"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... hose drawn up to the limit, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, he said, he could conjure up. He urged me (stating that he felt it his mission in life to urge me) to defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery at ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... cost him the means of subsistence. This will depend upon the value which he sets upon the opinions that be has to proclaim. If such a proposition is true, the world must efface its habit of admiration for the martyrs and heroes of the past, who embraced violent death rather than defile themselves by a lying confession. Or is present heroism ridiculous, and only past heroism admirable? However, nobody has a right to demand the heroic from all the world; and if to publish his dissent from the opinions which he nominally holds would reduce a man to beggary, ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... now!—it so chanced that the work was reviewed in the paper he read—it was not only a hostile criticism, it was a personally abusive diatribe, a virulent invective. All the motives that can darken or defile were ascribed to him. All the mean spite of some mean mind was sputtered forth. Had the writer known the awful blow that awaited Maltravers at that time, it is not in man's nature but that he would have shrunk from this petty gall upon the wrung withers; but, as I have said, ...
— Ernest Maltravers, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... glad," said Mrs. Shortridge, "that these filthy people have not been able to defile ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... Newdigate family. On Derwent Edge, above the village, are various peculiar rock formations, known by such names as the Salt-cellar. Ashopton, another village lower down the dale, is a favourite centre, and here the main valley is joined by Ashop Dale, a bold defile in its upper part, penetrating the heart ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... the Saracens, that ye have abolished true religion and worship and have turned to a superstition corrupt and fatal, the which in your zeal to maintain and to spread abroad there be no shame nor cruelty ye do not dare to perpetrate. You defile the sacraments of the Church, tear to pieces the articles of her faith, overthrow her temples. The images which were made for similitudes you break and throw into the fire. Finally such Christians as embrace ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... doubtless, it was the highway into Wallaria from the north, but that was long ago, not within the memory of the oldest man. Nature herself had closed the way by casting a great spur of the mountain into the deepest and narrowest part of the defile. It was still possible to climb this, but it had effectually closed the pass for all useful purposes; and the castle, which in old times had been used to guard the way, had fallen into decay. It stood gaunt against the hillside upon ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... Kinloch, to reconnoitre; while he moved forward on the road to Beaufort ferry. Kinloch returning soon, stated the supposed force of the British, and that they were near upon the road; Moultrie now pushed on to gain a defile, but found it occupied by the enemy. There being no alternative, he then drew up his men in open ground, with two field pieces in the centre, and one on the right. The British force was two companies of picked light infantry, ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... sharply with a defile between two ridges, ridges which now housed Morton's battery, ready to blast road and hollow below. Felled timber, rails, stones, anything which could shelter a man from lead and steel long enough for him to shoot his share back, had been woven together, and a mounted reserve waited behind to prevent ...
— Ride Proud, Rebel! • Andre Alice Norton
... Sedley and ten men went on to the tunal as, the night before, one man had gone. By the signs that Ferne had given them they found the entrance which they sought, and when they had thrust aside the curtain of branch and vine, saw the clearing through the tunal. It lay beneath the stars, a narrow defile much overgrown, walled on either side by impenetrable wood. On went Sedley and his men, cautiously, silently, until they had wellnigh pierced the tunal, that was scarce wider, indeed, than an English copse. Before them, quiet as the tomb, rose the fortress—no sound save their stealthy ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston
... my fears are flown, And if I grieve, it is for thee alone: Give me a kiss, and give me too a smile, And let not tears that parting look defile. Now will I drink the bitter draught of death, And yield courageously my forfeit breath:— Farewell! may heaven take thee in its care," He said, and mounted swiftly ...
— Romantic Ballads - translated from the Danish; and Miscellaneous Pieces • George Borrow
... that he hoped; for Pallas next withstood him, rushing on All heedless-wild at that ill death his fellow fair had won, And buried all his sword deep down amid his wind-swelled lung. Then Sthenelus he meets, and one from ancient Rhoetus sprung, Anchemolus, who dared defile his own stepmother's bed. Ye also on Rutulian lea twin Daucus' sons lay dead, 390 Larides, Thymber; so alike, O children, that by nought Your parents knew you each from each, and sweet the ...
— The AEneids of Virgil - Done into English Verse • Virgil
... let a ray From thy majestic light illume 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
... 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 me, and Mall and I will ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... individuals composing the band one by one from among the gypsy performers in Hungary and Bohemia. Half-civilized in appearance, dressed in an unbecoming half-military costume, they are nothing while playing Strauss' waltzes or their own; but when they play the Radetsky Defile, the Racoksky March, or their marvelous czardas, one sees and hears the battle, and it is easy to understand the influence of their music in fomenting Hungarian revolutions; why for so long it was made treasonable to play or listen to these czardas; and why, as they heard them, ...
— The Gypsies • Charles G. Leland
... a copper coin and a loaf of bread and go down that deep defile there till thou comest to a deep river and there thou wilt see an old man ferrying people across the river. Put the coin between your teeth and let him take it from you, and he will carry you across, but speak not to him. Then, on ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs
... marched stealthily on them in the night, passing through the woods and up a narrow defile. It was about one o'clock in the morning that they gained Wayne's left. Grey was a most cruel wretch, called the no-flint general because of his orders to his soldiers to take the flints from their guns; his object being to compel them to use the bayonet; his orders were to rush upon the ...
— Holidays at Roselands • Martha Finley
... the 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. He tarries not ...
— Sketches From Memory (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... only the red glistering slopes tufted with thin bushes, and the hard blue heaven so close that it seemed his hand could touch it; then at a turn of the path the rocks rolled apart, the eye plunged down a long pine-clad defile, and beyond it the forest flowed in mighty undulations to a plain shining with cities and another mountain-range many days' journey away. To some eyes this would have been a terrible spectacle, reminding the wayfarer ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton
... had been seen to destroy a four year old bull by a single impact upon that animal's gnarly forehead. No stone wall had ever been known to resist its downward swoop; there were no trees tough enough to stay it; it would splinter them into matchwood and defile their leafy honors in the dust. This irascible and implacable brute—this incarnate thunderbolt—this monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing in the shade of an adjacent tree, dreaming dreams of conquest and glory. It was with a view to summoning it forth to the field of honor that I suspended ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... fought desperately for their mistress' liberty or life; but the odds were too great, both in numbers and equipment; and not five minutes passed, before they were all cut down, and stretched out, dead or dying, on the rocky floor of the dark defile. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... the fatigues and the privations of the march, enthusiasm shone on all the faces, in the brightening of all the eyes. He wanted to give with his own mouth the order "forward march" to the regiments of the guard, and he saw the endless defile of these proud uniforms, heard the uninterrupted beating of the drums, the sound of the trumpets, the acclamation "Vive l'Empereur" of the beautiful troops, the departure of the officers, every one of whom had orders ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... in castles set Amidst rich groves and cool, pellucid streams, And woodlands broad and fair to roam at will; But these by moats and battlements enclosed Were made impassable that the eyes impure Of man might not upon their beauty gaze, And so defile their virgin purity. For all that here delighted woman's eyes Was freely lavished by their royal sires; And countless guards to watch all day were there, And maidens numberless to sport with them And while away their ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... the Vosges, but the conquest was vigorously opposed and took more time than the French had reckoned on. As soon as it had become master of the Donon and the passes, the first French army pushed forward into the defile of Saarburg. At St. Blaise it won the first German colors, took Blamont and Cirey (August 15, 1914), seized the defiles north of the canal of the Marne and the Rhine, and reached Saarburg. Here a connection was established with the army of Lorraine, which had commenced its ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume III (of 12) - The War Begins, Invasion of Belgium, Battle of the Marne • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... leaving Nick Schmouder and the other German prisoners under guard, the officer, with Ned, Bob, and some other Americans, went back to where Jerry had been seen to fall. It was just outside of a little defile leading to the dugout where the machine gun had wrought ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... shifting of chairs to distribute the view, a tense moment of silence as the chorus came down a rocky defile and then—a white pencil of flame shot out from the royal box and a sharp crash ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... the name Of God! For Spain or vengeance!' And forthwith On either side along the whole defile, The Asturians shouting: 'In the name of God!' Set the whole ruin loose: huge trunks, and stones, And loosened crags, down, down they rolled with rush And bound and ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... Jaen, we passed through Andujar and Bailen, and on the third day reached Carolina, a small but beautiful town on the skirts of the Sierra Morena, inhabited by the descendants of German colonists. Two leagues from this place, we entered the defile of Despena Perros, which, even in quiet times, has an evil name, on account of the robberies which are continually being perpetrated within its recesses, but at the period of which I am speaking, it was said to be swarming with banditti. We of course expected to be robbed, perhaps ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... splitting and rending the stoutest forest trees. The thunder burst in tremendous explosions; the peals were echoed from mountain to mountain; they crashed upon Dunderberg, and then rolled up the long defile of the Highlands, each headland making a new echo, until old Bull Hill seemed ...
— McGuffey's Fifth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... For every one who is guilty of adulteration in the agora tells a falsehood, and deceives, and when he invokes the Gods, according to the customs and cautions of the wardens of the agora, he does but swear without any respect for God or man. Certainly, it is an excellent rule not lightly to defile the names of the Gods, after the fashion of men in general, who care little about piety and purity in their religious actions. But if a man will not conform to this rule, let the law be as follows: He who sells anything in the agora shall not ask two prices for that ...
— Laws • Plato
... the globe, two ways by which a lake may properly be formed in a place where it had not before existed. One of these is the sliding or overshooting of a mountain or a rock, which, being undermined by the river, and pressed by its weight, may give way, and thus close up the defile through which the river had worn for itself a passage. The other is the operation of an earthquake, which may either sink a higher ground, or raise a lower, and thus produce a lake where none had been before. To which, indeed, may be added a third, ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... first dawn of morning the Austrian army—the first that ever entered the country—made its appearance in the pass, headed by Duke Leopold and his formidable cavalry. Suddenly, when the whole narrow defile was blocked with horse and foot, thousands of heavy stones and trees were hurled among them from the neighboring heights, where the peasant band, forming the Swiss force, lay concealed. The suddenness and vigor of this unexpected attack quickly threw the first ranks of the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... he had to undergo much contumely from the pagan Saracens, who, to the disgrace of Christendom, defile the Holy City by their presence, and maltreat the blessed pilgrims; but he had learned to glory in humiliation. At last he retired to the woods on the sources of the Jordan, weary of earth, and there he joined ...
— Alfgar the Dane or the Second Chronicle of Aescendune • A. D. Crake
... fertile pianuras have been gained on the side of Herzigovina and Bosnia. In 1781 Kara Mahmoot, hereditary bey of Scutari, marched with a great army into Montenegro. Advancing towards Cettigna, he was attacked in a narrow defile by the Vladika. This was a great day for Montenegro. The Albanians were utterly routed, and Black Mahmoot, being taken prisoner, surrendered his glory and his head to his priestly conqueror, and it remains there ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... W. and N. of Muztagh Ata. After leaving Tashkurghan and Tagharma, where there is some precarious cultivation, there is no local produce to be obtained until the oasis of Tashmalik is reached in the open Kashgar plains. In the narrow valley of the Yamanyar River (Gez Defile) there is scarcely any grazing; its appearance is far more desolate than that of the elevated Pamirs."—"Marco Polo's praise (p. 181) of the gardens and vine-yards of Kashgar is well deserved; also the remark about the trading enterprise of its merchants still holds good, if ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... Thyrsis went away from this interview with some new problems to ponder upon. He had seen a little of this power of the newspapers to defile and torment a man; but he had never dreamed of anything as bad as this. This was murderous, this was monstrous. He saw these papers now as gigantic engines of exploitation and oppression—irresponsible, ...
— Love's Pilgrimage • Upton Sinclair
... takes it from her with his right hand, and says, "I am your husband;" she answers, and "I am your wife." They then shake hands reciprocally with each other's relations; after which he leads her towards the bed, and says, "There is our bed, keep it tight;" which is as much as to say, do not defile the nuptial bed. ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... cleft between Windham High Peak and the mountain to the north, runs the road, which suddenly emerges from the defile and overlooks the open country. We here find no long cleft as in the Kauterskill, Plattekill, and Stony Cloves, but the highway descends along the face of the mountain slope. The first view is toward the northeast, and, of a clear day, must be very fine. The distance was hazy, but the atmospheric ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol. 5, No. 6, June, 1864 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... an entrenched camp; but this he disregarded, and made his advanced posts fall back upon the defile of Beylau. This defile, formed by a deep valley, is so narrow in some places that a camel can scarcely pass. Nevertheless, this is the grand route of the Mecca caravan. Nothing was more easy than to defend it; yet on the 5th ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... stretches up from the valley below, and just laps over the back of the mountain. It is a broad belt of white that drops down and down till it joins other fields that sweep along the base of the mountain, a mile away. To the east, through a deep defile in the mountains, a landscape in an adjoining county lifts itself up, like a bank of ...
— In the Catskills • John Burroughs
... understanding, and they were not able to parry the sophistry of Curtius. I have ceased, therefore, to give them. Hamilton is really a colossus to the anti-republican party. Without numbers, he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile, where they might be finished; but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Maisie's cheeks as the blood boiled through Dick's heart. After a large lunch they went down to the beach and to Fort Keeling across the waste, wind-bitten land that no builder had thought it worth his while to defile. The winter breeze came in from the sea and ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... deck, but it looked bad there, and he remained on the upper step under the protection of the companionway penthouse. The level of the sea seemed to have risen, so that the warrior Roland appeared to be making his obstinate way through a deep defile. One could not help succumbing to the impression that each instant the defile would close overhead and settle the faithful vessel's fate forever. Sailors in oilskins were climbing about to make fast every loose thing. Great waves had already swept overboard. The salt water was trickling and flowing ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann
... there are many things to consider about your going. You know how I love to have you go for a ride on the water when I know you are in good company. I also love to have you attend places of interest to you, when I know there's nothing to defile your mind or lead you from the path of purity. But, Daughter, there are many things in the world that look beautiful to the eye but tend to lead the soul astray. Do you think Jesus would go to a circus? Do you think you could ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... the reason stated, [Pg 188] viz., that the priests should be holy to their God. The servants of God must represent His holiness; they are, therefore, not allowed, by so close a contact with sin, to defile or desecrate themselves either inwardly or outwardly. Although the inward pollution may be prevented in individual cases by a specially effective assistance of divine grace, yet there ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... and, riding across, was followed by his little body of cavalry, his infantry, and Tlascalan allies, who formed the first divisions of the army. Then came Cortes and his squadrons, with the baggage, ammunition wagons, and a part of the artillery. But before they had time to defile across the narrow passage, a gathering sound was heard, like that of a mighty forest agitated by the winds. It grew louder and louder, while on the dark waters of the lake was heard a plashing noise, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... open field. Happily for France the slow advance of the Prussian general permitted Dumouriez to occupy the difficult country of the Argonne, where, while waiting for his reinforcements, he was able for some time to hold the invaders in check. At length Brunswick made his way past the defile which Dumouriez had chosen for his first line of defence; but it was only to find the French posted in such strength on his flank that any further advance would imperil his own army. If the advance was to be continued, Dumouriez must be dislodged. Accordingly, ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... which love is no more than a sex instinct. She knew it must appear like this to him, although deep within herself she was conscious that it was not really so. In her heart there was a white flame that would burn only for Peter—an altar flame which nothing could touch or defile. And the men who loved her knew it. It was this, the knowledge that the inmost soul and spirit of her eluded him, which had kept Roger's jealous anger at such ...
— The Moon out of Reach • Margaret Pedler
... 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
... especially rich in nautical terms, the Kirghis shepherd tribes who wander over the highlands of western Asia from the Tian Shan to the Hindu Kush have four different terms for four kinds of mountain passes. A daban is a difficult, rocky defile; an art is very high and dangerous; a bel is a low, easy pass, and a kutal is a broad opening ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... woody district of Coleshulle, {180} or hill of coal, on our right hand, where Henry II., who in our time, actuated by youthful and indiscreet ardour, made a hostile irruption into Wales, and presuming to pass through that narrow and woody defile, experienced a signal defeat, and a very heavy loss of men. {181} The aforesaid king invaded Wales three times with an army; first, North Wales at the above-mentioned place; secondly, South Wales, by the sea-coast of Glamorgan and Goer, penetrating ...
— The Itinerary of Archibishop Baldwin through Wales • Giraldus Cambrensis
... entered the Buryea or Hingan mountains. This chain extends across the valley of the Amoor at nearly right angles, and the river flows through it in a single narrow defile. The mountains first reach the river on the northern bank, the Chinese shore continuing low for thirteen miles higher up. There are no islands, and the river, narrowed to about half a mile, flows with a rapid current. In some places it runs five miles an hour, and its depth is ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... 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 full ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... excursion, for the purpose of attending the appraisement of an apprentice belonging to Silver Hill, a plantation about ten miles distant from Grecian Regale. We rode but a short distance in the town road, when we struck off into a narrow defile by a mule-path, and pushed into the ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... pickets [6] in front of an encampment. Yet even that is a procedure which, carefully observed at times, is at times as carelessly neglected. Once more: not one man in ten thousand, [7] I suppose, but knows that when a force is marching through a narrow defile, the safer method is to occupy beforehand certain points of vantage. [8] Yet this precaution also has been known ...
— The Economist • Xenophon
... few miles away I saw a second great forest, that of 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 ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... mountainous districts of Savoy; but, with experienced guides to lead them, the dragoons were able to defile through secret passes unknown to any but the natives, and to arrive unsuspected upon ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... much wider than that by which they ascended, the latter being only a path leading out to the uninhabited pampa: while the former is the main thoroughfare between town and cemetery. It debouches on the level summit through a slight hollow, or defile, possibly due to the wear and tear of travel, continued through the long ages. Many a funeral procession, and from the most remote time, may have wound its way up that steep slope, passing between two cliffs, ...
— Gaspar the Gaucho - A Story of the Gran Chaco • Mayne Reid
... the marble walk which runs through the garden grounds, and is set on either side with marble statues, for the most part of heathen Gods and Goddesses, with which these Lagidae were not ashamed to defile their royal dwellings. At length we came to a beautiful portico with fluted columns of the Grecian style of art, where we found more guards, who made way for the Lady Charmion. Crossing the portico we reached a marble ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... highest regards; and on their fire-altars the sacred flame, generally said to have been kindled from heaven, was kept burning uninterruptedly from year to year and from age to age by bands of priests, whose special duty it was to see that the sacred spark was never extinguished. To defile the altar by blowing the flame with one's breath was a capital offence; and to burn a corpse was regarded as an act equally odious. When victims were offered to fire, nothing but a small portion of the fat was consumed ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 3. (of 7): Media • George Rawlinson
... defiled my fingers, and never will I defile them, by turning over his writings. But in regard to Plato, I can have no objection to ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... wheat, of 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 well as then? Is it not as necessary that by government sin be suppressed, ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... the cliffs. His brave peasants followed him; and taking their rapid march by a near cut through a hitherto unexplored defile of the Cartlane Craigs, leaping chasms, and climbing perpendicular rocks, they suffered no obstacles to impede their steps, while thus rushing onward ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... a sample of a very fine close-grained white timber, considered by him suitable for wood-engraving purposes, obtained in a defile of Mount Wellington. It seems to be the young wood of Pittosporum bicolor, formerly in high estimation amongst the Aborigines of Tasmania, on account of its combined qualities of density, hardness, and tenacity, as ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... the highest peg or pin of sanctity and holy contemplation, and so his lusts to the greatest degree of mortification; but sin will be with him in the best of his performances: with him, I say, to pollute and defile his duties, and to make his righteousness speckled ...
— The Pharisee And The Publican • John Bunyan
... pageantry or impressive circumstance amid which it is enacted. Does not this vault then, arching above us, appear but as a vast amphitheatre? And towards the mortal arena the empires of the world, one by one, defile past the high-upreared, dark, and awful throne where sits Destiny—the phalanx of Macedon, the Roman legion, the black banner of the Abbassides, the jewelled mail of Akbar's chivalry, and the Ottoman's crescent moon. And their resolution, ...
— The Origins and Destiny of Imperial Britain - Nineteenth Century Europe • J. A. Cramb
... 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 ...
— The Evolution of Modern Medicine • William Osler
... now the voice of joy prevail, And echo wide from hill to vale; Ye warlike clans, arise and hail Your laurell'd chiefs returning. O'er every mountain, every isle, Let peace in all her lustre smile, And discord ne'er her day defile With ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... Bolan river was tainted by the bodies of the camels that had sunk beneath their loads. The Beloochee freebooters were hovering about, cutting off our couriers, murdering stragglers, carrying off our baggage and our cattle. Among the rocks of this stupendous defile, our men pitched their tents, and toiled on again day after day, over a wretched road, covered with loose flint-stones, surmounting, at first by a scarcely perceptible ascent, and afterwards by a difficult acclivity, the great Brahoo chain of hills. The Bolan Pass is nearly ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... from the top of which they had an extended view of the surrounding country. Not the sign of an Indian was to be seen, but they did not feel secure and kept a very vigilant watch upon every ravine and defile as they approached it. Making twenty-one miles that day, they encamped on the bank of another stream still running north. While there an alarm of Indians was given, and instantly every man was on his feet with rifle ready to sell his life only at the greatest cost. Indians there were, ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... that it is right to pray for the filling or baptism with the Spirit. What a thought it gives of the hallowedness and sacredness of the body, to think of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. How considerately we ought to treat these bodies and how sensitively we ought to shun everything that will defile them. How carefully we ought to walk in all things so as not to grieve ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey
... if that be the Roc, and it not dead, will the bird suffer one to defile its eggs with other than the sole of the foot, naked?' He undid his sandals and kicked off the slippers given him by the damsels that had duped him, and went into the first egg over the abyss, and into the second, and into the third, and into the fourth, and into the fifth. Surely the eggs ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... disruption, and Bolshevism. The division of the spoils between the victors will also provide employment for a powerful office, whose doorsteps the greedy adventurers and jealous concession-hunters of twenty or thirty nations will crowd and defile. ...
— The Economic Consequences of the Peace • John Maynard Keynes
... of green, which render it so universally effective in contrasting colours, cause it also to become the least useful in compounding them, and the most apt to defile other colours in mixture. Nevertheless it forms valuable semi-neutrals of the olive class with black, for of such subdued tones are those greens by which the more vivid tints of nature are opposed. Accordingly, the various ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... Julienne's indignation. Suddenly, however, a shrill shout made him descend hastily, and the old Turk's voice might be heard in its highest key, no doubt shrieking out maledictions on all the ancestry of the son of a dog who durst defile his eyes with gazing at the shameless daughters of the Frank. Little Ulysse was, however, allowed to disport himself wherever he pleased; and after once, under Arthur's protection, going forward, he found ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his funeral procession defile past me, I think I even made one of the Committee sent by the Society of Men of Letters to march in the funeral convoy. It was superb. This lawyer from the Provinces, good honest man, eloquent orator, honest politician that he was, who came to Paris but to die there, was buried ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... Master Porges, hard put to it, "to answer you were to defile the tongue God hath given me for her ladyship's service. To obey is better than sacrifice. Her present obedience is that I should request your presence in the ante-chamber the instant of your appearing ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... cumbrous trappings of fleshy pride! We will promote an universal Christian education—we will teach charity by examples, and live unto all men by a personal abstinence from the bickerings and malice of civil life. We will not defile the sacred lawn with the mud of turnpike acts—we will no longer sweat in the House of Lords, but labour only in the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... furrowed and the fall is rapid; irrigation is consequently difficult and navigation impossible. The course of the Iskr is remarkable: rising in the Rilska Planina, the river descends into the basin of Samakov, passing thence through a serpentine defile into the plateau of Sofia, where in ancient times it formed a lake; it now forces its way through the Balkans by the picturesque gorge of Iskretz. Somewhat similarly the Deli, or "Wild," Kamchik breaks the central chain of the Balkans near ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... lad, he scarcely knew; Her fury was so great, what best to do; If he allowed that he had acted wrong, 'Twould wound his conscience and defile his tongue. He home repaired, and turning in his mind What he had heard, at length his thoughts inclined, To fancy that Aminta was disposed, To play some cunning trick, which, not disclosed, Would operate to bring her wish about; I see, said he, ...
— The Tales and Novels, Complete • Jean de La Fontaine
... challenged to dispute; he never defended himself except by words, but they were so weighty and fiery that people soon left him in peace. If he struck, he knew how to make the injury good. One day when he was going down the defile to the stony moor, a mischievous boy ran up behind him and knocked him down. Jesus quickly picked himself up, and shouted angrily to the boy, "Die!" When he saw the blazing eye, the boy turned deathly pale and began to tremble so that, near ...
— I.N.R.I. - A prisoner's Story of the Cross • Peter Rosegger
... Moses in Sinai, giving his name as 'I am that I am' (Exodus iii. 6, 14; 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 Being ...
— The Making of Religion • Andrew Lang
... 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 ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... he exclaimed, "our men at the left are cravens! they fly! they fly!—Ride to Lord Hastings, Sir Humphrey Bourchier, bid him defile hither what men are left him; and now, ere our fellows are well aware what hath chanced yonder, charge we, knights and gentlemen, on, on!—break Somerset's line; on, on, to the heart of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... also these dreamers defile the flesh, reject government, and blaspheme glories. [1:9]But Michael the arch-angel, when disputing with the devil he reasoned about the body of Moses, dared not bring against him a charge of blasphemy, but said, The Lord rebuke you. [1:10]But these blaspheme what ...
— The New Testament • Various
... nothing between. That was my ruin, for when I was in the mud I comforted myself with the thought that at other times I was a hero, and the hero was a cloak for the mud: for an ordinary man it was shameful to defile himself, but a hero was too lofty to be utterly defiled, and so he might defile himself. It is worth noting that these attacks of the "sublime and the beautiful" visited me even during the period of dissipation ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... favour? Have they entirely 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 indifference, and the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 346, December 13, 1828 • Various
... whether anyone could see her—hoping, perhaps, someone would see her while she was feeling so 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 ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... their retirement from the Tugela. The Onderbrook road to Ladysmith runs north-west from the bridge across the arena of the amphitheatre and then ascends through the steep gorge of Grobelaar's Kloof, a defile of forbidding appearance. The other road and railway run north, following at first the general trend of the great bend of the Tugela, then penetrating the mass of hills and making their way eventually ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... Halbert Glendinning, hallooing at intervals, in answer to the sound which he had heard, ran with the speed of a hunted buck down the rugged defile, as if paradise had been before him, hell and all her furies behind, and his eternal happiness or misery had depended upon the speed which he exerted. In a space incredibly short for any one but a Scottish mountaineer having his nerves strung by the deepest and most passionate interest, the ...
— The Monastery • Sir Walter Scott
... self-respect-inspiring influence on that portion of the community, but should in its results rather illustrate old Falstaff's remark,—that "there is a thing often heard of, and it is known to many in our land, by the name of pitch; this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile: so doth the company ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 7, Issue 42, April, 1861 • Various
... 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
... and of the generation of the human soul from refuse. The world he thought to be eternal. He maintained that there were infinite worlds, all made by God, who wills to do what he can do, and therefore produces infinity. The religious orders of Catholicism defile the earth by evil life, hypocrisy, and avarice. All friars are only asses. Indulgence in carnal pleasures ought not to be reckoned sinful. The man confessed to having freely satisfied his passions to the utmost of ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... wagon-train was slowly winding through a mountain defile, they encountered a sight which made even the stout-hearted leader look grave. Stretched out stiff and stark were two figures, cold in death. They were men of middle age, apparently. From each the scalp had been removed, thus betraying that ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger
... feast, I take my place In solemn, sanctimonious state, And have the air of saying grace While I defile ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 14 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... and 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 would not have me ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... sharp contest of about four hours, the Grand Vizier Hali, seeing the battle go against him, put himself at the head of his guard of horse, pushed through a defile, and made a very brisk charge; but his men could not sustain the contest; and he, having received two wounds, was carried off the field to Carlowitz, where he died the next day. The Aga of the Janisaries and ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... here, within a green-roofed kirk of woods, The slave found that seclusion he desired. His only treasure was a Testament Hid in the friendly opening of a tree. Often the book was kept within his cot, At times lay next his heart, nor did its beat Defile the fruity knowledge on the leaves. The words were sweet as wine of Eshcol grapes To his parched lips. He saw the past arise. Vague were the people, and the pageant moved, Uncertain as the figures in the dusk; Yet One there was, who stood in bold relief; A ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... gone up the valley for several miles, when suddenly the Indian turned aside down a dark and narrow defile, ...
— Ted Strong's Motor Car • Edward C. Taylor
... confirmed. And I establish this PEACE on the part of ourselves and of our kinsmen, our friends and belongings, alike of women and of men, bondsmen and thralls, youths and adults. Be there any truce-breaker who shall violate this PEACE and defile this faith, so be he rejected of God and expelled from the community of righteous men; be he cast out from Heaven and from the fellowship of the holy; let him have no part amongst mankind and become an outcast from society. A vagabond he shall be and a wolf in places where Christians pray and ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... can be considered authentic. "The King," he says, "brought back his army without experiencing any loss, save that at the summit of the Pyrenees he suffered somewhat from the perfidy of the Vascons (Basques). While the army of the Franks, embarrassed in a narrow defile, was forced by the nature of the ground to advance in one long close line, the Basques, who were in ambush on the crest of the mountain—for the thickness of the forest with which these parts are covered is favorable to ambuscade—descend and fall suddenly on the baggage-train and on the troops ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... Heaven!" said Issachar lifting up his eyes, "how long will you suffer that this murderous and accursed race should defile the face of earth?" ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... now necessary, for a sufficient reason. The next safe halting-place of the Kalmucks was on the east bank of the Toorgai River. Between it and them rose a hilly country, a narrow defile through which offered the nearest and best route. This lost, the need of pasturage would require a further sweep of five hundred miles. The Cossack light horsemen were only about fifty miles more distant from the pass. If it were to be won, ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... commonly, in the early years of this century, believed to possess a favourable influence on sores; or, rather, it might be more correct to say that it possessed no damaging influence, while all the other fingers, in coming into contact with a sore, were held to have a tendency to defile, to poison, or canker the wound. I have heard it asserted that doctors know this, and never touch a ...
— Folk Lore - Superstitious Beliefs in the West of Scotland within This Century • James Napier
... in the fight of Kulm. He described to me the confusion, both of the French and Prussian corps, as something of which I could form no conception. Both sides lost even the semblance of order, and through the deep forest, and over the slope of the defile, there was one ceaseless combat of man to man. The quantity of dead, likewise, that covered the hill-side, was prodigious; indeed, it took the country people, who were pressed for the occasion, two whole days to bury them. How changed was the scene ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... the better sport," replied his friend, "for I am determined you shall defile her in ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... "May the wild hog defile my grave, but thou speakest wisdom!" the Fogy replied, with the dignity of his race, extending ...
— Fantastic Fables • Ambrose Bierce
... fighting strength into cohorts, but then found his advance barred by Claudius Labeo[411] at the head of a hastily-recruited band of Baetasii, Tungri, and Nervii.[411] He had secured the bridge over the Maas and relied on the strength of his position. A skirmish in the narrow defile proved indecisive, until the Germans swam across and took Labeo in the rear. At this point Civilis by a bold move—or possibly by arrangement—rode into the lines of the Tungri and called out in a loud voice, 'Our object in taking ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... therefore, they pushed on at full speed and very soon came up with the white men. It was a dark night, so that they could not see far in advance of them, and thus it happened that the two parties, on entering a narrow defile, almost rode into each other, with a yell of fierce surprise ...
— The Wild Man of the West - A Tale of the Rocky Mountains • R.M. Ballantyne
... the Balcan is a fabulous mountain. Such seems to be the view of Major Keppell, who looked on it towards the east with the eye of a soldier, and certainly in the Sophia Pass, which I followed, there is no narrow defile, and no ascent sufficiently difficult to stop, or delay for long time, a train ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... where the five dead cows were stretched out was the beginning of a long, narrow defile, or gorge which ran back into the hills. Some of these hills were quite high and were covered with a growth of timber. Others consisted of big rocks piled in fantastic fashion as though there had been a volcanic eruption some time when ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... rout of the nations. Stannum saw defile before him Silence, "eldest of all things"; Brahma's consort Saraswati fingered her Vina; and following, Siva and his hideous mate Devi, who is sometimes called Durga; and the brazen heavens turned to a typhoon that ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... old, and still maintains The old Hellenic spirit and some likeness Of the fair Commonwealth which ruled the world. Surely, my father, 'tis a glorious spring Drawn from the heaven-kissed summits whence we come; And shall we, then, defile our noble blood By mixture with this upstart tyranny Which fouls the Hellenic pureness of its source In countless bastard channels? If our State Ask of its children sacrifice, 'tis well. It shall be given; ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris
... redskin detects the passage of his foe across the grass. The odd smile with which Diane went out! The dull silence in which George came home! The manufactured conversation! The forced gayety! The startling pause! The effort to begin again, and keep the tone to one of common intercourse! The long defile of guests! The strangers who came, grew intimate, and disappeared! The glances that followed Diane when she crossed a room! The shrug, the whisper, the suggestive grimace, at the mention of her name! All these were as an alphabet in which Mrs. Eveleth, grown skilful by long years of observation, ...
— The Inner Shrine • Basil King
... continued the pursuit alone after Fuentas left them, and towards nightfall entered the mountains into which the trail led. After sunset, the moon gave light until late in the night, when it entered a narrow defile, and was difficult to follow. Here they lay from midnight till morning. At daylight they resumed the pursuit, and at sunrise discovered the horses; and immediately dismounting and tying up their own, ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... had intelligence of the approach of these troops, when captain Joshua Gianavel, a brave protestant officer, put himself at the head of a small body of the citizens, and waited in ambush to attack the enemy in a small defile. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... 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
... his thre felows / might haue lyued / vppon the Kinges table / and haue eaten most fyne and delicate meates / but they did rather chose to lyue together with potage / and water / and vtterly to forsake thos pleasures / and delicacies / then they wold defile them selues with the meates of the vnbeleauers. Moses also / as it is writon in the epistle to the ...
— A Treatise of the Cohabitation Of the Faithful with the Unfaithful • Peter Martyr
... one at meal-time read somewhat incorrectly and stammered over the words, this venerable woman said to him "Read no more and do not defile the Word of God lest harm come to holy things and they that hear be offended in thee. Let another read that hath better skill thereto, that we may all understand and ...
— The Chronicle of the Canons Regular of Mount St. Agnes • Thomas a Kempis
... he contrives to wring a splendid privy purse, throw back with contumely, the "tribute" of his own countrymen from this land of "miscreants." These people may exhaust their slang, and make blackguards of themselves, but they cannot defile us. And as for the suggestion to exclude slaveholders from your London clubs, we scout it. Many of us, indeed, do go to London, and we have seen your breed of gawky lords, both there and here, but it never entered into our conceptions to look on them as better than ourselves. The American ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... for cover, the firing into the gully stopped, and the arrested column poured up the steep defile after Gerhardt. ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... that you dare dictate to me? Leave this house instantly! Were you sent here by Mademoiselle de Gramont to institute an espionage over me and my family? Go and tell your mistress that neither she nor anything that belongs to her shall ever again defile my dwelling! I shall watch better in future! I will not be snared by her ...
— Fairy Fingers - A Novel • Anna Cora Mowatt Ritchie
... form into battalion columns and go round the village!" he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. "Don't you understand, your excellency, my dear sir, that you must not defile through narrow village streets when we are ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... tunics or robes, and a long beard; the women painted their faces. Ivan the Terrible said that to shave the beard was "a sin that the blood of all the martyrs could not cleanse. Was it not to defile the image of man created ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... nights are spent in watching, and my soul melteth away for very heaviness. O Lord, thou knowest I am willing—I am ready. Take me, stretch me on thy cross: let the wicked who delight in blood, and rob the poor, and defile the temple of their bodies, and harden themselves against thy mercy—let them wag their heads and shoot out the lip at me: let the thorns press upon my brow, and let my sweat be anguish—I desire to be made like thee in thy great love. But let me see the fruit of my travail—let ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... the indolent habit inherited from his father a depraved and vicious nature. After a regency of eight years he became king at the age of fifteen, and lived to defile his youth and dishonour his manhood by debauchery and adultery, simony and brigandage. Early in his career he followed the evil counsels of his provost Etienne, and purposed the spoliation of the treasury of St. Germain des Pres to pay for his dissolute pleasures. "As the sacrilegious ...
— The Story of Paris • Thomas Okey
... worthy of attention from native and barbarian alike. The very antagonism of the few foreign manners and habits he is obliged by his position to cultivate, tend rather to confirm him in his own sense of superiority than otherwise. For who but a barbarian would defile the banquet hour "when the wine mantles in the cups" with a white table-cloth, the badge of grief and death? How much more elegant the soft red lacquer of the "eight fairy" table, with all its associations ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... through some captives of a ravine which enabled good climbers to reach a defile which led to the southern end of the battle-field; and Ephraim, obedient to his command, had gone with the slingers and bowmen along this difficult path to assail in the rear the last band of foemen who were still ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... she is put on the same footing with the king. It is equally treason (by the statute 25 Edw. III.) to compass or imagine the death of our lady the king's companion, as of the king himself: and to violate, or defile, the queen consort, amounts to the same high crime; as well in the person committing the fact, as in the queen herself, if consenting. A law of Henry the eighth[z] made it treason also for any woman, who was not a virgin, to ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... suddenly, instead of admitting peacefully the slow march of the seasons, she had just discovered and understood the formidable flight of the minutes. She had had a sudden revelation of the gliding of the hour, of that imperceptible race, maddening when we think of it—of that infinite defile of little hurrying seconds, which nibble at the body and the ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... back now," said Lady Blanchemain. "It's getting rather gloomy here." She looked round, with a little shudder, and then gave the necessary order. The valley had narrowed to what was scarcely more than a defile between two dark and rugged hillsides, —pine-covered hillsides that shut out the sun, smiting the air with chill and shadow, and turning the Rampio, whose brawl seemed somehow to increase the chill, turning the sparkling, sportive Rampio to the colour of slate. ...
— My Friend Prospero • Henry Harland
... beautiful valley through which a clear river 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 to the ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... 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 ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... of smoke that defile the land, the shrieking of steam, and the perpetual, terrible grinding of iron against iron (sounds which our little children grow up not to heed) are part of a system which enables Mr. Ruskin, one day to ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn
... by the diligence may walk from the inn at Tusis into the gorge, and make their way through the greater part of the ravine before the vehicle will overtake them. This, however, Mr. Greene with his wife and daughter had omitted to do. When the diligence passed me in the defile, the horses trotting for a few yards over some level portion of the road, I saw a man's nose pressed close against the glass of the coupe window. I saw more of his nose than of any other part of his face, but yet I could ...
— The Man Who Kept His Money In A Box • Anthony Trollope
... Moreover, in the morning it began to rain, and the wind blew violently; insomuch that Domitius, not imagining there would be any action that day, ordered his army to retire. But Pompey looked upon this as his opportunity, and he passed the defile with the utmost expedition. The enemy stood upon their defence, but it was in a disorderly and tumultuous manner, and the resistance they made was neither general nor uniform. Besides the wind and rain beat in their faces. The storm incommoded the Romans, too, for they could not ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... still grander display of the work of a colossal glacier of the olden time, 20 miles north-east of Turin, the moraine of which descended from the two highest of the Alps, Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa, and after passing through the valley of Aosta, issued from a narrow defile above Ivrea (see map, Figure 43). From this vomitory the old glacier poured into the plains of the Po that wonderful accumulation of mud, gravel, boulders, and large erratics, which extend for 15 miles from above Ivrea to below Caluso and which ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... canal, a fire of musketry commenced from a few stragglers, who had collected in an old work, on the right of the main fort. Their fire being ineffectual, and the object trifling, I determined not to break in upon the order of retreat, but continued passing the defile in front. I cannot conclude this relation without expressing my wannest thanks to Lord Stirling, for the full patronage I received from him in every stage of the enterprize. I must also return my thanks to the cavalry, for their vigilant execution ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... general melting, prevents inundations. The Russian rear-guard, covered by this obstacle, faced about and established itself on the heights of the opposite bank. Murat ordered the ravine to be examined, and a ford was discovered. It was through this narrow and insecure defile that he dared to march against the Russians, to venture between the river and their position; thus cutting off from himself all retreat, and turning a skirmish into a desperate action. In fact, the enemy descended ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... sun through their upper part, spread a green reflection over the shadows of the corridors. As they made the rounds, the visitors took on a livid paleness, as though they were marching through a submarine defile. ...
— Mare Nostrum (Our Sea) - A Novel • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... 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 ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... to give him battle, in order to stop him in his march; having observed that the ground was convenient for an engagement, he thought only of making preparations for it. The lake Thrasymenus and the mountains of Cortona form a very narrow defile, which leads into a large valley, lined on both sides with hills of a considerable height, and closed, at the outlet, by a steep hill of difficult access. On this hill, Hannibal, after having crossed ...
— The Ancient History of the Egyptians, Carthaginians, Assyrians, • Charles Rollin
... a road broad enough only for a single carriage, very steep, and impracticable for an army to pass, if any one opposed them. Syennesis, besides, was said to be stationed on the heights, guarding the defile; on which account Cyrus halted for a day in the plain. The next day, a messenger came to inform him that Syennesis had quitted the heights, on receiving information that Menon's army was already in Cilicia within the mountains, and hearing that Tamos had a number of galleys, belonging to the ...
— The First Four Books of Xenophon's Anabasis • Xenophon
... sale. Other slaves whose heads had likewise been shaved, either by trick or by force, also wore wreaths on their foreheads, inscriptions on their breasts, handcuffs on their hands and heavy shackles on their feet. They had started, under the supervision of armed keepers, to defile by a door which opened on the town square. It was there the auction sale was to be held. Nearly all the captives seemed to me to be mournful, depressed and submissive like myself. They lowered their eyes like men ashamed to look at one another. Among the last, I recognized two ...
— The Brass Bell - or, The Chariot of Death • Eugene Sue
... 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, endeavour ...
— The Cavalry General • Xenophon
... fatigue and labour than profit. The peasants would seek shelter in their forests and mountains, and march as we would we should never see them, save when they fell upon us with advantage in some defile." ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... the position of the newspapers. One whole morning, too, we spent in cutting out and stitching together pieces of newspapers so as to form little paths to every chair, lest the shoes of visitors should defile the purity of the carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to walk upon ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... not unfrequent inundations: towards the mouth, indeed, it is partially flooded by each returning tide. Thirty-five miles from its mouth its whole appearance undergoes the most striking alteration. We now enter the narrow defile of a precipitous rocky range of compact sandstone, rising from 4 to 500 feet in height, and coming down to the river, in some places nearly two miles wide, in others not less than twenty fathoms deep, and hurrying through, as if to force a passage, with a velocity sometimes ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... found it necessary to veil the "secret of secrets," lest the unworthy (because unready) defile it with his gaze, even as the sinful devotee prostrates himself hiding his face, while the priest raises the chalice containing the holy eucharist in the ceremony ...
— Cosmic Consciousness • Ali Nomad
... 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 ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... to the new British settlement is through masses of the boldest and wildest rocks. After passing a defile between two mountains, we come to the only access on this side, the "lofty mountains forming an impregnable fortification." This entrance is cut through the solid rock. A strong guard of sepoys is posted there. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 57, No. 352, February 1845 • Various
... waiting for the word of command, every man was in his place ready to go on. The guns, with Captain Forrester's troop as escort, dashed forward to hold the defile; while the main body, divided into two divisions—one to follow the guns, the other to reach the plain above by a nearer ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... father is a Christian preacher I feel I have a right to protest against his being placed on a clerical parity with bilkers of hack bills and crapulous associates of two-for-a-penny prostitutes. If Harman attempts to defile the Christian pulpit with his presence, I hope to the good Lord that the decent members of that denomination will tie him across a nine-rail fence and enhance the torridity of his rear elevation with a ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... his pupils their minds should defile, And Maclean was engaged to the duke of Argyll; In a deep fit of lethargy Petit had sunk, And theologist Buxton with Bishop was drunk; Bulteel too, and Dykes, much against their own will, Had been both pre-engaged to a party to mill; And philosopher Jenyns was bent on his knees, To electrify ...
— The English Spy • Bernard Blackmantle
... companies had proceeded so far in advance, that a large body of the enemy rushed down from both sides of the ravine, and intercepted them. A most deadly contest ensued. Those who intercepted Grant and Lewis, could not pass down the defile, as the main body of Braddock's army was there, and it would have been rushing into the midst of it, to inevitable destruction—the sides of the ravine were too steep and rocky to admit of a retreat up them, and their only hope of escape lay in cutting down those ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... him from that in which it would address itself to an unprepared spectator: the confused stones, which by themselves would be almost without any claim upon his thoughts, become exponents of the fury of the river by which he has journeyed all day long; the defile beyond, not in itself narrow or terrible, is regarded nevertheless with awe, because it is imagined to resemble the gorge that has just been traversed above; and, although no very elevated mountains immediately overhang it, the scene is felt to belong to, and ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... night the men worked in extra shifts; and the following morning the herd climbed out of the basin and straggled up a narrow trail through some foothills. At noon they passed through a defile between two mighty mountains; and when twilight came they had descended some low hills on the other side and went to camp for the night on a big grass level near the river they had ...
— The Trail Horde • Charles Alden Seltzer
... 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 Ghost as the Paraclete, and who, in ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... imperial plate and jewels. He now took up a position at Sirmium (Sirmich), and endeavored to wear out the barbarians by skirmishes and sudden attacks, without venturing far from his strong-hold. At length, however, upon one occasion, having been drawn into a defile, the Roman army was relieved by a fierce storm of thunder and rain, which terrified the barbarians. Tradition attributes this sudden storm to the prayers of a Christian legion. The barbarians now submitted, ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... Was there ever a time when she needed more the loyalty of us all? While she is fashioning that Empire which shall be without limit or end and raise us to the lordship of the earth, she runs the risks of attack from impalpable enemies who shall defile her highways and debauch her sons. Arrogance, luxury, violent ambition, false desires, are more to be dreaded than a Parthian victory. The subtle wickedness of the Orient may conquer us when the spears of Britain are of no avail. Antony and Gallus are not the only ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... savages. Fiction and history have been weft across the woods and the memory of deeds still echoes among the heights. It was at Glen's Falls, in the cave on the rock in the middle of the river, that the brave Uncas held the watch with Hawkeye. Bloody Defile and Bloody Pond, between there and Lake George, take their names from the "Bloody morning scout" sent out by Sir William Johnson on a September day in 1755 to check Dieskau until Fort William Henry could be completed. In the action that ...
— Myths And Legends Of Our Own Land, Complete • Charles M. Skinner
... 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 ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... me all about the savagery of Orangemen in her days. She used to describe to me the attempts of an Orange procession to pass through Dolly's Brae, when she was a young girl, before she left Ireland. Dolly's Brae is a kind of rugged defile through which passes the road from the town of Castlewellan, which, running westward, divides the townlands of Ballymagenaghy and Ballymagrehan. It is an entirely Catholic district, and not at all on the ordinary ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... wilt defile these tubs with the linen of bandoleros? Hast thou had thy silly head turned with a kiss? Not one shirt shall go in ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... torn out of Reichenberg, and set running, could not fairly halt again and face about till at Liebenau, twenty miles off, where they found some defile or difficult bit of ground fit for them; and this too proved capable of yielding pause for a few hours only. For Schwerin, with his Silesian Column, was coming up from the northeast, threatening Konigseck on flank and rear: Konigseck ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XVIII. (of XXI.) - Frederick The Great—Seven-Years War Rises to a Height.—1757-1759. • Thomas Carlyle |
