"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... bow with her now. It is her prayer; and, oh, think, how weak is the vanity of this pride in a situation like yours. How idle the stern and stubborn spirit, when men can place you in bonds—when men can take away life and name—when men can hoot and hiss and defile your fettered and enfeebled person! It was for a season and a trial like this, Guy, that humility was given us. It was in order to such an example that the Savior ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... thou hast no need to be jealous for the sake of other men's goods. Thou seemest to me to be a wanderer, even as I am, and the gods it is that are like to give us gain. Only provoke me not overmuch to buffeting, lest thou anger me, and old though I be I defile thy breast and lips with blood. Thereby should I have the greater quiet to-morrow, for methinks that thou shalt never again come to the hall ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... we left that day the Highlands too, passing through. Hell Glen, a very wild and grand defile. Taking boat then on Loch Levy, we passed down the Clyde, stopping an hour or two on our way at Dumbarton. Nature herself foresaw the era of picture when she made and placed this rock: there is every preparation for the artist's stealing a little piece from her treasures to hang on the walls ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... through the long defile, which itself was now the object of so much intense inspection, Bucks found much less exciting than the first. The party even rode up to where the first flying leap had been made, and to Bucks's joy found Sublette's ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... waitress. Here, where Wellington Street plunged across and flung itself upon Waterloo Bridge, one beheld staggering changes. The mountainous motor bus put on speed and scampered past the churches left like rocky islets in the midst of a swift river of traffic. Once past Temple Bar and in the narrow defile of Fleet Street the author's thoughts darted up Fetter Lane and hovered around a grimy building where he had pursued his studies with the relentless fanaticism of youthful ambition. There, under the lamp-post ...
— An Ocean Tramp • William McFee
... his bedroom, and the game was now to be played beyond my ken. This was more than I could stand, so I stole out at the back door and took to the thickest bush on the hillside. My notion was to cross the road half a mile down, when it had dropped into the defile of the stream, and then to come swiftly up the edge of the water so as to effect a back entrance into ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... opponent. He was kept well informed of what was going on in Paris, and knew that the king's death was imminent. His position on a plain, surrounded on all sides by woods and marshes with but one approach, and that through a narrow defile, was practically impregnable; and by occupying the defile he could have kept the French at bay without the slightest difficulty until Rocroi surrendered. He knew, too, that General Beck with a considerable force was ...
— Won by the Sword - A Story of the Thirty Years' War • G.A. Henty
... down into the plentiful and verdant valley, full of joy. But suddenly the march of the vanguard was arrested by an obstacle unforeseen, or, at least, grievously under-estimated. Midway between Aosta and Ivrea the Dora flows through a defile, not more than fifty yards in width: the heights on either hand rise precipitous; and in the midst an abrupt conical rock, crowned with the fortress of St. Bard, entirely commands the river, and a small walled town, through the ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... 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 Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the regions of speculation, some have thought that, if sin defile any of these worlds, its inhabitants may share in the benefits of the atonement which Christ offered in ours; and that beings further removed than we from the scenes of Calvary, and differing more from us ...
— The Angels' Song • Thomas Guthrie
... up 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 vestibule where ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard
... it with my own eyes, and I heard him kiss her." (This was a piece of embroidery on Elizabeth's part.) "She is his lover, and has been in love with him for months. I tell you this, Owen Davies, because, though I cannot bear to bring disgrace upon our name and to defile my lips with such a tale, neither can I bear that you should marry a girl, believing her to be good, when she ...
— Beatrice • H. Rider Haggard
... KHYBER PASS, a narrow defile 33 m. long, in one place only 10 ft. wide, through not lofty but precipitous mountains; lies to the NW. of Peshawur, and is the chief route between the Punjab and Afghanistan; was the scene of a British ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... knights, but in the hosts themselves! Here crowds of black archers rush down troop after troop from the mountain with the rage of a foaming torrent; on the other side high upon the rocks in the far distance a scattered crowd of flying men are turning round in a defile. The point of the greatest interest stands out brilliantly from the centre of the whole—Alexander and Darius both in armour of burnished gold; Alexander on Bucephalus with his lance in rest advances before his men and presses on the flying Darius, whose ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... only restrain those senses and those passions with which we have been endowed, that we may fully enjoy the beauty, the variety, the inexhaustible bounty of a gracious heaven. All was made for enjoyment and for happiness; but it is we ourselves who, by excess, defile that which otherwise were pure. Thus, the fainting traveller may drink wholesome and refreshing draughts from the bounteous, overflowing spring; but should he rush heedlessly into it, he muddies the source, and the ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... your parents, your children, {and} your chaste wives with arms; repel the foe with the sword; assist your friends; spare the wretched; favour the good; meet the treacherous face to face; punish offences; chastise the impious; inflict vengeance on those who, by base adultery, defile the marriage couch; beware of the wicked; trust no man too far." Thus having said, the Maiden falls frenzied to the ground: frenzied, indeed, for what she ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... Philip, however, on his part, marched from Lerida in order to retire into Castile by way of Saragossa. Charles followed hotly, and a portion of his cavalry came up to the rear of the enemy in the defile of Penalva. Here the Spaniards posted a strong force of grenadiers, and the defile being too narrow for the cavalry to act, these dismounted, and a hot fight took place, in which both parties claimed ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... him the multitude again, and said unto them, "Hear me all of you, and understand: there is nothing from without the man, that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those that defile ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong
... them up a rocky defile, with gnarled little trees growing between the crags. Ahead, the hillside rose up in a broken, rocky cliff. There was a door, like a small tunnel entrance. A woman in a long white robe was by ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings
... great gallantry; it was immediately supported by the grenadiers of the 46th Regiment. The first boats were beat off, but the schooner and one of the brigs coming close on shore to cover the landing, compelled our troops to occupy a better position in a defile leading to the town. At this moment I brought up the grenadiers of the St. George's Regiment of militia, and soon after the remainder of the 46th Regiment, and gave over to Major Nunn these brave troops with orders not to yield to the enemy one inch of ground. Two field-pieces (an ...
— The History of the First West India Regiment • A. B. Ellis
... hath a ring within her eare, Which all of ancient vse, and some of very pride doe weare. Their gate is very braue, their countenance wise and sadde. And yet they follow fleshy lustes, their trade of liuing badde. It is no shame at all accompted to defile Anothers bedde, they, make no care their follies to concile, Is not the meanest man in all the land but hee, To buy her painted colours doeth allow his wife a fee, Wherewith she deckes her selfe, and dies her tawnie skinne, She pranks and paints her smoakie face, both brow, lip, cheeke, and chinne. ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation v. 4 • Richard Hakluyt
... live on brown bread and the blood of cattle. ... Every countenance bears traces of the famine... Faces are of livid hue.... It is impossible to await the new crop, until the end of Fructidor."—Such are the exclamations everywhere. The object now, indeed, is to cross the narrowest and most terrible defile; a fortnight more of absolute fasting and hundreds of thousands of lives would be sacrificed.[42130] At this moment the government half opens the doors of its storehouses; it lends a few sacks of ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... gone; that he and the other trappers would be compelled to seek some other employment. In company with five men of a decidedly higher order than the common run of trappers, he struck for the head waters of Arkansas river. Following this stream down along the immense defile which nature seems to have opened for it through the Rocky mountains, they approached Fort Bent, which is about one hundred and fifty miles east of ...
— Christopher Carson • John S. C. Abbott
... 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 when seen in profile from Turin have the aspect ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... inclose a plain entered by two narrow passes. Concealing the main body of his army amid the hills, he placed his Numidians in ambush at the pass by which the Romans must enter; while he stationed part of his infantry in a conspicuous position near the other defile. The Romans pushed into the valley; the pass in their rear was secured by the Carthaginians who had lain in ambush; Hannibal's men charged from the heights, and the army of Flaminius was annihilated. Six thousand infantry cut their way through the farther pass, but these were overtaken ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... himself to Miss Mowbray at all. He was himself sensible of this, formed a hasty and desperate resolution not to suffer the present moment to escape, and, just as the ascent induced the pony to slacken its pace, Tyrrel stood in the middle of the defile, about six yards ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott
... entered the dark defile known as the "Devils' Descent." And, in fact, it needed all the noon sunshine to light up the gloom of that fearful pass. Here the delight of the impressible ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... and knowledge of man, infinite was the time that Satan sought before he was able to defile any of the sons and daughters of Jehovah. But out somewhere in the eternity sin began to steal into the souls of the sons of the mighty. And they began to hate Jehovah and to envy his glory in a great dispensation. Satan diminishing them ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen
... it was with us at the Lake, and all that had happened to my scout of six—the death of the St. Regis and the two Iroquois, the treachery of the Erie and his escape, the murder of the Stockbridge—and how we witnessed the defile of Indian Butler's motley but sinister array headed northwest on the Great Warrior Trail. Also, I gave him as true and just an account as I could give of the number of soldiers, renegades, Indians, and batt-horses in that fantastic and ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers
... Rome. 8. Minu'tius, one of the consuls who succeeded Cincinna'tus, was sent to oppose them; but being naturally timid, and rather more afraid of being conquered than desirous of victory, his army was driven into a defile between two mountains, from which, except through the enemy, there was no egress. 9. This, however, the AE'qui had the precaution to fortify, by which the Roman army was so hemmed in on every side, that nothing remained but submission ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... the air, while they made the forest ring with their shrill warwhoop. The Spaniards, astonished at the appearance of the savages, with their naked bodies gaudily painted, and brandishing their weapons as they glanced among the trees and straggling underbrush that choked up the defile, were taken by surprise and thrown for a moment into disarray. Three of their number were killed and several wounded. Yet, speedily rallying, they returned the discharge of the assailants with their cross-bows,—for ...
— History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William Hickling Prescott
... Nor sound of mouth nor might of hands and feet, But thou, dear, hide my body with thy veil, And with thy raiment cover foot and head, And stretch thyself upon me and touch hands With hands and lips with lips: be pitiful As thou art maiden perfect; let no man Defile me to despise me, saying, This man Died woman-wise, a woman's offering, slain Through female fingers in his woof of life, Dishonourable; for thou hast honoured me. And now for God's sake kiss me once and twice And let me go; for the ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... Place was full of the bustle of preparation, and by dawn of the following day an impi of some seventeen thousand spears had started to ambush Hafela and his force in a certain wooded defile through which he must pass on his way to the mountain pass where his women and children were gathered. The army was not large, at least in the eyes of the People of Fire who, before the death of Umsuka ...
