"Entrench" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to be, are as unlike as are the hastily constructed bulwarks of the savage tribes as compared with a solid British fortress; we soldiers know this, and that Major Delrose. should still entrench himself behind the flimsy seeming of days of yore, where he was safe through my careless good-nature (we shall call it), in allowing it to be supposed that I had robbed Colonel Clarmont of his wife, submitting to the stigma so ...
— A Heart-Song of To-day • Annie Gregg Savigny
... re-word my tactics. Ney leads off By seizing Mont Saint-Jean. Then d'Erlon stirs, And heaves up his division from the left. The second corps will move abreast of him The sappers nearing to entrench themselves Within the ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... enemy will make his bridge from Kadzand unto St. Anne, and force you to hazard battle before you succour this town. Let my Lord Willoughby and Sir William Russell land at Terhoven, right against Kadzand, with 4000, and entrench hard by the waterside, where their boats can carry them victual and munition. They may approach by trenches without engaging any dangerous fight . . . . We dare not show the estate of this town more than we have done by Captain Herte. We must fight this night within ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... ever distinguished the upper yeomanry and the rural gentry of England. Probable enough it is, that the resources for meeting this liberality were not strictly commensurate with the family income, but were sometimes allowed to entrench, by means of loans or mortgages, upon capital funds. The stress upon the family finances was perhaps at times severe; and that it was borne at all, must be imputed to the large and even splendid portion which John ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... after the destruction at Maghdaba of the rearguard, or garrison withdrawing from El Arish, another body of the enemy started to entrench a position at Magruntein near Rafa. This was obviously intended to bar our progress eastwards along the coastal route, the old caravan route to Gaza. Rafa is the frontier town upon the Turco-Egyptian frontier. The operation to which we are about to refer was, therefore, the last ...
— With the British Army in The Holy Land • Henry Osmond Lock
... Rev. Silas arose to his feet with decision. "I certainly will not listen to anything derogatory to Miss Rice," he said sternly. "She is my promised wife, you will remember." With that the prudent minister beat a hasty retreat, to entrench himself without apology or delay in the inner ...
— The Transfiguration of Miss Philura • Florence Morse Kingsley
... 264; so Price, in his Observations on Liberty, lays it down that government is never to entrench upon private liberty, 'except so far as private liberty entrenches on ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... the Government. A conflict had now arisen between the two Houses, and technically the responsibility for the failure to bring the conciliation about was taken away from the Government; they could entrench themselves behind the impregnable position that the law required the Budget to be passed by both Houses; until this was done they could do nothing. The Houses would not agree; the Government was helpless. The House of Representatives at once passed a motion ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... sir," he replied, "you are so vastly amusing that I am half inclined to forgive my daughter's rashness, for the sake of enjoying your company. First you entrench yourself behind your furniture; then you propose to fight me; and now you give me the most original views upon love and marriage that I ever heard. Indeed I have cause to ...
— A Roman Singer • F. Marion Crawford
... called 'mathematical certainty' is the cane of a blind man without a dog, or equilibrium in darkness." Browning would sometimes have us accept the evidence of his 'cane' as all-sufficient. He does not entrench himself among conventions: for he already finds himself within the fortified lines of convention, and remains there. Thus is true what Mr. Mortimer says in a recent admirable critique—"His position in regard to the thought of the age is paradoxical, if not inconsistent. ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... that we fought, forcing them across the canal to entrench themselves hastily in unprepared positions, from which, at the hour I write, our wonderful infantry and our heavy artillery, in collaboration with the British, are ...
— On the Edge of the War Zone - From the Battle of the Marne to the Entrance of the Stars and Stripes • Mildred Aldrich
... Being Sunday we went to Hear Mr. Willard[145] and after Meting our Men went to Entrench down at the George tavern and About Brake of ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson
... days, however, which elapsed between the appearance of the French army in front of Marlborough and the arrival of Monsieur Chamillard in camp, had given Marlborough time so to entrench his position, that upon reconnoitring it Chamillard, Vendome, Berwick, and the other generals, were unanimous in their opinion that it was too strong to be attacked. The great army therefore again retired, and taking up its post between ...
— The Cornet of Horse - A Tale of Marlborough's Wars • G. A. Henty
... exactly what the Commander-in- Chief had predicted from the first: no sooner had Mourad-Reis landed upon the exposed beach, and attempted to open a trench, than he was met by a furious and concentrated fire from the galleys and nefs of the Christian fleet. To entrench themselves was impossible in the circumstances, as they had been told by the Admiral before they started on this harebrained adventure. There could be only one result, which was that, after a cruel and perfectly useless slaughter, the soldiers of Mourad-Reis had to retreat before ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... that old adage, Venienti occurrite morbo? "Oppose a distemper at its first approach." Thus the doctor and the disease meet in fair and equal conflict; whereas, by giving time to the latter, we often suffer him to fortify and entrench himself, like a French army; so that the learned gentleman finds it very difficult, and sometimes impossible, to come at the enemy. Nay, sometimes by gaining time the disease applies to the French military politics, and corrupts ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... the month of December, 1682, La Salle and Tonty began to entrench themselves. They cut away the forest that crowned the rock, built storehouses and dwellings of its remains, dragged timber up the rugged pathway, and encircled the summit with a palisade. Thus the winter was passed, ...
— McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader • William Holmes McGuffey
... I had finished, Isaacs relaxed his hold on his knee and threw himself back on the cushions, as if to entrench himself for a better fight. I had made an impression on him, but he was not the man to own it easily. Presumably to gain time, he called for hookahs and sherbet, and though the servants moved noiselessly in preparing them, their presence ...
— Mr. Isaacs • F. Marion Crawford
... house of God, The little road-side church that room-like stands Crouching entrench'd in slopes of daisy sod, And duly deck'd by Herbert-honouring hands:— Cell of detachment! Shrine to which the heart Withdraws, and all the roar of life is still; Then sinks into herself, and finds a shrine Within the shrine apart: Alone with God, as on the Arabian hill ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave
... a position to choose, and they chose to entrench in the high dry sections, leaving the low-lying swamps, the damp marshy lands, for us. We had no alternative. It was either to take a stand there on what footing was left or be wiped ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... had no sooner occupied this new position, than they began to entrench, take possession of the huts, and make themselves comfortable in other ways, giving promise to make matters lively for ...
— Bamboo Tales • Ira L. Reeves
... Prince Ludwig," said the American after the Serbian had bowed himself out of the apartment, "I suggest that you take immediate steps to entrench a strong force north of Lustadt along the road ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... all the ramifications of society. And this habit owes much of its prevalence to the advice and example of respectable physicians. We indulge the hope, from the great increase of medical knowledge, that the time will soon arrive, when persons disposed to vicious indulgence will be unable to entrench themselves behind our professional advice. I am aware that I tread on dangerous ground, in attempting to investigate the propriety of a practice which has been introduced and approved by a large portion of the members of this respectable Society. You may ...
— A Dissertation on the Medical Properties and Injurious Effects of the Habitual Use of Tobacco • A. McAllister
... signed Amicus Patriae, the writer was far too proud of his production to entrench himself behind the inglorious shield of a fictitious signature, and as the mayor, professionally indignant at the epithet pettifogging, threatened both the editor of the Belford Courant and Mr. Joseph Hanson with an action for libel, it followed, as ...
— Mr. Joseph Hanson, The Haberdasher • Mary Russell Mitford
... position to pay its political debts and bestow upon its supporters valuable favors. Further, as the legislature apportioned the various electoral districts, the dominant party could, by means of the gerrymander, entrench itself even in unfriendly localities. And, to crown its political power, it elected United States Senators. But, as the power of the party increased, unfortunately the personnel of the legislature deteriorated. Able men, as a rule, shunned a service that not only took ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... them. Dongan understood the situation. He saw that the French aimed at mastering the whole interior of the continent. They had established themselves in the valley of the Illinois, had built a fort on the lower Mississippi, and were striving to entrench themselves at its mouth. They occupied the Great Lakes—and it was already evident that, as soon as their resources should permit, they would seize the avenues of communication throughout the west. In short, the grand scheme of French colonization had begun to declare itself. ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... our rights on the ground of our common humanity is the only true foundation for national peace and durability. If you would have the government strong and enduring you should entrench it in the hearts of both the men and women ...
— Minnie's Sacrifice • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... astonishment. In the sustained exhibition of certain great qualities—clearness, compression, verbal exactness, and unforced and seemingly unconscious felicity of phrasing—he is, in my belief, without his peer in the English-writing world. SUSTAINED. I entrench myself behind that protecting word. There are others who exhibit those great qualities as greatly as he does, but only by intervaled distributions of rich moonlight, with stretches of veiled and dimmer landscape between; whereas Howells's moon ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... bidding. That, besides this unfounded fear, operated the desire of ultra-Federalists to take revenge upon those presses which had assailed the British treaty and other pet measures, and abused Federal leaders; and the determination to entrench themselves in authority by forcibly disbanding an opposition party which attracted a readier support at the polls from the oppressed of other countries, no candid writer can ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... times, as stories of unquestionable truth, have been compelled by scientific criticism, after a long battle, to descend to the common level, and to confession to a large admixture of error. I might fairly take this for granted; but it may be well that I should entrench myself behind the very apposite words of a historical authority who is certainly not obnoxious to even a suspicion of ...
— The Lights of the Church and the Light of Science - Essay #6 from "Science and Hebrew Tradition" • Thomas Henry Huxley
... of reason why we should not love to live among familiar things; but to break our hearts over the loss of them is a real debasing of ourselves. We must learn to use the things of life very lightly and detachedly; and to entrench ourselves in trivial associations is simply to court dreariness and to fall into a ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson
... hours to drag ourselves three miles and the men had hardly a kick in them when we reached the place assigned for our post (8 on sketch). We were ordered to entrench in echelon of companies facing North. I thought it would take till dark to get us dug in (it was 2 p.m.); but luckily our men, lined up ready to begin digging, caught the eye of the enemy as a ...
— Letters from Mesopotamia • Robert Palmer
... Dalhousie, where they entrained on the Welland Railway for Port Colborne. Lieut.-Col. J. S. Dennis, Brigade Major of the Fifth Military District, was in command. This officer had received orders from Gen. Napier to occupy Port Colborne, and if necessary entrench a position there and await reinforcements and further orders before an attack was made on the enemy. The Queen's Own arrived at Port Colborne about noon, and there being no indications of the enemy in the near vicinity, the men were billetted among the citizens for dinner, as by somebody's oversight ...
— Troublous Times in Canada - A History of the Fenian Raids of 1866 and 1870 • John A. Macdonald
... calamity. His French counsellors only agreed to disagree with him. There was the ordinary amount of jealousy amongst the Irish officers—the inevitable result of the want of a competent leader in whom all could confide. The King was urged by one party (the French) to retire to Connaught, and entrench himself there until he should receive succours from France; he was urged by another party (the Irish) to attack Schomberg without delay. Louvais, the French Minister of War, divided his hatred with tolerable impartiality between James and William: therefore, ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... and pheasants are or are not pleasant companions to each other. Every one was agreed that, if not, then the pheasants should suffer, and that any country gentleman who allowed his gamekeeper to entrench on the privileges of foxes in order that pheasants might be more abundant, was a "brute" and a "beast," and altogether unworthy to live in England. Larry Twentyman and Ned Botsey expressed an opinion that pheasants were predominant ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope |
