"Line of defence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this particular case they were by no means advantageous; consequently, Cicero shows his art by cloaking them in an involved narration which, while apparently plausible, is in reality based on a suppression of truth. Having rapidly disposed of these, he proceeds to sketch the line of defence with its several successive arguments. He declares himself about to prove that so far from being the aggressor, Milo did but defend himself against a plot laid by Clodius. As this was quite a new light to the jury, their ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... did, indeed, suggest that Luther should write a respectful letter to the Pope, but his suggestion passed unheeded. At first Luther pretended that the Bull was a forgery brought forward by Eck to discredit him, but when this line of defence proved useless, he boldly attacked the papal pronouncement in his pamphlet, /Against the Bull of Anti-Christ/, in which he denounced Leo X. as a heretic and apostate, an enemy of the Holy Scriptures, a tyrant, and a calumniator. Lest, however, the courage of his ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... 'I give away twenty or thirty of those packets every week. Now look inside. What have you? Oh, H.M.S. Majestic. That's one of a series of photos of "Britain's first line of defence." Lots of people go on buying those cigarettes just to get a complete collection of the photos. We supply an album to keep them in for one and sixpence. There's another of our makes which has pictures of actresses and pretty women. They are extraordinarily popular. They're perfectly ...
— Hyacinth - 1906 • George A. Birmingham
... the powder began to fail, and this loss was irreparable. Lord Grey, going his rounds in the dark, trod upon a sword point, and was wounded in the foot. The daylight brought the enemy again, who now succeeded in making themselves masters of the outer line of defence. Grey, crippled as he was, when he saw his men give way, sprung to the top of the rampart, "wishing God that some shot would take him." A soldier caught him by the scarf and pulled him down, and all ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... lost in the mists of antiquity, but which is generally supposed to have been thrown up by the Romans. There are still the remains of towers here and there, which give to it, when first beheld, its civic character; and it was, I believe, made use of, so recently as 1683, as a line of defence against the Turks. Moreover Deutsch Altenburg has its objects of interest also;—a tumulus, or mound, sixty feet in altitude, but of a date to which tradition goes not back; while the church of St. John, ...
— Germany, Bohemia, and Hungary, Visited in 1837. Vol. II • G. R. Gleig
... mountains, rivers, roads, forests, cities, fortifications, military depots, means of subsistence, &c. If the frontier of a state contain strong natural or artificial barriers, it may serve not only as a good base for offensive operations, but also as an excellent line of defence against invasion. A single frontier line may, however, be penetrated by the enemy, and in that case a second or third base further in the interior becomes indispensable ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... further advance in the employment of fleets as an instrument of hostilities, has since occurred in the Chinese war—their simultaneous operation with troops. In former assaults of fortresses, the troops and ships attacked the same line of defence, and the consequence was the waste of force. From the moment when the troops approached the land, the fire of the ships necessarily ceased, and the fleet then remained spectators of the assault. But ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... the good citizens of Quebec, having been afforded this opportunity, will erect a pile here worthy the site; a castellated building would perhaps be the style best adapted to this, and would come well in with the river line of defence, whose strong curtain runs parallel with the terrace, from which the windows of the Chateau look perpendicularly upon the ...
— Impressions of America - During The Years 1833, 1834, and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Tyrone Power
... of this battle were considered as the church militant in the wilderness: and Bunyan has, in this treatise, endeavoured to show that this palace and fortress was typical of the churches of Christ while in a state of holy warfare, defending their Divine dispensation, and extending the line of defence by progressive spiritual conquests. While the churches are surrounded by enemies, they have inexhaustible internal comfort, strength, and consolation. Like the house in the forest of Lebanon, they are also pleasantly, nay, beautifully situated. If Mount Zion was the joy of ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... declares the Lord to be the efficient as well as the material cause of the world. As the purvapakshin opposes us on the ground of Sm/ri/ti, we reply to him on the ground of Sm/ri/ti only; hence the line of defence taken up in the Sutra. Now it has been shown already that the /S/ruti-texts aim at conveying the doctrine that the Lord is the universal cause, and as wherever different Sm/ri/tis conflict those maintaining one view must be accepted, while those which ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Sankaracarya - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 1 • George Thibaut
... The prisoner has decided upon the line of defence, as is her inalienable right; and since she persistently assumes that responsibility, the Court ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... language, from his church-going habits, he is intimate) are not frequent on his lips? If so, he cannot have pursued his studies of the character on so many long-ago muster-fields and at so many cattle-shows as I. But I scorn any such line of defence, and will confess at once that one of the things I am proud of in my countrymen is (I am not speaking now of such persons as I have assumed Mr. Sawin to be) that they do not put their Maker away far from ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... depots of arms and supplies, from which communications should be opened to the posts. The accompanying skeleton map presents a view of the relative positions of the posts and depots, and of the communications from them to the line of defence for the speedy transportation of succours and supplies. A regular force of five thousand men would be sufficient to garrison these posts, and, with a competent reserve at Jefferson barracks, and ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... the church-bells ring to call and not to warn the people, and sweet Peace and blessed Silence brood over the shrapnel-scarred veld. The aasvogels feast undisturbed on bloated carcasses of horses and cattle lying on the debatable ground between the Line of Investment and the Line of Defence, the barbel in the river leap at the flies, and partridge and wild guinea-fowl drink in the shallows, and bathe in the dry hot ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... is unsurpassed. It is, in fact, his chief characteristic. But this very fact that it pervades—that it is as conspicuous in the Tentation and in Saint Julien l'Hospitalier as in Madame Bovary and the Education—at once throws up a formidable, I think an impregnable, line of defence against those who would claim him for "Realism" of the other kind—the cult of the ugly, because, being ugly, it is more real than the beautiful. He has no fear of ugliness, but he cultivates the ugly because it is the ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... Penniman, who had bethought herself what she should say to Catherine, but was not provided with a line of defence against her brother, so that indignant negation was the only weapon ...
— Washington Square • Henry James
... people want to see nature, let them go and look at herself. Why should they see her at second-hand on a piece of canvas?" The other, (Blackwood,) still more utterly discomfited, is reduced to a still more remarkable line of defence. "It is not," he says, "what things in all respects really are, but how they are convertible by the mind into what they are not, that we have to consider." (October, 1843, p. 485.) I leave therefore the reader to choose whether, with Blackwood and his fellows, he will proceed to ...
— Modern Painters Volume I (of V) • John Ruskin
... fell back upon Kant's distinction of the two reasons and two worlds. They exaggerated the sharpness of that distinction. They learned that the claim of agnosticism was capable of being viewed as a line of defence, behind which the transcendental magnitudes might be secure. Indeed, if one may take Spencer as an example, it is not certain that this was not the intent of some of the scientists in their strong assertion of agnosticism. Spencer's later work reveals that ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... of guilty, and Thurtell and Hunt were sentenced to be hanged, but Hunt escaped with transportation. Thurtell made his own speech for the defence, which had a great effect upon the jury, until the judge swept most of its sophistries away. It was, however, a very able performance. Thurtell's line of defence was to declare that Hunt and Probert were the murderers, and that he was a victim of their perjuries. If hanged, he would be hanged on circumstantial evidence only, and he gave, with great elaboration, the details of a number of cases where men had been wrongfully ...
— George Borrow and His Circle - Wherein May Be Found Many Hitherto Unpublished Letters Of - Borrow And His Friends • Clement King Shorter
... prudent, and do not allow yourself to get angry. Remember that a scene with her would compel us to change our whole line of defence, and that that is the only one which ...
— Within an Inch of His Life • Emile Gaboriau
... speedily called in its reserves, expanding into full strength, the regiments so formed being at once arrayed into divisions and corps under proved commanders, furnished with every appliance which modern military science deemed necessary. These battalions composed the first line of defence for the Fatherland; while behind them, to augment the regular troops, again following out local distinctions and keeping up "the family arrangement," the Landwehr stood in the second line; the additional reserve of the Landsturm—yet to be called out in the event of fresh levies being required ...
— Fritz and Eric - The Brother Crusoes • John Conroy Hutcheson
... She thought that this line of defence was to keep the females back from the water, yet there seemed more than mere precaution at the bottom of the general disturbance that filled the beach. Then as she lay awake she could hear now and then a distant roar and ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... half to admit that his conduct required justification, and urges that he sacrificed to literature very fair chances in his original profession. Many people might, perhaps, be disposed to take a bolder line of defence. Cut out of English fiction all that which has owed its birth more or less to a desire of earning money honourably, and the residue would be painfully small. The truth, indeed, seems to be simple. No good work is done when the one impelling motive is the desire of making a little money; but some ...
— Hours in a Library, Volume I. (of III.) • Leslie Stephen
... who had held on to their positions so desperately, were fighting all the while, not so much to hold the particular positions in which they were, as to gain time, to resist as long as possible, to thwart the enemy in his intentions, to delay his advance, and to keep him away from the main line of defence till such time as reinforcements could reach them. Very gallantly had the thin line of heroes carried out their purpose, holding on, often enough, till they were killed to the last man. They had made the Kaiser's troops pay dearly for every inch of ground; and, ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... trousers. The mad rush of modernity with its levelling tendency really is killing off what is quaint, out of the way, and racy of the soil. But why visit the sins of modernity upon an international language? The last sentence of the indictment itself suggests the line of defence. "You are hammering the last nail into the coffin of the old, ...
— International Language - Past, Present and Future: With Specimens of Esperanto and Grammar • Walter J. Clark
... hearing, that it was his own fault, led him to ask questions, when he came gradually to know what they attributed to him, and was indignant at the imputation of such an employment of his mornings to one who had his studies to attend to—scarcely a wise line of defence where the truth would have been more credible as well as convincing—namely, that at the time when those works of supererogation could alone be effected, he lay as lost a creature as ever sleep could ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Our line of defence began at the south of Wolhuterskop (a kop to the south-west of Bethlehem), and extended from there to ...
— Three Years' War • Christiaan Rudolf de Wet
... fleet continued for one hour, the Spanish then retreating from Malate, where the fire was centred, and the American land forces stormed the trenches, sweeping all before them. The First Colorado Volunteers drove the Spaniards into the second line of defence. Then the troops swept on, driving all the Spaniards ...
— The Boys of '98 • James Otis
... I.E. about seven miles. It is actually about eight miles if measured from the extreme south point of the first line of defence northwards to the river. Razzak evidently did not include the walls of Anegundi, the northern lines of which lie two miles farther ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... bloodhounds failed and Priam persisted in his invisibility. If a man was an honest man, why should he flee the public gaze, and in the night? There was but a step from the posing of this question to the inevitable inference that Mr. Oxford's line of defence was really too fantastic for credence. Certainly organs of vast circulation, while repeating that, as the action was sub judice, they could say nothing about it, had already tried the action several times in their impartial columns, and ...
— Buried Alive: A Tale of These Days • Arnold Bennett
... left, and other big fellows to complete the line of hostile forwards, the home team seemed to stand no chance against their opponents. The visitors bowled them over like ninepins, and rushed through their first line of defence as though it never existed. But Mr. Blake stood firm, and kept his ground like the English squares at Waterloo. Attack after attack swept down upon him only to break up like waves on a rock, and the ball came flying back with a shout of "Now, then! Get away, ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... am with the two learned gentlemen who have preceded me; and I would merely observe, that the affidavits which we might have been expected to offer upon this occasion, in support of the line of defence which we pursued, and which the learned serjeant has stated, could not properly be addressed to the court, because they must have gone in contravention to the verdict of the jury. At the same time I may be permitted ...
— The Trial of Charles Random de Berenger, Sir Thomas Cochrane, • William Brodie Gurney
... trenches themselves were constructional works of art; switch lines were thrown out as an extra precaution; in front of the most important strategical positions, machine-gun posts and strong points abounded in unlimited quantities. It was the Hun's last and most powerful line of defence this side of the Franco-German frontier. This "Hindenburg" line stretched from a point between Lens and Arras where it joined the northern trench system, which had been occupied for the past two years, down to St. Quentin, ...
— How I Filmed the War - A Record of the Extraordinary Experiences of the Man Who - Filmed the Great Somme Battles, etc. • Lieut. Geoffrey H. Malins
... overlooking the river-valley and the town, and elevated two hundred feet above the sea, is Carisbrooke Castle. The oldest part of the present remains come down from Fitzosborne, but additions were afterwards made, and Queen Elizabeth, in anticipation of the descent of the Armada, had an outer line of defence constructed, pentagonal in shape and enclosing considerable space. The loyalty of the people in that time of trial was shown by their subscribing money and laboring without pay on these works. The ruins are not striking, but are finely situated on the elevated ridge. They are much decayed, but the ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... in Sue's face that incipient fright which showed itself whenever he changed from friend to husband, and which made her adopt any line of defence against marital feeling in him. "I MUST go now. I'll come ...
— Jude the Obscure • Thomas Hardy
... central part of the castle, consists of a quadrangle with a large round tower at each corner: in the centre of the east and west side are massive gate-houses defended by portcullises; from the projecting corner towers all the intervening wall was commanded. The gateways communicate with the second line of defence or middle ward. This completely encircles the inner ward, on a much lower level; it is a narrow space bounded by a wall, with low, semi-circular bastions at the corners; it is commanded at every point from the inner ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... White Mountain range extending through New Hampshire and into the northern part of Maine. The watershed between these two forms the valley of the Concord and Merrimac Rivers, which is the first military line of defence in New England west of the sea-coast. It is for this reason that the first struggle for American independence took place on the banks of the Concord River, and not elsewhere; a fact that might have been predicted, though not ...
— Sketches from Concord and Appledore • Frank Preston Stearns
... is no evidence of intentional murder on your part, it is not impossible that the gun went off by accident, and that, mere boy as you must have been at that age, you were so frightened at what had taken place, that you absconded from fear. It appears to me that that should be our line of defence." ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... candle, well content with what I had seen. The only two windows were small, high up, and excellently barred. Even if the enemy fired through them there were half a dozen spots where we should be perfectly safe. Best of all, in the event of the door being carried by assault, we had a second line of defence in a loft. A ladder against the back wall led to it, by way of a trap-door. Circumstances had certainly been kind to us in driving us to ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... accounted for by the prevalent confusion, Greene's and Kane's brigades had, during this change of front, become separated from the command, and had retired to a line of defence north of the Chancellor House. But on regaining the old breastworks, Geary found two regiments of ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... conflicts strongly with men's feelings of humanity and perceptions of social expediency; but the principle of justice which it invokes is as true and as binding as those which can be appealed to against it. Accordingly, it exerts a tacit influence on the line of defence employed for other modes of assessing taxation. People feel obliged to argue that the State does more for the rich than for the poor, as a justification for its taking more from them: though this is in ...
— Utilitarianism • John Stuart Mill
... was that two things nearly contradictory were to be reconciled: the march of the army to the Elbe, and the security of the magazine. Not to forget all rule, the army of the King, in advancing, ought not to depart too far from the line of defence by which it covered its subsistence; and the motion it was to make upon the Elbe threw it entirely to the right and uncovered its rear. It was still endeavored to reconcile this enterprise on the enemy with the security of the magazine. The King ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... and children were brought in to the legation compound, and it was decided to hold the British Embassy as the last line of defence, the supreme command being assigned to Sir Claude Macdonald, the commanding officer of each guard being in command ...
— Our Sailors - Gallant Deeds of the British Navy during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... far they had a right to go, according to the law. His conduct was not the limit of the law, nor did treasonable excess begin where prudence or principle taught him to stop short, though this was the oblique inference liable to be drawn from his line of defence. Mr. Tooke was uneasy and apprehensive for the issue of the Government-prosecution while in confinement, and said, in speaking of it to a friend, with a morbid feeling and an emphasis quite unusual with him—"They want our blood—blood—blood!" It was somewhat ridiculous to implicate ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... this outer line of forts a second line of defence was formed by the Ruppel and the Nethe, which, together with the Scheldt, make a great natural waterway around three sides of the city. Back of these rivers, again, was a second chain of forts completely encircling ...
— Fighting in Flanders • E. Alexander Powell
... John Mason marched against Sassacus, at the head of ninety men, he had with him half the fighting force of the Connecticut Colony. In 1653 a wall was built across Manhattan Island to keep out the savages; though, when we say that the line of defence just covered the present course of Wall Street (which derives its name from that circumstance), our readers may not fail to wonder whether the savages were not the rather kept in by it. In 1675, when the New-England ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... farmhouses, splintered woods, the hoof marks of Russian horses that had forded the stream under German fire, showed that the struggle had been intense along the river. The plan of battle formed in my mind. It was clear that the Germans had made the western bank a main line of defence, which, however, had been ...
— The Land of Deepening Shadow - Germany-at-War • D. Thomas Curtin
... here, and for a moment seemed to have forgotten his line of defence. He turned towards his notes, which he had placed beside him, as if with the intention of refreshing his memory, and then, like one angered at his seeming unreadiness, he appeared to make a mighty effort ...
— The Day of Judgment • Joseph Hocking
... necessary and would be wearisome to follow the unfortunate statesman through the long line of defence which he was obliged to make, in fragmentary and irregular form, against these discursive and confused assaults upon him. A continuous argument might be built up with the isolated parts which should be ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... prisoners adopted a line of defence that greatly embarrassed the prosecuting officers. They declared themselves to be the Baron de Sainte-Hermine, the Comte de Jayat, the Vicomte de Valensolle, and the Marquis de Ribier, and to have no connection with the pillagers of diligences, whose names were Morgan, Montbar, Adler, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... said, "and it wants but a few minutes of the appointed time. Perhaps you shrink from the task you have undertaken?" she added, regarding him sharply; "if so, say so at once, and I will adopt my own line of defence." ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... the river, and intended to take in flank any foe attacking Jackson. This battery was protected by some strong earthworks, mounting three field-pieces, which were thrown up just below it, and stretched from the river about 200 yards into the plain. The line of defence was extended by a ditch for about a quarter of a mile farther, when it ended, and from there to the morass, half a mile distant, there were no defensive works at all. General Morgan, a very poor militia officer, [Footnote: He committed every possible fault, except showing lack of courage. He placed ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... useful in opening up, with the bayonet's point, those foreign markets so essential to her iron and cotton lords—nay, to all her lords? England was on her trial; England's Government was on its trial; and the Queen's speech was to shadow forth their line of defence for past legislation, and to indicate those future measures which were to stay the famine, and prevent its recurrence. Here is the portion of the speech ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... the cunning of these English, for it appears that there was not one line of defence, but three, and it was the third, which was the most formidable, through which I was at that instant passing. As I rode, elated at my own success, a lantern flashed suddenly before me, and I saw the glint of polished gun-barrels and the gleam ...
— The Great Shadow and Other Napoleonic Tales • Arthur Conan Doyle
... been Ranson's captain in the Philippines, and who was much his friend, had been appointed to act as his counsel. When later that morning he visited his client to lay out a line of defence he found Ranson inclined to treat the danger which threatened him with the most arrogant flippancy. He had never seen him in a ...
— Ranson's Folly • Richard Harding Davis
... range rises boldly up, showing in the sky a level outline like a rampart fringed with wall-like slabs of rock or detached masses, giving excellent cover from shrapnel. But besides this higher and last line of defence, there are some lower hills and slopes which project from the main rampart and command the valley, while they are in turn commanded by the heights. It is a two-step position, in fact. You carry the lower step first, and immediately ...
— With Rimington • L. March Phillipps
... him to keep me out of it, but that it seemed to me like tying up the bag when the cat had escaped. His reply was an admission that one must be on the defensive with such a woman and in such a case. Soon after this, Raffles, looking far from well, fell back upon his own last line of defence, namely, his bed; and now, as always in the end, I could see some sense in his subtleties, since it was comparatively easy for me to turn even Jacques Saillard from the door, with Dr. Theobald's explicit injunctions, and with my own ...
— Raffles - Further Adventures of the Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... on with what Mr Hurry Bungsho Jabberjee, B.A., would have termed a beaming simper of indescribable suavity, when a member of one of the opposing teams, in effecting a G. O. Smithian dribble, cannoned into him. To preserve his balance—this will probably seem a very thin line of defence, but 'I state but the facts'—he grabbed at the disciple of Smith amidst applause, and at that precise moment a new actor appeared on the scene—the Headmaster. Now, of all the things that lay in his province, the Headmaster most disliked to see a senior 'ragging' with ...
— Tales of St. Austin's • P. G. Wodehouse
... quietly. The streets were full of people, carts were rumbling along, some filled with provisions, others with the furniture and effects of the houses now being pulled down outside the enciente, or from the villas and residences at Sevres Meudon and other suburbs and villages outside the line of defence. ...
— A Girl of the Commune • George Alfred Henty
... where Reid has failed, other inquirers may be more successful. As soon, in fact, as we apply the psychological method, and regard the 'philosophy of mind' as an 'inductive science,' it is perilous, if not absolutely inconsistent, to discover 'intuitions' which will take us beyond experience. The line of defence against empiricism can only be provisional and temporary. In his main results, indeed, Reid had the advantage of being on the side of 'common sense.' Everybody was already convinced that there were sticks and stones, and everybody is prepared to hear that their belief is approved by philosophy. ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... what she should have come to the National Gallery for to-day would be to watch the copyists and reckon the Baedekers. That perhaps was the moral of a menaced state of health—that one would sit in public places and count the Americans. It passed the time in a manner; but it seemed already the second line of defence, and this notwithstanding the pattern, so unmistakable, of her country-folk. They were cut out as by scissors, coloured, labelled, mounted; but their relation to her failed to act—they somehow did nothing for her. Partly, no doubt, they didn't ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... means offensive and defensive. Again, the monitor type was never intended for long cruising, or indeed for other service than the defence of coasts and harbors. The policy of building a vessel thus adapted only to an inner line of defence, and not adapted to an outer line of defence and offence as well, has been further called in question, and the judgment of the present day has decided against such policy. It is true that in the so-called "new navy," begun in ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIV • John Lord
... impervious to the simplest suggestion. With masterly decision he tapped his pince-nez and fell back upon his third line of defence. "You saw her steal them? What you mean is that you saw her take them from the different counters and put ...
— Happy Days • Alan Alexander Milne
... desired. Nor did he forget that incursions into the energy's quarters could not be made, without hazarding the safety of the town where he was posted, and which Lord Goring told him was of the utmost importance to preserve the line of defence that covered the Royal army. With the true spirit which actuated the western commanders in this disastrous campaign, Monthault cared little what detriment the King received, so he might ruin a rival. He however, took care to shift the responsibility from himself. "If ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... Paul, seriously, to dismiss so vague and childish a fancy from his breast, and rather to think of what line of defence it would be best for him to pursue. This subject being at length exhausted, Paul recurred to Mrs. Lobkins, and inquired whether Dummie had lately honoured ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... defend the dogmas of Rome. The eagerly-awaited "Defence" did not get printed, and would remain in Pope Leo's hands for a year yet. But Basel knew, through More and Erasmus,—whose canny smile probably discounted its critical quality,—pretty much its line of defence. Nor was Froben's circle one whit more surprised than its royal author when its immediate reward was that formal style and title—Defender of the Faith,—to which a few years more were to lend so different ...
— Holbein • Beatrice Fortescue
... and there is plenty more of the same sort for an accuser like you to urge; the subject is all handles; you can take hold of it anywhere. I have been looking about for my best line of defence. Had I better turn craven, face right-about, confess my sin, and have recourse to the regular plea of Chance, Fate, Necessity? Shall I humbly beseech my critics to pardon me, remembering that nothing is in a man's own choice— we are led by some stronger ...