— The Wizard • H. Rider Haggard
... never weary of describing to us the danger of these manoeuvres, which seemed more burlesque than imposing. With what rapidity do nations, apparently the most pacific, acquire military habits! Twelve years afterwards, those valleys of Aragua, those peaceful plains of La Victoria and Turmero, the defile of Cabrera, and the fertile banks of the lake of Valencia, became the scenes of obstinate and sanguinary conflicts between the natives and the troops ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... combats, an important superiority of numbers, but which need not be over two to one, will be sufficient to ensure the victory, however disadvantageous other circumstances may be. Certainly, we may imagine a defile which even tenfold would not suffice to force, but in such a case it can be no question ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... route, Tontz's band were struggling wearily on when they were met by a solitary Indian, who, though he carried a long bow, had not an unfriendly aspect. He eyed the little band silently as they passed by him in defile, then ran after them, and inquired if the Pere Francois Xavier, of Mission St. Ignace, was not of their number. He was informed that the reverend father had remained a short distance behind to write in his ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 6 • Various
... civilized Europe destroys no savagery; it breeds it, so that it and its spawn may defile ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... John Johnson, the half brother of the children of Molly Brant, Thayendanegea's own sister, of the Butlers and all the others who had said that the rebels would be easy to conquer. He knew better now, he had long known better, ever since that dreadful battle in the dark defile of the Oriskany, when the Palatine Germans, with old Herkimer at their head, beat the Tories, the English, and the Iroquois, and made the taking of Burgoyne possible. The Indian chieftain was a statesman, and it may be that from this moment he saw that the ...
— The Scouts of the Valley • Joseph A. Altsheler
... live. The morning came with all the glories of a northern 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 ...
— The Long Labrador Trail • Dillon Wallace
... 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 ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various
... I — within such coil The immortal spirit rests awhile: When this shall lie beneath the soil, Which its mere mortal parts defile, THAT shall for ever live and foil ...
— An Anthology of Australian Verse • Bertram Stevens
... and the Vale of Tempe, the way would be open and unobstructed until he should reach the southern frontier of Thessaly, where there was another narrow pass leading from Thessaly into Greece. This last defile was close to the sea, and was called the ...
— Xerxes - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... stamped 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 up ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... is 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 ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... miles from the city gates and more than half way up the winding road that ended at the monastery gates. Beverly and Quinnox came up with them and found all eyes centered on a small company of men encamped in the rocky defile a hundred ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... Inniskillmers gave way; and the whole wing would have been routed, had not a detachment of dragoons, belonging to the regiment of Cunningham and Livison, dismounted, and lined the hedges on each side of the defile through which the fugitives were driven. There they did such execution upon the pursuers as soon checked their ardour. The horse, which were broken, had now time to rally, and returning to the charge, drove the enemy before them in their turn. In this action general Hamilton, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... pines. During our long tramp through a superb growth of pines, every one of which would have furnished a mainmast for the largest old-fashioned ship, a bear stepped out as we passed through a narrow defile, and showed an inclination to join our party. The armed Russian and Mordvinian foresters, our guides and protectors, were in the vanguard; and as Misha seemed peaceably disposed we relinquished all designs on his pelt, consoling ourselves ...
— Russian Rambles • Isabel F. Hapgood
... valleys. Like one entranced, he looked from the crest of Olivet upon the magnificent temple, and gave command that not one stone of it be touched. Before attempting to gain possession of this stronghold, he made an earnest appeal to the Jewish leaders not to force him to defile the sacred place with blood. If they would come forth and fight in any other place, no Roman should violate the sanctity of the temple. Josephus himself, in a most eloquent appeal, entreated them to surrender, to save themselves, their city, and their place of worship. ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... votive offerings, twist on the branches their prayers written on paper, avoid cutting down, breaking or in any way injuring certain trees. The sakaki tree is especially sacred, even to this day, in funeral or Shint[o] services. To wound or defile a tree sacred to a particular god was to call forth the vengeance of the insulted deity upon the insulter, or as the hearer of prayer upon another to whom guilt was imputed ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... 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 of Righteousness be bent down ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... vivid, various, and strange foliage of the trees, the magnificent river, broad and blue as a lake, with its high and richly wooded shore, and the sparkling, glittering town opposite. We looked down to the Narrows, the defile through which the waters of this noble estuary reach the Atlantic, and between whose rocky walls two or three ships stood out against the brilliant sky. The ebbing tide plashed on the rocks far below us, and the warm grass through which ...
— Records of a Girlhood • Frances Anne Kemble
... than the other. The embroidered sword-strap and overshadowing trees conjure up for him an hour of the past where he, a young lieutenant, is leading a little column of white-coats through a forest defile in America. The Indian scouts suddenly come gliding in, the fire of an enemy is heard, little spots of smoke burst on the mountain side and dissolve again. Shrill yells resound on every hand, brown arms brandish flashes of brightness. The young commander rises ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... They do but defile it by their patronage, and having manifestly spoiled themselves by their reckless lives for the entertainment of any emotion deeper than mere sensuousness, they are bound at length to bring a noble institution ...
— Morality as a Religion - An exposition of some first principles • W. R. Washington Sullivan
... now what evil I have done thee, Hebrew prince, since first thou camest to our land with thy possessions, that now so fiercely thou shouldest lay a snare before me. Lo, Abraham! a stranger to this people, thou wouldest entrap us, and defile with sin. Thou saidest Sarah was thy sister and thy kin! Through her thou wouldest have done me grievous hurt and endless evil. We harboured thee with honour, in friendly wise allotting thee a dwelling in this realm, and lands ...
— Codex Junius 11 • Unknown
... Frank, this pitch of frenzy will defile thee; Meddle not with it: thy unreproved valour Should be high-minded; couch it not so low. Dost hear me? take occasion to slip hence, But secretly, let not thy mother see thee: At the back-side there is a coney-green;[344] Stay there for ...
— A Select Collection of Old English Plays, Vol. VII (4th edition) • Various
... misled by following the track of the deer, had they returned to the same spot,—a deep and lovely glen, which had once been a water-course, but now a green and shady valley. This they named the Valley of the Rock, from a remarkable block of red granite that occupied a central position in the narrow defile; and here they prepared to pass the second night on the Plains. A few boughs cut down and interlaced with the shrubs round a small space cleared with Hector's axe, formed shelter, and leaves and grass, strewed on the ground, formed a bed, though not so smooth, perhaps, as the bark and cedar-boughs ...
— Canadian Crusoes - A Tale of The Rice Lake Plains • Catharine Parr Traill
... last, to a narrow defile which opened out before them and there were no more mountains ahead, but only foothills. And there, far and far away, they could see the sky as vaguely brighter. As they went on, indeed, a glory of red and golden ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... 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 ...
— Sketches From Memory (From "Mosses From An Old Manse") • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... other respects Bees are very careful about the cleanliness of their dwellings; they remove with care and throw outside dust, mud, and sawdust which may be found there. Bees are careful also not to defile their hives with excrement, as Kirby noted; they go aside to expel their excretions, and in winter, when prevented by extreme cold or the closing of the hive from going out for this purpose, their bodies become so swollen from retention of faeces that when at last able to go out they fall to ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... "Nevertheless"—nevertheless!—"I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love." O Lord, how tenderly Thou dealest! Not "left thy love:" it was not so bad as that. Yet see how He notes the leaving of the first love! A little colder; a little deader; a little less ready to put on the coat, to defile the feet, to rise and open to the Beloved. Only a little; but how that little grieves His heart, who hath never left His first love. And what is the end? "I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt
... beautiful and wooded. It is, however, dangerous, on account of the shelter which the wooded mountains afford to the knights of the road, and to whose predilection for these wild solitudes, the number of crosses bore witness. In a woody defile there is a small clear space called "Las Cruces," where several wooden crosses point out the site of the famous battle between the curate Hidalgo and the Spanish General Truxillo. An object really in keeping with the wild scenery, was the head of the celebrated robber MalDoado, nailed ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon de la Barca
... thought the while, That falshood such a tale could tell: That dark deceit could e'er defile, The tongue that ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... his home in safety, by our faith 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 ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... 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 ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 4 • Various
... before sunset they had completed the passage of the open country, and had entered the opposite branch of the Apennines, which they had long observed in the distance. After wandering among some rocky ground, they entered a defile amid hills covered with ilex, and thence emerging found themselves in a valley of some expanse and considerable cultivation; bright crops, vineyards in which the vine was married to the elm, orchards full of fruit, and groves of olive; in the ...
— Lothair • Benjamin Disraeli
... its various arch; And seems, as on it moves, meandering slow, A radiant segment of a living bow. Five days the Spaniards, trooping in array, 150 O'er plains and headlands, held their eastern way. On the sixth early dawn, with shuddering awe And horror, in the last defile they saw Ten pendent heads, from which the gore still run, All gashed, and grim, and blackening in the sun. These were the gallant troop that passed before, The Indians' vast encampment to explore, Led by Del Oro, now with many ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... they would spit on me, these dogs of hell! Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. A white man's honour! what of that, I say? Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face? They who would perish for their gods of clay — Shall I defile my country and my race? My country! what's my country to me now? Soldier of Fortune, free and far I roam; All men are brothers in my heart, I vow; The wide and wondrous world is all my home. My country! reverent ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service
... persecution. Are we on the way to a parody which shall have no other excuse than the reckless search after fodder for degraded appetites—after the pay to be earned by pasturing Circe's herd where they may defile every monument of that growing life which should ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... Poets of that Realme amated; Yet these my least were, but that you extort These numbers from me, when I should report In home-spunne prose, in good plaine honest words The newes our wofull England vs affords. The Muses here sit sad, and mute the while A sort of swine vnseasonably defile 20 Those sacred springs, which from the by-clift hill Dropt their pure Nectar into euery quill; In this with State, I hope I doe not deale, This onely tends the Muses common-weale. What canst thou hope, or looke for from his pen, Who liues with beasts, though in the shapes ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... were spoken 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 ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... blasted by Constitutional prohibition, blasted in every possible way, by every available agency, and at every occurring opportunity, so that no trace of the outrage may continue in the institutions of the Land, and especially that its accursed foot-prints may no longer defile the National Statute-book. Sir, it will be in vain that you pass Resolutions in tribute to him, if you neglect that Cause for which he lived, and do not hearken ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... some forty yards behind, he saw the light of hope. Not far ahead, the water looked black and still, as it glided through a narrow defile, shut in by the rocks. That meant deep water; but if he could reach that, he would have to swim, and the men probably ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... roughly; "silence, if you do not want me to run mad! Cast not my own words in my face. They defile me, for falsehood has desecrated and trodden them in the mire. No! I will not make room for you in my grave. I will not again call you Geraldine. You are Jane Douglas, and I hate you, and I hurl my curse upon your criminal ...
— Henry VIII And His Court • Louise Muhlbach
... real ascent of the famous St. Gothard Road. The higher we went, the more wildly roared the storm. There was something appalling in the fierce volleyings of the wind along the stark and broken faces of the precipice: it was like the rattle of thunder. In the sombre defile of the Schoellenen the air rushed as through a funnel. We could see nothing save the thread-like road illuminated by our steadfast lanterns—the sole beacon of safety in this welter. We had a ghostly impression of winding through a narrow gorge, the river roaring in ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... that clung to the mountain sides.... But we dare not arouse the dwellers for many obvious reasons.... Finally we did encounter an abandoned inn or hut where we camped for the night.... Next morning in a fierce and searching sun we rambled into a village set upon a wonderful defile in the heart of the mountains, where we ate our frugal meal.... At night we reached the Jhelum coursing gracefully over rocky beds and through picturesque gorges that rise into the azure and serene skies ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... round them, but the capture of Pontorson deranged the plans of the Republicans. The place had been held by four thousand men and ten pieces of cannon and, as it could be approached only by a narrow defile, it was believed that it would be impossible for the Vendeans to force their way into it. However, after three hours' fighting, their desperate valour won the day, and the Republicans were routed, with the loss of most of ...
— No Surrender! - A Tale of the Rising in La Vendee • G. A. Henty
... then said Aurelian in his fiercest tones, 'how is it that again, for these paltry gains, already rolling in wealth—thou wilt defile thy own soul, and bring public shame upon me too, and Rome! Away to thy tent! and put in order thine own affairs and mine. Thou hast lived too long. Soldiers, let him be strongly guarded.—Let Virro now receive his just ...
— Aurelian - or, Rome in the Third Century • William Ware
... riding along slowly, letting his horse find the best footing possible, when he came to a narrow defile. The rocks were on both sides, and most of them sticking up from five to ...
— Dave Porter in the Gold Fields - The Search for the Landslide Mine • Edward Stratemeyer
... best of their kind, proposed, 'Going, by night, let us steal away the vessel of Soma juice. That will disturb the rite. Or, at that sacrifice, let the snakes, by hundreds and thousands, bite the people, and spread terror around. Or, let the serpents defile the pure food with their food-defiling urine and dung.' Others said, 'Let us become the king's Ritwiks, and obstruct his sacrifice by saying at the outset, 'Give us the sacrificial fee.' He (the king), being ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... profuse on hill and dale and plain." In irrigation lands like Mesopotamia it is the combination of great heat and abundant water that makes for luxuriant growth. Milton conceives the most romantic and wild scenery on hill and dale and savage defile, suddenly brought into order for the use of man. The Bible story speaks only of features to be found in a land like Babylonia. Sir William Willcocks thinks that the word translated "mist" would probably ...
— A Dweller in Mesopotamia - Being the Adventures of an Official Artist in the Garden of Eden • Donald Maxwell
... why, now, any blackguard, any whippersnapper, any shattered ancient can take any one of these women to himself for a minute or for a night, as a momentary whim; and indifferently, one superfluous time more—the thousand and first—profane and defile in her that which is the most precious in a human being—love... Do you understand—revile, trample it underfoot, pay for the visit and walk away in peace, his hands in his pockets, whistling. But the most horrible of all is that all this ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... these circumstances must have been great. Jackson might be crushed before his arrival. He rode up to the summit of the commanding hill which rises just west of the Gap, and dismounting directed his field-glass toward the shaggy defile ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... 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 ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... cold, steady stars shine down on the upturned faces of the South's best and bravest. No craven blenching when the tattered Stars and Bars bear up in battle blast. And yet the starry flag crowns mountain and rock. It sweeps through blood-stained gorges and past battle-scarred defile. Onward, ever southward. The two giant swordsmen reel in this duel of desperation. Sherman and Johnston may not be withheld. The hour of fate is beginning to knell the doom of the cause. Southern mothers and ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... says, "The boasted Vale of Tempe, is a defile; it is something like Matlock, but wilder; more savage than Salvator Rosa, and with nothing of Claude. I cannot tell why the ancients made such a fuss about it; perhaps because half of them never saw it, and took its character from hearsay; the other half, like mankind every where, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... bowed beneath 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 to ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction, No. 391 - Vol. 14, No. 391, Saturday, September 26, 1829 • Various
... where Mirth shall ever smile; * The home of Joyance through my lasting while: And 'mid my court a fountain jets and flows, * Nor tears nor troubles shall that fount defile: The merge with royal Nu'uman's[FN334] bloom is dight, * Myrtle, ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton
... than one reason why a man should torture himself and starve himself and maim and desecrate and horribly defile himself. At first sight, the reason sounds improbable, but consideration will confirm it. It is vanity, of an iron-bound kind, that makes ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... sweetly still The sunset rays thy valley fill; Poured slantwise down the long defile, Wave, wood, and spire beneath them smile. I see the winding Powow fold The green hill in its belt of gold, And following down its wavy line, Its sparkling waters blend with thine. There 's not a tree upon thy side, Nor rock, which thy returning tide ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... you, especially, how the laws of morality set at defiance appear again triumphant in the sorrows of repentance; those laws have their hour, and that hour is usually a silent one. Let a poet of genius defile his works by the impure traces of a life spent in dissipation, and his brow shall shine in the sight of all with the twofold splendor of success and of scandal. But if, stretched on a bed of pain, he renders a tardy but sincere homage to the law which he has violated, to the truth which he ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... we again entered a narrow defile and here with difficulty the vessels were forced along against a strong current; and over the pebbly bottom, against which they were constantly striking. At Nan-gan-foo, where we arrived in the evening, the river ceases to be navigable. ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... slit, wound; slight, ignoration; sarcasm, taunt; notch, groove, chamfret; defile, passage; kerf; slice, piece; fashion, ...
