wolf and Other Jack London Stories - Chosen and Edited By Franklin K. Mathiews • Jack London
... Hume and Sir Charles Tregellis, and the points of the two probable combatants. The betting was still steadily in favour of Wilson, for he had a number of bye-battles to set against this single victory of Jim's, and it was thought by connoisseurs who had seen him spar that the singular defensive tactics which had given him his nickname would prove very puzzling to a raw antagonist. In height, strength, and reputation for gameness there was very little to choose between them, but Wilson had been ...
— Rodney Stone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... acquainted with the country, and in case they were beaten they had a line at Tabernacle Church already intrenched to fall back upon. The ravines also, which crossed the upper roads at right angles, offered excellent defensive positions for them. ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... raise the ladders; others scale the town. But, where void spaces on the walls appear, Or thin defense, they pour their forces there. With poles and missive weapons, from afar, The Trojans keep aloof the rising war. Taught, by their ten years' siege, defensive fight, They roll down ribs of rocks, an unresisted weight, To break the penthouse with the pond'rous blow, Which yet the patient Volscians undergo: But could not bear th' unequal combat long; For, where the Trojans find the thickest throng, The ...
— The Aeneid • Virgil
... be used in developing this army and extending it. They offered China, according to the conversation at dinner, to lend her two million a month for twenty years for military purposes. Japan figured the war would last till '21 or '22, and had proposed an offensive and defensive alliance to Germany, Japan to supply its trained Chinese army, and Germany to turn over to Japan the Allies' concessions and colonies in China. As an evidence of good faith, Germany had already offered to Japan its own Chinese territory, and it was the communication of this ...
— Letters from China and Japan • John Dewey
... in the account of Villon's only known act of homicide, the fact that after he had stabbed the priest, Sermoise, he crushed in his head with a stone, is used to prove that he must have been acting on the defensive, because, "since the earliest times, the stone is the weapon used by man to repel attack—chiefly the attack of wolves and dogs"—one cannot quite repress a sceptical smile. I admit that, in the absence of evidence, we have no right to accuse Villon ...
— Old and New Masters • Robert Lynd
... military caste, that not only encouraged the saddist lust of their fighters and seemed unable to spare sufficient food for the civilians, in spite of the great leakage through neutral countries, but which persisted in calling themselves victorious when they were either perpetually on the defensive or in the act of being beaten, despite their irresistible rush. The Somme Drive had not begun but there was not a nurse in Lille that did not know ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... since Jack Witherspoon's departure in every defensive measure against the secret plotters. And so his voice was suave and measured as he simply said, "I think, Mr. Wade, that I shall have to regretfully decline this promotion. I am perfectly well satisfied as I am. I know nothing of ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... without any emotion other than that of fear. The Europeans of this African port were common folk, who had come thither to make their fortune. The Moors hated the Jews. The rich Hebrew families had to hold themselves apart, nourishing themselves socially upon their own substance, ever on the defensive in a country that lacked laws. The young Jewish maidens were given an excellent education, which they acquired with the facility of their race in adopting all progress. They astonished newcomers to Rabat with their hats and their clothes, similar to those ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... for this late at night," I told him cheerily. "It is a late Empire battleship of the Warlord class. Undoubtedly one of the most truly efficient engines of destruction ever manufactured. Over a half mile of defensive screens and armament, that could probably turn any fleet existent ...
— The Misplaced Battleship • Harry Harrison (AKA Henry Maxwell Dempsey)
... about me, and scared Fanny into blue fits; but I have talked her over again. It is the change I want, and the blessed sun, and a gentle air in which I can sit out and see the trees and running water: these mere defensive hygienics cannot advance one, though they may prevent evil. I do nothing now, but try to possess my soul in peace, and continue to possess my body on ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... being entirely independent, the incongruity and incompatibility were obvious of joining a vassal State. There was trouble if not danger lurking behind it, if such two States were to join in an actual federation. Whatever was desirable for mutual advantage might be attained without offensive and defensive alliance. The two Governments, however, knew how to manipulate matters. The closer union scheme was carried through before the Jameson incursion, and soon after that event an offensive and defensive alliance completed the federation. ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... of the French, for Breslau, whence he declared war against France. A conference also took place between him and the emperor Alexander at Calisch, and, on the 28th of February, 1813, an offensive and defensive alliance was concluded between them. The hour for vengeance had at length arrived. The whole Prussian nation, eager to throw off the hated yoke of the foreigner, to obliterate their disgrace in 1806, to regain their ancient name, cheerfully ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... year the Allied armies facing Bulgaria remained upon the defensive, when, suddenly, on the 16th of September, 1918, in the midst of the wonderful movements that were forcing back the German armies in France, a dispatch was received from the Allied forces in Macedonia. The Serbian army, in ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... towns, and had thus done them incalculable injury; and that Darius himself had been plotting against his (Alexander's) life, and offering rewards to any one who would kill him. "I am acting, then," continued Alexander, "only on the defensive. The gods, who always favor the right, have given me the victory. I am now monarch of a large part of Asia, and your sovereign king. If you will admit this, and come to me as my subject, I will restore to you your mother, your wife, and your child, without any ransom. And, at any rate, whatever ...
— Alexander the Great - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... bell died, a piercing whine grew amidships, and shreds of blue light swiftly scattered by the Sandra's ports. They were quickly gone, but they left behind an almost invisible envelope of blue which enwrapped the ship completely. The defensive web ...
— The Passing of Ku Sui • Anthony Gilmore
... likely that the tower was primarily intended to be a defensive work. Whatever its original purpose, however, it is certain that it was used for bells at a very early date. In or before 1154, for he died in that year, Prior Reginald "made two bells and placed them in the greater ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Rochester - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the Episcopal See • G. H. Palmer
... British partisans at Detroit were paying money for scalps. Knowing that all the irruptions of savages into Kentucky were encouraged and set on foot from Kaskaskia, Vincennes and Detroit, he suddenly resolved upon the bold project of capturing these strongholds. This would put the British upon the defensive, relieve the frontiers of Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania, and in the end add a vast territory to the domain of the republic. In the accomplishment of all these designs the soil of Kentucky was to be used as a base ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... centre. So, during the war, the Confederates lost Hatteras Inlet, Roanoke Island, Hilton Head, Fernandina, Mobile, New Orleans, and Galveston comparatively early in the struggle. Wilmington, behind the almost impregnable bastions of Fort Fisher, and Charleston, surrounded by a cordon of defensive forts, remained the last strongholds of the Confederacy on the Atlantic coast, until the final downfall ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... namely, the attack upon Cuba and the protection of its own shores. As the defences did not inspire confidence, the navy had to supplement their weakness, although it is essentially an offensive, and not a defensive, organization. Upon this the enemy counted much at the first. "To defend the Atlantic coasts in case of war," wrote a Spanish lieutenant who had been Naval Attache in Washington, "the United States will need one squadron to protect the port of New York and another for the Gulf of Mexico. ...
— Lessons of the war with Spain and other articles • Alfred T. Mahan
... a secret document, but everybody knew that it required Italy to join with Austria and Germany in the event of their being compelled to engage in a defensive war. Therefore the first question for Italy was whether the war declared by Austria against Serbia and by Germany against Belgium, although apparently aggressive, was in reality defensive. There was a further question for Italy—what would ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... how lightly he held his opponent's warnings, he made them gape by putting things down Mr. Lincoln's shirt-front and taking them out of his mouth: But it appeared to Stephen, listening with all his might, that the Judge was a trifle more on the defensive than his attitude might lead one to expect. Was he not among his own Northern Democrats at Freeport? And yet it seemed to give him a keen pleasure to call his hearers "Black Republicans." "Not black," came from ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... their box, and Craven was sure they were all talking about Lady Sellingworth and him. He saw Braybrooke's broad-fingered hand go to his beard and was almost positive his old friend was on the defensive. He was surely saying, "No, really, I don't think so! I feel convinced there is nothing in it!" Craven's eyes met Lady Sellingworth's, and it seemed to him at that moment that she and he spoke together without the knowledge of Miss Van Tuyn. But immediately, ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... Americans were not able to resist the assaults of but twenty well-armed Spaniards, I see little possibility for one honest man to defend himself against twenty thousand knaves, who are all furnished cap-a-pie with the defensive arms of worldly prudence, and the offensive, too, of craft and malice. He will find no less odds than this against him if he have much to do in human affairs. The only advice, therefore, which I can give ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... the abundance of the eatable kinds that gives value to the inedibility of the smaller number; and this is probably the reason why so many insects rely on protective colouring rather than on the acquisition of any kind of defensive weapons. In the long run the powers of attack and defence must balance each other. Hence we see that even the powerful stings of bees and wasps only protect them against some enemies, since a tribe of birds, the bee-eaters, have been developed which feed upon them, and some frogs and lizards ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... The defensive works which he now built were called Fort Meigs. For the time there was no more talk of invading Canada. The service of the Kentucky and Ohio militia was expiring, and these seasoned regiments were melting away like snow. Presently Fort Meigs was left with no more than five hundred ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... of the third of March, he rose before a full Senate and crowded galleries to close the debate, he was at his best. Often interrupted, he welcomed every interruption with courtesy, and never once failed to put his assailant on the defensive. Now Sumner and now Chase was denying that he had come into office by a sacrifice of principle; now Seward was defending his own State of New York against a charge of infidelity to the compact of 1820; now Everett, friend and biographer and successor of ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... our insecurity and fear that we develop these defensive attitudes of parochialism and churchism. We huddle like frightened children behind the doors of the church, whereas, as soldiers of Christ, we should be struggling courageously on the frontiers of life where the conflicts ...
— Herein is Love • Reuel L. Howe
... outrage and plunder? Why, in the full knowledge of all these facts, they passed a solemn resolution at Lanark, on 30th April 1843, that they never would again, on any occasion, or under any circumstances of necessity whatever, sanction the employment of any police or defensive force raised ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... of the people from generation to generation. They were preserved from degeneracy by their simple habits and peaceful pursuits. Though the armies of the King numbered four hundred thousand men, there were comparatively few wars, and these mostly of a defensive character. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume II • John Lord
... alien and strange. He recalled the attitude of submission and reverence with which he had once been accustomed to enter this room, the respect with which he had heard every word of the Father; and he blamed himself bitterly that he now took rather a defensive mood, and felt an instinctive desire to escape. He reflected that he had been poisoned by the world; yet he could not wholly shut out the consciousness that he had no genuine desire to be freed from the sweet madness which had seized him. He tried to put all thought of ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... drawing-room. Again Captain Roughsedge thought her pale, and was even sure that she had lost flesh. This time it was hardly possible to put these symptoms down to Marsham's account. He chafed under the thought that he should be no longer there in case a league, offensive and defensive, had in the end to be made with Mrs. Colwood for the handling of cousins. It was quite clear that Miss Fanny was a vulgar little minx, and that Beechcote would have no peace till it was rid of her. Meanwhile, the indefinable change ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... not satisfied under Henry, had felt that they were in danger after his death, and sought to transform the self-government ceded to them at Nantes into a defensive association against the sovereign. The spectre of federalism threatened the hard-won unity of France, and challenged the very essence of Richelieu's policy. The decisive struggle took place at La Rochelle. Richelieu directed the siege himself, carrying out works as enormous as those ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... The thousands of young men in colleges and universities offer a field for the development of such a force of trained men in a way that would entirely revolutionize our educational as well as our defensive system. ...
— Practical English Composition: Book II. - For the Second Year of the High School • Edwin L. Miller
... persuasive, that. Here, in condensed form, are the essential details of the course it went, in this instance:—General Grune, on the road to Berlin, hearing of the rout at Hennersdorf, halted instantly,—hastened back to Saxony, to join Rutowski there, and stand on the defensive. Not now in that Halle-Frontier region (Rutowski has quitted that, and all the intrenchments and marshy impregnabilities there); not on that Halle-Frontier, but hovering about in the interior, Rutowski and Grune are in junction; gravitating towards Dresden;—expecting ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... my guide to take charge of the horses until my return in the evening. About an hour's walk from the camp I met an Indian, who on perceiving me instantly strung his bow, placed on his left arm a sleeve of raccoon skin and stood on the defensive. Being quite sure that conduct was prompted by fear and not by hostile intentions, the poor fellow having probably never seen such a being as myself before, I laid my gun at my feet on the ground and waved my hand for him to come to me, which he did slowly and with ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... is overwhelmingly stronger than the defending artillery, defensive infantry in an entrenched position cannot be ousted from its position unless the attackers outnumber their opponents by six or seven to one, and are prepared to lose heavily. The murderous zone of a thousand yards lying between the armies cannot be crossed save at fearful sacrifice, ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... French soldiery, Elfride was not brave when on the defensive. So it was almost with tears in her eyes ...
— A Pair of Blue Eyes • Thomas Hardy
... of the whip can be heard, the dogs come to wait for the millers and pursue them; and it is easy to recognize when the millers are passing, by the behavior of the dogs. There is in this also a significance, at once aggressive and defensive, in the cries which one can, by giving a little attention, soon learn ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 841, February 13, 1892 • Various
... Netherlands. Disappointment and false charges against him brought on a serious illness, and on his recovery he received orders to conduct an expedition into France. William Lewis of Nassau had for sometime been urging upon the States-General that the time for remaining upon the strict defensive was past, and that, when the enemy's efforts were weakened and distracted, the best defence was a vigorous offensive. At first he spoke to deaf ears, but he found now a powerful supporter in Maurice, ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... never again have it. Paris has gone the same way. London is still flushed with it, Berlin hectic, Vienna fevered. But the days of a "society" as a distinct ensemble, with a logical reason for being, with authority, with functions, with offensive and defensive powers and fixed boundaries, is over forever; possibly never existed, certainly never will exist in the series of gregarious aggregations and segregations known to a perplexed and slightly amused world as the ...
— Athalie • Robert W. Chambers
... the whale-boat put in commission. A minister of war was created, and ordered to proceed at once with the formation of a standing army. A first lord of the treasury was named, and commanded to get up a taxation scheme, and also open negotiations for treaties, offensive, defensive, and commercial, with foreign powers. Some generals and admirals were appointed; also some chamberlains, some equerries in waiting, and some ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... court at Frankfort, and thither Mr. D. repaired to take revenge for the personal indignity he had suffered. Judge R. is as remarkable for resolute fearlessness as for talents, firmness, and integrity; and after having provided himself with defensive weapons, entered upon the discharge of his duties with the most philosophic indifference. On passing from his hotel to the court-house, the Judge noticed that a man of great size, and evidently of ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... authorities woke up, and an extensive scheme of anti-aircraft guns and squadrons of aeroplanes was devised. About March of the year 1916 the Germans began to break the monotony of the Zeppelin raids by using sea-planes as variants. So there was plenty of work for our new defensive air force. Indeed, people began to ask themselves why we should not hit back by making raids into Germany. The subject was well aired in the public press, and distinguished advocates came forward for and against the policy of reprisals. At a considerably ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... Empusae, suspended by her four hind-legs to the trellised dome, the intruder meets with a bad reception. The pointed mitre is lowered; and an angry thrust sends him rolling. We have it: the wizard's cap is a defensive weapon, a protective crest. The Ram charges with his forehead, the Empusa butts with ...
— The Wonders of Instinct • J. H. Fabre
... starting on a queer sort of job when the door, which led on to the quay, burst open before a panting, breathless individual. He ran right up the store and stopped short. Mother Toulouche had seized the first thing she could find, and had taken up a defensive attitude. Her weapon was ...
— Messengers of Evil - Being a Further Account of the Lures and Devices of Fantomas • Pierre Souvestre
... land was well peopled, the very wants of that population would, as in every other country, keep down the growth of forests. In the military periods of Roman and other invasions, large timber was required for offensive and defensive operations; and in our generation, when the population there is exceedingly diminished, the ignorance, the bad government, and the wastefulness of uncivilisation, produce the same result of destroying or hindering ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... and deliberate sincerity. And while it was true that she had determined upon a method which was originally intended to redound to her own advantage, she soon learned that she was playing with a boomerang which soon put her upon the defensive against the very strategy which she ...
— The Loyalist - A Story of the American Revolution • James Francis Barrett
... tribes dwelling in the Mississippi valley; yet among these people the desirability and value of peace were recognized. Honors won in a defensive fight gave the warrior higher rank than those gained in wars of aggression. Rituals belonging to religious ceremonies, and also to war rites, taught that the first duty of the warrior was to protect the women and children, the fields and the food supply, for his strong arm and ready courage ...
— Indian Games and Dances with Native Songs • Alice C. Fletcher
... the smallest fear of an event which had lately excited so much general alarm. With a promptness inconceivable, his lordship planned every species of precautionary defence, while engaged in executing his offensive operations: and it is anxiously hoped, that his excellent defensive arrangements, made on this occasion, though happily not then needed, will be carefully treasured in the archives of the Admiralty, for immediate adoption, should any attempt ever be made, by a rash and powerful enemy, to approach the British shores; who ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... aggressive, which we placard in the face of the others. It is the gaudy eagle which conquerors and their devotees see flying in their dreams from steeple to steeple in foreign lands. The sacred defense of the homeland—well and good. But if there was no offensive war there would be defensive war. Defensive war has the same infamous cause as the offensive war which provoked it; why do we not confess it? We persist, through blindness or duplicity, in cutting the question in two, as if it were too great. All fallacies are possible when one speculates on morsels of truth. But Earth only ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... dear friends of ours, them of the league and city of Berne and of the great and little league of Germany, ambassadors charged to make proposals to them, if they would come to an understanding to be friends of friends and foes of foes" (make an offensive and defensive alliance). The proposal was brought before the diet of the cantons assembled at Lucerne. The King of France "regretted that the Duke of Burgundy would not leave the Swiss in peace; he promised ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... oeuvres have been formed on so vast a scale that one sees on many committee lists the names of noblesse and bourgeois side by side. But it is a defensive alliance, bred of the stupendous necessities of war, and wherever possible each prefers to work without the assistance of the other. The French Army is the most democratic in the world. French society has no conception of the word, and neither noblesse nor bourgeoisie has the ...
— The Living Present • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton
... or I'll let daylight into you," shouted the fellow, drawing a long knife, and acting upon the defensive, and the way he handled the reaper showed that he was ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... introduced into various ecclesiastical bodies, as honored clergymen solemnly warned their flocks first against the "atheism," then against the "infidelity," and finally against the "indifferentism" of the university, as devoted pastors endeavoured to dissuade young men from matriculation, I took the defensive, and, in answer to various attacks from pulpits and religious newspapers, attempted to allay the fears of the public. "Sweet reasonableness" was fully tried. There was established and endowed in the university perhaps the most effective Christian pulpit, and one of the most ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... and solidification of the work of the peace conferences at The Hague reasoned ourselves into a peaceful hope. We knew that no other power except Germany was really prepared for war. We knew that the effort to draw Great Britain into an offensive and defensive alliance with Germany had failed, although London was willing to promise help to Berlin if attacked. We remembered Bismarck's warning that a war against Russia and Great Britain at the same time would be fatal, and we trusted that it had not been forgotten in Berlin. We knew ...
— Fighting For Peace • Henry Van Dyke
... and concern. She truly believed that the paths of fiction would lead to her son's spiritual as well as his material ruin, and Mark had sense enough to recognise the reality of this belief of hers, and drop the levity he had assumed for defensive purposes. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... industrious agriculturists and artisans whom the Spanish Government knew not how to employ. The foundries and dockyards of Algiers teemed with busy workmen. Seven thousand Christian slaves laboured at the defensive works and the harbour; and every attempt of the Emperor to rescue them and destroy the pirates was repelled with ...
— The Story of the Barbary Corsairs • Stanley Lane-Poole
... without exaggeration that certain mental traits and fleshly appetites induced by their consumption as an article of food may have been created, while a separate niche in our anthropological museums is reserved for the instruments of warfare, both offensive and defensive, used by their phthiriophagous hunters. Then have we not in the very centres of civilization the poor and degraded, which are most faithfully ...
— Our Common Insects - A Popular Account of the Insects of Our Fields, Forests, - Gardens and Houses • Alpheus Spring Packard
... of them I already knew. One was Detective-sergeant Simmonds, and the other Coroner Goldberger, both of whom I had met in previous cases. Simmonds was a stolid, unimaginative, but industrious and efficient officer, with whom Godfrey had long ago concluded an alliance offensive and defensive. In other words, Godfrey threw what glory he could to Simmonds, and Simmonds such stories as he could to Godfrey, and so the arrangement was ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... by the signing of the great treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, against France and Spain, by Austria, England, and Holland; in which they afterwards succeeded in engaging other powers, which compelled the King to increase the number ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon
... to buy it," said Mary, immediately on the defensive. She did not want them to think for a moment that she was begging. She would show them that she had money, that she was just as good ...
— Lovey Mary • Alice Hegan Rice
... cannot be altered without the sanction of the same authority. A similar procedure is found in the other business of the Admiralty Board, such as shore-works, docks and the preparation of offensive and defensive plans of warfare—the last being a very important matter that falls into the operations of the Naval Intelligence Department, which has been described, though not with perfect accuracy, and certainly in no large sense, as "the brain of the navy.'' That department is under ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... officer, John Ross did something more than make representations as to the claims, which his nation in virtue of treaty guaranties had upon the South. He urged the advisability of allowing the Indians to fight strictly on the defensive and of placing them under the command of someone who would "enjoy their confidence." These two things he would like to have done if the protective force, which the Confederacy had promised, were not forthcoming. The ...
— The American Indian as Participant in the Civil War • Annie Heloise Abel
... Tracy's administration several difficult problems remained to be grappled with and solved before the efficiency in action of our ships could be secured. It is believed that as the result of new processes in the construction of armor plate our later ships will be clothed with defensive plates of higher resisting power than are found on any war vessels afloat. We were without torpedoes. Tests have been made to ascertain the relative efficiency of different constructions, a torpedo has been adopted, and the work of construction is ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... arrived at the empire, which, as an honour conferred on me by the gods, I have preserved, as I believe, unstained. In civil affairs I have ruled with moderation and, whether carrying on offensive or defensive war, have always been under the influence of deliberate reason; prosperity, however, does not always correspond to the wisdom of man's counsels, since the powers above reserve to themselves the regulation ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... constructed as to allow of much movement, but in other cases this region of the body is so flexible that the animal possessed the power of rolling itself up completely, like a hedgehog; and many individuals have been permanently preserved as fossils in this defensive condition. Finally, the body of the Trilobite was completed by a tail-shield (technically termed the "pygidium"), which varies much in size and form, and is composed of a greater or less number of rings, similar to those which form the thorax, but immovably amalgamated ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... unexpected onset; when, looking round by the dim light, she perceived him seated opposite Aunt Peggy's big chest, evidently watching it. On hearing the door open, though, he got up and raised his back, on the defensive. ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... these weapons I observed a pair of pistols with gems studding their handles, and thrust them into my sash, besides a splendid sword, which proved very serviceable when polished up, especially as my own defensive arms ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 29, May 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... could even face death without a pang." Finally it became necessary, as the result of unparalleled success in domestic affairs, that a foreign policy should be formulated. Paoli's idea was an offensive and defensive alliance with France on terms recognizing the independence of Corsica, securing an exclusive commercial reciprocity between them, and promising military service with an annual tribute from the island. This idea of France as a protector ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... indignity. He soon escaped, however, and rallied his broken forces, shrewdly baffling his foes, who sought to recapture him by a treacherous invitation to a feast. In the end they attacked Temujin in his own country, where, standing on the defensive, he defeated them with great loss. This victory brought the young chief wide renown, and so many allies gathered under his banner that he became a power in the steppes. "Temujin alone is generous and worthy of ruling a great people," ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... Dorset, Somerset, Devon and Sussex Yeomanry, about seventy in number, are to be remounted and attached to the 18th Hussars. This looks like more marching. I have bought, and intend bringing home with me, a few sets of the surcharged Transvaal stamps. I am doing this in a self-defensive way; my reason being that among my friends and acquaintances in the dear homeland I number certain strange beings commonly known in earlier and ruder days as stamp collectors, but now politely known and mysteriously designated philatelists. Now I know for a fact that ...
— A Yeoman's Letters - Third Edition • P. T. Ross
... &c. established his character as a brave and consummate general. Spain had already, towards the end of 1795, concluded not merely a peace with France, but also entered with her into a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, which was this year followed up by her declaring war against Great Britain. In Germany, a suspension of arms was concluded between France, Bavaria, Wirtemburgh, and Baden; and Saxony and Hesse agreed to a neutrality, while in Italy peace was made by Parma, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... force than this narrow form of self-interest to accomplish the social purposes of reproduction. When reproduction is generally understood to be as thoroughly a matter of group survival as for example the defensive side in a war of extermination, the same sentiment of group loyalty which now takes such forms as patriotism can be appealed to. If the human race is unsocial it will perish anyway. If it has not become unsocial—and it does not display any such tendency, but only the ...
— Taboo and Genetics • Melvin Moses Knight, Iva Lowther Peters, and Phyllis Mary Blanchard
... Netherlands, or to utterly exterminate them. Upon the other were a scanty people, fishermen, sailors, and agriculturalists, broken up into communities with but little bond of sympathy, and no communication, standing only on the defensive, and relying solely upon the justice of their cause, their own stout hearts, their noble prince, and their one ally, the ocean. Cruelty, persecution, and massacre had converted this race of peace loving workers into heroes capable of the most sublime self sacrifices. Women and children ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... Conference; the fundamental principles of the constitution and functions of a League of Nations as proposed or advocated by him; the form of the organic act, known as the "Covenant," its elaborate character and its inclusion in the treaty restoring a state of peace; the treaty of defensive alliance with France; the necessity for a definite programme which the American Commissioners could follow in carrying on the negotiations; the employment of private interviews and confidential agreements in reaching ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... General Grant had not been entirely satisfactory, and the long continuance of the Republican party in power was an element of weakness. The complaints, unavoidable in the most honest administration, and the disappointments of office-seekers, placed that party on the defensive. The south had, by reconstruction, been practically restored to political power, and the body of the negroes had been substantially disfranchised, though legally entitled to the suffrage. Riots ...
— Recollections of Forty Years in the House, Senate and Cabinet - An Autobiography. • John Sherman
... the road which led directly to all the success I have had in life, I feel impelled to acknowledge my indebtedness to Admiral Luce. With little constitutional initiative, and having grown up in the atmosphere of the single cruiser, of commerce-destroying, defensive warfare, and indifference to battle-ships; an anti-imperialist, who for that reason looked upon Mr. Blaine as a dangerous man; at forty-five I was drifting on the lines of simple respectability as aimlessly as one very well could. My environment had been too much for me; my present call changed ...
— From Sail to Steam, Recollections of Naval Life • Captain A. T. Mahan
... It was popularly felt to be the supreme of clever-nay, noble-fencing. Really noble, though the cleverness was conspicuous. A defensive stroke, protecting him against his fair one's violent charge of horse, warded off an implied attack upon Old England, in ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... opportunity, for Mr. Pye Hilary is in love, in despair, and in waiting: he expects his mistress's abigail; in negociating with whom, he conceives Tarradiddle will be a valuable assistant. Mrs. Tattle arrives. Preliminaries having been duly settled, articles offensive and defensive are entered into, to carry out a plan by which the lover shall gain an interview with the mistress; and the treaty is ratified by a liberal donation, which the Captain makes to the maid out of his friend's purse. The servant is satisfied, and goes off in the utmost ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... relates a contemporaneous conversation with Calhoun, in which the latter took the ground that, if a dissolution of the Union should follow, the south would be compelled to form an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Great Britain, though he admitted that it would be returning pretty much to the colonial state. When Adams, with unconscious prophecy of Sherman's march through Georgia, pressed Calhoun with the question whether the north, cut off from its ...
— Rise of the New West, 1819-1829 - Volume 14 in the series American Nation: A History • Frederick Jackson Turner
... people those sublime doctrines enunciated in the Sermon on the Mount. The Chinese have diagnosed, from the acts of the European Powers generally as well as from the actions of individual Europeans resident in China, the precise value to be attached to Christianity. For purely defensive purposes China will have almost immediately an Army which has been effectively described by the Times correspondent as being able to relieve the European Powers of any anxiety respecting the integrity of the Chinese Empire. People who have not visited the Far East, and who entirely derive their ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... the forest. It was Ralph who became incautious. His fury could not long be held in check, and his cunning at the start of the fight soon gave place to a wild and slashing onslaught, while Nick fought on the defensive, reading in his brother's eyes the ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... told, but he realised they had been speaking of him and felt on the defensive. However, he sat down as near to Caesar as he could. They talked of all manner of people and things of which he knew nothing, traditional jokes cropped up, and Aymer's propensity for teasing asserted itself in a prominent manner. Renata never failed to respond ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... was six thousand, in practice about four thousand. The usual order of battle was to draw up each legion in three lines (acies triplex), the first consisting of four cohorts, the second and third of three each. The defensive armor of the legionary soldier was a helmet of metal or leather, a shield (four feet by two and a half), greaves, and corselets of various material. The outer garment was a woollen blanket, fastened to the shoulders ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... the bed of a brother wounded almost to death by an assassin's bullet; has watched tenderly over the steps of an aged mother; and has always, everywhere, been the soul of helpfulness and benevolence. Here is an example, in a woman, who our laws say is not fit to exercise the active and defensive privilege of citizenship, that puts to shame the lives of ninety-nine in ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... sentiment of the militants on both sides. All reason and sympathy disappeared, and, instead, every brutal passion had play. Politically and socially, the reactionaries were put in the saddle. Every progressive in France was placed on the defensive. Anyone who hinted of social wrong was ostracized. Caesarism ruled France, and, through les lois scelerates, every bush was beaten, every hiding-place uncovered, until every anarchist was driven out. The ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... armed each Sabbath, and the sentinels were ordered to keep their matches constantly lighted for use in their match-locks. They were also commanded to wear armor, which consisted of "coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indian arrows." In 1650 so much dread and fear were felt of Sunday attacks from the red men that the Sabbath-Day guard was doubled in number. In 1692, the Connecticut Legislature ordered one fifth of the soldiers in each town to come armed to each meeting, and that nowhere ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
Copyright © 2025 Diccionario ingles.com
|
|
|
