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Defection   Listen
noun
Defection  n.  Act of abandoning a person or cause to which one is bound by allegiance or duty, or to which one has attached himself; desertion; failure in duty; a falling away; apostasy; backsliding. "Defection and falling away from God." "The general defection of the whole realm."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Defection" Quotes from Famous Books



... the defection of the troops in Toulgas, and unknown to them, a battery of large six-inch guns had been brought up to the artillery position at Kurgomin on the opposite side of the river, which, with the guns already in position there, made it one of our strongest ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore

... after spreading through all the classes of society, finally invaded the army was the principal cause of the disappearance of the ancien regime. "It was the defection of the army affected by the ideas of the Third Estate,'' wrote ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon

... save them.... The submarines are steadily winning the war. Pershing and his army have bucked up the French for the moment. But for his coming there was more or less danger of a revolution in Paris and of serious defection in the army. Everybody here fears that the French will fail before another winter of the trenches. Yet—the Germans ...
— The Life and Letters of Walter H. Page, Volume II • Burton J. Hendrick

... always had mighty men willing to venture their lives, when religion and liberty were attacked; but at no time has there gone forth a more illustrious band whose heart God touched, than in the last years of the Sixteenth century. The tide of defection was then rolling in upon the Church with desolating violence. The truth of Christ's supremacy was being submerged beneath the waves of Episcopacy. The right of Christ to rule His Church was disputed ...
— Sketches of the Covenanters • J. C. McFeeters

... the Protestant Party. Defection of the radicals: the Anabaptists. Defection of the intellectuals: Erasmus. The Sacramentarian Schism: Zwingli. Growth of the Lutheran party among the upper and middle classes. Luther's ecclesiastical polity. ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith

... written, as I preferred to do, before the warm and cold, wet and dry meslin of April weather comes, which always breaks me up in my studies. I will read it to you, and I rather think you will like it. . . . But do not make yourself uneasy. There will be nothing in the address of what you call "a defection to the radical side," simply because, in opinion, I cannot take that ground. I do not and cannot give up the miraculous element in Christianity. But I [294] embrace our whole denomination in my sympathies and do not think our differences ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey

... privately, when they returned to Antium, seduced from the Romans the colonists who were already disposed to treachery of their own accord. The matter not being yet ripe, when it was announced to the senate that a defection was intended, the consuls were charged to inquire into the business by summoning to Rome the leading men of the colony. When those persons attended without reluctance, being conducted to the senate by the consuls, they so answered to the questions put to them, that they ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius

... Douglass's political defection very much intensified the feeling against him among his former coadjutors. The Garrisonians, with their usual plain speaking, did not hesitate to say what they thought of Douglass. Their three papers, the Liberator, ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt

... protectress, who had so nearly caused his ruin, and in his administration of affairs he left her entire liberty of action. But her last vestige of power had departed, her most loyal followers had been induced to abandon her cause after the defection of the kalif himself, and Sobeyah, who had been the most powerful of all the Moorish sultanas of Cordova, was now forced in humiliation to withdraw from active participation in worldly affairs and to spend the few remaining years of her life ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger

... sorts of voluptuous men, and of their death and defection; and of the continuance of ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake

... commander of the besieged forces, fought against desperate odds with a courage and skill worthy of the best traditions of his native city, hoping to repulse the Turks until help could arrive. But Doria's defection in 1570 decided the fate of the city the following year. After fifty-five days of siege, with no resources left, Bragadino was compelled, on August 4, 1571, to accept an offer of surrender on honorable terms. The Turkish commander, enraged at the loss of 50,000 men, which ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... The defection of Wordsworth from liberal sympathies is one of the commonplaces of literary history. There was a time when he figured in his poetry as a patriotic leader of the people, when in clarion tones he exhorted his countrymen to "arm and combine in defense of their common birthright." ...
— Browning's England - A Study in English Influences in Browning • Helen Archibald Clarke

... knowledge that now is, is but a shrub, and not that tree which is never dangerous, but where it is to the purpose of knowing Good and Evil; which desire ever riseth upon an appetite to elect and not to obey, and so containeth in it a manifest defection. ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon

... no difference. When "Labor" is in disgrace we are always regarded as belonging to it and share the opprobrium. In the public excitement following the Pullman strike Hull-House lost many friends; later the teamsters' strike caused another such defection, although my office in both cases had been solely that of a ...
— Twenty Years At Hull House • Jane Addams

... the completion of his collegiate course sent him forth into the world a being superior, in his own esteem, to the accidents and conditions that the mass of inferior mortals are subject to. Yet he found reasons to account for his parent's defection to ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... defection and fall of Daniel Webster. It is worthy a place by the side of Browning's "Lost Leader." In later years, Whittier wrote a poem on the theme, which, while not a retraction of his former position, is penned in a tenderer, ...
— The Golden Treasury of American Songs and Lyrics • Various

... less display than had the Judge, the receiver was no less deeply worried about Helen, of whom no news came. His jealousy, fanned to red heat by the discovery of her earlier defection, was enhanced fourfold by the thought of this last adventure. Something told him there was treachery afoot, and when she did not return at dawn he began to fear that she had cast in her lot with the rioters. This aroused a ...
— The Spoilers • Rex Beach

... his host's defection with impassivity and a glance of his eyeglass. "Wonder what Jimmy has shied off for?" he said to Lucy through the dressing-room door. "Aeroplaning or royalty, do you think? The ——s may have sent for him. I know he knows them. But it's characteristic. He makes a fuss about you, so that you think ...
— Love and Lucy • Maurice Henry Hewlett

... at Lons-le-Saulnier, whence it was understood that he would fall on the rear of Bonaparte. Instead of doing so, he joined him at Auxerre with his whole division, which had already hoisted (under his orders) the tri-coloured flag. This defection practically decided the contest; and Bonaparte entered Paris on the evening of the 20th as a conqueror, received everywhere by the military ...
— English Caricaturists and Graphic Humourists of the Nineteenth Century. - How they Illustrated and Interpreted their Times. • Graham Everitt

... unfortunate chamberlain, and the defection of Clifford, created the greatest consternation in the camp of Perkin Warbeck. The king's authority was greatly strengthened by the promptness and severity of his measures, and the pretender soon discovered that unless he were content to sink into ...
— Celebrated Claimants from Perkin Warbeck to Arthur Orton • Anonymous

... the deprivation of the social advantages of Oxford and Cambridge. By an Act of 1714 schools for more than a rudimentary education were forbidden to be taught by Dissenters. Thus, we are not surprised to hear, considerable defection went on, and early in the century congregations began to dwindle. As it proceeded some became very small indeed, ...
— Unitarianism • W.G. Tarrant

... to certain death in the deserts of Libya and Ethiopia, inspired the enraged Asiatics with a hatred which, when skilfully fed by the powerful Magi, soon roused, first the Medes and Assyrians, and then the Persians, to defection and open insurrection. Motives of self-interest led the ambitious high-priest, Oropastes, whom Cambyses had appointed regent in his absence, to place himself at the head of this movement. He flattered the people by remitting their taxes, by ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers

... himself fortunate in gaining Burr, he was still more fortunate in the defection of the influential Livingstons. What Caesar said of Gaul used to be said of the Empire State, that all New York was divided into three parts—the Clintons, the Livingstons, and the Schuylers. Parton said "the Clintons had power, the Livingstons had numbers, ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander

... of the King was to gain concessions without taking part in the war either against Napoleon or on his side. When, however, the balance turned more decidedly against Napoleon, he grew bolder; and the news of York's defection, though it seriously embarrassed the Cabinet for the moment, practically decided it in favour of war with France. The messenger who was sent to remove York from his command received private instructions to fall into the hands of the Russians, and to ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe

... behind from their rites and institutes, as well as from the names, which they bequeathed to places, ample memorials, by which they may be clearly traced out. It may seem strange, that in the first ages there should have been such an universal defection from the truth; and above all things such a propensity to this particular mode of worship, this mysterious attachment to the serpent. What is scarce credible, it obtained among Christians; and one of the most early heresies in the church was of this sort, introduced by ...
— A New System; or, an Analysis of Antient Mythology. Volume II. (of VI.) • Jacob Bryant

... irresponsible set, and I must own that he has met one or two unfavourable specimens. Then he couldn't imagine the possibility of a son of his not being anxious to follow the family profession, and, knowing how my defection would grieve him, I let him have his way. There has always been a Challoner fighting or ruling in India since ...
— Blake's Burden • Harold Bindloss

... bring himself to disclose Uncle Billy's rascality, and so offered the hypothesis that he had wandered from the camp and had accidentally stampeded the animals. He dropped a warning to the Duchess and Mother Shipton, who of course knew the facts of their associate's defection. "They'll find out the truth about us all when they find out anything," he added, significantly, "and there's no ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various

... a serious impairment of reservation morale, owing to the spectacular rise of a young Indian named Fire Bear, who had gathered many followers, and who, with his cohorts, had proceeded to dance and "make medicine" to the exclusion of all other employment. Fire Bear's defection had set many rumors afloat. Timid settlers near the reservation had expressed fear of a general uprising, which fear had been fanned by the threats and boastings sent broadcast by some of Fire Bear's ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman

... complied with this request, and sent 1,000 men, under Mundilas, to escort Datius back to Milan. This expedition set forth probably in April 538, and as soon as it arrived at Milan that city openly proclaimed its defection from Witigis and its allegiance to the Emperor. It was soon besieged by Uraias, nephew of Witigis, by whom in the following year (539) it was taken. The city, we are informed, was rased to the ground, and Bishop Datius escaped to Constantinople. Evidently we have here a continuous ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)

... the pilot, in the routine check-back after entering free flight had reported no motor or control faults. At this point, unfortunately, a fault in the tracking radar transmitter had resulted in it losing contact with the target. The Controller did not, however, mention the defection of the hungover operator in fouling up the signal to the standby unit, or the consequent general confusion in the tracking network with no contact at all thereafter, and fervently hoped that gentlemen of the press were not too familiar with ...
— Far from Home • J.A. Taylor

... pleased with a town of twenty or thirty thousand inhabitants, so long as the latter had no leader. One may judge of what Rome was, when even pilgrims did not dare to go thither and visit the tomb of Saint Peter. The discord of the great houses made Rienzi's life a career; the defection of the Orsini from the Pope's party led to his flight; their battles suggested to the exiled Pope the idea of sending him back to Rome to break their power and restore a republic by which the Pope might restore himself; and the rage of their retainers expended itself in his violent ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... question of Home Rule had by this time undergone a complete change, and accordingly he introduced a Home Rule Bill which was defeated owing to the defection of a large number of Liberal members headed by Lord Hartington and Mr. Chamberlain. The consequent appeal to the country (July, 1886) gave Lord Salisbury a Unionist majority of over a hundred votes, and threw Parnell into a close alliance ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... intelligence of the Royalist party followed him in opposition to the government, whose faults he had encouraged and shared. The "Journal des Debats," the most influential newspaper in France, deserted Villele; and from this defection may be dated, says Lamartine, "all those enmities against the government of the Restoration which collected in one work of aggression the most contradictory ideas, which alienated public opinion, which exasperated the government and pushed it on from ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... delights. Music nor mirth could win him from the melancholy which overshadowed him. The truth was, that amid so much adulation as surrounded him, the idol of a nation, his soul no longer increased in wisdom; and loving virtue beyond all other things, he secretly bemoaned his defection whilst not perceiving its cause. His virtues, the cynosure of all eyes, withered like tender flowers meant to blossom in the shade, but unnaturally exposed to noon-day. His adoring people bewailed what they thought must be a ...
— Atma - A Romance • Caroline Augusta Frazer

... were still more strongly opposed by the prevailing opinions and sentiments of the age. Principle, therefore, stood on the one side; power on the other; and if the English had been actuated by conscience more than by present interest, the controversy must soon, by the general defection of Henry's subjects, have been decided against him. Becket, in order to forward this event, filled all places with exclamations against the violence which he had suffered. He compared himself to Christ, who had been condemned by a lay tribunal [z], and who was crucified anew in the present ...
— The History of England, Volume I • David Hume

... to notice the cooling of his passion. First she fixed him with oblique suspicion from under her long lashes, then avoided him, then kept him at her side for days together. Then at last—his defection unmistakable—turned on him with ...
— A Deal in Wheat - And Other Stories of the New and Old West • Frank Norris

... juggle took was an invention of the enemy, cunningly contrived to win by indirection what was too dangerous to be attempted by open violence, is a conclusion from which no candid mind can escape, after a full consideration of the case. The defection of so large a body of Northern Democrats from the side of the Slaveholding Directory was doubtless a significant and startling fact, suggestive of dangerous insubordination on the part of allies who had ever been found sure ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. II, No. 8, June 1858 • Various

... managed to make our escape quietly, but our defection once perceived, consternation ensued, and the departure of La Noue from the Protestant camp could scarcely have created more sensation. We were pursued, and accompanied home to the hotel, with repeated apologies for having been allowed to remain alone until we became ennuyees; ...
— Barn and the Pyrenees - A Legendary Tour to the Country of Henri Quatre • Louisa Stuart Costello

... This defection was not solely the effect of the terror, with which the imperial army could not fail naturally to inspire a body of wretched peasants; it was promoted by several other circumstances. In the first place it resulted from the little confidence of the insurgents in the experience and capacity ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. II • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... time the wine was exhausted, and they called for more. About five all except Lantier were in a state of beastly intoxication, and he found them so disgusting that, as usual, he made his escape without his comrades noticing his defection. ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... dead, and now the field was open to them. The Lameths—courtiers, educated by the kindness of the royal family, overwhelmed by the favours and pensions of the king, had the conspicuous defection of Mirabeau without having the excuse of his wrongs against the monarchy: this defection was one of their titles to popular favour. Clever men, they carried with them into the national cause the conduct of Courts in which they had been brought up: still their ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine

... had deliberately absented herself from her post as honorary secretary ever since the decision to fell the old pine had been arrived at. It was her method of protest against the outrage. But Mrs. John Day, quite undisturbed, had appointed a fresh secretary, and Kate's defection had been allowed to pass as a matter of ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum

... days were over, he found himself at the bridge house, enjoying Mrs Inglis's kindly sympathy, and the delighted welcome of the children, more than he would have imagined possible. He had seen very little of any of them for a long time, and was ashamed of his defection, conscious as he was of the cause. It was not comfortable for him to talk with Mrs Inglis, or to share in the pursuits and amusements of her young people, with the consciousness of wrong-doing upon him. Wrong-doing according to their standard of right and wrong, ...
— The Inglises - How the Way Opened • Margaret Murray Robertson

... short period of peace at Clairvaux, he had to hurry off again to Italy on account of the defection of the influential monastery of Monte ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner

... particular feature may be selected and turned to account: had I intended more, above all, such a boldness as portraying the entire man, I should not have talked about "handfuls of silver and bits of ribbon". These never influenced the change of politics in the great poet; whose defection, nevertheless, accompanied as it was by a regular face about of his special party, was to my juvenile apprehension, and even mature consideration, an event to deplore. But just as in the tapestry on my wall I can recognise figures which have struck ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth

... suzerain, "Baal, king of Tyre, to Tirhakah, king of Ethiopia, his country entrusted, and the yoke of Asshur threw off and made defiance."[14166] Esarhaddon was too strongly bent on his Egyptian expedition to be diverted from it by this defection; but in the year B.C. 672, as he marched through Syria and Palestine on his way to attack Tirhakah, he sent a detachment against Tyre, with orders to his officers to repeat the tactics of Shalmaneser, by occupying points of the coast opposite to ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson

... county, and who commanded five votes in the House besides his own. He was one of the chief pillars of their cause; but he was not only independent, he was conscientious and had scruples. Saratoga staggered him. The defection of the Montacute votes, at this moment, would have at once terminated the struggle between England and her colonies. A fresh illustration of the advantages of our parliamentary constitution! The independent ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli

... order, the responsibility of throwing the whole kingdom into confusion. He started up and hurried out of the House, beckoning to some of his brethren. His brethren followed him with a prompt obedience, which, serious as the crisis was, caused no small merriment. In consequence of this defection, the motion to agree was carried by a majority of five. Meanwhile the members of the other House had been impatiently waiting for news, and had been alternately elated and depressed by the reports which followed one another in rapid succession. ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 5 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... doubly stung by his defection, was just in the mood to do something desperate, when she began to see a great deal of Asbury, fresh from being jilted by Sallie Cox. Asbury was moody, and confided in Alice. Alice was foolish, and confided in him. ...
— The Love Affairs of an Old Maid • Lilian Bell

... hordes of the Bow-legs were never likely to come that way again. No wonder, therefore, that there was grumbling, and protest, and shrill lamentation in the caves; but Bawr being in no mood, since the defection of Mawg and his party, to tolerate any opposition, and Grom being now regarded as a dangerous wizard, the preparation for departure went on as smoothly as if all were of one mind. Packing was no great matter ...
— In the Morning of Time • Charles G. D. Roberts

... this lust of gold, thou, the penniless and the feeble, canst make knowledge and wit of more avail to the destinies of kings than armed men and filled treasuries. I believe in that power. I am ready for the test. Pause, judge from what the Lord of Breteuil hath said to thee, what will be the defection of thy lords if the Pope confirm the threatened excommunication of thine uncle? Thine armies will rot from thee; thy treasures will be like dry leaves in thy coffers; the Duke of Bretagne will claim thy duchy as the legitimate heir of thy forefathers; the Duke of Burgundy will league with ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... work in explaining the reasons for Luther's "defection" from Rome. They apply to Luther's stubborn resistance the law of heredity: Luther's wildness was congenital. Some have declared him the illegitimate child of a Bohemian heretic, others, the oaf of a witch, still others, a ...
— Luther Examined and Reexamined - A Review of Catholic Criticism and a Plea for Revaluation • W. H. T. Dau

... by that he might be able, not only to contradict, but to confute them. People, however, only smiled, and told him that he had better inquire no farther, if he expected to find Sir Ulick an immaculate character. Those who liked him best, laughed off the notorious instances of his public defection of principle, and of his private jobbing, as good jokes; proofs of his knowledge of the world—his address, his frankness, his being "not a bit of a hypocrite." But even those who professed to like him best, and to be the least scrupulous with regard to public ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. IX - [Contents: Harrington; Thoughts on Bores; Ormond] • Maria Edgeworth

... la Gasea, a man of great resolution, penetration, and knowledge of affairs. After varying fortunes, in which Pizarro for some time held his own, he was routed by the troops of Gasea, largely through the defection of a number of his own soldiers, who marched over to the enemy. Pizarro surrendered to an officer, and was carried before Gasea. Addressing him with severity, Gasea abruptly inquired, "Why had he thrown the country into such confusion; raising the banner of revolt; ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XII. - Modern History • Arthur Mee

... for the services of the biggest of the bourgeois specialists. All those who are acquainted with the facts understand this, but not all give sufficient thought to the significance of such a measure on the part of the proletarian state. It is clear that the measure is a compromise, that it is a defection from the principles of the Paris Commune and of any proletarian rule, which demand the reduction of salaries to the standard of remuneration of the average workers—principles which demand that "career hunting" be fought ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo

... fascination. Dalberg ever had scorned her; Harleston had looked with favour, wavered, was about to yield, when another—outwardly her alter ego, save only in the colour of her hair—appeared and filched him from her. And whether Dalberg's scorn or Harleston's defection was the more humiliating, she did not know. Together they made a mocking and a desolation of her love and her life. And as she came to hate with a fierce hatred the Princess whom Dalberg loved, so with an even more bitter hatred she hated Mrs. Clephane who had won Harleston ...
— The Cab of the Sleeping Horse • John Reed Scott

... It was the defection of the English Crown, the immense booty rapidly obtained by a few adventurers, like the Cecils and Russells, and a still smaller number of old families, like the Howards, which put England, with all its profound traditions and with all its organic inheritance of the great European ...
— The Free Press • Hilaire Belloc

... hatred to true Christians, should regard any of its members who go over to Romanism as lost in fatal error. But within the Protestant fold there are many compartments, and it would seem that it is not a deadly defection to pass ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)

... suspect the faith of Muza Ben Abil Gazan?" said the Moorish prince, in a tone of surprise and sorrow. "Unhappy king! I deemed that my services, and not my defection, ...
— Leila or, The Siege of Granada, Book II. • Edward Bulwer Lytton

... to her purest, holiest ambitions. Olive put forward no claim of her own, breathed, at first, at least, not a word of remonstrance in the name of her personal loss, of their blighted union; she only dwelt upon the unspeakable tragedy of a defection from their standard, of a failure on Verena's part to carry out what she had undertaken, of the horror of seeing her bright career blotted out with darkness and tears, of the joy and elation that would fill ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. II (of II) • Henry James

... go better" was the cool comment of St. John. But the country was strangely moved. After eleven years of personal rule, its hopes had risen again with the summons of the Houses to Westminster; and their rough dismissal after a three weeks sitting brought all patience to an end. "So great a defection in the kingdom," wrote Lord Northumberland, "hath not been known in the memory ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green

... story of Solomon's defection and degeneracy. As the Queen of Sheba did not have seven hundred husbands, she had time for travel and the observation of the great world outside of her domain. It is impossible to estimate the ennui a thousand women must have suffered crowded together, with only one old gentleman ...
— The Woman's Bible. • Elizabeth Cady Stanton

... departure of Belle, I remarked that Hiram was busily engaged for more than a week in preparing his will. With the defection of his son and the elopement of his favorite daughter, Hiram's ideas took a new ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various

... of courtship. Mrs. Trenor, true to her word, had shown no signs of expecting Lily at the bridge-table, and had even hinted to the other card-players that they were to betray no surprise at her unwonted defection. In consequence of this hint, Lily found herself the centre of that feminine solicitude which envelops a young woman in the mating season. A solitude was tacitly created for her in the crowded existence of Bellomont, and her ...
— House of Mirth • Edith Wharton

... still defection on the Union side, and among many "plain people" too; for Horace Greeley, the best-known Union editor, lost his nerve and ran away. And Greeley was not the only Union journalist who helped, sometimes ...
— Captains of the Civil War - A Chronicle of the Blue and the Gray, Volume 31, The - Chronicles Of America Series • William Wood

... sorrowful thing to Alister to seem for a moment to follow the example of the recreant chiefs whose defection to feudalism was the prelude to their treachery toward their people, and whose faithlessness had ruined the highlands. But unlike Glengarry or "Esau" Reay, he desired to sell his land that he might keep his people, care for them, and share with them: ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald

... Gu['e]rin, a very Christian soul, was probably disturbed in his religious sentiments by the defection of his old friend and director, P['e]re de Lamennais—the "M. F['e]li" of the little paradise of la Ch['e]nie. To the delight of some of the more independent and emancipated of the literary circle at Paris, which included George Sand, Maurice was becoming ...
— Confessions of a Book-Lover • Maurice Francis Egan

... soul! But not of her own doing. Was she responsible for her father? In the mere fact that she had so incredibly come to love him—he being what he was—there was surely a significance which the Catholic was free to interpret in the Catholic sense. So that, where others saw defection from a high ideal and danger to his own Catholic position, he, with hidden passion, and very few words of explanation even to his director, Father Leadham, felt the drawing of a heavenly force, the promise of an ultimate ...
— Helbeck of Bannisdale, Vol. II • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... Chilian forces at Chancay. On the 8th, forty Spanish officers followed their example; and every day afterwards, officers, privates, and civilians of respectability, joined the patriot army, which thus became considerably reinforced; the defection of so large a portion of his troops being a severe loss to ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 1 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald

... overcrowding of the hospitals; the negotiations were being carried on at Presburg. In spite of the wise and prudent counsels of his minister, Napoleon was resolved on exacting from Austria still more than he had declared before Ulm. The defection of Prussia had thoroughly disheartened the plenipotentiaries of the Emperor Francis. The French armies concentrated afresh around Vienna. Napoleon was doubly imperious, threatening to recommence the war; the negotiators at length yielded to necessity. ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt

... prepared for this. It is hard to believe that the plaintiff could adopt a measure so desperate as this for securing his ends, and I will not criminate him; but I protest that the condition in which the defendant is left by this defection, or this forcible detention—call it what you will—demands the most generous consideration, and compels me to ask the Court for suggestions as to the best course of proceeding. There are now but two men in Court who saw the paper executed, namely, the assignor and the assignee. ...
— Sevenoaks • J. G. Holland

... Lady Saxonby's eyes would scrutinize the face of the girl with whom he had consoled himself after her defection; and he felt both anger and surprise at the ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes

... had been taken to force them back into the ranks. The Provost Marshals were too busy looking for summer-boarders at Fort Lafayette and Fort Warren, to think of their obvious duty of protecting the armies of the Union against indolence and desertion! A still more serious defection existed among the officers—those who had been awhile in the service, and those who had merely entered it in pretence. Half the New York regiments, especially, had originally been officered by men who had no intention of fighting, and who ...
— Shoulder-Straps - A Novel of New York and the Army, 1862 • Henry Morford

... heavy and serious inroads on the hunting-grounds of the Mohawks; though they had seen fit, with the mysterious reserve so common among the natives, to withhold their assistance at the moment when it was most required. The French had accounted for this unexpected defection on the part of their ally in various ways. It was the prevalent opinion, however, that they had been influenced by veneration for the ancient treaty, that had once made them dependent on the Six Nations for military protection, and now rendered ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper

... lover was inevitable. They had known that he would come, insistent. She had not kept him waiting. When he came to the house the day after his arrival from England, following close upon a cablegram sent the day after the news of Anne's defection had struck him like a thunderbolt, she was ready ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon

... and he awoke in the morning unrefreshed. The mutiny and defection of the ship's company, he ascribed entirely to the machinations of Smallbones, whom he now hated with a feeling so intense, that he felt he could have ordered him in the open day. Such were the first impulses that his mind resorted to upon his waking, ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat

... lightness—like a man out of breath. I saw a pistol-butt sticking out of his pocket and narrowed my eyes upon him. Follet seldom looked me up in my own house, though we met frequently enough in all sorts of other places. It was full five minutes before he came to the point. Meanwhile I remarked on Joe's defection. ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... a goosestep. Once more they all had a good laugh. Then Bob and Jack walked into the outer room of the cave, followed by Frank and Roy Stone. Stone had thrown caution to the winds, and had decided not to try any longer to hide his defection ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge

... against Jeroboam and his people, that he might force them by war to be his servants; but he was forbidden of God by the prophet [Shemaiah] to go to war, for that it was not just that brethren of the same country should fight one against another. He also said that this defection of the multitude was according to the purpose of God. So he did not proceed in this expedition. And now I will relate first the actions of Jeroboam the king of Israel, after which we will relate what are therewith connected, the actions of Rehoboam, the king of ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus

... remove one, by saying that an object of this conference is my own renunciation of the Emperorship, thus while I thank my Lord Count for his proffered franchise, I quiet the mind of my Lord of Treves by assuring him his defection has no terror for me. And now, my Lord of Mayence, will you listen carefully to ...
— The Sword Maker • Robert Barr

... a miracle could halt the initial stage of the revolution; the wireless plants were all operated by women in her service, and no telephone message had advised her of danger. No matter what her defection at this moment the revolution would begin at dawn; but although Germany happily lacked the disintegrating forces of Russia, comfortable as she had been for two generations, and proud in her discipline, that very discipline ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton

... legal one, for when you won her—by what means I know not, in Maracaibo—you married her. You were forced to do so before you received her consent. One of my brethren who performed the service told me the tale. After you took her away from Maracaibo her old father, broken hearted at her defection, sought asylum in Panama with the remaining daughter, and there she met the Governor, Don Francisco de Guzman. He loved her, he wooed and won her, and at last he married her, but secretly. She was poor and humble by comparison with him; she ...
— Sir Henry Morgan, Buccaneer - A Romance of the Spanish Main • Cyrus Townsend Brady

... awhile with the coast; but her armies entirely dependent on external supply, and at so great a distance from the centre of their resources, would gradually moulder away, as well by the incessant operation of a partisan warfare, as by defection to their adversaries, whom her troops would be led to combat only with regret. They would not enter into a war of this description with the same animosity and desire of vengeance that might actuate their leaders. They would behold in their opponents, Britons, or the descendants ...
— Statistical, Historical and Political Description of the Colony of New South Wales and its Dependent Settlements in Van Diemen's Land • William Charles Wentworth

... so accustomed to hear compliments and flattery, whenever her portrait was admired, she was so sure of eulogistic phrases, which she had little regarded but which pleased her nevertheless, that this desertion of herself, this unexpected defection, this admiration intended wholly for her daughter, had moved, astonished, and hurt her more than if it had been a question of no matter what rivalry under ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant

... following it found the door and entered the bower. She is said to have ill-treated and even poisoned Rosamond, but the belief now is that Rosamond retired to the nunnery from sorrow at the ultimate defection of her royal lover, and did not die for several years. The story has been the favorite theme of the poets, and we are told that her body was buried in the nunnery, and wax lights placed around the tomb and kept continually burning. Subsequently, her remains were reinterred in the chapter-house, ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook

... when we first noticed his defection. 'No wonder that he is unpopular,' he cried disgustedly. 'To flee from us, his benefactors, after we have come so far out of our way through kindness upon his account. It is abominable. Who, under Allah, could feel love ...
— Oriental Encounters - Palestine and Syria, 1894-6 • Marmaduke Pickthall

... our reverses than the enemy, whom we had pursued even into the heart of his burning capital. France still offered immense resources; and the Emperor was now there in person to direct their employment and increase their value. Besides, no defection was as yet apparent; and, with the exception of Spain, Sweden, and Russia, the Emperor considered all the European powers as allies. It is true the moment was approaching when General Yorck would give the signal,—for as well as I can recall, the first news came to the Emperor ...
— The Private Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Constant

... for their object the amelioration of man's condition; the advancement of the Redeemer's kingdom; the cause of human freedom has encountered many oppositions calculated to impede its progress. It has temporarily suffered from cruel defection within, and the most ...
— Autographs for Freedom, Volume 2 (of 2) (1854) • Various

... unforgivably stupid in me never to have thought of Jean," admitted David, looking deep disgust at his own defection. ...
— Grace Harlowe's Golden Summer • Jessie Graham Flower

... campaigns of Switzerland in 1799 on the St. Gothard against Suwarrow are well known. Naturally disgraced for the part he took with Moreau, he was not again employed till the Cent Jours, when he did good service, although he had disapproved of the defection of Ney from the Royalist cause. He died in 1816; his brother, the judge, had a most furious reception from Napoleon, who called him a prevaricating judge, and dismissed him from his office ...
— The Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte • Bourrienne, Constant, and Stewarton

... his viceroys ruled in Naples and Sicily, his dukes and feudatories in Florence and Ferrara, in Mantua and in Milan; there was no more Italy. All these recent acquisitions had been rendered possible by the defection of Andrea Doria, the Genoese seaman, from Francis I. of France to the side of the Emperor. From henceforward it was against this modern Caesar that Barbarossa had to contend; the monarch under whose banner swarmed the terrible Schwartz-Reiters ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey

... translation of the scarlet writing which the eminent and worthy Smatt furnished us, after the occasion of your unfortunate defection, was lost in the wreck. We had, we thought, a memory of truthfulness of the paper, for we had read it muchly. We were mistaken. We have not discovered the ambergris, though we have ...
— Fire Mountain - A Thrilling Sea Story • Norman Springer

... productiveness his estates fairly surpassed those of his imperial cousin, and the defection of such a man signified the death ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume VI. • Various

... principles which would have done credit to a Christian host, these undisciplined Mussulmans easily overcame the Grand Vizier's army, partly, it must be acknowledged, by the defection of the Albanians, who had previously deserted the cause of Scodra Pacha. Had they now pushed on, their independence would have been established; but, unfortunately, what the Grand Vizier could not effect by force of arms he brought about by guile. With great tact and cunning he sent emissaries ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... Marius de Condillac or the meanest cobbler in Grenoble was, similarly, a matter that never disturbed his mind. He would not even be concerned if he, himself, were to help the Dowager's schemes to frustration, so long as she were to remain in ignorance of his defection, so long as outwardly he were to ...
— St. Martin's Summer • Rafael Sabatini

... Bodenham says his feet are so bad he can't walk, and Greenhill, with a greedy look at the berries, bids him stay behind. Being in a very weak condition, he takes his companion at his word, and drops off about noon the next day. Gabbett, discovering this defection, however, goes back, and in an hour or so appears, driving the wretched creature before him with blows, as a sheep is driven to the shambles. Greenhill remonstrates at another mouth being thus forced upon the party, but the giant silences him with a hideous glance. Jemmy Vetch ...
— For the Term of His Natural Life • Marcus Clarke

... correspondence with Gage. He had entrusted to a woman of his acquaintance a letter written in cipher to be forwarded to the British commander. This letter was found upon the girl, she was taken to headquarters, and there the contents of the fatal message were deciphered and the defection of Doctor Church established. When questioned by Washington he appeared utterly confounded, and made no attempt to ...
— The Romance of Old New England Rooftrees • Mary Caroline Crawford

... respect to hospitality that, if they can remember ever to have experienced kindly offices from folk, they cannot be thought to inflict any annoyance on them. But Hakon thought the death of his brother a worse loss than the defection of his champions; and, gathering his fleet into the haven called Herwig in Danish, and in Latin Hosts' Bight, he drew up his men, and posted his line of foot-soldiers in the spot where the town built by Esbern now defends with its fortifications those who dwell ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")

... articles of faith and truths of religion, and could never think of parting with one hoof, or the least grain of truth, being persuaded, that Christian concord must have truth for its foundation, and holiness for its attendant, without which it will decline into a defection, and degenerate into a conspiracy against religion. As to the duties of Christianity, he enforced the performance of these with all the arguments of persuasion, so that, through the blessing of God, his pulpit discourses became the power of God to ...
— The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning • Hugh Binning

... daughter of the Ry of Rys, who had for so long exiled himself. Racial, family, clan feeling spoke in voice and gesture, in look and attitude; but yet there were small groups of younger men whose salutations were perfunctory, not to say mocking. These were they who resented deeply Fleda's defection, and truthfully felt that she had passed out of their circle for ever; that she despised them, and looked down on them from another sphere. They were all about the age of Jethro Fawe, but were of a less civilized type, and had semi-barbarism written all over them. Unlike Jethro they ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... to the American Anti-slavery Society of his desire to crush the "dissenters," and Maria W. Chapman wrote: "Why will they think they can cut away from Garrison without becoming an abomination? ... If this defection should drink the cup and end all, we of Massachusetts will turn and abolish them as readily as we would the colonization society." Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: "I am glad to see that you have criticised Brother H. C. Wright. I have just returned from a few months' tour ...
— Woman and the Republic • Helen Kendrick Johnson

... When she returned home, the house was closed against her. An application for a divorce had already been laid before the legislature; then in session at Annapolis, and, as the inferential proofs of defection were strongly corroborated by Mrs. Miller's conduct after the hostile meeting between Westfield and her brother, the application was promptly granted, with the provision of five hundred dollars a year for her support. The ...
— Finger Posts on the Way of Life • T. S. Arthur

... then hovering on their borders in its most menacing attitude. Marauding parties were daily penetrating the interior, and plundering and capturing the defenceless inhabitants, while each day brought the unwelcome news of the defection of individuals who had openly gone off to swell the ranks of the victorious enemy to whose alarming progress scarcely a show of resistance had yet been interposed. Nor was this the end of the chapter of trials and discouragements that awaited the council. Another blow was to be ...
— The Rangers - [Subtitle: The Tory's Daughter] • D. P. Thompson

... said Kate, her good humour entirely restored. "Do you suppose I'm going to be turned from my purpose by the defection of a miserable old Indian? Oh, wait till he comes ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... brought no glory with it: on the Flemish frontier a place or two was taken; in Biscay Fontarabia fell before the arms of France; in Italy Francois had to meet a new league of Pope and Emperor, and his troops were swept completely out of the Milanese. In the midst of all came the defection of that great prince, the Constable de Bourbon, head of the younger branch of the Bourbon House, the most powerful feudal lord in France. Louise of Savoy had enraged and offended him, or he her; the King slighted him, and in 1523 the Constable made a secret treaty ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre

... DEFECTION OF ACHILLES.—During the first year of the campaign the Greeks ravaged the surrounding country, {292} and pillaged the neighbouring villages. Upon one of these foraging expeditions the city of Pedasus was sacked, and Agamemnon, ...
— Myths and Legends of Ancient Greece and Rome • E.M. Berens

... and surrender of the capital in 1521. Of unswerving loyalty and bravery, according to his own naive statement, he was frequently appointed by Cortes to highly important missions. When Cortes set out to subdue the defection under Cristoval de Olid at Honduras, Diaz followed his old chief in the terrible journey ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern — Volume 11 • Various

... Rome with that blind obedience which, ever since the days of the Gothic dynasty, had been the peculiar characteristic of the Spaniard. The slightest approximation, in a Spanish prince, to the obnoxious tenets of Luther and Calvin, would have alienated for ever the affections of his subjects, and a defection from the Pope would have cost him the kingdom. A Spanish prince had no alternative but orthodoxy or abdication. The same restraint was imposed upon Austria by her Italian dominions, which she was obliged to treat, if possible, with even greater indulgence; ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller

... is a brother of Dr. Kuno Meyer who recently attracted much attention in this country by severing his connection with Harvard University because of a prize "war poem" written by one of the undergraduates. A postscript reflects Dr. Meyer's present feeling toward Italy's defection: ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various

... constantly on the increase, and she has taken it for granted that the same sentiments prevailed throughout the South. Hence the utter surprise felt at the enormous dimensions which the revolt so suddenly took on, and at the unaccountable defection of such numbers of Southern men from the army and the navy at the first call upon sectional loyalty. The question is not one of legal or constitutional rights in accordance with the literal understanding of any parchment or document whatsoever. The most ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol IV, Issue VI, December 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy. • Various

... all reason and common sense for years past, now that the Duke of Wellington lifts up his finger they all obey, and without any excuse for their past or present conduct. The most agreeable event, if it turns out to be true, is the defection of Dr. Philpots, whose conduct and that of others of his profession will probably not be without its due effect in sapping the foundations of the Church. All the details that I have yet learnt confirm my opinion that the spirit in ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William - IV, Volume 1 (of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... and coerced during the night of July 4-5, without the firing of a gun. Cahokia and Vincennes soon quietly succumbed to his influence. Lieut.-Governor Hamilton, on hearing of this loss of the Illinois country and the partial defection to the Americans of the tribes west and southwest of Lake Michigan, at once set out to organize an army, chiefly composed of Indians, to retake the Illinois. He proceeded via the Wabash and Maumee, with eight hundred men, ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers

... spread the feeling of defection among the Northwestern Indians, who could no longer be restrained, as at first, by the threat of cutting off their trade, there being now rivals in the shape of the English, and ...
— The Character and Influence of the Indian Trade in Wisconsin • Frederick Jackson Turner

... a boy of spirit need be afraid. The shaft was choked with dirt a few feet below their landing-planks, and there was no spot in which a mystery might lurk; but it was very different now with that black hole leading Heaven knew into what awesome depths, harbouring goodness knew what horrors. Ted's defection had suddenly become the sentiment of the majority. At that moment Dick could have counted on ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson

... criticism was justified. It only needed Millicent's presence to add a wizard's touch to the amazement with which Mrs. Vavasour and others of her kind regarded the defection of the de la Veres and the Badminton-Smythes. But Millicent was dining in her own room. The last thing she dreamed of was that Helen would face the other residents in the hotel after the ordeal she had gone through an hour earlier. She half expected that Bower would endeavor ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy

... bands of their men had wrested those districts from those soldiers whom they had formerly never engaged but with fear, and by whom they had often been routed with much loss. And these circumstances made Julian very anxious, because, after the defection of Barbatio, he himself under the pressure of absolute necessity was compelled to encounter very populous tribes, with but very ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus

... which they can count, that if any considerable number were to oppose Government on some vital question, it would be sufficient to overthrow them. Of this they are aware, as well as of the probability of such defection, and the consequent precariousness of their situation, and many among them are beginning to be very tired and disgusted with such a tenure of office. It is difficult to believe that Melbourne would not ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville

... so frequently that they merely raise a smile. They have, however, this drawback, that the friend of law and order, with a seditious past, never has an undisputed authority, and he spends half his time explaining the reasons for his defection, and this is a sore let and hindrance ...
— The Cult of Incompetence • Emile Faguet

... unsettled, and unestablished) acceded to the Fate and Fortunes of Dermod, under the Conduct of Strongbow, Earl of Pembroke; whose casual Success in Ireland, against Roderick (owing more to the general Defection, at that fatal Period, of the Irish Chiefs against their lawful Sovereign, than to any superior Valour or Address of those Adventurers) induced Henry to a deliberate and grand Invasion of a Kingdom, to which he could lay no Claim on the ...
— An Essay on the Antient and Modern State of Ireland • Henry Brooke



Words linked to "Defection" :   withdrawal, defect, abscondment, abandonment, deviationism, absence without leave, unauthorized absence



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