— Putnam's Word Book • Louis A. Flemming
... commander-in-chief had started on the 25th of January. The first post was Senaffe, high up among the mountains, 7000 feet above the level of the sea. It was situated about two miles in front of the issue of the Komayli defile, on elevated rocky ground. To the east and west rose lofty cliffs, and in front extended a wide plain. The scenery was magnificent. Here rose masses of jagged rock, topped with acacia and juniper trees, deep valleys intervened with rushing streams, while heights extended as ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... through a narrow and rocky defile, at whose narrowest part the banks rise in precipitous walls. Down this ravine the stream rushes in rapids and cascades, at one point forming a picturesque waterfall seventy-five feet in height. Only through this straitened path can the cave be reached, and this narrow ravine and the valley within ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... they left the main body behind, and soon reached the end of the defile. The woods were still dense on their left and front; but on their right lay a great marsh, covered with alder thickets and rank grass. Suddenly the air was filled with yells, and a rapid though distant fire was ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... road again, with vanguard, rearguard; and had peace for certain miles,—Loudon gloomily following, for a new chance. How many times Loudon tried again, and ever again, at good places, I forget,—say six times in all. Between Siebenhufen and Steinau, in a dirty defile, the jewel of the road for Loudon, who tried his very best there, one of our wagons broke down; the few to rear of it, eighteen wagons and some country carts, had to be left standing. Nothing more of Pommern was left there or anywhere. Near Steinau there, Loudon gave ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... unexpectedly surprised. The emperor of the West had only twenty thousand, and the sovereign of the East no more than five and thirty thousand, men. The inferiority of number was, however, compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he steadily expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued his success, and advanced into the ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... tell Otto how Baron Conrad had fulfilled the pledge of revenge that he had made Abbot Otto, how he had watched day after day until one time he had caught the Trutz-Drachen folk, with Baron Frederick at their head, in a narrow defile back of the Kaiserburg; of the fierce fight that was there fought; of how the Roderburgs at last fled, leaving Baron Frederick behind them wounded; of how he had kneeled before the Baron Conrad, asking for mercy, and of how Baron Conrad had answered, "Aye, thou shalt have ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... their own land. And I will make them one nation in the land, upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all, and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all. Neither shall they defile themselves any more with their idols, nor with their detestable things, nor with any of their transgressions; but I will save them out of all their dwelling places wherein they have sinned, and will cleanse them, so shall they be my people, and I will be their God. And DAVID my ...
— The Grounds of Christianity Examined by Comparing The New Testament with the Old • George Bethune English
... dishonour. You quote some authority you have heard to his hurt. And so on past all our power to picture you. For detraction has a thousand devices taught to it by the master of all such devices, wherewith to drag down and defile the great and the good. But with all you can say or do, you cannot for many days get out of your mind the heart-poisoning praise you heard spoken of your envied neighbour. Never praise any potter's pots in the hearing of another potter, said the author of the Nicomachean Ethics. ...
— Bunyan Characters - First Series • Alexander Whyte
... to be taken—were led as usual by Hamed's kirangozi. We had barely gone a mile before I perceived that we had left the Simbo road, had taken the direction of Kiti, and, by a cunning detour, were now fast approaching the defile of the mountain ridge before us, which admitted access to the higher plateau of Kiwyeh. Instantly halting my caravan, I summoned the veteran who had travelled by Kiti, and asked him whether we were not going towards Kiwyeh. He replied that we were. Calling my pagazis together, ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... them were broken and ragged, those coming from the east overlapping the cliffs from the west. Into the defile formed by this overlapping the party filed. I could see them climbing upward for a few minutes, and then they disappeared from view. When the last of them had passed from sight, I rose and bent my steps in the direction of the pass—the same pass toward which ...
— The People that Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... common, as is likewise a large Mimoseous tree. There is apparently very little diminution in the volume of water, though several minor streams were passed between this and the Mookh. Liriodendron is becoming more frequent. The views of the mountains are very varied; and that of the Koond defile or Chasm, very beautiful; water- falls seem to be distinctly visible down one hill or mountain, in particular. The finest view however is on the Lohit, opposite Dyaroo Mookh, at which place the three huge, ever snowy peaks, characteristic ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith
... summit practicable for cavalry and light guns. The Prince disguised himself as a Bulgarian shepherd to examine the southern outlet; and, on his bringing a favourable report, 11,000 men of Gurko's command began to thread the intricacies of the defile. ...
— The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) • John Holland Rose
... 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 ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 2 (of 4) • James Hutton
... roof of one small cabin that sent up its slender thread of blue smoke at one corner of a little badly cleared field a quarter of a mile away on a huge hill-side. As the scant train crawled off again into a deep, ice-hung defile, it passed the silent figure of a man in butternut homespun, spattered with dry mud, standing close beside the track on a heap of cross-tie cinders and fire-bent railroad iron, a gray goat-beard under his chin, and a quilted homespun hat on his head. From beneath the limp brim of this ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... was startled at his own saying, and rode silent till they crossed the drawbridge of St. Bertin, and entered that ancient fortress, so strong that it was the hiding-place in war time for all the treasures of the country, and so sacred withal that no woman, dead or alive, was allowed to defile it by her presence; so that the wife of Baldwin the Bold, ancestor of Arnulf, wishing to lie by her husband, had to remove his corpse from St. Bertin to the Abbey of Blandigni, where the Counts of Flanders lay in glory for ...
— Hereward, The Last of the English • Charles Kingsley
... stood, they could discover, between the half-denuded branches of the line of aspens, the sinuous, deepset gorge, in which the Aubette wound its tortuous way, at the extremity of which the village lay embanked against an almost upright wall of thicket and pointed rocks. On the west this narrow defile was closed by a mill, standing like a sentinel on guard, in its uniform of solid gray; on each side of the river a verdant line of meadow led the eye gradually toward the clump of ancient and lofty ash-trees, behind which rose ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... 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 ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... hour of approaching death or disaster. Fit, foot. Flit, to depart. Flyped, turned up, turned in-side out. Forbye, in addition to. Forgather, to fall in with. Fower, four. Fushionless, pithless, weak. Fyle, to soil, to defile. Fylement, obloquy, defilement. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the next five hundred yards that the prediction that there would be nothing to see anticipated its fulfilment. At a sudden turn in the narrow defile they came to a brush-built barricade posted with ...
— The Honorable Senator Sage-Brush • Francis Lynde
... considerable; it might have contained three or four hundred thousand inhabitants. Its frontage along the black mountains could not have been less than two and a half miles; and, as it seemed to lose itself up a defile in those crags, no way at present existed of judging ...
— The Flying Legion • George Allan England
... Bull, equipped with Queasy's hat, marched deliberately through the defile, bowing with the air of at least an English county member to this side and to that, as way was made for him to his carriage. No one suspected that the hat did not belong to him; no one, indeed, thought of the hat, ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. IV • Maria Edgeworth
... knew nothing about this narrow defile through which the party traveled. But he agreed that they were breaking through the wall of the glacier on the right side. Aleukan, the big native settlement, was ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... they were, that small and devoted troop fled on into the recesses of the mountains for the remainder of that day—twenty men out of the two thousand who had halted at Lodar. As the evening stole over them, they entered into a narrow defile: the tall hills rose on every side, covered with the glory of the setting sun, as if Nature rejoiced to grant her bulwarks as a protection to liberty. A small clear stream ran through the valley, sparkling with the last smile of the departing day; and ever and anon, from ...
— Falkland, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— The Story of Russia • R. Van Bergen
... be the only plan that offered, and abandoning the straight road they wound down the defile spanned further on by the old castle arch, and forming the original ...
— The Well-Beloved • Thomas Hardy
... Yannina and Souli. It was even proposed by the gallant partisan, Mark Bozzaris, that all should unite to hem in the Serasker; but a wound, received in a skirmish, defeated this plan. In September following, however, the same Mark intercepted and routed Hassan Pacha in a defile on his march to Yannina; and in general the Turks were defeated everywhere except at the headquarters of the Serasker, and with losses in men enormously disproportioned to the occasions. This arose partly from the necessity under which they lay of attacking expert musketeers under ...
— Memorials and Other Papers • Thomas de Quincey
... in reward of the services of the rajah of Tanor, now threatened him with war and conquest. He farther represented, that on the late occasion, when the general of the Calicut forces was in full march for the relief of Cranganor, the rajah of Tanor had placed 4000 of his nayres in ambush in a defile in their line of march, who had defeated the troops of Calicut, and hod slain 2000 of them. On this account the rajah of Tanor was in great fear of the zamorin, and humbly requested assistance from the admiral, promising in return to become subject ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. II • Robert Kerr
... rocky hills, up which they hastily scrambled on our approach, and on reaching the summit, tried by various gestures to express their disapproval of our visit, but would not hold any parley with us. At five miles the river turned abruptly to the north-east, through a precipitous rocky defile, which induced us to make an attempt to cut across and strike the river some miles higher up; but after being for some time involved in impracticable ravines, we were again obliged to have recourse to the bed of the ...
— Journals of Australian Explorations • A C and F T Gregory
... us! and with one touch of your finger, send that bursting spirit which throbs against your brow to flit forth free, and nevermore to defile her ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... the rows of trees Glare of the mid-day sun; Creeping along the highway wide, Slowly in long defile, we ride— ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... connected together by mountains ranging on both sides from one to the other; between these lies a plain of considerable extent, enclosed in the middle, abounding in grass and water, and through the middle of which the passage runs: but before you can arrive at it, the first defile must be passed, while the only way back is through the road by which you entered it; or if in case of resolving to proceed forward, you must go by the other glen, which is still more narrow and difficult. Into this plain the Romans, having ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... At mid-day the defile was made before the Hotel de Ville, and delegates of the different socialist groups were formally received by the mayor and deputy-mayors, wearing their tricolour scarves ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... big Circus, having sundry of the lousy population idling within, whereby I did then liken it to a venerable cheese, in which is some faint stir of maggotry, that thou didst make a memorable speech against the land, where the only vocation of a nobleman is to defile the streets and be pimp ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards
... the shepherd selects certain sheep from the flock, gives them names, and teaches them to come by offering them a piece of bread. When he wishes to lead his flock through a defile, or to make them change the direction in which they are proceeding, he calls one of these selected sheep. Those that are nearest follow immediately, and the others are not very far behind; and so, by degrees, the whole flock is disposed to obey the ...
— Minnie's Pet Lamb • Madeline Leslie
... 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 of the bridal hour! The host, too, at the ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles
... respects a subject, yet, in point of the security of her life and person, 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 marry the king without ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... roofs spreads below us as we launch upon our venturous voyage of discovery. From Boadicea leading on her scythed chariots at Battle Bridge to Queen Victoria in the Thanksgiving procession of yesterday is a long period over which to range. We have whole generations of Londoners to defile before us—painted Britons, hooded Saxons, mailed Crusaders, Chaucer's men in hoods, friars, citizens, warriors, Shakespeare's friends, Johnson's companions, Goldsmith's jovial "Bohemians," Hogarth's fellow-painters, soldiers, lawyers, statesmen, merchants. Nevertheless, at our ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... 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, ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... their 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 up arms ...
— Tacitus: The Histories, Volumes I and II • Caius Cornelius Tacitus
... 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
... that the immortal treatise must be spiced; a little politics flung in: "Nothing goes down, else." The author answered in some heat that he would not dilute things everlasting with the fleeting topics of the day, nor defile science with politics. On this his Mentor smoothed him down, despising him secretly for not seeing that a book is a matter of trade and nothing else. It ended in Aubertin going to Paris to hatch his Phoenix. He had not been there ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... Do thou, therefore, O Vipula, protect this slender-waisted spouse of mine with great care. O foremost one of Bhrigu's race, do thou take every care for seeing that the chief of the celestials may not defile this spouse of mine like a wretched dog licking the Havi kept in view of a sacrifice. Having said these words, the highly-blessed Muni, viz., Devasarman, intend upon performing a sacrifice, set out from his abode, O chief of the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... saw her and, ceasing her song, stretched out her hand to welcome her, saying, "Greeting, sister." But Zinita did not take it. "It is not fitting, sister," she said, "that my hand, stained with toil, should defile yours, fresh with the scent of flowers. But I am charged with a message, on my own behalf and the behalf of the other wives of our Lord Bulalio; the weeds grow thick in yonder corn, and we women are few; now that ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard
... an impossibility. I dare not hope for mercy and forgiveness. Why, the very angels would scout me; and she, who was always glad of my approach, would now draw aside the hem of her raiment lest I should touch it and defile her! ...
— She and I, Volume 2 - A Love Story. A Life History. • John Conroy Hutcheson
... valley and 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 its colossal statues cut out in the rock, was among the wonders described ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... to walk stealthily in, and set himself upon the poor bench, where he sits quietly, well behaved and attentive to the end; for which very proper conduct he is pretty sure to meet an additional reward during the exit of the assembly, as they defile past him at the gate when all is over. In the afternoon, he is off to the immediate precinct of some park or public promenade; and selecting a well-frequented approach to the general rendezvous, will cleanse and purify the crossing or pathway in his own peculiar and ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... but the first shot had been the signal for the troop in the defile below to set off at a jog-trot up its murky, twisty depths. They trotted along for five minutes, machine-gun bullets from high above sometimes hitting up small spurts of sand as they doubled round corners. ...
— The Tale of a Trooper • Clutha N. Mackenzie
... broad barrier of hills, at right angles with the coast, lying straight athwart our line of march. The hills, highest and steepest near the water's edge, were still difficult in the centre, where the great high road to Sebastopol pierced the position by a deep defile; beyond the road, slopes more gentle ended on the outer flank in the tall buttresslike Kourgane Hill. All along the front ran a rapid river, the Alma, in a deep channel. Villages nestled on its banks—one near the ...
— The Thin Red Line; and Blue Blood • Arthur Griffiths
... mile on mile, With cheer, and waving, and smile, The war-worn legions defile Where the nation's noblest stand; And the Great Lieutenant looks on, With the Flower of a rescued Land,— For the terrible work is done, And the Good Fight is won For ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 16, No. 96, October 1865 • Various
... fourth and fifth; but by an act of exclusion the canon was concentrated upon the three and the others were cast overboard. The canon was the creation of the Pharisaic doctors, who drew a line at a point of their own choosing, and decreed that writings "from that time onward" did not defile ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... great poets shall be kept out of such editions as are meant for general reading, and that the pedant-pride which now perpetuates it as an essential part of those poets shall no longer have its way. At the end of the ends such things do defile, they do corrupt. We may palliate them or excuse them for this reason or that, but that is the truth, and I do not see why they should not be dropped from literature, as they were long ago dropped from the talk of decent people. The literary histories might keep ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled. Do not trouble it, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness, don't work against God's intent. Man, do not pride yourself on superiority to the animals; they are without sin, and you, with your greatness, defile the earth by your appearance on it, and leave the traces of your foulness after you—alas, it is true of almost every one of us! Love children especially, for they too are sinless like the angels; they live to ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... a position for 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 it, after an action ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... detained the vessel in Eden Harbor till a late hour in the morning, but the afternoon was favorable for the passage through the English Narrows, the most contracted part of Smythe's Channel. It is, indeed, a mere mountain defile, through which the water rushes with such force that, in navigating it, great care was required to keep the vessel off the rocks. Her anchorage at the close of the day was in Connor's Cove, a miniature harbor not unlike Borja Bay in the ...
— Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence • Louis Agassiz
... resolve, a purpose settled; Daniel was fully resolved, he had laid this charge upon his heart, that he would not defile himself ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... course as far more considerable, and adds: 'Un peu a l'est de Sirmagha, le Gomal traverse la chaine de montagnes de Soliman, passe devant Raghzi, et fertilise le pays habite par les tribus de Dauletkhail et de Gandehpour. Il se desseche au defile de Pezou, et son lit ne se remplit plus d'eau que dans la saison des pluies; alors seulement il rejoint la droite de l'Indus, au sud-est de bourg de Paharpour.' The Kurrum falls into the Indus north of the Gomal, while, according to the poet, we should ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller |
