"Defensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... particular importance to the astronomer, inasmuch as they are calculated to throw light on the proper motions of the stars. Flamsteed's work may, indeed, be regarded as the origin of all subsequent catalogues, and the nomenclature which he adopted, though in some respects it can hardly be said to be very defensible, is, nevertheless, that which has been adopted by all subsequent astronomers. There were also a great many errors, as might be expected in a work of such extent, composed almost entirely of numerical detail. ...
— Great Astronomers • R. S. Ball
... direction would be exaggerated while he was occupied with a purely Biblical subject. And he may have thought, if he thought about the question at all, that the contemptuous tone adopted about classical culture in the speech of Christ was not only dramatically defensible, but balanced by the far finer passage, evidently written from his {205} heart, in which Satan exalts the glories of Athens. It is, perhaps, the most famous thing ...
— Milton • John Bailey
... highest rank as well as by the general mass of the community; and every Government that pretended to adhere to the Treaty of 1852 was denounced as recreant to the cause of Germany. In this state of affairs the Governments of Austria and of Prussia took a somewhat singular and not very defensible course. In the beginning they declared in the Diet that, having a majority in favour of this declaration, they would proceed to Federal Execution—thereby, to all appearance, making the present King of Denmark responsible for that which was done by the ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... disclosure may have on the general verdict, is at any rate well worth considering. According to this version, which is based on what actually passed between Bucharest and the capitals of the Entente Powers, the central idea of Roumania's strivings was to achieve national unity together with defensible military frontiers as far as appeared feasible, and to obtain in advance implicit assurances that the Entente Powers, if victorious, would allow her claims without demur or delay. The territories occupied by the Roumanians of Transylvania, the Bukovina, ...
— England and Germany • Emile Joseph Dillon
... towards the river, and consists of a few twelve-pound cannon; but probably the chief danger of attack was from the land, and the chief pains have been taken to render the castle defensible in that quarter. There are flights of stone stairs ascending up through the natural avenue, in the cleft of the double-summited rock; and about midway there is an arched doorway, beneath which there ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... alteration in certain existing arrangements; and by comparing the situation which actually exists to-day with that which the proposed alteration, if carried into effect, would produce, we shall see whether the alteration is workable and practically defensible or no. Let us begin with the situation which actually exists to-day, confining ourselves to those features of it which are vital to ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... of the President and embracing a large number of Southern Congressmen. A letter had been elicited from General Jackson, declaring with his usual vehemence in favor of the project, and urging it upon the ground that Texas was absolutely necessary to us, as the most easily defensible frontier against Great Britain. Using the favorite argument of the Southerners of his school, he said: "Great Britain has already made treaties with Texas; and we know that far-seeing nation never omits a circumstance in her extensive intercourse with the world which can be turned to account in ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... colony rolls through the water. After a time each individual absorbs its flagella, the colony is broken up, the different individuals settle to the bottom, and each gives rise by division to a new colony. This group of cells may be considered as a colony or as an individual. Each term is defensible. ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... it was a grim race to follow the markings to the old mines, and to get under cover behind defensible barricades in time ...
— Master of the Moondog • Stanley Mullen
... strictly commercial character assigned to Batoum, have largely obviated the menace to the liberty of the Black Sea. The political outposts of Russian power have been pushed back to the region beyond the Balkans; the Sultan's dominions have been provided with a defensible frontier." It was in short the contention of the English Government that while Russia, in the pretended emancipation of a great part of European Turkey by the Treaty of San Stefano, had but acquired a new dependency, England, by insisting on the division of Bulgaria, had ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... old block-houses, or garrison houses, the "defensible houses," which were surrounded by these stockades, are still standing. The most interesting are the old Garrison at East Haverhill, Massachusetts, built in 1670; it has walls of solid oak, and brick a foot and a half thick; the Saltonstall House at Ipswich, built ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... moderate means, ruined by taxation, put themselves under the protection of the great, and settled on their lands. They became thus colons (coloni). In the later times of disorder of which we are now speaking, farmhouses in the country gave place to fortified castles on hill-tops or other defensible sites, about which clustered in villages the dependents of the lord, who tilled his land, fought for him, and, in turn, were ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... judge, his opponent, was a rather turgid man whose speech had abounded in flights of denunciation and whose appeal had been made frankly to prejudice and party rancor. Blount took his cue shrewdly. Touching lightly upon the public grievances, some of which he characterized as just and entirely defensible, he rang the changes calmly and logically upon the square deal, no less for the corporations than for the individual. "Take it to yourselves, you merchants," he urged. "Imagine a law on the statute-books fixing the prices at which you ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... end they had at heart, to lose, so they simply abstained, as it were, from comment upon the detestable procedure which terminated in the rule absolute. I have often wondered whether the whole business would not have been more defensible if there had been on Judy's part any emotional spring for the leap they made. I offer my conviction that there was none, that she was only extravagantly affected by the ideals of the Quarter—it is a transporting atmosphere—and ...
— The Pool in the Desert • Sara Jeannette Duncan
... of one who, in investigating the laws of the material universe, should commence by contemplating the existing physical world as a whole, instead of beginning with the particles which are its simplest ingredients. One does not certainly see why such a scientific solecism should be more defensible in jurisprudence than in any other region of thought. It would seem antecedently that we ought to commence with the simplest social forms in a state as near as possible to their rudimentary condition. ...
— Ancient Law - Its Connection to the History of Early Society • Sir Henry James Sumner Maine
... appear to me, however, that the latter consideration ought to weigh with me, and I took such a course as I believe is defensible against ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... nation acquiesced in it as a temporary necessity; but hardly anybody believed in it or wanted it, and the nation accepted it as a sort of locum tenens, rather than willed or ordained it. Its overthrow by the coup d'etat may not be legally defensible, but the election of Napoleon III. condoned the illegality, if there was any, and gave the emperor a legal title, that no republican, that none but a despot or a no-government man can dispute. As ...
— The American Republic: Its Constitution, Tendencies, and Destiny • A. O. Brownson
... word, their credit being exhausted, and their creditors growing clamorous, they presented a petition to the house of commons, disclosing their distresses, and imploring such assistance as should enable them not only to pay their debts, but also to maintain the forts in a defensible condition. This petition, recommended to the house in a message from his majesty, was corroborated by another in behalf of the company's creditors. Divers merchants of London, interested in the trade of Africa and the British plantations in America, petitioned ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... we saw in the bishops' reply, they considered their practice in these respects wholly defensible.—See Reply of ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... able to convince by fair means, he would bear down by noise and clamour: that not skilling to get his suit quietly, he would extort it by force, obtruding his conceits violently as an enemy, or imposing them arbitrarily as a tyrant. Thus doth he really disparage and slur his cause, however good and defensible in itself. ...
— Sermons on Evil-Speaking • Isaac Barrow
... place is so far from the frontiers of the Spanish settlements, and so little known to the Spaniards themselves, that, with proper precautions, there is reason to believe a ship might remain here a long time undiscovered. It is also capable of being made a very defensible port; as, by possessing the island that closes tip the port or inner harbour, which island is only accessible in a very few places, a small force might easily secure this port against all the force ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 11 • Robert Kerr
... from early dawn until darkness closed the labors of the day. With all this the fort was not completed until the supplies grew so short that further delay in obtaining more could not be thought of. By the latter part of April the work was in a partially defensible condition, and the 7th infantry, Major Jacob Brown commanding, was marched in to garrison it, with some few pieces of artillery. All the supplies on hand, with the exception of enough to carry the rest ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... guard, to remain there in security until his ultimate fate should be determined. Habituated, however, by his office to overawe the rabble of the city, Porteous could not suspect them of an attempt so audacious as to storm a strong and defensible prison; and, despising the advice by which he might have been saved, he spent the afternoon of the eventful day in giving an entertainment to some friends who visited him in jail, several of whom, by the indulgence of the Captain of the Tolbooth, ...
— MacMillan's Reading Books - Book V • Anonymous
... sour grievance, cynicism, and misanthropic resistance to any attempt to better a hopeless world. The wise man knows that imagination is not only a means of pleasing himself and beguiling tedious hours with romances and fairy tales and fools' paradises (a quite defensible and delightful amusement when you know exactly what you are doing and where fancy ends and facts begin), but also a means of foreseeing and being prepared for realities as yet unexperienced, and of testing the possibility and desirability of ...
— A Treatise on Parents and Children • George Bernard Shaw
... advance, he ordered General Sigel, who was in camp at Bentonville, to fall back to Pea Ridge, on the north bank of Sugar Creek. At the same time he withdrew Colonel Jeff. C. Davis's Division to the same locality. This placed the army in a strong, defensible position, with the creek in its front. On the ridge above the stream our artillery and ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... and from the first a faithful record of her proceedings has been made. The foundations of New Plymouth and Massachusetts were laid more than two centuries ago; the circumstances of this occasion lead us to consider the least defensible portions of their history; yet the world cannot charge them with suppressing any fact necessary to a true appreciation of their policy and character. Whatever they did was in the fear of God and without the fear of man. Conscious of their own integrity of purpose, they ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... of the Ghost are hardly defensible;—but I would call your attention to the characteristic difference between this Ghost, as a superstition connected with the most mysterious truths of revealed religion,—and Shakespeare's consequent reverence in his treatment of it,—and ...
— Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher • S. T. Coleridge
... than Sir Francis Vere had been, who had also been present, and whose name had been subsequently withdrawn, in honourable fashion from the list of traitors, by authority of the States. His position—so far as he was personally concerned—seemed defensible, and the Queen was thoroughly convinced of his innocence. Willoughby complained that the republic was utterly in the hands of Barneveld, that no man ventured to lift his voice or his eyes in presence of the terrible Advocate who ruled every Netherlander with a rod of iron, and that his violent ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... count comes under the head of what may be called capitalistic sabotage. "Sabotage" is employed to designate a wilful retardation, interruption or obstruction of industry by peaceable, and ordinarily by legally defensible, measures. In its present application, particularly, there is no design to let the term denote or insinuate a recourse to any expedients or any line of conduct that is in any degree legally dubious, or that ...
— An Inquiry Into The Nature Of Peace And The Terms Of Its Perpetuation • Thorstein Veblen
... position. In a serious controversy the right is seldom or never all on one side; and in the normal course of events both theories undergo some modification through the influence of their opponents, until a compromise, not always logically defensible, brings to an end the acute stage of the controversy. Such a tension of rival movements is very apparent in the religious thought of our day. The quickening of spiritual life in our generation has taken two forms, which appear to be, and to a large extent are, sharply opposed ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge
... also commanding the position at short ranges. The summit of the kopje was a plateau, all the sides being gradual slopes except the eastern, which was almost sheer, this latter being the side from which access had been gained. From below it appeared a defensible position, but when once the top was reached it was evident that it was commanded from all sides. The men busied themselves attempting to build breastworks. The Gloucestershire companies, with their Maxim gun, were given the northern face to hold, two companies being detached ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... satisfied all the Board of Trade regulations, and the injured passengers can get nothing. The real way to protect the passengers is to allow the company to make their own arrangements, and to compel them to pay heavily for killing and maiming passengers. This is quite defensible in theory, as in the case of manslaughter by an individual we give him some punishment out of our civilised respect for human life, though he may have been little to blame. Great cost is thrown on railway companies (i.e. much injury is done the public) ...
— Speculations from Political Economy • C. B. Clarke
... for insuring the future safety of the foreign representatives in Peking by setting aside for their exclusive use a quarter of the city which the powers can make defensible and in which they can if necessary maintain permanent military guards; by dismantling the military works between the capital and the sea; and by allowing the temporary maintenance of foreign military ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... the heaviest weight of disfavor. This was an industrial union, founded in 1869, embracing labor of all trades, and held together by a secret organization. Dismissal so often followed admitted membership in a union that secrecy was defensible, but secrecy mystified and frightened the public. The policy of secrecy was abandoned in 1882, after the excesses of the "Molly Maguires" had brought discredit upon all organized labor. Under the leadership of Grand Master Workman Powderly the Knights carried on an ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... always think better of this religion, Lucius, that you have adopted it, though I cannot say that your adopting it, will raise my judgment of you. I do not at present see upon what grounds it stands so firm, or divine, that a citizen is defensible in abandoning for it, an ostensible reception of, and faith in, the existing forms of the State. However, I incline to allow freedom in these matters to scholars and speculative minds. Let them work out and enjoy their own fancies—they are a ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... columns being set between the arches as buttresses, supporting entablatures which marked the divisions into stories (Fig. 45). This combination has been assailed as a false and illogical device, but the criticism proceeds from a too narrow conception of architectural propriety. It is defensible upon both artistic and logical grounds; for it not only furnishes a most desirable play of light and shade and a pleasing contrast of rectangular and curved lines, but by emphasizing the constructive divisions and elements of the ...
— A Text-Book of the History of Architecture - Seventh Edition, revised • Alfred D. F. Hamlin
... would make no Difficulty, tho she had been the Wife of Hector, for the sake of a Kingdom, to marry the Enemy of her Husbands Family and Country; and indeed who can deny but she might be still an honest Woman, but no Heroine? That may be defensible, nay laudable in one Character, which would be in the highest Degree exceptionable in another. When Cato Uticensis killed himself, Cottius a Roman of ordinary Quality and Character did the same thing; upon which one said, smiling, Cottius might have lived, tho Caesar has seized ...
— The Spectator, Volume 2. • Addison and Steele
... commanding the country toward Poitiers, defended by the hedges of a vineyard, and accessible from the city only by a hollow way scarcely wide enough to admit four men abreast, presented to him a most defensible position. Here he encamped, and early next morning, disposed his troops for battle. He dismounted his whole force; placed a body of archers, drawn up in the form of a harrow, in front, the men-at-arms behind, and stationed strong bodies of bowmen along ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... without the least guidance from Court. Browne has, by violent industry, raked together, from Mahren and the neighboring countries, certain fractions which raise his Force to 7,000 Foot: these he throws, in small parties, into the defensible points; or, in larger, into the Chief Garrisons. New Cavalry he cannot get; the old 600 Horse he keeps for himself, all the marching Army he has. [Particulars in Helden-Geschichte, i. 465; total of Austrian Force seems to be ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XII. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Pacha urgently entreats the British commodore to come to his help, because his (Gezzar's) troops had failed to hold El Arisch, and the same troops had also abandoned Gaza and were in great dread of the French at Jaffa. Considered from the military point of view, the massacre at Jaffa is perhaps defensible; and Bonaparte's reluctant assent contrasts favourably with the conduct of many commanders in similar cases. Perhaps an episode like that at Jaffa is not without its uses in opening the eyes of mankind to the ghastly shifts by which military ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... defensible. When a mere reader or lecturer has appeared 3 or 4 times in a town of Hartford's size, he is a good deal more than likely to get a very unpleasant snub if he shoves himself forward about once or twice more. Therefore I long ago made up my mind that whenever I again appeared here, it should be ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... pain, as they show that there is no chance left of stopping war. Indeed she thinks, considering the progress of revolution in the Duchies, and the daily increase of military strength of France and financial exhaustion of Austria, that it would not be morally defensible to try to restrain Austria from defending ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume III (of 3), 1854-1861 • Queen of Great Britain Victoria
... of a castle: to an ancient round tower, discomfortably habitable, had been added in the last century a rather large, defensible house. It stood on the edge of a gorge, crowning one of its stony hills of no great height. With scarce a tree to shelter it, the situation was very cold in winter, and it required a hardy breeding to live there in comfort. There was little of a garden, and the stables were somewhat ruinous. For ...
— Heather and Snow • George MacDonald
... in civil matters, nevertheless considers the men of Massachusetts unjustifiable in their course toward the founder of Rhode Island. Dr. Palfrey, on weaker grounds than those allowed by Mr. Arnold, thinks their most stringent proceedings perfectly defensible. He regards Mr. Williams as an intruder, whose opinions, behavior, and influence were perilous alike to the civil and the religious peace of the colonists; and he holds the colonists as not chargeable with ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 18, April, 1859 - [Date last updated: August 7, 2005] • Various
... the Count d'Eu, Constable of France, with the Count of Tankerville and 600 men-at-arms, to oppose Edward at Caen. The Bishop of Bayeux had thrown himself into that city, which was already garrisoned by 300 Genoese. The town was not defensible, and the only chance of resistance was by opposing the passage of the river Horn, which flowed between the suburbs and the city. The bridge was barricaded, strong wooden towers were erected, and such was the confidence ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... that was their line of defence, and the plateau in front their battle-ground. This decision the General in command seems to have arrived at, as the flaming telegrams in the Dailies, in the course of a day or two, announced that the Rebels were discovered in great force, strongly posted in a most defensible position. After the lapse of an hour or two, the order for the homeward march was given, and strange to say, that although marching by the flank the last man had disappeared from their view, behind the cover of ...
— Red-Tape and Pigeon-Hole Generals - As Seen From the Ranks During a Campaign in the Army of the Potomac • William H. Armstrong
... these forts was far from justifying this confidence of their being defensible. That on Mud Island had been unskillfully constructed and required at least 800 men fully to man the lines. The island is about half a mile long. Fort Mifflin was placed at the lower end, having its principal fortifications ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... this line; but on the contrary, that the development of Western agriculture has elevated him, and that he has more money, and received more honors, 'than any man the world has produced,' by appropriating the brains of others, and the credit due them as inventors, are propositions much more defensible." ...
— Obed Hussey - Who, of All Inventors, Made Bread Cheap • Various
... are differently defensible—Alsace-Lorraine and Belgium only by artifice, and with great numbers of men; Silesia only so long as Austria (and Hungary) stand firm. East Prussia has her natural arrangement of lakes to make invasion tedious, and to ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... these preparations completed, when the hall below was flooded with the advancing Loco-Focos. Stealthily but swiftly they advanced, little dreaming of the reception that awaited them. The staircase was certainly a very defensible position; it was not wide, and made a sharp bend near the top, so that the assailants could not see the danger that threatened them. The foremost pressed eagerly up-stairs, and just as they arrived at this turn, their leader could no longer contain himself. ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... religious position is characteristic and easily definable. If it is not quite defensible on the strictest principles of plain speaking, it is also certain that we could not condemn him without condemning many of the best and most catholic-spirited of men. The dogmatic system in which he had presumably ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... which aspires to be a public instructor. But he was not alone in his scurrility. Some of the persons attacked in the Advocate retorted upon the editor through the official press in language far less defensible than his own. He was denounced as an upstart and a demagogue, whose low origin placed him far beneath the notice of gentlemen. This language, be it understood, was used by at least one wealthy and influential personage whose own origin was such that Mr. Mackenzie's might ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... the other element. Yet it has been suggested, though unsuccessfully, that honesty is not a necessary ingredient in the defence of "fair comment." It was argued that a criticism, defensible if written by an honest critic, could not be indefensible because written by one whose motive was malicious—in other words, that the matter was objective, not subjective. Certainly, at first sight, it seems strange that A can say with impunity that Smith's book is dull and ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... the hands of the British throughout the war. It was an important acquisition, because at its north-west extremity was a good and defensible anchorage, Gros Ilet Bay, only thirty miles from Fort Royal in Martinique. In it the British fleet could lie, when desirable to close-watch the enemy, yet not be worried for the safety of the port when away; for it was but an outpost, not a base of operations, as Fort ...
— The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence • A. T. Mahan
... item of much importance in the financial administration of Charles's reign—could not, under such a system, be applied to new exigencies without a further warrant from Parliament. The whole system of appropriation, however defensible on the modern maxims of sound finance, was inconvenient in working, and tended to increase the dependence of the Crown on Parliament, and to diminish at once the discretion and the responsibility of Ministers of ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... being allowed to poison the infants and women in his own family. What would be said of a man who introduced poison in any degree into the food or drink of his child? Is the poisoning of the household atmosphere by the ignorant, thoughtless, or selfish smoker morally more defensible? Tobacco injures health through hereditary influence. The tobacco user begets, more certainly than the non-user, puny children with disordered nervous conditions. Luckily for our race, the women, who have the most important prenatal influence in ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 711, August 17, 1889 • Various
... testament of their good father was very exact in what related to the wearing of their coats; yet was it no less penal and strict in prescribing agreement, and friendship, and affection between them. And therefore, if straining a point were at all defensible, it would certainly be so rather to the advance of ...
— A Tale of a Tub • Jonathan Swift
... ends resting on the river. It was strengthened by thirty towers, and at its forts was a deep dry ditch. The town was largely built of wood. There were no heavy guns upon the walls, and the city, which was completely commanded by surrounding hills, was in no way defensible, but Barclay de Tolly felt himself ...
— Through Russian Snows - A Story of Napoleon's Retreat from Moscow • G. A Henty
... was made in the Caribbean. General Miles had from the first considered Porto Rico the best immediate objective: it was much nearer Spain than Cuba, was more nearly self-sufficing if left alone, and less defensible if attacked. The War Department, on the 7th of June, had authorized Miles to assemble thirty thousand troops for the invasion of Porto Rico, and preparations for this expedition were in progress throughout ...
— The Path of Empire - A Chronicle of the United States as a World Power, Volume - 46 in The Chronicles of America Series • Carl Russell Fish
... and deep currents and destinies of human life, that want of enthusiasm and sympathy, which has got the name of "art for art's sake." Literary fiction is a barren product if it wants sympathy and love for men. "Art for art's sake" is a good and defensible phrase, if our definition of art includes the ideal, ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Pamphylia, the Lycians, and Cilicians, put in for liberty! But they are made tributary without an army. What are the circumstances of the Thracians, whose country extends in breadth five days' journey, and in length seven, and is of a much more harsh constitution, and much more defensible, than yours, and by the rigor of its cold sufficient to keep off armies from attacking them? do not they submit to two thousand men of the Roman garrisons? Are not the Illyrlans, who inhabit the country adjoining, as far as Dalmatia ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... disclosed the startling topography of the position. The surface of the plateau sloped gently at first, and then abruptly fell away, and the trench was found to be of little use. The enemy could approach on dead ground to within two hundred yards of it. Woodgate, seeing that the real defensible line was not the highest part of the summit, but the edge lower down, where the steep descent began, sent working parties to the front, but they at once came under fire. Soon the mist again enveloped the hill, and having disposed his force, he ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... that poor piece of clay, that he may tell us how he came by his fatal death; and then let the corpse be decently swathed in a clean shroud, as becomes an honest citizen, and placed before the high altar in the church of St. John, the patron of the Fair City. Cease all clamour and noise, and every defensible man of you, as you would wish well to the Fair Town, keep his weapons in readiness, and be prepared to assemble on the High Street at the tolling of the common bell from the townhouse, and we will either revenge the death ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... obliged to make way, when they met in her house. If Forcheville and she scored a triumph by being down there together in spite of him, it was he who had engineered that triumph by striving in vain to prevent her from going there, whereas if he had approved of her plan, which for that matter was quite defensible, she would have had the appearance of being there by his counsel, she would have felt herself sent there, housed there by him, and for the pleasure which she derived from entertaining those people who had so often entertained her, it was to him that she would ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... paribus, be preferred: but so long as we conceive that a wanton expenditure of human labour, not for the necessities, not even for the luxuries of the mass of society, but for the egotism and ostentation of a few of its members, is defensible on the ground of public justice, so long we neglect to approximate to the ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... perceive how much more defensible the new doctrine is than the old one. Even could the supporters of the Development Hypothesis merely show that the origination of species by the process of modification is conceivable, they would be in a better ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... from home was defensible, and Chatham was clearly wrong in denying its legality. On the other hand, to persevere in the attempt was the folly of weakness, ...
— The Story of Newfoundland • Frederick Edwin Smith, Earl of Birkenhead
... here, next Saturday, in their arms and harness, that I myself may inspect them. You may tell them that a third of their number must be in readiness tonight, and must ride hither by morning. The others must, on an alarm being given, gather in strong houses, selected by themselves as the most defensible in their district, with their wives and families, so as to repel any attack the Welsh may make; leaving behind them the boys and old men, to drive out their flocks and herds, either towards the nearest castle, or to Hereford or Shrewsbury, as may be ...
— Both Sides the Border - A Tale of Hotspur and Glendower • G. A. Henty
... to the old religious system, and which afterwards became a true national tradition against Mary, was doubtless started by the diseased energy of these fifteenth-century bishops. Persecution can be a philosophy, and a defensible philosophy, but with some of these men persecution was rather a perversion. Across the channel, one of them was presiding at the trial ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... smallest degree abrogate, alter, or lessen any one duty of any one relation of life, or weaken the force or obligation of any one engagement or contract whatsoever. Despotism, if it means anything that is at all defensible, means a mode of government bound by no written rules, and coerced by no controlling magistracies or well-settled orders in the state. But if it has no written law, it neither does nor can cancel the primeval, indefeasible, ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... foot, into the arena of the critics? For the business of the powders, which so many have censured, is, I am relieved to say, not mine at all but the Brownies'. Of another tale, in case the reader should have glanced at it, I may say a word: the not very defensible story of OLALLA. Here the court, the mother, the mother's niche, Olalla, Olalla's chamber, the meetings on the stair, the broken window, the ugly scene of the bite, were all given me in bulk and detail as I have tried to write them; to this I added only the external scenery (for in my ...
— Across The Plains • Robert Louis Stevenson
... destroie the countrie. At their cming to Threske, they published a proclamation, signifieng that they were come in comfort of the English nation, as to releue the common-wealth, willing all such as loued the libertie of their countrie, to repaire vnto them, with their armor on their backes, and in defensible wise to ...
— Chronicles (3 of 6): Historie of England (1 of 9) - Henrie IV • Raphael Holinshed
... in the nearest cabins. The houses had sharp, sloping roofs, made of huge clapboards, and these great wooden slabs were kept in place by long poles, bound with withes to the rafters. In case of dire need each cabin was separately defensible. When danger threatened, the cattle were kept in the open ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... Copernicus, the conception of the "universe" was defensible on scientific grounds: the diurnal revolution of the heavenly bodies bound them together as all parts of one system, of which the earth was the centre. Round this apparent scientific fact, many human desires rallied: the wish to believe Man important in the scheme of things, ...
— Mysticism and Logic and Other Essays • Bertrand Russell
... for she was an actress of the Palais Royal. My friend, too, is an evocation, he was one of those whose pride is not to spend money upon women, whose theory of life is that "If she likes to come round to the studio when one's work is done, nous pouvons faire la fete ensemble." But however defensible this view of life may be, and there is much to be said for it, I had thought that he might have refrained from saying when I looked round the drawing-room admiring it—a drawing-room furnished with sixteenth-century ...
— Memoirs of My Dead Life • George Moore
... choose imperfect rimes deliberately, both as a fresh means of securing variety and avoiding the monotony of hackneyed rimes, and also as a means of subtly suggesting the imperfection and futility of life. A few famous examples, defensible and indefensible, are: Wordsworth's robin: sobbing, sullen: pulling; Tennyson's with her: together, valleys: lilies; Keats's youths: soothe, pulse: culls; Swinburne's lose him: bosom: blossom. Keats and Rossetti are noted for their free use of approximate rimes. ...
— The Principles of English Versification • Paull Franklin Baum
... enforced—among them one which made the blood-avenger a murderer, instead of a hero as he had been. Moreover, the foundations of a university were laid in the town of Corte, which was the hearthstone of the liberals because it was the natural capital of the west slope, connected by difficult and defensible paths with every cape and bay and intervale of the rocky and broken coast. The Genoese were gradually driven from the interior, and finally they ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. I. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... mounted enemy from getting round its flanks. To us, who are endowed with that profound military wisdom which only comes with a knowledge of the event, it is obvious that with a defending force which could not place more than 12,000 men in the fighting line, the true defensible frontier was the line of the Tugela. As a matter of fact, Ladysmith was chosen, a place almost indefensible itself, as it is dominated by high hills in at ...
— The Great Boer War • Arthur Conan Doyle
... particular monopoly has only recently been established, and the reason put forward for it is a desire to improve and develop the salt industry and at the same time to add to the national revenue. Whether a monopoly in what is a necessary of life is economically defensible is a question, to my mind, hardly open to argument. That the revenue of the country will benefit by the salt ...
— The Empire of the East • H. B. Montgomery
... the expediting of our supplies, I did not hesitate to put myself on board, having left orders with Mr Williamson, to get the Discovery ready for sea as soon as possible, and to make such additions and alterations in her upper works, as might contribute to make her more defensible. That the series of our astronomical observations might suffer no interruption by my absence, I entrusted the care of continuing them to Mr Trevenen, in whose abilities and diligence I could ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 17 • Robert Kerr
... places generally. No felons are more lost to shame, no liars are so unscrupulous, no calumniators are so malignant and satanic."—The language of the foregoing is doubtless unmistakeably clear, but I think the style can hardly be thought defensible. On general topics of interest, if nothing occurs to stir the writer's bile, or if the theme be not calculated to excite the vanity of their countrymen, the language usually employed is perhaps a little ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... ruined City, but when he was there, gazing on Totila's work of devastation, a brilliant thought flashed through his brain. After all the demolitions of Totila, the ruin was not irretrievable. By repairing the rents in the walls, Rome might yet be made defensible. He would re-occupy it, and the Goths should find that they had all their work to do over again. The idea seemed at first to his counsellors like the suggestion of delirium, but as it rapidly took shape under his hands, it was recognised as being indeed a masterstroke of well-calculated audacity. ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... business indispensable With that sublime of rascals your attorney, Whom I see standing there, and looking sensible Of having play'd the fool? though both I spurn, he Deserves the worst, his conduct 's less defensible, Because, no doubt, 't was for his dirty fee, And not from any love to you ...
— Don Juan • Lord Byron
... contracted. The gulf between holiness and guiltiness tends also to disappear. For our life would appear to be plastic and indefinite, a process rather than a state, not open then to conclusive moral estimates; incomplete, not fallen; life an orderly process, hence not perverse but defensible; without known breaks or infringements, hence relatively ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... out field-works advantage should be taken of all available artificial obstacles, such as hedges, walls, houses, outbuildings, &c. A thickset hedge may be rendered defensible by throwing up against it a slight parapet of earth. Stone fences may be employed in the same way. Walls of masonry may be pierced with loop-holes and arranged for one or two tiers of fire. The walls of houses are pierced in the same manner, and a ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... division was seriously engaged. He reported a list of 216 casualties, whilst the Confederates admitted a loss of about 400. [Footnote: Official Records, vol. xxxi. pt. i. pp. 119, 233.] Hooker's position was made strongly defensible, so that Bragg did not again venture to disturb it, and the easy lines of supply for Chattanooga were opened. ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V2 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... silences about him. Originally, as we know, he had shrunk from the thought of change in her corresponding to his own; now that his own foothold was strengthening, his longing for a new union was overpowering that old dread. The proselytising instinct may be never quite morally defensible, even as between husband and wife. Nevertheless, in all strong, convinced, and ardent souls it exists, and must be ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... Hercules in Italien einheimisch und dort in eigenthumlicher Weise aufgefasst worden, wie es scheint zunachst als Gott des gewagten Gewinns und der ausserordentlichen Vermogensvermehrung." Romische Geschichte, I. 181. One would gladly learn Mommsen's reasons for recurring to this apparently less defensible opinion.] ...
— Myths and Myth-Makers - Old Tales and Superstitions Interpreted by Comparative Mythology • John Fiske
... back with the men who are holding the horses. That fire is growing fast! I'm glad we were able to find a camp so defensible as ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... myself marrying again—if my husband, in the course of nature, had died still loving me, still faithful to me. So you see the cases are not identical. And that only remarriage after divorce is defensible." ...
— The Spread Eagle and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris
... philosophical honesty of the Mutakallimun. Epicurus too, he says, believed in the atomic theory, though he regarded the world as eternal. Hence there is no necessary connection between atoms and creation.[363] The atomic theory is defensible on its own merits, and the motives of the Mutakallimun in adopting it are purely scientific, as follows: According to the Mutakallimun there are only body or substance and its accidents or qualities. This is the constitution of material objects. There are, ...
— A History of Mediaeval Jewish Philosophy • Isaac Husik
... who smote contrary to the law. Mr. Stanley's encroachment on the functions of legislation was only more defensible because less corrupt. To repress colonial disorders, the local government had, indeed, grafted the penalties he prescribed on the colonial statute book; but the despotic interference of a secretary of state was specially objectionable. Persons sentenced to transportation for ...
— The History of Tasmania , Volume II (of 2) • John West
... Leofric. For some unknown cause, he had been banished in the days of Edward or of Harold. He now came back to lead his countrymen against William. He was the soul of the movement of which the abbey of Ely became the centre. The isle, then easily defensible, was the last English ground on which the Conqueror was defied by Englishmen fighting for England. The men of the Fenland were zealous; the monks of Ely were zealous; helpers came in from other parts of England. English ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... which burned me almost to madness, like hot lava underneath the deadening crust, was the thought that I had done a deed and a defensible deed, and was fleeing from it the same as a criminal. Such a contingency never had occurred to me or I might have taken a different course, still with decency; although what course I could ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... It was to be known later that the Confederate General gave to Lincoln's views the high endorsement of assuming that they were the inevitable views that the Northern Commander, if he knew his business, would act upon. Therefore, he had been quietly preparing to withdraw his army to more defensible positions farther South. By a curious coincidence, his "strategic retreat" occurred immediately after McClellan had been given authority to do what he liked. On the ninth of March it was known at Washington that Manassas had been evacuated. Whereupon, McClellan's ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... should afterwards be sobered and enlightened by discovering that in America a nut does not mean a dandy but a defective or imbecile person. And as I have here to translate their American phrase into English, it may be very defensible that they should translate my English phrases into American. Anyhow they often do translate them into American. In answer to the usual question about Prohibition I had made the usual answer, obvious to the point of dullness to those who are in daily contact with it, ...
— What I Saw in America • G. K. Chesterton
... himself, when she rose immediately with a very gracious smile, which was observed by all near enough to witness it. This was rather unkind perhaps to the other aspirants, and is, in fact, scarcely defensible, but it was Miss Cocker's way of declaring her intentions publicly. When my father made his offer, he was refused by my grandmother's orders, but received encouragement from her daughter (a tone of voice, or a look, yet more a tear, would be enough for a lover's hope), and counted upon the effects ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... resistance to such an encroachment; between domination and defence: the former being equally condemnable, whether it be encroachment of a criminal upon an individual, or the encroachment of one upon all others, or of all others upon one; while resistance to encroachment is defensible and necessary. For their self-defence, both the citizen and the group have the right to any violence, including capital punishment. Violence is also justified for enforcing the duty of keeping an agreement. Tucker thus follows Spencer, and, like him, opens (in the present writer's ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... streets, little crowds of women, surrounding muddy, tired men who had come in from the Duke. People were going about in a hurried, aimless way which showed that they were scared. Many houses were shut up. Many men were working on the city walls, trying to make the place defensible. If ever a town had the fear of death upon it that town was Taunton, then. As far as I could make out it was not the actual war that it feared; though that it feared pretty strongly, as the looks on the women's faces showed. It feared that ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield
... must be confess'd that Sir Rupert had one; Being rather unthinking, He'd scarce sleep a wink in A night, but addict himself sadly to drinking; And what moralists say, Is as naughty—to play, To Rouge et Noir, Hazard, Short Whist, Ecarte; Till these, and a few less defensible fancies Brought the Knight to the end ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... said Sir Richard, 'and I will look to points which can be made defensible; and the old powder-plot boys could not have made a more desperate resistance than we shall. Redgauntlet,' continued he, 'I see some of our friends are looking pale; but methinks your nephew has more mettle in his eye now than when we ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott
... take nothing but piece-work; the man who does piece-work is guilty of less defensible conduct than a drunkard. The worst passions of our nature are enlisted in support of piece-work. Avarice, meanness, cunning, hypocrisy, all excite and feed upon the miserable votary who works by the task and not by the hour. A man who earns by piece-work forty shillings per week, ...
— Sybil - or the Two Nations • Benjamin Disraeli
... those advanced, Vico's are the least defensible, though they seem to rest on a deep knowledge of antiquity. No Christian can accept his view of a universal savage state of society after the Flood; and his explanation of the origin of aristocratic ...
— Irish Race in the Past and the Present • Aug. J. Thebaud
... foundation of every act of the will. It is based upon the broadest induction, and it is verified by the most constant, regular, and universal of deductive processes. But we must recollect that any human belief, however broad its basis, however defensible it may seem, is, after all, only a probable belief, and that our widest and safest generalisations are simply statements of the highest degree of probability. Though we are quite clear about the constancy ...
— Lectures and Essays • Thomas Henry Huxley
... from the garrison, which was in the citadel, and by that means to hinder them from any plenty of provisions; and moreover, to make the fortresses that were in the country much stronger and more defensible than they were before. And when these things were approved of by the multitude, as rightly proposed, Jonathan himself took care of the building that belonged to the city, and sent Simon away to make the fortresses ...
— The Antiquities of the Jews • Flavius Josephus
... supposed it possible, that you might number yourself with those, who defend slavery on the ground of its alleged conformity with human laws. It occurs to me, that you may, also, take hope, that slavery is defensible in the supposed fact, that a considerable share of the professing Christians, in the free States, are in favor of it. "Let God be true, but every man a liar." If all professing Christians were for slavery, yet, if God is against ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... few days later Hellas was startled to hear that Tempe had been evacuated without a blow, and the pass left open to Xerxes. It was said Democrates, in his ever commendable activity, had discovered at the last moment the mountain wall was not as defensible as hoped, and any resistance would have been disastrous. Therefore, whilst the retreat was bewailed, everybody praised the foresight of the orator. Everybody—one should say, except two, Bias and Phormio. They ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... Certain apparently defensible prejudices that prevail in the minds of even advanced musical critics against the idea of Form in music, originate in a very manifest mistake on the part of the "formalists" themselves, who (I refer to unimpassioned theorists and advocates of rigid old scholastic rules) place too narrow a construction ...
— Lessons in Music Form - A Manual of Analysis of All the Structural Factors and - Designs Employed in Musical Composition • Percy Goetschius
... conformity to what appears to me most conducive to her glory." On some occasions he acted in accordance with this declaration, and on a very remarkable one showed that he was justified in the dependence which he had on his own judgment; but whether his acting on it was defensible, must be left to the martinets to determine. In the year 1771, during the campaign, when he held the rank of major-general, he found that the Grand Marshal of Lithuania was assembling the Poles at Halowitz, of which he directly apprised the commander-in-chief, Marshal Boutourlin, ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... of bringing the searchlight of criticism to bear on the action or inaction of the executive government and its subordinates. A minister has to be constantly asking himself, not merely whether his proceedings and the proceedings of those for whom he is responsible are legally or technically defensible, but what kind of answer he can give if questioned about them in the House, and how that answer will be received."[187] Any member is privileged to bring forward a motion censuring the Government or any member or department thereof, and a motion of this ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... Warren Hastings is acquitted, because he was with Cowper at Westminster. Discipline was deplorably relaxed in all colleges except that of which Cowper's brother was a fellow. Pluralities and resignation bonds, the grossest abuses of the Church, were perfectly defensible in the case of any friend or acquaintance of this Church Reformer. Bitter lines against Popery inserted in The Task were struck out, because the writer had made the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Throckmorton, who were Roman Catholics. Smoking ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... inspired the Athenians. After the winter in which the Persians were finally beaten at Plataea, the Athenians began to rebuild. For a while their efforts were confined to rendering the city habitable and defensible, since the activity of the little state was largely political. But when th leadership of Athens in Greece had become firmly established under Theistocles and Cimon, the third president of the democracy, Pericles, found leisure to turn ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... more difficult. No clauses in the earlier Bills lent themselves more readily to destructive criticism; and though the provisions of the new scheme are still shrouded in mystery, it is inherent in the conditions under which it must be framed that the financial clauses will prove to be even less defensible on the grounds of logic or equity than those ...
— Against Home Rule (1912) - The Case for the Union • Various
... the powders, which so many have censured, is, I am relieved to say, not mine at all, but the Brownies'. Of another tale, in case the reader should have glanced at it, I may say a word: the not very defensible story of "Olalla." Here the court, the mother, the mother's niche, Olalla, Olalla's chamber, the meetings on the stair, the broken window, the ugly scene of the bite, were all given me in bulk and detail as I have tried to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 16 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Phoenician colonies, Carthage. The advantages of the locality are indicated by the fact that the chief town of Northern Africa, Tunis, has grown up within a short distance of the site. It combined the excellences of a sheltered situation, a good soil, defensible eminences, and harbours which a little art made all that was to be desired in ancient times and with ancient navies. These basins, partly natural, partly artificial, still exist;[591] but their communication with the sea is blocked up, as also is the channel which connected the military ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... in the Mid-mark, so that the Great Roof of the Daylings, which was a very big house, stood on a hillock whose sides had been cleft down sheer on all sides save one (which was left as a bridge) by the labour of men, and it was a very defensible place. ...
— The House of the Wolfings - A Tale of the House of the Wolfings and All the Kindreds of the Mark Written in Prose and in Verse • William Morris
... is a fort at Silley, called [blank] reduced to a more defensible plight, by her Maiesties order, and gouerned by the foreremembred Sir Frauncis Godolphin, who with his inuention and purse, bettered his plot and allowance, and therein hath so tempered strength with delight, and both with vse, ...
— The Survey of Cornwall • Richard Carew
... obstructions placed at the mouth of that narrow stream, where it joins the main river, some twenty miles from the coast. This point was known to be further protected by a battery of unknown strength, at Wiltown Bluff, a commanding and defensible situation. The obstructions consisted of a row of strong wooden piles across the river; but we convinced ourselves that these must now be much decayed, and that Captain Trowbridge, an excellent engineer officer, could remove them by the proper apparatus. ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... that Russia needs sternness and discipline more than anything else; it may be that a revival of Peter the Great's methods is essential to progress. From this point of view, much of what it is natural to criticize in the Bolsheviks becomes defensible; but this point of view has little affinity to Communism. Bolshevism may be defended, possibly, as a dire discipline through which a backward nation is to be rapidly industrialized; but as an experiment in Communism it ...
— The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism • Bertrand Russell
... cover up me tracks," said he. "I was a gambler for thirty years. Me whole life has been a game of chance. There are many who think gambling one of the high crimes an' misdemeanors, but I think a square game between men is defensible. I am a gambler by nature. Why shouldn't I be? I grew up a fat squab of a boy rollin' about on the pavin'-stones of Troy. 'Twas all luck, bedad, whether I lived or died. I lived, it fell out, and when I had learned to read I read wild-West stories. Of course, ...
— Money Magic - A Novel • Hamlin Garland
... birthdays because he was a twin" is a reasonable and intelligible utterance beside that of the man who should declare himself to be an infidel on the ground of denying his own belief. It may be logically, if not ethically, defensible that a Christian should call a Mahommedan an infidel and vice versa; but, on Dr. Wace's principles, both ought to call themselves infidels, because each applies the ...
— Collected Essays, Volume V - Science and Christian Tradition: Essays • T. H. Huxley
... embodied into battalions, and when the army prepared to take the field they were placed in garrisons in New York and other places, thus permitting the employment of the whole of the British force in the field. The Americans had occupied themselves in strongly fortifying the more defensible positions, especially those in a mountain tract of country called the Manor of Courland. This was converted into a sort of citadel, where large quantities of provisions, forage, and stores of all kinds were collected. About fifty miles from New York, up the North River, was a place called ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... the broad waters of the Altamaha to the music of these curious chants, I have been reading Mr. Moore's speech about the abolition of slavery in the district of Columbia; and I confess I think his the only defensible position yet taken, and the only consistent argument yet used in any of the speeches I have hitherto seen upon ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... was meanwhile seizing and strengthening every defensible post. His men pierced the houses for musketry, raised new obstacles everywhere, heightened the barricades, and dragged the big guns into the open space. Every moment's delay on our part rendered the position more formidable, and we listened anxiously for the tramp, ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... force under Colonel Macleod saw that these orders were carried out, and when, on the 14th of July, Cromwell crossed the Tweed, he found the whole country bare of all provision for his troops. In vain his cavalry made forays to a distance from the coast. Harry's foot opposed them at every defensible point, while the cavalry hung upon their skirts. In vain the Roundheads tried to charge by them. The Scotch cavalry, in obedience to orders, avoided a contest, and day after day Cromwell's troopers had to return empty handed, losing many of their men by the fire of ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... they had met before in Cuba and did not fear, nor did they reckon themselves much worse than the Spanish foot; but they saw that the Spaniards outnumbered them by more than two to one, and they recognised the advantage they had in having a defensible city to fall back upon. The buccaneers were worn with the long march, and in poor case for fighting. They halted at this point, while Morgan formed them into a tertia, or division of three battalions or troops, of which he commanded the right wing. ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... much of recompense, both to the Virgin and to Marie; a new trousseau for each, with candles to the Virgin, with a gold watch and chain for Marie, as soon as she should be Marie Campan. She had been cruel; she acknowledged it. But at such a crisis was it not defensible? And then the recompense should ...
— La Mere Bauche from Tales of All Countries • Anthony Trollope
... about 100 yards broad, and still keeps up its character of a rapid stream, with sandy banks and islands: the latter are generally occupied, as being defensible when ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... quite every one. But that is a very large question, and we needn't go into it. I confess that my method was unconventional; a little more summary than that of the usurers and the strictly legal robbers, but quite as defensible. For they rob the poor and the helpless, while I merely dispossessed one rich corporation of a portion of its exactions from ...
— The Price • Francis Lynde
... and on the whole the least defensible of the concessions made in this matter concerned the African Slave Trade. That odious traffic was condemned by almost all Americans—even by those who were accustomed to domestic slavery, and could see little evil in it. Jefferson, in the original draft of ...
— A History of the United States • Cecil Chesterton
... pending the preliminaries to the possession of a ticket of his own, to procure a volume on architecture. From timidity, from a singular false shame, he kept this volume in the attic, like a crime; nobody knew what the volume was. Evidence of a strange trait in his character; a trait perhaps not defensible! He argued with himself that having told his father plainly that he wanted to be an architect, he need do nothing else aggressive for the present. He had agreed to the suggestion about business training, and he must be loyal to his agreement. He pointed out to himself how ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... UNIONS AND STRIKES? We must, then, consider what methods of regulating, without destroying, monopoly are efficient and morally defensible; and, first, the method into which the working classes have put most of their effort and enthusiasm. The labor-unions have, as a matter of fact, actually effected certain results, which we may ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... only Amherstburg"—on the Detroit River, a little below Detroit—"but most probably the whole country, must be evacuated as far as Kingston."[407] This place is at the foot of Ontario, close to the entrance to the St. Lawrence. Having a good and defensible harbor, it had been selected for the naval station of the lake. If successful in holding it, there would be a base of operations for attempting recovery of the water, and ultimately of the upper country. Failing there, of course the British must fall back upon the sea, touch ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... was Lascelles, the other name in the case, to the best of my recollection. But had she any right to bear it? And even supposing they had married, what had happened to the second husband? Widow or no widow, second marriage or no second marriage, defensible or indefensible, was this the right friend for a lad still fresh from Eton, the only son of his mother, who had sent me in secret ...
— No Hero • E.W. Hornung
... have one in the fruitful valley of the Nile. The growth of towns in one district rather than another must be governed largely by the existence of rivers or harbours, of coal or metals, of agricultural lowlands or defensible heights. Glasgow could not spring up in inland Leicestershire, nor Manchester in coalless Norfolk. Insular England must naturally be the greatest shipping country in Europe; while no large foreign trade is possible in any Bohemia except Shakespeare's. ...
— Science in Arcady • Grant Allen
... towards us; and to form, as far as possible, a compact little force which might, at a critical moment, be of immense utility. You will, of course, master the geography of the country, of which we are all but absolutely ignorant; find out about the passes, the mountain paths, the defensible positions. All these things may someday be ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... they were "men" at all, in any real sense of the word, may well be questioned. For of the many attempts which philosophers in all ages have made to define the word "man," the only one which is truly defensible is that which differentiates him from other animals, not by his physical or intellectual, but by his spiritual superiority. Many other creatures are as well adapted in bodily conformation for their environment, ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... regulation or abolition, evoking a desperate attempt on the part of the interests threatened to protect themselves by political means—that is, by gross corruption; or, if the menaced interest is a vast one, dominating a defensible territory, by armed rebellion, as in our own Civil War. If the interest is finally overwhelmed politically, and placed completely under the ban of the law, it has been given ample time to develop ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... new ones in such ratio, where is the Zoologist that will give account of it? There was not anything considerable of fighting; but of bullying, plundering, murdering and being murdered, a frightful amount. There are seizures of castles, convents, defensible houses; marches at a rate like that of antelopes, through the Lithuanian parts, boggy, hungry, boundless, opening to the fancy the Infinitude of Peat, in the solid and the fluid state. This, perhaps, is the finest species of feats, though they never lead to anything. There are ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... be no exertion of choice on the part of Senators." Nevertheless there was some uneasiness on the point. In a letter of May 31, 1789, Ames remarked that "the meddling of the Senate in appointments is one of the least defensible parts of the Constitution," and with prophetic insight he foretold that "the number of the Senators, the secrecy of their doings, would shelter them, and a corrupt connection between those who appoint to office and the officers themselves would ...
— Washington and His Colleagues • Henry Jones Ford
... arrangement seen in Tusayan are due to local causes. The general view of Mashongnavi given in Pl. XXVII shows that the site of this pueblo, as well as that of its neighbor, Shupaulovi, was not particularly defensible, and that this fact would have weight in securing adherence in the first portion of the pueblo built to the defensive inclosed court containing the ceremonial chamber. The plan strongly indicates that the other courts of the pueblo were ...
— Eighth Annual Report • Various
... civilization were so slight that it should support its ally, Austria, whether the latter were right or wrong. Such was its policy, and it carried it out with fatal consistency. To support its ally in actual war without respect to the justice of the quarrel may be defensible, but to support it in a time of peace in an iniquitous demand and a policy of gross discourtesy to friendly States offends every sense of ...
— The Evidence in the Case • James M. Beck
... too, is not wanting, and an ingenious use of guiding themes binds the score together into a harmonious whole. A novelty in its arrangement is the plan of an orchestral accompaniment to the dialogue. AEsthetically this is perhaps hardly defensible, but in several scenes—notably that of Cours-la-Reine, in which Manon's agitated interview with the Count stands out in forcible relief against the graceful background formed by a minuet heard ...
— The Opera - A Sketch of the Development of Opera. With full Descriptions - of all Works in the Modern Repertory • R.A. Streatfeild
... portion, in the vicinity of Verde. The separation of this type from the preceding one is to a certain extent arbitrary, as the location of a ruin is sometimes determined solely by convenience, and convenience may dictate the selection of a high and defensible site, when the tillable land on which the village depends is of small area, or when it is divided into a number of small and scattered areas; for it was a principle of the ancient village-builders that the parent village should overlook as large an extent as possible ...
— Aboriginal Remains in Verde Valley, Arizona • Cosmos Mindeleff
... attention was directed to fortifying. His situation was easily defensible at certain points, and of them he first made sure. At the south, across the passage to Roxbury, were the "lines" of which all contemporary accounts speak. These Gage strengthened until by the 4th of May Lieutenant ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... (Auto. p. 114) tells how in 1745 he found 'Professor Maclaurin busy on the walls on the south side of Edinburgh, endeavoring to make them more defensible [against the Pretender]. He had even erected some small cannon.' See ante, iii, 15, for a ridiculous story ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... lies about twenty-eight miles north of Bombay, and afterwards became the northern capital of Portuguese India, almost rivalling Goa in splendour and prosperity. At Bassein the Portuguese built a fort, but the place was not naturally defensible, and Nuno da Cunha set his heart on the possession of the rocky island of Diu, which had been one of the spots designed by ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... was due to General Hancock, and perhaps still more to General Howard, for early perceiving the strength of Cemetery Hill as a defensible position. On the first day, after General Reynolds had fallen at his post of duty with the First Corps, General Doubleday, next in command, was on the point of ordering a retreat, the attack seeming too fearful to be withstood. But Howard, coming up with the Eleventh Corps ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... striking and in some respects fascinating link between the bygone and the present. Old St. Ives seems to derive entirely from the little headland known as The Island. It was just one of those places that the ancients loved to fortify, almost insular and easily defensible. The dry-stone defence known as the Two Edges was probably constructed by men of the Stone Age; it is certainly pre-Celtic. Other strongholds of the same date may be found at Gurnard's Head, at Trencrom, and at Bosigran, to ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... opinions, staunchness in holding and defending them, and fervour in carrying them into action, as equivocal virtues of very doubtful perfection, in a state of things where every abuse has after all had a defensible origin; where every error has, we must confess, once been true relatively to other parts of belief in those who held the error; and where all parts of life are so bound up with one another, that it is of no avail to attack one evil, ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... mixed enough to justify some uneasiness, but this was allayed by the instinctive feeling that it is more venial to defraud an institution than a man. Since Mrs. Fontage had to be kept from starving by means not wholly defensible, it was better that the obligation should be borne by a rich institution than an impecunious youth. I doubt, in fact, if my scruples would have survived a night's sleep, had they not been complicated by some uncertainty ...
— Crucial Instances • Edith Wharton
... the Roman Empire in the East is one of the marvels of history. Its great and constant vitality appears the more remarkable, when one considers that it had no easily defensible frontiers, contained many different races with little in common, and on all sides faced hostile states. The empire survived so long, because of its vast wealth and resources, its despotic, centralized government, the strength of its army, and the almost ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... cause of evolution is a proposition that can be entertained so long only as no attempt is made to unite in thought its two terms in the alleged relation. That it should be accepted as a matter of faith may be a defensible position, provided good cause is shown why it should be so accepted; but that it should be accepted as a matter of understanding—as a statement making the order of the universe comprehensible—is a ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... Athens for aid. Philip, an arch politician, contrived by his intrigues to prevent Athens from giving assistance. The neglect of Athens was a great mistake, for Amphipolis commanded the passage over the Strymon, and shut up Macedonia from the east, and was, moreover, easily defensible by sea. Deprived of aid from Athens, the city fell into the hands of Philip, and was an acquisition of great importance. It was the most convenient maritime station in Thrace, and threw open to him all the country east of the Strymon, and especially the gold region near ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... knew nothing of war the place seemed defensible enough. I have said that the road down which Long Gregory came with his tidings went north; and that was its general direction; but its first reach was nearly east, so that the low sun was not in the eyes of any of us, and where Will Green ...
— A Dream of John Ball, A King's Lesson • William Morris
... have shown, leaves this liberty and these rights frankly without any guaranteed protection. All the education which philanthropy or the State could offer as a substitute for equality of rights, would be a poor exchange; there is no defensible reason why they should not go hand in hand, each encouraging and strengthening the other. The education which one can demand as a right is likely to do more good than the education for which one must ...
— The Wife of his Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line, and - Selected Essays • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... form of fatality, or fatal justice, is less defensible, and less acceptable too, than the ancient and elementary power, which, being general and undefined, and offering no too strict explanation of its actions, lent itself to a far greater number of situations. In the ...
— The Buried Temple • Maurice Maeterlinck |
