"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... not think of virtue, but of vice; or of praise either, because they are always finding fault with their neighbours. The man who loves a foul story, or a coarse jest—the woman who gossips over every tittle tattle of scandal which she can pick up against her neighbour—what do these people do but defile their own souls afresh, after they have been washed clean in the blood of Christ? Foul their souls are, and therefore their thoughts are foul likewise, and the foulness of them is evident to all men by their tongues. Out ...
— The Gospel of the Pentateuch • Charles Kingsley
... 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 from ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... sunrise, and the weather was perfect. After two short portages and two small lakes were crossed, Pete said, "Now we make last portage and we reach Michikamau." It was not a long portage—a half mile, perhaps. We passed through a thick-grown defile, Pete ahead, and I close behind him. Presently we broke through the bush and there before us was the lake. We threw down our packs by the water's edge. We had reached Michikamau. I stood uncovered as I looked over the broad, far-reaching waters of the great lake. I cannot ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... But if there is no other woman in the house and she must continue to do the household work herself, she does not throw them away until the last day. [29] Similarly she must not sleep on a cotton sheet or mattress during this time because she would defile it, but she may sleep on a woollen blanket as wool is a holy material and is not defiled. At the end of the period she proceeds to a stream and purifies herself by bathing and washing her head with earth. When a woman is with child for the first time her women friends come and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... report which was occasionally justified, and which the king of the Thafurs took care to encourage. This respectable monarch was frequently in the habit of stopping his followers, one by one, in a narrow defile, and of causing them to be searched carefully, lest the possession of the least sum of money should render them unworthy of the name of his subjects. If even two sous were found upon any one, he was ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... "Defile not your hands with the blood of the unbeliever," he said; "but take him before the cadi ...
— Jack Harkaway's Boy Tinker Among The Turks - Book Number Fifteen in the Jack Harkaway Series • Bracebridge Hemyng
... in the gap Conspicuous by his yellow cap; 550 The rest in lengthening line the while Wind slowly through the long defile: Above, the mountain rears a peak, Where vultures whet the thirsty beak, And theirs may be a feast to-night, Shall tempt them down ere morrow's light; Beneath, a river's wintry stream Has shrunk before the summer beam, And left a channel bleak and bare, Save shrubs ...
— The Works Of Lord Byron, Vol. 3 (of 7) • Lord Byron
... green and purple sea where now and then a rainbow swam and broke. Peace and perfectness, I said, peace and perfectness. These people live and are happy. On the other side one looked into the dreary defile of the mountain gate, with its black depths hung with cloud, and remembered that if there was not a hell, there ought to be. I was thinking this as I sat there, when I heard a wild cry, an agonized shriek, blood-curdling, ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... made all sorts of vows to stick to Swadeshi, but you are still using bilati [foreign] salt, sugar, and cloths which are polluted with the blood and fat of animals. You swear by the Mother, and then you go and disobey her and defile her temples. Do you know that it is owing to your sins that Mother Durga has not come to accept your worship in Bengal this year? In fact, she is heaving deep sighs of sorrow—sighs which will bring ...
— Indian Unrest • Valentine Chirol
... the Little Ossipee joins forces, and the river, now a splendid stream, flows onward to Bonny Eagle, to Moderation and to Salmon Falls, where it dashes over the dam like a young Niagara and hurtles, in a foamy torrent, through the ragged defile cut between lofty banks ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... or the last maiden whom greed of gold has led to defile the temple of Love; and not maids alone, but men in the race of life, sink from the high and generous ideals of youth to the gambler's code of the Bourse; and in all our Nation's striving is not the Gospel of Work befouled by the Gospel ...
— The Souls of Black Folk • W. E. B. Du Bois
... extracted from the journal of the late John Berthier Heatherstone, of the events which occurred in the Thul Valley in the autumn of '41 towards the end of the first Afghan War, with a description of the skirmish in the Terada defile, and of the death of the ...
— The Mystery of Cloomber • Arthur Conan Doyle
... the cross, see! prostrate fall The mummeries that long enthralled our isle; So perish error! and wide over all Let reason, truth, religion ever smile: And let not man, vain, impious man defile The spark heaven lighted in the human breast; Let no enthusiastic rage, no sophist's wile Lull the poor victim into careless rest, Since the pure gospel page can teach him ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... which are three notable things to be considered in that liquor. But what for that? Certes I know some ale-knights so much addicted thereunto that they will not cease from morrow until even to visit the same, cleansing house after house, till they defile themselves, and either fall quite under the board, or else, not daring to stir from their stools, sit still pinking with their narrow eyes, as half sleeping, till the fume of their adversary be digested that he may go to it afresh. Such slights also have the ale-wives ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... the system of slavery as unchristian, and inhuman," "because it is a violation of right, being the sum of all unrighteousness which man can do to man," "violates the law of love," "degrades man, the image of God, into a thing," "necessarily tends to pollute the soul of the slave," "to defile the soul of the master," "restricts education, keeps the Bible from the slave, makes life insecure, deprives female innocence of protection, sanctions adultery, tears children from parents and husbands from wives, violates the divine institutions of families, and by hard and hopeless toil makes ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... with shrewdness and importance, ride at the head on spirited horses with handsome trappings, whilst the drummers, pipers, and halberdiers march along so jauntily and life-like, that you soon begin to hear the merry music they play, and look to see them all defile out of that great window ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... ourselves therefore, on a bright April morning, riding along with a friend—a stranger like ourselves—on the high road from Swansea into the interior of the peninsula. After cantering over about seven miles of hill and valley and common, we entered a woody defile, and at last opened, to use a nautical phrase, the "Gower inn," (eight miles) which was built, we were told, expressly for the convenience of tourists. After ascending a tremendous rocky hill, for road it cannot be called, about ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 17, No. - 488, May 7, 1831 • Various
... obscene drawings of Jesus—action and reaction—and between the two, nothing. He is really insane. He wants a pure lily, another girl, with a baby face, on the one hand, and on the other, he MUST have the Pussum, just to defile ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... procession and began to defile past him. "Smoking in the Court, half-a-crown," said one, in a dreadful voice. "Mr. BURROWES irregular in his attendance at Chapel, gated at eight," roared a second. "Mr. BURROWES persistently disorderly, sent down for the term," shouted a third; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... occasion; as if it were a greater crime to rob the pagoda of Tebilicare without orders, than that of Tremele with orders. While the Portuguese were returning to their ships, the town and pagoda were set on fire, and they were attacked in a narrow defile by 200 Nayres, who killed 30 of them; but on getting into the open field, the Nayres were put to flight. No danger terrifies avarice. The Portuguese went on to another pagoda, from which a chest was brought out and opened publicly, ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... Perversion of Courtship. The Impulse to Defile. The Exhibitionist's Psychic Attitude. The Sexual Organs as Fetiches. Phallus Worship. Adolescent Pride in Sexual Development. Exhibitionism of the Nates. The Classification of the Forms of Exhibitionism. Nature of the ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... dejection was chagrin at not having succeeded in winning Joseph's love, she pretended that it was anger at the immoral conduct of the slave. She accused him in the following words: "O husband, mayest thou not live a day longer, if thou dost not punish the wicked slave that hath desired to defile thy bed, that hath not kept in mind who he was when he came to our house, to demean himself with modesty, nor hath he been mindful of the favors he hath received from thy bounty. He did lay a privy design ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... the doom of a thief." "Lord," said he, "rather than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom." "By my confession to Heaven, neither will I sell it nor set it free." "It is true, lord, that it is worth nothing to buy; but rather than see thee defile thyself by touching such a reptile as this, I will give thee three pounds to let it go." "I will not, by Heaven," said he, "take any price for it. As it ought, so shall it be hanged." And the priest ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... of the ancient fire-worshippers. They bow in adoration before the rising sun, and kiss his first rays when they strike on a wall or other object near them; and they will not blow out a candle with their breath, or spit in the fire, lest they should defile that ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... the black snake has been in your nest; and yours too, slayer of panthers! He has wound himself around your pretty birds, and borne them away in his coils—away over the great desert plains—away to the Big Lake! Ha, ha, ha! In the desert, he will defile them. In the waters of the lake, he will drown them—ha, ...
— The Wild Huntress - Love in the Wilderness • Mayne Reid
... his soldiers by famine and cold, the most miserable modes of death." Those who were experienced in the events which had occurred in Spain, added, that "he would not have to engage with Caius Nero, the general, as an unknown person, whom, when accidentally caught in a difficult defile, he had eluded and baffled like a little child, by drawing up fallacious terms of peace." Under the dictation of fear, which always puts the worst construction upon things, they magnified all the advantages which the enemy possessed, and ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... words give us a hint, at least, of the answer to that most perplexing of all questions, Why was evil ever permitted to disturb the harmony and mar the beauty of God's primal creation, defile heaven itself, fill earth with corruption and violence, and still exist even in eternity? Ah, we tread on ground here where we need to be completely self-distrustful, and to cleave with absolute confidence and dependence to the ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... . . 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 the most suitable material of which to make their ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... Mokatoba, in the same valley, with the Bua and Tembwe. We were told that elephants were near, and we saw where they had been an hour before; but after seeking about could not find them. An old man, in the deep defile between Kokwe and Yasika Mountains, pointed to the latter, and said, "Elephants! why, there they are. Elephants, or tusks, walking on foot are never absent;" but though we were eager for flesh, we could not give him credit, and went down the ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone
... margin to the vast, sealike expanse of champaign savannas, steppes, and occasionally of sandy deserts, which stretched away on each side of this margin both eastwards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 10 centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through which passed the nearest and the most practicable route to the River Torgau (the farther bank of which river offered the next great station of security for a general halt). It was the more essential to gain this pass before 15 the Cossacks, inasmuch ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... these are rain-clouds, which will certainly close over the clear sky, and bring on rain before midnight: but there is no power in them to pollute the sky beyond and above them: they do not darken the air, nor defile it, nor in any way mingle with it; their edges are burnished by the sun like the edges of golden shields, and their advancing march is as deliberate and majestic as the fading of the twilight itself into a ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... at the precise spot where we had met on my outward journey, but I did not pause there, pushing some twenty miles into the defile where we had seen the man-monkeys before we outspanned for the night. Two days later we passed the grave of the unhappy Siluce, and I had the melancholy satisfaction of seeing that, thus far, it had not been disturbed by wild animals. And on the following ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... a strange musical 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
... defile, passage; thrust, passado, lunge, allonge; condition, plight, predicament, state, conjuncture, situation; ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... 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 Lombary, ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... at the threshold—No, phantoms! we see you not from our attic. Note, yonder, that precipitous fall,—how ragged and jagged the roof-scene descends in a gorge! He who would travel on foot through the pass of that defile, of which we see but the picturesque summits, stops his nose, averts his eyes, guards his pockets, and hurries along through the squalor of the grim London lazzaroni. But seen above, what a noble break in the ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... he, roughly; "silence, if you do not want me to run mad! Cast not my own words in my face. They defile me, for falsehood has desecrated and trodden them in the mire. No! I will not make room for you in my grave. I will not again call you Geraldine. You are Jane Douglas, and I hate you, and I hurl my curse upon your ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... beginning," said Sergeant Pinto, shading his eyes with his hands, "or I know nothing of war. Those beggarly Prussians and Russians want to take us on the flank with their whole force, as we defile on Leipzig, so as to cut us in two. It is well thought of on their part. We are always teaching them ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... her the most conventional or trivial compliment. Then, too, as everyone knows, their dietetic observances are of the greatest import, and a good Mohammedan will not only refrain from eating pork, but will not hunt the wild boar or help carry it home for fear the contact might defile him. Wine is of course forbidden, though I have heard that in the Philippines food over which the shadow of an unbeliever has passed need not be thrown away, the Moros there being more thrifty and perhaps less fanatically devout than ...
— A Woman's Journey through the Philippines - On a Cable Ship that Linked Together the Strange Lands Seen En Route • Florence Kimball Russel
... exaggeration, 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... humanity is rejected: all the common wants and grosser feelings of our natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion. Corporeal attributes and necessities are thrown on one side, as they would destroy the charm of perfectability. Nothing can soil, or defile, or destroy my heroine; suffering adds lustre to her beauty, as pure gold is tried by fire: nothing can kill her, because she is all mind. As for my men, you will observe when you ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... 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, and ...
— A Smaller History of Rome • William Smith and Eugene Lawrence
... 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 of August the Egyptians made themselves masters of ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... had just made and baked a charming little tea-cake, which was set on a fringed napkin in a round white china dish, and put away in the fresh, oak-grained kitchen pantry, where not a crumb or a slop had ever yet been allowed to rest long enough to defile or give a flavor of staleness; out of which everything is tidily used up while it is nice, and into which little delicate new-made bits like this, for next meals, ...
— Real Folks • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... 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 pass—started ...
— A Dog with a Bad Name • Talbot Baines Reed
... himself to share our [223-258]spoil. Then we build seats on the winding shore and banquet on the dainty food. But suddenly the Harpies are upon us, swooping awfully from the mountains, and shaking their wings with loud clangour, plunder the feast, and defile everything with unclean touch, spreading a foul smell, and uttering dreadful cries. Again, in a deep recess under a caverned rock, shut in with waving shadows of woodland, we array the board and renew the altar fires; again, from their blind ambush in diverse quarters of ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... not till the seventh of July that they neared the mouth of Turtle Creek, a stream entering the Monongahela about eight miles from the French fort. The way was direct and short, but would lead them through a difficult country and a defile so perilous that Braddock resolved to ford the Monongahela to avoid this danger, and then ford it ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman
... I 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
... all lie in the same direction, and the man who does not take care of his body must fail to take the best care of his soul; for the body should be temple for God's holy spirit and the instrument to do his work, and we have no right to defile the one or blunt the other and thus render ourselves unfit ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... considerable area of ground at intervals. A large ox had died that morning, and as it was within 50 yards of the tent it was necessary to remove it; the vultures were already crowded in the surrounding trees waiting for its decomposition. As usual, none of the natives would defile themselves by touching the dead body. I accordingly gave orders that one of the elephants should drag it about a mile down wind away from the camp. Lord Mayo was brought to the spot, and the sweeper, being of a low caste, ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... from Jordan. There might be some three or four hundred, but the number seemed to be treble that, from the loose and straggling line in which they journeyed. It was a very singular sight, as they moved slowly along the narrow path through the sand, coming out of a defile among the hills, which was perhaps a quarter of a mile in front of us, passing us as we stood still by the wayside, and then winding again out of sight on the track over which we had come. Some rode on camels,—a ...
— A Ride Across Palestine • Anthony Trollope
... sternly Indra spake:—"He is unclean, And into Swarga such shall enter not. The Krodhavasha's wrath destroys the fruits Of sacrifice, if dogs defile the fire. Bethink thee, Dharmaraj; quit now this beast! That which is seemly is not ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... a captive youth, "purposed in his heart not to defile himself with the King's meat or the wine which he drank," or be swerved from his fidelity to the living and true God by threats of the lion's den. When the lives of the wise men of Babylon were in danger of being ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... of God painted; in that is the law of God written; in that is the promise of God revealed. Know thyself; for through thyself only thou canst know God. Through the glass, darkly; but except through the glass, in no wise. A tremulous crystal, waved as water, poured out upon the ground;—you may defile it, despise it, pollute it at your pleasure and at your peril; for on the peace of those weak waves must all the heaven you shall ever gain be first seen; and through such purity as you can win for those dark waves must all the light of the risen Sun ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... If a lie comes out of a man on any inducement or provocation, or for any purpose of good, that man is the worse for it. The lie is evil, and its coming out of the man is harmful to him. "The things which proceed out of the man are those that defile the man,"[1] said our Lord; and the experience of mankind bears witness to the correctness ...
— A Lie Never Justifiable • H. Clay Trumbull
... inhabitants to his support. In vain were his efforts. Even the Gauls seemed now to have forgotten him, and Carthage itself did not send him aid. Fabius strove to keep to the high lands, where it was impossible for Hannibal to attack him, while he harassed him or tried to shut him up in some defile. ...
— The Story of Rome From the Earliest Times to the End of the Republic • Arthur Gilman
... galloped forward, Turk, after one more growl in the direction of the Indians, following. Presently the defile divided. ...
— Captain Bayley's Heir: - A Tale of the Gold Fields of California • G. A. Henty
... rock, or hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does,—she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath, as the narcissus will, if you do not give her air enough; she may fall, and defile her head in dust, if you leave her without help at some moments of her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way, if she take any, and in mind as in ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... the water being less in volume by reason of the dry weather. All at once I stopped, for amid these rocks and boulders I saw caught all manner of drift, as sticks and bushes, branches and the like, washed down by the current and which, all tangled and twisted together, choked this narrow defile, forming a kind of barrier against the current. Now as I gazed at this, my eyes (as if directed by the finger of God) beheld something caught in this barrier, something small and piteous to see but which set me all a-trembling and sent me clambering down these ...
— Black Bartlemy's Treasure • Jeffrey Farnol
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... there crimsoned with the leaves of the dwarf sumach. A huge cliff stands up and seems to bar all passage. Yet the river foams in torrents at our side. Whence can it issue? What pass or cranny in that precipice is cloven for its escape? These questions grow in interest as we enter the narrow defile of limestone rocks which leads to the cliff-barrier, and find ourselves among the figs and olives of Vaucluse. Here is the village, the little church, the ugly column to Petrarch's memory, the inn, with its caricatures of Laura, and its ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... brought him into a tremendously rough country, where the trail at times was nothing more than a narrow defile or ledge, and sheer walls of rock rose thousands of feet above, their giant edges cutting the blue sky like the teeth of a mighty saw. Far below, a ribbon of green and white, the river rolled in its canyon. Here and there a thin ...
— The Homesteaders - A Novel of the Canadian West • Robert J. C. Stead
... Meanwhile, Wilson was to strike up the Berryville pike, carry the Berryville crossing of the Opequon, charge through the gorge or canyon on the road west of the stream, and occupy the open ground at the head of this defile. Wilson's attack was to be supported by the Sixth and Nineteenth corps, which were ordered to the Berryville crossing, and as the cavalry gained the open ground beyond the gorge, the two infantry corps, under command of General Wright, were ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan
... the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned. I knew not why; and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair from off my brow, kissed my throbbing temples, ...
— Elson Grammer School Literature, Book Four. • William H. Elson and Christine Keck
... of breath, saw nobody, then returned in order to gain the fields through a defile, which Bouvard, no ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... they show themselves to be true under the second? Answ. By mourning, and confessing, and striving, and praying, against them; by not being content, shouldst thou have heaven, if they live, and defile thee; and by counting of holiness the greatest beauty in the world; and by flying to Jesus Christ for life. (Zech 12:10, John 19, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... and books and names and lands Disgust my reason and defile my hands. I had as lief respect an ancient shoe, As love old things for age, and hate the new. I spurn the Past, my mind disdains its nod, Nor kneels in homage to so mean a God. I laugh at those who, while they gape and gaze, The bald antiquity of China praise. Youth is (whatever cynic ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... movement which revolted against abuses, vice, scandals, immorality, and intrigue. With her, the question was not one of dogma, but concerned, instead, the religion which she considered most conducive to progress and reform. It grieved her to see her religion defile itself by cruel and inhuman persecutions and tortures, by intolerance and injustice. She felt for, but not with, the heretics in their errors. "She typifies her age in all that is good and noble, in artistic aspirations, in literary ideals, in pure politics—in short,—in humanity; ...
— Women of Modern France - Woman In All Ages And In All Countries • Hugo P. Thieme
... pass of Bamian lie on the road leading from Kabul to Turkestan. The pass, at an elevation of 8,496 feet, is the only known defile over the Hindu Kush practicable for artillery. This valley was one of the chief centres of Buddhist worship, as gigantic idols, mutilated indeed by fanatical Mussulmans, conclusively prove. Bamian, with ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... 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 ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... 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
... 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 ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... only ones 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
... not taken by surprise as he had had an intimation of what was likely to happen. Consequently the garrison was on the alert and {286} Montgomery's force was swept by a sudden discharge of cannon and musketry as they came to Pres-de-ville—a defile with a precipice towards the river on one side, and the scarped rock above him on the other—where all further approach to the lower town was intercepted by a battery. Montgomery, his two aides, and a considerable number of his soldiers were ...
— Canada • J. G. Bourinot
... always with Patriot fervour of sentiment: Deputation of Women, pleading that they also may be allowed to take Pikes, and exercise in the Champ-de-Mars. Why not, ye Amazons, if it be in you? Then occasionally, having done our message and got answer, we 'defile through the Hall, singing ca-ira;' or rather roll and whirl through it, 'dancing our ronde patriotique the while,'—our new Carmagnole, or Pyrrhic war-dance and liberty-dance. Patriot Huguenin, Ex-Advocate, Ex-Carabineer, Ex-Clerk of the Barriers, comes deputed, with Saint-Antoine at his ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... Blood open our eyes to see our sin, and to know Jesus as our Saviour. Then we shall ask Him to come into the temple of our heart, as He went into the Jewish temple of old, and to cast out all those evil demons of lust, and selfishness, and pride, and envy which defile the shrine of our body. We shall ask Him to cleanse and purify the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of His Holy Spirit. We shall ask Him to break down the idols which we have set up in His Holy Place, and to overthrow the altars reared to self. We shall pray that the sacred fire may once ...
— The Life of Duty, v. 2 - A year's plain sermons on the Gospels or Epistles • H. J. Wilmot-Buxton
... break away into the hills, of course. But the chances are they'll concentrate again in the gorge and try to catch the main body as it passes through. So if they give you the slip now, ride straight on and secure the defile for us. I'll send out a detachment of infantry at the double to crown the heights; and I can safely leave all minor ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... own terms of treaty, Charlemagne agreed to withdraw his Franks from Spain; and to do this, it would be necessary for him to lead them through a deep and narrow defile in the Pyrenees Mountains. Ganelon knew full well that the emperor would intrust the rear-guard of his army in the retreat to none but his valiant Roland, for there would be great danger of the treacherous Moslems' falling upon the rear and dealing slaughter among the ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... the flight of steps leading to the river, and crossed the plank to the boat, with little coquettish graces and studied raising of the skirts, allowing ravishing glimpses of pretty feet and ankles. The defile of merry, witty Parisiennes, with their attendant cavaliers, while the orchestra played the passionate notes of the Hungarian czardas, resembled some vision of a painter, some embarkation for the dreamed-of Cythera, realized by the fancy of an artist, a poet, or a great lord, here in nineteenth ...
— Prince Zilah, Complete • Jules Claretie
... lone ocean isle! Thou keep'st a jewel rare; Let rugged rock, and dark defile, Above the slumbering stranger smile And deck her ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... 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 ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... through the defile, entered another portion of the valley, forded a fork of the Shenandoah, crossed the Luray Valley, and then entered the steep passes of the Blue Ridge. Here they found autumn gone and winter upon them. As the passes rose and the mountains, clothed in pine forest, hung over ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... in his rear, and gained on the men riding from the south, almost ahead of him. He swerved a bit to the north and cut straight for a notch in the mountains. He smiled, as he approached it, and saw a narrow defile leading into the hills. He gained it in a final, heartbreaking burst of speed on the part of his mount. As he dashed into the canyon, bullets sang past him and over his head. Then a cry of amazement came ...
— The Coyote - A Western Story • James Roberts
... operations of 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 ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... the group of dark-cloaked figures outside crept off in single file like a slithering serpent, moving down the rock defile toward where in the cauldron pit the lights of the mine shone on its dark ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... of large eyes, beholding them ready to lay violent hands on her, rebuked them and said, 'Defile me not by your touch!' And in a great alarm she then called upon her spiritual adviser, Dhaumya. Jayadratha, however, seized her by her upper garment, but she pushed him with great vigour. And pushed by the lady, that ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Opposite the defile through which the enemy was to march to the attack eight field-pieces were concealed behind a hill. The King must necessarily have been informed of the whole plan of the Austrian general, for he had called in the advanced ...
— The Life and Adventures of Baron Trenck - Vol. 1 (of 2) • Baron Trenck
... famous St. Gothard Road. The higher we went, the more wildly roared the storm. There was something appalling in the fierce volleyings of the wind along the stark and broken faces of the precipice: it was like the rattle of thunder. In the sombre defile of the Schoellenen the air rushed as through a funnel. We could see nothing save the thread-like road illuminated by our steadfast lanterns—the sole beacon of safety in this welter. We had a ghostly impression ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... trees, much interested in all that was going on, particularly when carriages would pass with people in foreign and striking costumes. The Chinese always wore their costume; the big yellow birds of paradise became quite a feature of the afternoon defile. An Indian princess too, dressed entirely in white—a soft clinging material, with a white veil, not over her face, and held in place by a gold band going around the head—was always much admired. Every now and then there would be a great clatter of trotting-horses and jingling sabres, when ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... horses toward the south, while Irwin took charge of Keller. With his rifle resting across the horn of his saddle, the man followed his charge up the trail, winding among the summits that stood as sentinels around Gregory's Pass. Through the defile they went, descending into the little-known mountain ...
— Mavericks • William MacLeod Raine
... incidents of this journey. Leaving at our right the mountains of 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. ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... clouds when they terminate the horizon in a still evening, and are gathered into heaps, with many a towering top shining in fleecy whiteness. The great Olympian chain forms a line which is exactly opposite to Salonica; and even the chasm between Olympus and Ossa, constituting the defile of Tempe, is here visible. Directing the eye towards that chain, there is comprehended in one view the whole of Pieria and Bottiaea; and with the vivid impressions which remain after leaving the country, memory easily recalled into one mental picture ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... the defile in the early dawn, when the morning mists still hung heavy upon the hills of lurid blackness which marked its entrance. Between them was an impenetrable gloom, which seemed to promise no means of egress, ...
— Burma - Peeps at Many Lands • R.Talbot Kelly
... here, the ore, lead and zinc, in the gr-r-eat quantity! For twenty year! And just thees minute have I found it!" At the wailing sound of time lost, life lost, in Bernique's voice, long lines of ghostly, bent-backed miners, with ghostly, unavailing picks and shovels, seemed to defile down the bridle-path from the Canaan Tigmores in historic illustration, conjured up by the hypnosis ...
— Sally of Missouri • R. E. Young
... with strength can bring aid, To strike down the injustice and lies That my house have beset, and with malice blockade Every pathway I out for my powers have laid, And would hidden means find With deceit and with hate To set watch on my mind And defile every plate In my beautiful home where defenseless ...
— Poems and Songs • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... 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 her mouth, and producing from her pocket an ancient leather ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... the startled reindeer, who stopped short,—stretching out their necks and sniffing the air, their hairy sides heaving with the strain of trotting against the blast, and the smoke of their breath steaming upwards in the frosty air like white vapor. The way lay now through a narrow defile bordered with tall pines,—and as the terrified animals, recovering, shook the tinkling bells on their harness, and once more resumed their journey, the road was comparatively sheltered, and the wind seemed to sink as suddenly as it rose. There was ...
— Thelma • Marie Corelli
... saint from building a church in a convenient place; to whom the saint attesting his Judge, nay, prophesying, said, "In a short time shall thine house be destroyed, and thy substance wasted away; and thy sons that issue from thine impious loins shall of the greater part defile themselves by mutual fratricide; while the remnant of them shall never attain unto dignity or power, but shall be strangers and wanderers on the earth." And the prophecy of Saint Patrick was proved by the subsequent misery visited on the man ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... the same time Alexander marched into Syria to meet him. During the night they missed one another, and each turned back, Alexander rejoicing at this incident, and hurrying to catch Darius in the narrow defile leading into Kilikia, while Darius was glad of the opportunity of recovering his former ground, and of disentangling his army from the narrow passes through the mountains. He already had perceived the mistake which he ...
— Plutarch's Lives Volume III. • Plutarch |
