"Indefensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... standpoint of actual human needs, the present almost complete neglect of elementary science is indefensible. The minute amount of such teaching now introduced in the language lessons for composition purposes is so small as to be almost negligible. The topics are not chosen for their bearing upon human needs. There is ...
— What the Schools Teach and Might Teach • John Franklin Bobbitt
... distinct things, attacked and contested in the interest of religion, not only the anti-religious conclusions of Darwinian philosophers, but also Darwinism as a merely scientific theory, and rendered the contrast as strong as possible by adhering to that above censured, unmotived, indefensible, ...
— The Theories of Darwin and Their Relation to Philosophy, Religion, and Morality • Rudolf Schmid
... that they are prepared to represent Jesus of Nazareth as one who, in fitting time and place, might have been a purchaser and a master of slaves. Thus, Madam, do we still condemn and abhor Slavery, as we have ever done, as in itself, and in its own nature, utterly evil and utterly indefensible; and we consider its vast and terrible results of cruelty and immorality to be only the natural fruit of so stupendous ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... Habeas Corpus Act. But from acts of confiscation and acts of attainder lawgivers are bound, by every obligation of morality, systematically to refrain. In the same manner ought the British legislature to refrain from taxing the American colonies. The Stamp Act was indefensible, not because it was beyond the constitutional competence of Parliament, but because it was unjust and impolitic, sterile of revenue, and fertile of discontents. These sound doctrines were adopted by Lord Rockingham and his colleagues, and were, during a long course of ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 1 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... did not defend his conduct, supposing him guilty," said Juliet, with quiet dignity; "for if that be really the case such conduct is indefensible. I only hoped ...
— Mark Hurdlestone - Or, The Two Brothers • Susanna Moodie
... evening on a visit to her invalid grandmother, who lived not far from the Baron's house; but not to arrive at her grandmother's till breakfast-time next morning. Who would suspect an intercalated experience of twelve hours with the Baron at a ball? That this piece of deception was indefensible she afterwards owned readily enough; but she did not stop ...
— The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid • Thomas Hardy
... soon as an advantage is obtained, a new and (to us) horrible animal appears upon the scene—the Head Hunter. Again and again we have reasoned with our boys against this bestial practice; but reason and (upon this one point) even ridicule are vain. They admit it to be indefensible; they allege its imperative necessity. One young man, who had seen his father take a head in the late war, spoke of the scene with shuddering revolt, and yet said he must go and do likewise himself in the war which was to come. How else ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 18 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his position, the more indefensible it appeared. Time after time he had thought of Dr. Arnquist's words about judgment and skill. Without one the other was of little value to a doctor, and whatever his skill as a surgeon might have been in the Moruan operating room, he now realized that his judgment ...
— Star Surgeon • Alan Nourse
... Frank, grumbling with some reason; for Mat was a surly old fellow, who tied a most indefensible neckcloth, and always contrived to have a great patch on his boots,—besides, he called Frank "Master," and obstinately refused to trot down hill,—"Mat, indeed! let Mat take the message, and George go ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... prevented. The town's recompense came late, but it has come. Though it welcomed the fugitive Charles II., the town itself does not appear to have seen any fighting during the Civil War—it is certainly quite indefensible; but at Tresillian Bridge, about three and a half miles east, at the head of the creek so named, the desperate struggle of Cornish Royalists was brought to a close by the surrender of ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... indulges in freaks, his childishness is incredible. His intention in such places is that the verses should be recited as running on without pause, and the rhyme occurring in their midst should be like a phonetic accident, merely satisfying the prescribed form. But his phonetic rhymes are often indefensible on his own principle. The rhyme to communion in 'The Bugler' is hideous, and the suspicion that the poet thought it ingenious is appalling: eternal, in 'The Eurydice', does not correspond with burn all, and in 'Felix Randal' and some and handsome is as truly an ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... violated the Constitution, that he is guilty of offences for which he ought to be impeached. Thus do the suggestions which the President tenders as his defence furnish conclusive evidence that his conduct is wholly indefensible. ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 108, October, 1866 • Various
... understood as making any wholesale condemnation of either Chinese bankers or our American lawyers. The ablest advocates of the Torrens system I know are lawyers, men who say that lawyers ought to be content with the really useful ways of earning money and not insist on keeping up utterly useless and indefensible means of getting fees out of the people. Such lawyers, indeed, deserve honor; my criticism is aimed only at those who realize the wisdom of a changed system but are led by selfishness ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... fight, but it couldn't be patched up; he repeated his denial, he retracted his admission, he ridiculed my charge, of which I freely granted him moreover the indefensible extravagance. I didn't pretend for a moment that we were talking of common things; I didn't pretend for a moment that he and she were common people. Pray, if they had been, how should I ever have cared for them? They ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... principle that it was for the Guardians and not for me to dismiss him. This was a test case with regard to centralization. Feeling in the Press was strong against the master, and his acts were entirely indefensible, but he had the support of the majority of his Guardians. I made public my opinion, but did nothing else, and ultimately the Guardians who supported him lost their seats, and the master was removed by ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... outstripped our sources of revenue that we have come to look on an annual deficit as a normal and defensible thing. I think it is indefensible. I think it is going to have a bad effect on our attendance and our morals if the members have to look forward to what amounts to a good big assessment at every convention. A deficit is not inevitable. ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Fourteenth Annual Meeting • Various
... are. By that means I overrate my immediate income, and consequently spend considerably more than I possess. By the occasional and illusory character of these theatrical royalties and by my certainly indefensible liking for a pleasanter way of life than I have led these last years, I have been placed in the position of having to pay large sums next Christmas without being able to reckon upon any income whatever with certainty. ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 1 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... position to offer any effectual resistance. The fort was weak and indefensible. The English inhabitants consisted only of a hundred civilians, and two hundred soldiers. Governor Morse endeavoured to obtain, from the nawab, the protection which he had before granted to Dupleix, a demand which the nawab ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... no doubt childish for these two simple-minded colored men to take this gloomy view of their surroundings and their future. They should have realized that the fact that their privileges were insecure and their rights indefensible was their own misfortune, perhaps even their fault. They should have remembered that the susceptibilities of that race among whom their lot had been cast by the compulsion of a strange providence, were such as to be greatly irritated by anything like a manly and independent ...
— Bricks Without Straw • Albion W. Tourgee
... doubts about the right and wrong of an attempt to thwart the sheriff before, Laura had none now. Perhaps her course was indefensible; but intuitively she believed that farmer to be a bad man. And she was sure that he was the one who had set the sheriff ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... ruefully on the condition of affairs at the south. He saw that the only hope of saving Charleston was in the defense of the bar; and when that became indefensible, he saw that the town ought to be abandoned to the enemy, and the army withdrawn to the country. His military genius showed itself again and again in his perfectly accurate judgment on distant campaigns. He seemed to ...
— George Washington, Vol. I • Henry Cabot Lodge
... thy sake, to let her know how very earnest I had been: but assured her that I had been her zealous friend; and that my motives were founded upon a merit, that, I believed, was never equaled: that, however indefensible Mr. Lovelace was, he had always done justice to her virtue: that to a full conviction of her untainted honour it was owing that he so earnestly desired to call so inestimable a jewel his—and was proceeding, when she again cut ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... the independence of Cuba being, in my opinion, impracticable and indefensible, the question which next presents itself is that of the recognition of belligerent rights in the parties to the contest. In a former message to Congress I had occasion to consider this question, and reached ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 59, December 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... Unless, indeed, it be true, as I have heard it main- tained, that in the Middle Ages every one did go mad, - every one was mad. The theory that this was a period of general insanity is not altogether indefensible. ...
— A Little Tour in France • Henry James
... gravely point out that the habit of striking bears as large as a horse with a school-slate was equally dangerous to the slate (which was also the property of Tuolumne County) and to the striker; and that the verb "to swot" and the noun substantive "snoot" were likewise indefensible, and not to be tolerated. Thus admonished Jimmy Snyder, albeit unshaken in his faith in his own ...
— Cressy • Bret Harte
... of the Cathedral was, beyond doubt, the last portion of the original design to be carried out, for among its details the ball-flower, a typical feature of the decorated style, frequently occurs. The governing idea of its facade is indefensible. Not merely because in common with Wells, Lincoln, and other churches, it does not emphasize the construction of the nave and aisles, and hides them by a screen, but because the screen itself poses as an integral part of the building. ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... because he chose to use another name than his own, because he was parted from his wife, because he left England practically penniless to earn an honest living—no one had shown it was not—was the last resort of legal desperation. It was an indefensible thing to endeavour to create prejudice against a man because of his own evidence given with great frankness. Not one single word of evidence had the defence brought to discredit Crozier, save by Crozier's own word of mouth; and if Crozier had cared to commit perjury, the defence could not have ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... the proletariat. A crime against the Republic was indefensible, but one against the individual was dealt with, with all the paraphernalia of an elaborate administration of justice. There were citizen judges and citizen advocates, and the rabble, who crowded in to listen to the trials, acted as ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... the hardest task of all. Of you, Jacob, I have to ask forgiveness for depriving you of your early and truest friend—yes, and for much more. Of you, sir," addressing the Dominie, "for my conduct towards you, which was cruel and indefensible—will you forgive me?" ...
— Jacob Faithful • Captain Frederick Marryat
... the Cherokees to the above country, it is altogether new and indefensible; and never was heard of, until the appointment of Mr. Stewart to the superintendency of the Southern colonies, about the year 1764; and this, we flatter ourselves, will not only be obvious from the following state of facts, but that the right to all the country on the Southerly side of the river ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... revenues of a vacant benefice for a certain specified time, was highly prejudicial to the best interests of religion. Such a practice, however justifiable in case of benefices to which the care of souls was not attached, was entirely indefensible when adopted in regard to bishopric, abbacies, and minor benefices, where so much depended upon personal activity and example. The person who held the benefice /in commendam/ did nothing except to draw the revenue attached to his ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... before her sister as an object of mingled compassion and respect. That her manner was wrong, however, at times very wrong, her measures often ill-chosen and ill-timed, and her looks and language very often indefensible, Fanny could not cease to feel; but she began to hope they might be rectified. Susan, she found, looked up to her and wished for her good opinion; and new as anything like an office of authority was to Fanny, new as it was to imagine herself capable of guiding or informing any one, ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... demands, and on the following day informed all the European powers of her attitude. The neutral Press of the world and an unusually large section of the German Press, immediately pronounced Austria's position to be indefensible and untenable. The German Government, in spite of these facts, gave its official and unreserved support to Austria's attitude on July 26th. After eight weeks of war (on September 25th), Austria officially declared that ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... Lord-Lieutenancy had scarcely taken a definite shape, when he opened a communication, as appeared afterwards, with the heads of the Irish party, and announced the system on which he intended to govern the country. In any case, such a proceeding would have been inexpedient and indefensible, its inevitable effect being to commit the policy of the Administration beforehand, to deprive it at once of all dignity and independence, and to revive those heart-burnings and dissensions ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... Commissioners say:—'We do not know of any pretext or argument for continuing this municipal supremacy of the Irish Society. A control of this kind maintained at the present day by the municipality of one town in England over another town in Ireland, appears to us so indefensible in principle, that our opinion would not have been changed, even if it were found that hitherto it has been conducted ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... is the greatest and most scandalous feature in the treatment to which the churches subject their ministers. That ministers are subjected to hardships is a matter of no consequence. So are other people. It is the injustice, the absolute and indefensible injustice, the promising to pay their meagre salaries and then not paying even those-the obtaining of their services under false pretences-that I complain of. If I were a minister I never would accept a call without knowing thoroughly ...
— Laicus - The experiences of a Layman in a Country Parish • Lyman Abbott
... his genius for perusing the heart which was not in perfect harmony with him through the series of responsive movements to his own, informed him of a something in her character that might have suggested to Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson her indefensible, absurd "rogue in porcelain". Idea there was none in that phrase; yet, if you looked on Clara as a delicately inimitable porcelain beauty, the suspicion of a delicately inimitable ripple over her features touched a thought of innocent roguery, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... indefensible has been your handling of the border slave states of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. You have not yet declared the slaves free in these states, the only ones in which you actually have the ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... am sorry that you should use that tone with me. I am no moralist. I admit frankly that I take this matter up because my personal tastes prompt me to. But murder, however great the provocation, is an indefensible thing." ...
— The Avenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... than I did then, it must be attributed to the arguments of hon. Gentlemen opposite and on the Treasury bench; but the fact is, I view this carnage just as I viewed that, with only this difference, that while our soldiers perished three thousand miles from home in a worthless and indefensible cause, these men were on their own soil, and every man of them knew for what he enlisted and for what purpose he ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... sorrow do we learn that the principle of the lawfulness of slavery has been defended by some who are ministers of Christ, that so large a proportion of that body in America, are exerting their influence in favor of the continuance of so indefensible and monstrous a system—and that these emotions of sorrow are especially occasioned with ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... are in its possession, for reconciling the inequalities of force between them. Marion's reply to McIlraith was sufficiently to the purpose. He said that the practice of the British in burning the property of those who would not submit and join them, was much more indefensible than that of shooting picquets, and that while they persisted in the one practice, he should certainly persevere in the other. As to the challenge of McIlraith, he said that he considered it that of a ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... added one more element to that indescribable thing, compacted of so many elements,—all artificial, all curiously and brightly related,—which the civilized world calls opera, and in which man rejoices with an inconsistent and more or less indefensible joy. ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... marks of the king, and when they would not budge, he chased them away with beating and maiming, sacked their house, burnt their charters, and so on. Hugh was against this too vigorous gentleman, who was clearly indefensible; but it was by no means because he was blindly prejudiced in favour of monks, for he seems to have supported the Bishop of Rochester against his monks. These disputes of astonishing detail, are very important in the history of the church, as by their means the Papal Empire ...
— Hugh, Bishop of Lincoln - A Short Story of One of the Makers of Mediaeval England • Charles L. Marson
... I deserve all the hard things you may have said and thought about me, for it is really scandalous and indefensible that I have not written to you. But in another sense, I do not, for I have very often thought about you and your doings, and as I have told you once before, your memory always remains ...
— The Life and Letters of Thomas Henry Huxley Volume 2 • Leonard Huxley
... itself in its last-recorded performance, and he had begun to suspect that it had been responsible for some, though by no means all, of his troubles. The killing of Haig's bull, he now realized, was a foolish and indefensible act, which could be traced easily to him because of the bull that was gored; and he must prepare to account to Haig for it. And so, knowing that he would again be in the wrong, as in the affair at the post-office, he was torn between accentuated bitterness ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... remember it correctly, it was a mere diplomatic squabble, in which the British ministers, with the politic generosity which they are in the habit of showing towards their official subordinates, had tried to browbeat us for the purpose of sustaining an ambassador in an indefensible proceeding; and the American Government (for God had not denied us an administration of statesmen then) had retaliated with stanch courage and exquisite skill, putting inevitably a cruel mortification upon their opponents, but indulging them with no pretence ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... he spoke of his nephew's conduct with much indignation. In vain I urged that her ladyship desiring to be considered absent from London, her grandson was bound to keep her secret. "Keep her secret, yes! Tell me lies, no!" cries out the Colonel. Sir Barnes's conduct was in fact indefensible, though not altogether unusual—the worst deduction to be drawn from it, in my opinion, was, that Clive's chance with the young lady was but a poor one, and that Sir Barnes Newcome, inclined to keep his uncle in good-humour, would therefore give him ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... and easily mistaken. What Charles Lamb said of the Scotchman is far truer of this type of Puritan Irishman; he does not see things suddenly in a new light; all his brilliancy is a blindingly rapid calculation and deduction. Bernard Shaw never said an indefensible thing; that is, he never said a thing that he was not prepared brilliantly to defend. He never breaks out into that cry beyond reason and conviction, that cry of Lamb when he cried, "We would indict our dreams!" or of Stevenson, ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... Miss Adams," said he. "This is a most indefensible outrage, but there can be no question that steps will be taken in the proper quarter to set the matter right. I am convinced that we shall be subjected to nothing worse than a temporary inconvenience. If it had not been for that villain Mansoor, you ...
— A Desert Drama - Being The Tragedy Of The "Korosko" • A. Conan Doyle
... its most extravagant forms, had driven the simplicity of the Gospel out of the Church and the world, it is not to be wondered at that the mind was led to the most shocking perversions, and the conscience ensnared to the most indefensible actions. ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... that we shall be forced to do what—not having, at once, taken the offensive—we ought to have done from the first. We shall have to fall back, to abandon the line of frontier—which is altogether indefensible—and to hold the line of the Moselle, and the spurs of the Vosges; an immensely strong position, and which we ought to be able to hold against ...
— The Young Franc Tireurs - And Their Adventures in the Franco-Prussian War • G. A. Henty
... young gentlemen of the town, one of strict honesty too; yet in affairs of love he was somewhat loose in his morals; not that he was even here as void of principle as gentlemen sometimes are, and oftener affect to be; but it is certain he had been guilty of some indefensible treachery to women, and had, in a certain mystery, called making love, practised many deceits, which, if he had used in trade, he would have been counted the greatest villain ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... she at present paints butterflies better than any other girl I know, and has a peculiar capacity for the softening of plumes and finessing of antennae. Grant me to be a good teacher, and grant her disposition to be such as I suppose, and the result will be what might at first appear an indefensible iniquity, namely, that this girl, who has already excellent gifts, having also excellent teaching, will become perhaps the best butterfly-painter in England; while myriads of other girls, having originally inferior powers, and attracting no attention ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... unjustifiably, a great role in imaginative sketches of winter life in the high north, and it is in the popular idea so connected with the ice and snow of the Polar lands, that most of the readers of sketches of Arctic travel would certainly consider it an indefensible omission if the author did not give an account of the aurora as seen from his winter station. The scientific man indeed knows that this neglect has, in most cases, been occasioned by the great infrequency of the strongly luminous aurora just in the Franklin archipelago ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... in which he dealt with the potato blight, and consequent Irish Famine, is indefensible. His policy from first to last was a policy of delay—delay in a case in which delay was ruin. He went on by slow and almost imperceptible degrees preparing his colleagues for his altered views on the Corn duties; talking and writing all the time pathetically, about the deep apprehensions he entertained ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... Transvaal. A little lower down the river is a substantial bridge that runs across from Estcourt to Fort Napier, a quaint-looking structure, neither ornamental nor useful, for hills behind and round it command the situation. Thus commanded, it is utterly indefensible, and would need an army corps to hold it. The garrison, under Brigadier-General Wolfe-Murray, at this time consisted of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Border Regiment, one squadron of Imperial Light Horse, Natal ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... other element. Yet it has been suggested, though unsuccessfully, that honesty is not a necessary ingredient in the defence of "fair comment." It was argued that a criticism, defensible if written by an honest critic, could not be indefensible because written by one whose motive was malicious—in other words, that the matter was objective, not subjective. Certainly, at first sight, it seems strange that A can say with impunity that Smith's book ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... exalted name and character.... We recognize the importance of the principle which you yourself proclaimed, that there can be no sound politics without sound morality." Mr. John Dillon wrote: "To have opposed Mr. Roebuck's motion and then to have defended what you thought and knew to have been indefensible would have been not ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... confession, if I do not sit totally mute, as of a thing not worth my answer. But such as look upon this kind of behaviour of mine as too haughty a confidence, have as little kindness for me as they who interpret the weakness of an indefensible cause; namely, the great folks, towards whom want of submission is the great fault, harsh towards all justice that knows and feels itself, and is not submissive humble, and suppliant; I have often knocked my head against this pillar. So it is that at what then befell me, an ambitious ...
— The Essays of Montaigne, Complete • Michel de Montaigne
... under Charles Albert, to which every other consideration is to be sacrificed, and Lord Normanby's alteration of the terms certainly serve that purpose well; but it is quite independent of the question of mediation, and the only thing in the whole proceeding which is indefensible in principle. ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... laws; which are supposed to be inalterable by the will of the sovereign: And of this nature the Salic law is understood to be in France. How far these fundamental laws extend is not determined in any government; nor is it possible it ever should. There is such an indefensible gradation from the most material laws to the most trivial, and from the most antient laws to the most modem, that it will be impossible to set bounds to the legislative power, and determine how far it may innovate in the principles of government. ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... are the giants Of thought and of science," He said in his positive way: "So weigh them, obey them, Display them, and lay them To heart in your infancy's day!" Jack made no reply, But he said on the sly An eloquent word, that had come From a quite indefensible, Most reprehensible, But ...
— Grimm Tales Made Gay • Guy Wetmore Carryl
... conversely, the Northern States, in forcibly preventing secession and compelling the inhabitants of the States composing the Confederacy to remain under the authority of the Federal Government, would have perpetrated a great and indefensible wrong against the people of the South by depriving them of a right to which they were by nature entitled. This is the logic of the application of the principle of "self-determination" to the political rights at issue in ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... deny them upon a dogma. But something followed which would seem to modern civilization even more monstrous than a miracle. If the reader can imagine Mr. Cecil Rhodes submitting to be horsewhipped by a Boer in St. Paul's Cathedral, as an apology for some indefensible death incidental to the Jameson Raid, he will form but a faint idea of what was meant when Henry II. was beaten by monks at the tomb of his vassal and enemy. The modern parallel called up is comic, but the truth is that mediaeval actualities have a violence ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... here he would not have exceeded the bounds of what is regarded as a fair method of deceiving an enemy, but his subsequent proceedings were absolutely indefensible, and are, indeed, almost incredible on the part of the man who in some respects carried the point of honor almost to an extreme. His notion, no doubt, was to paralyze the action of the enemy by exciting suspicions of treachery among their leaders, but the ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... Government, although (as will presently appear) it had some measure of legal strength, was, if regarded from the point of view of actual facts, logically indefensible and materially dangerous. It was not, indeed, the fault of that Government that the richest goldfield in the world had been discovered in its territory, nor would it have been possible for the Boers, whatever they might have wished, to prevent the mines ...
— Impressions of South Africa • James Bryce
... Macfarlane, who has since corresponded with the Duke of Sutherland upon the whole case—viz. upon the petition for land, as affected by the shocking menaces of the Seceders—has, in no other way, been able to evade the double mischief of undertaking a defence for the indefensible, and at the same time of losing the land irretrievably, than by affecting an unconsciousness of language used by his party little suited to his own sacred calling, or to the noble simplicities of Christianity. Certainly ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... political. In the Virginia constitutional convention—of 1829 there were men who had the wisdom to perceive and the firmness to declare that slavery was not only incompatible with the honor and prosperity of the state, but wholly indefensible on any grounds which could be consistently taken by a republican people. In the debate on the same subject in the legislature in 1832, universal and impartial democracy found utterance from eloquent lips. ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... Nelson uttered such expressions as he wrote to his friend Locker, he had only himself to blame for the disfavor which followed; for, to a naval officer, the prince's conduct should have appeared absolutely indefensible. In the course of the same year the King became insane, and the famous struggle about the Regency took place. The prince had meantime returned to America, in accordance with his orders, and by the time he again reached England the King had recovered. He could, therefore, have refrained from ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. I (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... dynasties or revolutionizing governments. The claim of the supreme ruler de facto may be a bad one; he may owe his power to some act of great political injustice—to an iniquitous war—to an indefensible revolution—to a foul conspiracy; but the flaw in his title cannot be regarded as weakening in the least the claim of the people under him to the administration of justice among them as the ordinance of God. The right of the honest man to be protected by the magistrate from the thief—the right ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... coldness could check Miss Joan's propensity for belittling her benefactress. And I remember that once she had been tittle-tattling as usual, and had said something more indefensible than usual of her benefactress, when looking up suddenly we found Miss Champion in ...
— The Story of Bawn • Katharine Tynan
... constitutional defects of vision. When he deals with woman he is no longer scrupulously conscientious. We begin to have our suspicions of his uprightness when we find him in his Subjection of Women laying it down as a fundamental postulate that the subjection of woman to man is always morally indefensible. For no upright mind can fail to see that the woman who lives in a condition of financial dependence upon man has no moral claim to unrestricted liberty. The suspicion of Mill's honesty which is thus awakened is confirmed by further critical reading ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... propriety and feasibility of setting up some dyke to arrest the torrent of innovation and revolution that is bursting in on every side. All the press almost is silenced, or united on the other side. 'John Bull' alone fights the battle, but 'John Bull' defends so many indefensible things that its advocacy is not worth much. An anti-Radical upon the plan of the Anti-Jacobin might be of some use, provided it was well sustained. I wrote a letter yesterday to Barnes,[7] remonstrating upon the general ...
— The Greville Memoirs - A Journal of the Reigns of King George IV and King William IV, Vol. II • Charles C. F. Greville
... hotels. Found my 'nut-brown mayde' at once in the guest-book of the Royal Garden Inn: 'Miss Celia Van Tyck, Beverly, Mass., U.S.A. Miss Katharine Schuyler, New York, U.S.A.' I concluded to stay over another train, ordered dinner, and took an altogether indefensible and inconsistent pleasure in writing 'John Quincy Copley, Cambridge, Mass.,' directly ...
— A Cathedral Courtship • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... two hundred miles from home, in a den like that, with a baby two weeks old, may be justice, but I call it brutality! Our Government can pay its expenses without that kind of revenue." The whole bundle of Roman candles was popping now. Inconsequent, wholly illogical, utterly indefensible explosions. But only my ...
— The Underdog • F. Hopkinson Smith
... is, alas, indefinable; I was going to say indefensible. Perhaps it is an attitude—a mental attitude that finds physical expression in the voice, the gesture, the behaviour. Oxford, not conduct, is three-fourths of life to those who acquire the distemper. Without becoming personal it is not easy to discuss purely social ...
— Masques & Phases • Robert Ross
... Inspector for an indefinite period. When it is remembered that there are still 194 Unions without a woman on the Board of Guardians, the present arrangement, by which the Women Inspectors can only inspect Poor Law Institutions on sufferance, is seen to be indefensible and the need for ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... despatch of Jan. 22,/Feb. 1, 1686, and from the expressions of the Pere d'Orleans (Histoire des Revolutions d'Angleterre, liv. xi.), it is clear that rigid Catholics thought the King's conduct indefensible.] ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 1 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... observation, few have ever witnessed. It is true he could subsist a long time without food, but, like the renowned Captain Dalgetty, when an abundance of it happened to be placed before him, he displayed the most indefensible ignorance as to all knowledge of the period when he ought to stop, considering it his bounden duty on all occasions to clear off whatever was set before him—a feat which he always accomplished with ...
— Willy Reilly - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... same success, though with the loss of several lives. A random shot might at any moment destroy or disable one of the little garrison, and thus rob one important corner of the hovel, which, from its dilapidated state was wholly indefensible from within of defence. It was indeed, as Roland felt, more than folly to hope that all should escape unharmed for many hours longer. But the worst fear of all was that previously suggested by Nathan: all might survive ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... that public opinion is a sufficient check against the abuse of this power, it may be asked why is it not deemed a sufficient guard against the passage of an unconstitutional act by Congress. There is, however, a restraint in this last case, which makes the assumed power of a State more indefensible, and which does not exist in the other. There are two appeals from an unconstitutional act passed by Congress—one to the judiciary, the other to the people and the States. There is no appeal from the State decision in theory; and the practical illustration shows ...
— Key-Notes of American Liberty • Various
... around. To assassinate a bad neighbor,—to rob a miser and distribute his goods,—to marry Rochester, while his insane wife is living, (for Jane Eyre,)—to put to death an imbecile and uncomfortable grandmother, (for a Feegeean,)—these are actions which are indefensible, though the balance of public advantages might seem greatly in their favor. It is probable that at this moment a great good would be done to this nation and to the world by the death of Jefferson Davis; yet ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 14, No. 86, December, 1864 • Various
... as too moral. Thackeray never hints the slightest objection on this score against these novels, whatever he may do as to the plays. For myself, I do not pretend to have read everything that Dumas published. There may be among the crowd something indefensible, though it is rather odd that if there is, I should not merely never have read it but never have heard of it. If, on the other hand, any one brings forward Mrs. Grundy's opinion on the Ketty and Milady passages in the Mousquetaires; on the story of the origin of the Vicomte ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... method which has always seemed to me much to be condemned, and that is the habit of changing the end of a story, for fear of alarming the child. This is quite indefensible. In doing this we are tampering with folklore and ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... circumstances in life seemed to her sufficient excuse for her own delinquencies. It was absurd to think of tragic melodramas; no, everything wound up with universal happiness. However, while she had thus been indulging in the cowardly, but pleasing, thought that nothing was absolutely indefensible, Juliette and Pauline had opened the door of the pavilion, and were now dragging Malignon in their train into the garden. And, all at once, Helene heard Henri speaking to her in a low and ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... before you The word was injudicious, I allow— But hear my explanation, I implore you, And you will be indignant too, I vow! SIR JOSEPH. I will hear of no defence, Attempt none if you're sensible. That word of evil sense Is wholly indefensible. Go, ribald, get you hence To your cabin with celerity. This is the consequence Of ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... not need two legislative organs, the House of Lords retired whenever the Conservatives controlled the House of Commons, and only resumed its proper functions when the Liberals had a majority. Hence its most indefensible characteristic as a Second Chamber became its strongest practical bulwark; for it enlisted the support of many who had no particular views about Second Chambers in the abstract, but were keenly interested in the predominance ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... I have heard big manufacturers talk about control of production by the farmer as an indefensible "economy of scarcity." And yet these same manufacturers never hesitate to shut down their own huge plants, throw men out of work, and cut down the purchasing power of whole communities whenever they think that they must adjust their production to an oversupply of the goods ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... the eve of a great political crisis, it may be of national disaster, a distinguished Liberal statesman makes public confession of his belief that, as a permanent solution, the Irish policy of the Government is indefensible." ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill
... what I did. She even turned, with pretty courtesy, to hold the light for me at the crypt steps,—a service that I accepted perforce and with joyless acquiescence in the irony of it. I knew that I did not believe in her; her conduct as to Pickering was utterly indefensible,—I could not forget that; but the light of her eyes, her tranquil brow, the sensitive lips, whose mockery stung and pleased in a breath,—by such testimony my doubts were alternately reinforced and disarmed. Swept by these changing moods ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... entertain such a notion for a moment. If we look back through the long and weary years of our civil war, we shall find that mistakes were made on the side of the arbitrary exercise of power, from which a few individuals suffered; but indefensible as some of these were, according to the strict letter of the law, we can now see their real harmlessness to the public as clearly as we see the error of those who committed them. At no time have our ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... nothing at all, both went silently into the study. The switch lay on the table. Mr. Meredith had had a bad time getting a switch to suit him. He cut one, then felt it was too slender. Carl had done a really indefensible thing. Then he cut another—it was far too thick. After all, Carl had thought the eel was dead. The third one suited him better; but as he picked it up from the table it seemed very thick and heavy—more like a stick than ...
— Rainbow Valley • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... "well, perhaps it would not be a pleasant song to sing, but better, I should think, than some of those dreadful sentimental ones. They are not much worse than the Strephon and the Chloe class, in which our ancestors delighted; still, they are indefensible. If our Lauras find Petrarchs now, they are usually very beardless ones, and the green morocco cover, with its golden lock, covers their indiscretions. Those who write love ditties for the piano must celebrate a shadow who can't be critical. ...
— Sword and Gown - A Novel • George A. Lawrence
... way—so that a fine stanza sometimes finishes with a jolt and ends with a tag—and it must be allowed that this necessity of making both ends meet is bad for the poetic conscience, a temptation to indefensible laxities. Even Mr. Swinburne, the inventor of exquisite harmonies, whose work is indisputably sincere, can be occasionally observed to be diverging from the straight line of his impetuous flight, hovering and making circuits that lead up skilfully to the indispensable rhyme. More frequently, perhaps, ...
— Studies in Literature and History • Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall
... for the development and security of the Empire that its economic position should be strengthened, the sacrifice must be made. Nothing need be said of such a hopelessly out-of-date and nationally indefensible attitude except this: that it is doubtful whether any considerable proportion of the people connected with the silk industry have felt themselves specially charged with a mission to strengthen the economic condition of their country. ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... direction. Jackson was such a leader. His followers felt: "He is one of us. He is not proud and does not care for style."[166] The era of vulgarity in national politics was ushered in by Jackson, who as President introduced the custom of rewarding political workers with offices, an innovation entirely indefensible; he ought to have continued the practice of his six predecessors. The interaction between government and politics on the one hand and the life of the people on the other is persistent, and it may ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... on her, Gearge, I can tell 'ee; but I tried my luck again. 'What's a molar, Dame?' says I. ''Tis a wus word than t'other,' says she; 'and, if 'ee axes me any more voolish questions, I'll break thee yead for 'ee.' Do 'ee think 'tis a very bad word, Gearge?" added Abel, with a rather indefensible curiosity. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... practically a condition of almost constant war between the wealthy mine-owners and the Western Federation of Miners, at whose head stood Messrs. Haywood, Pettibone, and Moyer, who were about that time indicted for the murder of the Governor of Idaho. Much that was lawless, much that was indefensible, had been done by both sides. The Legislature of Nevada was in sympathy with, or at least was afraid of not expressing sympathy for, Messrs. Moyer, Haywood, Pettibone, and their associates. The State was practically without any police, and the Governor had recommended the establishment ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... Bunting began to long for a solution which he knew to be indefensible from every point of view; he began to hope, that is, in the depths of his heart, that the lodger would again go out one evening on his horrible business and ...
— The Lodger • Marie Belloc Lowndes
... Hippolito, that the same man shall be alternately governed by the meanest and most exalted motives: that he shall now appear an essence celestial and divine, and now debase himself by a conduct the most indefensible and unworthy? But such I am afraid is man. Mixed in all his qualities, and inconsistent in all his purposes. The most virtuous and most venerable of us all are too often guilty of things weak, sordid, and disgraceful. And it is to be hoped on the other hand, that ...
— Italian Letters, Vols. I and II • William Godwin
... descent into Queenstown district, which would mean general state of rebellion of Dutch. Force will be strengthened at Queenstown by next British regiment which should arrive at Queenstown 5th December, but Queenstown is indefensible position. Are there any orders especially ...
— History of the War in South Africa 1899-1902 v. 1 (of 4) - Compiled by Direction of His Majesty's Government • Frederick Maurice
... sword. Sir Walter Manny, in spite of the inferiority of his force, sallied out to relieve it, but it was taken before his arrival, and Don Louis had marched away to Dinan, leaving a small garrison in Conquet. It was again captured by Sir Walter, but finding it indefensible he returned with the whole of his force to Hennebon. Don Louis captured Dinan and then besieged Guerande. Here he met with a vigorous resistance, but carried it by storm, and gave it up to be pillaged by his soldiers. He now sent back to Charles ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... expresses his decision of the foregoing question thus: "Of all the different opinions on a grammatical subject, which have arisen in the literary world, there scarcely appears one more indefensible than that of supposing as follows to be an impersonal verb, and to be correctly used in such sentences as this. 'The conditions were as follows.' Nay, we are told that, "A few late writers have adopted this form, 'The conditions were as follow,' inconsiderately;" and, to prove this ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... inalienable rights because he is male, but because he is human; and when, in virtue of our strong and superior physical capacity, we deny to man-feminine the rights which are ours only in virtue of our humanity, we exercise the same indefensible tyranny against which we felt justified in taking up arms, and perilling ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... often occurs. A few folk still cling to this spelling—there was a "segar-shop" in the Strand till quite recently, and I saw the notice "segars" the other day over a small tobacco-shop in York—which has no authority, and on etymological grounds is indefensible. The derivation of "cigar" is not altogether clear; but the probabilities are strongly in favour of its connexion with "cigarra," the Spanish name for the cicada, the shrilly-chirping insect familiar in the southern countries of Europe, and ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... but the history of a barbarous people—a compendium of their poetry, religion and philosophy; that the Incarnation and Resurrection are but myths borrowed from decaying ethnic cults, and what have we lost? Simply indefensible non-essentials—the tawdry garment with which Ignorance has bedecked her poor idea of the Infinite. What matters it whether we call our Creator Jehovah or Jupiter, Brahma or Buddha? Who knoweth the name by which the Seraphim address him? Why should we care whether Christ came into the world with ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... contends for the gradual preparation of the slaves for freedom; believing all such pretexts to be a fatal departure from the high road of justice into the bogs of expediency, a surrender of the great principles of equity, an indefensible prolongation of the curse of slavery, a concession which places the guilt upon any but those who incur it, and directly calculated to perpetuate ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison |
