"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... in nothing but restlessness and disquietude. Getting up at daybreak, he met a messenger at the entrance of his tent, who informed him that Sir Thomas de Richmont, with a force of ten thousand men, had crossed the Borders, and would pass through a narrow defile, which he mentioned, where he could be attacked with great advantage. Sir James gave instant orders to march to the spot; and, with that genius for scheming, for which he was so remarkable, commanded his men to twist together the young birch-trees on either ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... translation uncertain). We are to understand that Moses, a religious reformer, revived an old, and, in the Egyptian bondage, a half-obliterated creed of the ancient nomadic Beni-Israel. They were no longer to 'defile themselves with the idols of Egypt,' as they had obviously done. We really know no more about the matter. Wellhausen says that Jehovah was 'originally a family or tribal god, either of the family of Moses or of the tribe of Joseph.' How a family could develop a Supreme ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... Ellen, bow with her now. It is her prayer; and, oh, think, how weak is the vanity of this pride in a situation like yours. How idle the stern and stubborn spirit, when men can place you in bonds—when men can take away life and name—when men can hoot and hiss and defile your fettered and enfeebled person! It was for a season and a trial like this, Guy, that humility was given us. It was in order to such an example that ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... clean here that one hesitates to move a step. The boards are as shiny as though they were polished silver.... This very moment Torp appeared in felt shoes and implored me to get her a strip of oilcloth to save her kitchen floor. I feel just the same; I scarcely dare defile this spotless pitchpine. ...
— The Dangerous Age • Karin Michaelis
... not doing right; Christ would never hear of negative morality; thou shall was ever His word, with which He superseded thou shall not. To make our idea of morality centre on forbidden acts is to defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men a secret element of gusto. If a thing is wrong for us, we should not dwell upon the thought of it; or we shall soon dwell upon it with ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... above the timber-line, the trail ran around Crater Lake and gained the rocky defile that led toward Happy Camp and the first scrub-pines. To pack his heavy outfit around would take days of heart-breaking toil. On the lake was a canvas boat employed in freighting. Two trips with it, in two hours, would see him and his ton across. But he was broke, and the ferryman ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... says on the authority of Samuel, that the book of Esther does not defile the hands (14), i.e., that this book was not given by the inspiration of God. Samuel, however, explained that Esther was dictated by the Spirit of God, but only to be orally repeated, ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... short cut through the wood. At its widest it is very narrow; and, a little ahead of us, a bramble has thrown a strong arm right across it, making a thorny arch, and forbidding passage. By a quick movement, Mr. Musgrave gets in advance of me, and, turning round, faces me at this defile. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... various arch; And seems, as on it moves, meandering slow, A radiant segment of a living bow. Five days the Spaniards, trooping in array, 150 O'er plains and headlands, held their eastern way. On the sixth early dawn, with shuddering awe And horror, in the last defile they saw Ten pendent heads, from which the gore still run, All gashed, and grim, and blackening in the sun. These were the gallant troop that passed before, The Indians' vast encampment to explore, ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... from each other. De Vargas saw that they could render but little assistance to each other in case of a sudden attack, and might be easily thrown into confusion. He chose fifty of his bravest horsemen, and, making a circuit, took his post secretly in a narrow glen opening into a defile between two rocky heights through which the Moors had to pass. It was his intention to suffer the van-guard and the cavalgada to pass, and to fall upon ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... then {58} eight years old, with Muhammad Kasim Khan Birlas as his tutor, marched from the capital to gain possession of the person of his brother. So careless, however, were his movements that Kamran, who had planned the manoeuvre, surprised him at the upper end of the defile of Kipchak, and forced him to take refuge in flight. During the flight Humayun was badly wounded, but nevertheless managed to reach the top of the Sirtan Pass in safety. There he was in comparative security. Meanwhile Kamran had marched upon and captured Kabul, ...
— Rulers of India: Akbar • George Bruce Malleson
... purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the portion of the king's meat, nor with the wine which he drank; therefore he requested of the prince of the eunuchs that he might not defile himself. 9. Now God had brought Daniel into favour and tender love with the prince of the eunuchs. 10. And the prince of the eunuchs ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ezekiel, Daniel, and the Minor Prophets. St Matthew Chapters I to VIII • Alexander Maclaren
... wound among green swards and clumps of trees, forming a park-like scene such as might have been witnessed in England. Presently, however, the character of the country suddenly changed, and we were passing through a rocky defile, arid and waterless, while at the end could be seen a wide open country without rock or tree stretching away as far as the eye could reach ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... loud knocks were heard at the house door; the women rushed in and unlocked it at once; and so great had been the hopeless excitement of the last few minutes, that it was almost with a sense of relief that Anton saw a strong body of soldiery defile into the court. He rose from the ground, and left the landlord free. But the merchant walked slowly, and with uncertain steps, like a broken-down man, to meet the enemies who, at this decisive ...
— Debit and Credit - Translated from the German of Gustav Freytag • Gustav Freytag
... cried, addressing them all, "that His Majesty were here to see how you conduct your trials and defile his Courts. As for you, Monsieur le President, you violate the sanctity of your office in giving way to anger; it is a thing unpardonable in a judge. I have told you in plain terms, gentlemen, that I ...
— Bardelys the Magnificent • Rafael Sabatini
... defile my grave, but thou speakest wisdom!" the Fogy replied, with the dignity of his ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... broad barrier of hills, at right angles with the coast, lying straight athwart our line of march. The hills, highest and steepest near the water's edge, were still difficult in the centre, where the great high road to Sebastopol pierced the position by a deep defile; beyond the road, slopes more gentle ended on the outer flank in the tall buttresslike Kourgane Hill. All along the front ran a rapid river, the Alma, in a deep channel. Villages nestled on its banks—one near the sea, one midway, one on the extreme right; and all about the low ground rich vegetation ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... them to those high wooded banks betwixt which the road ran winding down to Thornaby Ford—that self-same hilly road where, upon a time, the Red Pertolepe had surprised the lawless company of Gilles of Brandonmere; and, now as then, the dark defile was littered with the wrack of fight, fallen charges that kicked and snorted in their pain or lay mute and still, men in battered harness that stared up from the dust, all unseeing, upon the new day. They lay thick within the sunken road but thicker ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... to the right or to the left, Jefferson Creede fixed his eyes upon one man in that riot of workers and rode for him as a corral hand marks down a steer. It was Jasper Swope, hustling the last of a herd through the narrow defile, and as his Chihuahuanos caught sight of the burly figure bearing down upon the padron they abandoned their work to help him. From the hill above, Jim Swope, his face set like iron for the conflict, rode in to back up his brother; and from far down the canyon Rufus ...
— Hidden Water • Dane Coolidge
... speaking. Now, as it is exactly half-past one, we will proceed to business. Smith, hand the 'Odontoglossum Pavo' round, that everyone may inspect its beauties, and be careful you don't let it fall. Gentlemen, I must ask you not to touch it or to defile its purity with tobacco smoke. Eight perfect flowers in bloom, gentlemen, and four—no, five more to open. A strong plant in perfect health, six pseudo-bulbs with leaves, and three without. Two black leads which I am advised can be separated off at the proper time. Now, what bids for the 'Odontoglossum ...
— Allan and the Holy Flower • H. Rider Haggard
... influences that stand between humanity and its redemption. He is a very excellent, a very estimable man,—but he is not shocked at intemperance, he would not have slavery disturbed, he sees a necessity for war. Does Christ know who and what sort of a woman it is that touches him? Will he defile himself by such a contact? Can he expect to accomplish anything by familiarity with such matters? Why is he not satisfied with a good dinner? ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Louis placed themselves, though some considerable way from the burn which ran at the bottom of the defile, they were still in a very pit of darkness. The leaves were dense overhead, and only the white gates gleamed very faintly in the trough of gloom where ran the eastern ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... pointed toward the plain, where perhaps twenty tents had been pitched within the last two weeks. Bill gave an unwilling glance, shrugged his shoulders disdainfully, and resumed progress up the difficult defile. ...
— Lahoma • John Breckenridge Ellis
... tract of hilly country, forming a sort of margin to the vast, sealike expanse of champaign savannas, steppes, and occasionally of sandy deserts, which stretched away on each side of this margin both eastwards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 10 centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through which passed the nearest and the most practicable route to the River Torgau (the farther bank of which river offered the next great station of security for a general halt). It was the more essential to gain this pass before 15 the Cossacks, inasmuch as not only would the delay in forcing ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... splendour of the great processions (1) in honour of the gods, but in the manouvres of the exercising-ground; in the valorous onslaught of real battle when occasion calls; and in the ease with which whole regiments will prosecute their march, or cross a river, or thread a defile without the slightest symptom of confusion. What this formation is—essential, at least in my opinion, to the noblest execution of their several duties—I will now, without delay, ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... so I came not in your sight awhile, You gave no thought, and I passed not away; But like some traveller in a deep defile ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... stations. Saluting Napoleon's statue, I strolled up the rue de la Paix, took a table on a cafe pavement, and, ordering a glass of something fizzy for the form of it, sat content and happy, watching the whole gigantic pageant of Paris in war-time defile before my eyes. ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti
... values of humanity as He measured them. And now, in the perfect mercy of God, there is no man but may dwell in the house of God alway and feel life's sacredness amidst a thousand desecrations, and know its preciousness amidst all that seeks to obscure, defile, and cheapen it. ...
— The Threshold Grace • Percy C. Ainsworth
... long suffering were also highly commended by Mencius. In one place he writes to this effect: "Though you denude yourself and insult me, what is that to me? You cannot defile my soul by your outrage." Elsewhere he teaches that anger at a petty offense is unworthy a superior man, but indignation for a great cause ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... is hardly ever used for an altar, but let us not anticipate. In the eighteenth century we shall again find abbes—among how many other monsters—who defile holy objects. One Canon Duer occupied himself specially with black magic and the evocation of the devil. He was finally executed as a sorcerer in the year of grace 1718. There was another who believed in the Incarnation of the Holy ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... good and bad, of sincere believers and hypocrites, of sheep and goats, &c., now as well as it was then? Is there not as great cause to separate and distinguish by church power, between the precious and the vile, the clean and the unclean, (who are apt to defile, infect, and leaven one another,) now as well as then? Ought there not to be as great care over the holy ordinances of God, to preserve and guard them from contempt and pollution, by a hedge and fence of government, now as ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... I take my place In solemn, sanctimonious state, And have the air of saying grace While I defile the ...
— Underwoods • Robert Louis Stevenson
... now seemed to be surmounted, and corps after corps came down into the plentiful and verdant valley, full of joy. But suddenly the march of the vanguard was arrested by an obstacle unforeseen, or, at least, grievously under-estimated. Midway between Aosta and Ivrea the Dora flows through a defile, not more than fifty yards in width: the heights on either hand rise precipitous; and in the midst an abrupt conical rock, crowned with the fortress of St. Bard, entirely commands the river, and a small walled town, through ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... neglect the natural means of healing. The inscriptions show that great attention was paid to diet, exercise, massage and bathing, and that when necessary, drugs were used. Birth and death were believed to defile the sacred precincts, and it was not until the time of the Antonines that provision was made at Epidaurus for ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... eternal, irrepressible Sham; glib, nimble, ubiquitous, tricked out in all the paraphernalia of imposture, an endless defile of charlatans that passed interminably before the gaze of the city, marshalled by "lady presidents," exploited by clubs of women, by literary societies, reading circles, and culture organisations. The attention the Fake received, the time devoted to it, the money which it absorbed, were ...
— The Octopus • Frank Norris
... Opposite the defile through which the enemy was to march to the attack eight field-pieces were concealed behind a hill. The King must necessarily have been informed of the whole plan of the Austrian general, for he had called in the ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... diseases. Jesus also laid His finger on the source of sin when He declared, "For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: these are the things which defile a man" (Matthew 15:19). A man must think evil before he does evil, and hence the emphasis which Jesus placed upon ...
— Studies in the Life of the Christian • Henry T. Sell
... and join in the performance of the rites of paganism. [305:1] At a subsequent period all provisions sold in the markets, in some parts of the empire, were sprinkled with the water or the wine employed in idolatrous worship, that the Christians might either be compelled to abstinence, or led to defile themselves by the use of ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... settlers used to be astounded by the inroads of the northern Indians coming down upon them from this mountain rampart through some defile known only to themselves. It is, indeed, a wondrous path. A demon, it might be fancied, or one of the Titans, was travelling up the valley, elbowing the heights carelessly aside as he passed, till at length a great mountain took its stand directly across his intended road. ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... [319] His feelings may easily be explained. It was not till roads had been cut out of the rocks, till bridges had been flung over the courses of the rivulets, till inns had succeeded to dens of robbers, till there was as little danger of being slain or plundered in the wildest defile of Badenoch or Lochaber as in Cornhill, that strangers could be enchanted by the blue dimples of the lakes and by the rainbows which overhung the waterfalls, and could derive a solemn pleasure even from the clouds and tempests which ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... Lisbon. Bullock carts and carriages, mules, donkeys, and horses were crowded together, all laden with the aged, the children, the sick, and such property as was most portable and valuable. Happily Massena had a circuitous detour to make; the road in the mountain defile was scarcely passable, and throughout the march he displayed but little energy; consequently it was not until the morning of the first of October that his cavalry engaged those of the light division which was covering the retreat. ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty
... their enemy was delivered into their hands. Was it not in Bethoron that Joshua had defeated the Canaanites, while the sun stayed his course? Was it not here that Judas, the Maccabean, had routed the host of Nicanor? As soon as the Romans entered the defile, the Jews rushed down upon ...
— For the Temple - A Tale of the Fall of Jerusalem • G. A. Henty
... nice and new. Then, dropping the blind, she went back to the glass and began to pin her hair up. When this was done she stood for a long minute looking at her old brown skirt and blouse, hesitating to defile her new-found purity. At last she put them on and drew up the blind. The sunlight had passed off the pear-tree; its bloom was now white, and almost as still as snow. The little model put another sweet into her mouth, and producing from her pocket an ancient ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... angels, "a sweet smelling savor to your Lord and King." It should be unintermittent—"the sacrifice of praise continually." One drop of poison will neutralize a whole cup of wine, and make it a cup of death, and one moment of gloom will defile a whole day of sunshine and gladness. Let ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... out into the regions of speculation, some have thought that, if sin defile any of these worlds, its inhabitants may share in the benefits of the atonement which Christ offered in ours; and that beings further removed than we from the scenes of Calvary, and differing more ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... the bridal hour of Genius and Humanity. Who shall rehearse the tale of their after-union? Who shall depict its bliss and bale? Who shall tell how He between whom and the Woman God put enmity forged deadly plots to break the bond or defile its purity? Who shall record the long strife between Serpent and Seraph:—How still the Father of Lies insinuated evil into good, pride into wisdom, grossness into glory, pain into bliss, poison into passion? How the "dreadless ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... as far as Bethlehem, and with so large a force that David and his few followers were shut up in their fortress—for how long we do not know—probably for some days. It was very dull and wearisome business, imprisoned in a rocky defile and unable to do anything, while the Philistines were stealing the harvests that grew on the very spot where ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... barouches, descended the flight of steps leading to the river, and crossed the plank to the boat, with little coquettish graces and studied raising of the skirts, allowing ravishing glimpses of pretty feet and ankles. The defile of merry, witty Parisiennes, with their attendant cavaliers, while the orchestra played the passionate notes of the Hungarian czardas, resembled some vision of a painter, some embarkation for the dreamed-of Cythera, realized by the fancy of an artist, ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... gloomy reflections, he advanced towards a rocky defile where the path diverged to the right. Before taking the turn he looked back. Hilda was standing on the spot where they had parted, but her face was not directed towards her late companion. She was ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... which are three notable things to be considered in that liquor. But what for that? Certes I know some ale-knights so much addicted thereunto that they will not cease from morrow until even to visit the same, cleansing house after house, till they defile themselves, and either fall quite under the board, or else, not daring to stir from their stools, sit still pinking with their narrow eyes, as half sleeping, till the fume of their adversary be digested that he may go to it afresh. Such slights ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... and galloped forward, Turk, after one more growl in the direction of the Indians, following. Presently the defile divided. ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... 16,000 men, under Sir John Murray, had repulsed Suchet, hitherto undefeated, at Castalla on the Valencian coast, without, however, completing their victory, or capturing any of the French guns in the narrow defile by which the enemy fled. The want of unity in the command of the French army, and of harmony between its generals, was more felt than ever now that Napoleon's master-mind was engrossed in retrieving the awful ruin of ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... {and} your chaste wives with arms; repel the foe with the sword; assist your friends; spare the wretched; favour the good; meet the treacherous face to face; punish offences; chastise the impious; inflict vengeance on those who, by base adultery, defile the marriage couch; beware of the wicked; trust no man too far." Thus having said, the Maiden falls frenzied to the ground: frenzied, indeed, for what she said, she ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... How I came to fall (fall that broke my leg, three weeks ago) Was flying over rough country when bad gust came thru hill defile. Wing crumpled. Up at 400 ft. Machine plunged forward then sideways. Gosh, I thought, I'm gone, but will live as long as I can, even a few seconds more, and kept working with elevator, trying to right her even a little. Ground coming up fast. Must have jumped, I think. Landed in marsh, that ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... not see how debased and sensual our tastes have become. The saying of Burke (so unworthy of a great man), that vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness, is practically acted upon, and voluptuous and seductive figures, recommended only by a soft effeminacy, swarm our shop-windows and defile our drawing-rooms. It is impossible to over-state the extent to which they minister to, and increase the foul sins of, a corrupt and luxurious age. A school of artists who attempt to bring back the popular taste to the severe ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... a distance, her eye demurely devoured him; was he near her, she wooed him with such a god-like mixture of fire, of tenderness, of flattery, of tact; she did so serpentinely approach and coil round the soldier and his mental cavity, that all the males in creation should have been permitted to defile past (like the beasts going into the ark), and view this sweet picture a moment, and infer how women would be wooed, and then go and ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... he, roughly; "silence, if you do not want me to run mad! Cast not my own words in my face. They defile me, for falsehood has desecrated and trodden them in the mire. No! I will not make room for you in my grave. I will not again call you Geraldine. You are Jane Douglas, and I hate you, and I hurl my curse upon your criminal head! ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... appended to her help! To see his sister, and yet to leave her as she was!—Horrible contradiction! But could he not employ Miriam for his own ends?—outwit her?—deceive her?—for it came to that. The temptation was intense: but it lasted only a moment. Could he defile so pure a cause by falsehood? And hurrying past the Jewess's door, hardly daring to look at it, lest the temptation should return, he darted upstairs to his own little chamber, hastily flung open the door, and stopped ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... and all dwelling houses closed. In the afternoon a convoy of Germans taken prisoners were seen to pass along the boulevards, and were then shut up in the Royal Athenaeum. Then there was an interminable defile of autos and carts conveying both German and Belgian wounded, especially the former, those who came from Boncelles more particularly. Bodies of stragglers re-entered Liege slowly, ignorant of what had happened, as they were either untouched by the order to retire, or ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... the other answered quickly, the flush deepening on his face, "but in the name of that most unhappy, most pitiable maiden, and as the representative of her noble Macedonian house, which you would defile with shame and infamy; in the name of the inhabitants of this city, whom you despoil and tread under foot; in the interests of the whole world, which ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... which her purest thoughts, her holiest aspirations travelled like pilgrims, offering the best of which her nature was capable. Would those for whom she had patiently chiselled and built it guard and prize and keep it; or smite and overturn and defile it? ...
— St. Elmo • Augusta J. Evans
... Lord's people, in witnessing against these sinful courses, and now see clearly that it has ended in nothing less than the making us captains, that we may return to Egypt by the open doors, that are made wide to bring in popery, and set up idolatry in the Lord's covenanted land, to defile it. Wherefore it is the unquestionable and indispensible duty of all who have any love to God and to his son Jesus Christ, to witness faithfully, constantly and conscientiously against all that the enemies have done or are doing to ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... famous St. Gothard Road. The higher we went, the more wildly roared the storm. There was something appalling in the fierce volleyings of the wind along the stark and broken faces of the precipice: it was like the rattle of thunder. In the sombre defile of the Schoellenen the air rushed as through a funnel. We could see nothing save the thread-like road illuminated by our steadfast lanterns—the sole beacon of safety in this welter. We had a ghostly impression of winding through a narrow gorge, the river roaring in its depths; then, ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... "Irtiyad"seeking a place where to stale, soft and sloping, so that the urine spray may not defile the dress. All this in ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... a different part of the field were the Van Grolls of Antony's Nose, struggling to get to the thickest of the fight, but horribly perplexed in a defile between two hills, by reason of the length of their noses. So also the Van Bunschotens of Nyack and Kakiat, so renowned for kicking with the left foot, were brought to a stand for want of wind, in consequence of the hearty dinner they had eaten, and ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... though girded by the same line of paling, but, in reality, a close pheasant preserve, occupying the banks of a ravine, which, after a deep and tortuous course, terminated in the declivity heretofore described as forming the park boundary. Luke plunged into the heart of this defile, fighting his way downwards, in the direction of the brook. His progress was impeded by a thick undergrowth of brier, and other matted vegetation, as well as by the entanglements thrown in his way by the taller ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... condescension when they serve others, and so can be of service to mankind. A man proves that he is the son of a heavenly Father by his service for his least brother. When that dignity, heaven born, is in a man's heart there is nothing in the dirt he may touch by deeds of kindness that can defile ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope
... August. It was planned to reach Bushy Creek—'Bushy Run,' as Bouquet called it—on the following day, and there rest and refresh horses and men. In the night a dash would be made through the dangerous defile at Turtle Creek; and, if the high broken country at this point could be passed without mishap, the rest of the way could ...
— The War Chief of the Ottawas - A Chronicle of the Pontiac War: Volume 15 (of 32) in the - series Chronicles of Canada • Thomas Guthrie Marquis
... the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned. I knew not why; and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair from off my brow, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade me go to rest, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... distinguishes between the summits that rise in the middle of the plateau, where he states the elevation of the snow-line to be between 18,000 and 19,000 feet, and the northern slopes of the chain of the Himalaya, which border on the defile of the Sutledge, and can radiate but little heat, owing to the deep ravines with which they are intersected. The elevation of the village of Tangno is given at only 9300 feet, while that of the plateau surrounding the sacred lake of Maqasa is 17,000 feet. Captain Gerard finds ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... divested themselves of their licentious and predatory habits, and learnt now for the first time to distinguish between right and wrong? Do they understand what it is to commit sacrilege? To intrude into the sanctum sanctorum of the meat-safe? To rifle and defile the half roseate, half lily-white charms of a virgin ham? To touch with unhallowed proboscis the immaculate lip of beauty, the unprotected scalp of old age, the savoury glories of the kitchen? To invade with the most reckless ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... wooded. It is, however, dangerous, on account of the shelter which the wooded mountains afford to the knights of the road, and to whose predilection for these wild solitudes, the number of crosses bore witness. In a woody defile there is a small clear space called "Las Cruces," where several wooden crosses point out the site of the famous battle between the curate Hidalgo and the Spanish General Truxillo. An object really in keeping with the wild scenery, was the head of the celebrated robber MalDonado, nailed to the ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca
... you come on, and suddenly, when you see cover, make a dash for it and escape. 3. Do not get lost. 4. Do not allow yourself to think of the enemy as being in one direction only. 5. In entering or passing through woods take an extended skirmish line formation. 6. In passing any short defile bridge or ford, send one man ahead. 7. If you suspect the presence of the enemy under certain cover, a good way to find out is to let one man approach within a reasonable distance and then, acting as though he had been discovered, turn and run. This will generally draw his fire. 8. Keep quiet. ...
— Military Instructors Manual • James P. Cole and Oliver Schoonmaker
... cap, with a bell hanging from every point, which gave out a tinkling sound as I picked it up. I let it fall again as though it had scorched me, the memory of what stood between Madonna Paola and me rising like a warning spectre in my mind. I would not again defile myself by the garb of folly; not again would I incur the shame of playing the Fool for the ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... Jesus—action and reaction—and between the two, nothing. He is really insane. He wants a pure lily, another girl, with a baby face, on the one hand, and on the other, he MUST have the Pussum, just to defile ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Frank, this pitch of frenzy will defile thee; Meddle not with it: thy unreproved valour Should be high-minded; couch it not so low. Dost hear me? take occasion to slip hence, But secretly, let not thy mother see thee: At the back-side there is a coney-green;[344] Stay there for ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... sent by telephone that Frost and his caravan were unable to cross Sylvan Pass because of fifty feet of snow in the defile, and that he had returned to Cody where he would take an auto truck and come around to the northern entrance to the Park, ...
— Hunting with the Bow and Arrow • Saxton Pope
... earth's clay,[A] That through her I may scorch the slander vile, And light throughout the land a torch to-day, Which shall reveal how false and full of guile Are they who seek thy name, Augusta, to defile. ...
— Strange Visitors • Henry J. Horn
... others enlarging in the distance; these are rain-clouds, which will certainly close over the clear sky, and bring on rain before midnight: but there is no power in them to pollute the sky beyond and above them: they do not darken the air, nor defile it, nor in any way mingle with it; their edges are burnished by the sun like the edges of golden shields, and their advancing march is as deliberate and majestic as the fading of the twilight itself into a darkness ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... noon of a cloudless day, beneath them a tumultuous sea of pines surged, heaved, rode in giant crests, stretched and lost itself in the ghostly, snow-peaked horizon. The thronging woods choked every defile, swept every crest, filled every valley with its dark-green tilting spears, and left only Table Mountain sunlit and bare. Here and there were profound olive depths, over which the gray hawk hung lazily, and into which blue jays dipped. A faint, dull yellowish ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... commonalty sharply for their recent disturbances, which defile with illicit seditions the blessings of peace, earned under God's blessing by their Prince. The newly-appointed Praefectus Urbanus, Artemidorus, long devoted to the service of Theodoric, will attest the innocence of the good, and sharply punish the errors of the bad, ...
— The Letters of Cassiodorus - Being A Condensed Translation Of The Variae Epistolae Of - Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator • Cassiodorus (AKA Magnus Aurelius Cassiodorus Senator)
... plain." In irrigation lands like Mesopotamia it is the combination of great heat and abundant water that makes for luxuriant growth. Milton conceives the most romantic and wild scenery on hill and dale and savage defile, suddenly brought into order for the use of man. The Bible story speaks only of features to be found in a land like Babylonia. Sir William Willcocks thinks that the word translated "mist" would probably be better rendered "inundation," ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... to have taken an unfortunate turn, and both the girls experienced a feeling of relief when they entered the long gulch or defile that led to Indian Spring. The track now becoming narrow, they were obliged to pass in single file along the precipitous hillside, led by this escort. This effectually precluded any further speech, and Christie at once surrendered herself to the calm, obliterating influences of the forest. ...
— Devil's Ford • Bret Harte
... and surrounded by mountains still higher, in which dwell the remnants of that curious white race first described by Stanley. The only access to our region from the lower country is by means of the ordinary wagon road which winds upward through a vast defile or gorge in the mountains. At one point the precipitous walls of this gorge approach so closely together that there is room for only two wagons to pass abreast. We determined to assemble all our men the next day at this place, and build up a high wall that would completely cut off ...
— Caesar's Column • Ignatius Donnelly
... time sweep down upon his trains of waggons, his hospitals, and his magazines; and should Jackson be reinforced, Ashby might be supported by infantry and guns, and both Strasburg and Winchester be endangered. It was not within Banks' power to watch the defile. "His cavalry," he reported, "was weak in numbers and spirit, much exhausted with night and day work." Good cavalry, he declared, would help incalculably, and he admitted that in this arm he was greatly ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... St. Lambert, out of which the Emperor had seen the troops advancing. It was easy to see, however, why there had been so long a delay in their leaving one wood and reaching the other, because between the two ran the deep defile of the Lasnes, which had to be crossed. Sure enough, a long column of troops—horse, foot, and guns—was streaming down one side of it and swarming up the other, while the advance guard was already among the trees on either side of me. A battery of Horse Artillery ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... raising his eyes to Heaven,) "intercede with thy glorified Son to quicken our faith and shorten the days of our trouble. Let not these insatiable locusts from the pit of darkness, whose end is destruction—these deceivers and deceived, who would tear down thy church, and defile her altars, have, even in seeming, their will! O, let a strong wind arise and cast them into the sea, that they may devour thy ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... is the upward tendency of so many souls through so much that clogs and would defile their wings, while so many others SEEM never even to look up. Then, having so begun with the dust, how do these ever come to raise their eyes to the hills? The keenest of us moral philosophers are but poor, mole-eyed creatures! One day, I trust, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... where the railroad went through a rocky defile, about a mile long. It had been the scene of more than one wreck, for there was a dangerous curve in it, and in the Winter it was a source of worry to the railroad men, for the snow piled high in it when there was a storm of more than usual severity. ...
— Baseball Joe in the Big League - or, A Young Pitcher's Hardest Struggles • Lester Chadwick
... them were broken and ragged, those coming from the east overlapping the cliffs from the west. Into the defile formed by this overlapping the party filed. I could see them climbing upward for a few minutes, and then they disappeared from view. When the last of them had passed from sight, I rose and bent my steps in the direction of the pass—the same pass toward which ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... hunting, in March, we made a more northerly detour, as our former line had been through and over very rough hills, and in so doing we found on the 1st of June another splendid watering-place, where several creeks joined and ran down through a rocky defile, or glen, to the north. There was plenty of both rock and sand water here, and it was a very pretty and excellent little place. I called it Winter's* Glen, and the main creek of the three in which it lies, Irving Creek. This water may easily be found by a future traveller, from its bearing ...
— Australia Twice Traversed, The Romance of Exploration • Ernest Giles
... hour—that we were close to the desired spot. From the village to the source, the way led us through such pleasant scenery and such acceptable strawberries, that we only kept up our periodical remonstrances on principle, and, after we had wound rapidly down through a grand defile, and turned a sudden angle of the rock, the first sight of that which we had come to see amply repaid us all the trouble we had gone through. The source of the Orbe is sufficiently striking, but the Loue is by far more grand at the moment ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... with one touch of your finger, send that bursting spirit which throbs against your brow to flit forth free, and nevermore to defile ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... required to ascend, as the country was, on the neighbourhood of Grenoble or Echelles; while the ascent to the summit of the Little St Bernard, would not require more than half the time. 2. The narrow defile of St Jean de Maurienne, which leads from the plain of Montmelian to the foot of Mont Cenis, corresponds much more closely with the description, given both in Livy[25] and Polybius[26], of that in which the first serious ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... provoked, and that the other was unexpectedly surprised. The emperor of the West had only twenty thousand, and the sovereign of the East no more than five and thirty thousand, men. The inferiority of number was, however, compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he steadily expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran legions of Illyricum rallied under the standard of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... defile and deface it, be sure, No longer their wrong or their fraud we endure; We will scatter in scorn every link of the chain, With which they would fetter our ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... false or frowns, To bear the Cross, and save our crowns. O honour those that honour Thee! Make babes to still the enemy! And teach an infant of few days To perfect by his death Thy praise! Let none defile what Thou didst wed, Nor tear the garland from her head! But chaste and cheerful let her die, And precious in the Bridegroom's eye So to Thy glory and her praise, These last shall be her ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... that their horses waited, and they rode out in the grey morning. The world about them still lay in shade, and as they climbed the wooded defile above the valley Odo was reminded of the days at Donnaz when he had ridden up the mountain in the same early light. Never since then had he felt, as he did now, the boy's easy kinship with the unexpected, the sense that no encounter ...
— The Valley of Decision • Edith Wharton
... volumes from the discharge of musketry, on whose wing, at every round, he dreaded might be carried the fate of his grandfather. At last the firing ceased, and the troops were commanded to go forward. On approaching near the contested defile, Thaddeus shuddered, for at every step the heels of his charger struck upon the wounded or the dead. There lay his enemies, here lay his friends! His respiration was nearly suspended, and his eyes clung to the ground, expecting at each moment ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... had been lost. At Breslau, Erlach [who is a Major-General, forsooth!], instead of covering the Army by seizing the Heights, marched off with his Division straight as a row of cabbages into that Defile; whereby, had it been earnest, the enemy's Cavalry would have cut down our Infantry, and ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... dreadful secret before which, as in a fortress betrayed to a false password, the proudest virtue hauls down its flag, and kneeling, proffers its keys. Doubtless they move under fate to an end appointed, though to us they appear but as sightseers, obscure and irresponsible, who passing through a temple defile its holies and go their casual ways. We wonder that this should be. But so it is, and such was this man. ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... bitterness of this conjecture was neutralized by the testimony it bore to his integrity of purpose, his unwillingness to conceal his disloyalty. When temples are shattered and altars crumble, we save our idol and flee into the wilderness, exulting in the assurance that no clay feet defile it. ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... but the whole party stood there watching the novel sight, as a huge lion, which might have made one of them its victim, fixed its teeth and claws in the neck and shoulders of the rhinoceros; and as the furious frightened beast tore on down the defile, dragging the lion with it, the latter seemed to give a spring, and fixed its hind quarters firmly upon ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... Andujar and Bailen, and on the third day reached Carolina, a small but beautiful town on the skirts of the Sierra Morena, inhabited by the descendants of German colonists. Two leagues from this place, we entered the defile of Despena Perros, which, even in quiet times, has an evil name, on account of the robberies which are continually being perpetrated within its recesses, but at the period of which I am speaking, it was ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... himself upon the poor bench, where he sits quietly, well behaved and attentive to the end; for which very proper conduct he is pretty sure to meet an additional reward during the exit of the assembly, as they defile past him at the gate when all is over. In the afternoon, he is off to the immediate precinct of some park or public promenade; and selecting a well-frequented approach to the general rendezvous, will cleanse and purify the crossing or pathway in ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... more sped forward, found himself no less pleased than the other. The embroidered sword-strap and overshadowing trees conjure up for him an hour of the past where he, a young lieutenant, is leading a little column of white-coats through a forest defile in America. The Indian scouts suddenly come gliding in, the fire of an enemy is heard, little spots of smoke burst on the mountain side and dissolve again. Shrill yells resound on every hand, brown arms brandish flashes ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... very souls of men! She lived to separate, where Jesus died to make one! How weak and unworthy was I to be caught in her snares! how wicked and vile not to tear myself loose! The woman whose touch would defile the Pharisee, is ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald
... it the doom of a thief." "Lord," said he, "rather than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom." "By my confession to Heaven, neither will I sell it nor set it free." "It is true, lord, that it is worth nothing to buy; but rather than see thee defile thyself by touching such a reptile as this, I will give thee three pounds to let it go." "I will not, by Heaven," said he, "take any price for it. As it ought, so shall it be hanged." And the priest ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... been increased by two or three first-rate fellows, Harald Paulsen, at the present time Lord Chief Justice, a courageous young fellow, who was not afraid of tackling any ruffian who interfered with him in a defile; Troels Lund, then studying theology, later on the esteemed historian, who was always refined, self-controlled, thoughtful, and on occasion caustic, great at feints in the fencing class; and Emil Petersen, then studying law (died in 1890, as Departmental Head of Railways), gentle, ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... affords a more cultivated picture; but in the steep and craggy mountains of the Danube, in its wild outlines and dilapidated castles, the imagination embraces a bolder range. At one time the river is confined within its narrowest limits, and proceeds through a defile of considerable altitude, with overhanging rocks menacing destruction. At another it offers an open, wild archipelago of islands. The mountains have disappeared, and a long plain bounds on each side of the river its ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... the Colonel, trembling with anger, "to call yourself a gentleman, and to say that you hold the king's commission, and to sit down amongst Christians and men of honour, and defile the ears of young boys with ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... wheezing like the Count himself, for the place was full of smoke. When it cleared my man was very dead, and I tipped him into the sea, to defile that rather than Faustina's cave. And then—and then—we were alone for the last time, she and I, in our own pet haunt; and I could scarcely see her, yet I would not strike a match, for I knew she ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... park-like area that tended downward almost imperceptibly to a deep defile. They dismounted and walked to the edge and looked down the steep sides. A little creek flowed out of the wood and emptied itself with a silvery rush into the vale, caught its breath below, and became a creek again. A slight suspension bridge flung across the defile had once ...
— The Port of Missing Men • Meredith Nicholson |