— Works, V2 • Lucian of Samosata
... myself again in the scheme for my defence. I wondered whom my father would have found. There was a man called Cary who had gone home from Kingston. He had a bald head and blue eyes; he must remember me. If he would corroborate! And the lawyer, when he came, might take another line of defence. It began to fall dusk slowly, through ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... and had a curiosity to see her scheme. So I stepped into the warder's lodge, and on into the galleries which commanded the circus with their arrow-slits. The old builders of the place had intended these for a second line of defence, for, supposing the outer doors all forced, an enemy could be speedily shot down in the circus, without being able to give a blow in return, and so would only march into a death-trap. But as a gazing-place on a spectacle ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... centre of the line of defence lay the reserves, the boys of Louisburg, flanked on either side by regiments of veterans, the lean and black-haired Georgians and Carolinians, whose steadiness and unconcern gave comfort to more than one bursting boyish heart. The veterans had long played ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... earnings of one man, and this is what she almost invariably tries to do. That is to say, she tries to get a husband, for getting a husband means, in a sense, enslaving an expert, and so covering up her own lack of expertness, and escaping its consequences. Thereafter she has at least one stout line of defence against a struggle for existence in which the prospect of survival is chiefly based, not upon the talents that are typically hers, but upon those that she typically lacks. Before the average woman succumbs in this struggle, ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... dislike of naval war and of public expenditure[2] made his constitutional conscience, always tender, very sensitive on this question of a cruise against Tripoli. Fearful lest our young sailors should go too far, he instructed the Commodore not to overstep the strict line of defence. Hence, when Sterret, in the Enterprise, captured a Tripolitan schooner, after a brisk engagement, he disarmed and dismantled her, and left her, with the survivors of her crew on board, to make the best of their way home again. Laymen must have found it difficult, even ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... is on the side of his having been with the Royalists." Bedfordshire, however, was one of the "Associated Counties" from which the Parliamentary army drew its main strength, and it was shut in by a strong line of defence from any combination with the Royalist army. In 1643 the county had received an order requiring it to furnish "able and armed men" to the garrison at Newport Pagnel, which was then the base of operations against the King in that part of England. ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... confronted by a far more serious crisis than at the beginning of the war in February 1793. The Republicans, after throwing back Clerfait beyond the River Roer, towards Aix-la-Chapelle, compelled the Duke of York to abandon the natural line of defence of Holland, the River Waal; and in the early days of October the British retired behind Bergen-op-zoom and other Dutch fortresses. These were found to be totally unprepared to sustain a siege. The sluggishness of the Orange party, dominant in Holland since 1787, stood in marked contrast to the eagerness ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... Normans' front, had fallen after a brief skirmish, the German last line of defence reached and artillery support was still far to the rear when the Ten Hundred, passing through the Division ahead, took upon their own shoulders the responsibility to carry the Push through its last two miles and to force the capitulation ...
— Norman Ten Hundred - A Record of the 1st (Service) Bn. Royal Guernsey Light Infantry • A. Stanley Blicq
... puzzle.[136] Dion Cassius brings it in after a victory over the sons of Cymbeline, Caradoc (or Caractacus, as historians commonly call him) and Togodumnus, wherein the latter was slain. And he adds that from its banks the Britons fell back upon their next line of defence, the tide-way on the Thames. He tells us that, though tidal, the river was, at this point, fordable at low water for those who knew the shallows; and incidentally mentions that at no great distance there was even a bridge over it. But it was bordered by almost impassable[137] ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare
... experience, to 'Baconian' methods, and to 'inductive psychology.' The theory of 'intuitions,' effective where it fell in with admitted beliefs, was idle against an atheist, who denied that he had the intuition. The 'final causes' argument, however, rested upon common ground, and supplied a possible line of defence. The existence of the Deity could perhaps be proved empirically, like the existence of the 'watchmaker.' Accordingly, this was the argument upon which reliance was really placed by the average theologian of the time. Metaphysical or ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume II (of 3) - James Mill • Leslie Stephen
... course, I stood up for you. That's your only line of defence, you know. She sees for herself that you needed money like every one else, and that from that point of view maybe you were right. I proved to her as clear as twice two makes four that it was a mutual bargain. She was a capitalist and you ...
— The Possessed - or, The Devils • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... Pacha of Bosnia's private Secretary was about to return to Bosna Serai, having fulfilled a mission on which he had been sent to the camp of the Commander-in-Chief. My object was to return to Mostar by way of Nevresign, which, as well as being new ground to me, forms a portion of the projected line of defence. After waiting no less than five hours and a half for an escort of Bashi Bazouks, who, with true Turkish ideas of the value of time, presented themselves at 12.30, having been warned to be in attendance at 7 A.M., ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot
... summit of the second line of defence has been gained is suddenly made known by a contrasting wind from a new quarter, coming over with the curve of a cascade. These novel gusts raise a sound from the whole camp or castle, playing upon it bodily as upon ...
— A Changed Man and Other Tales • Thomas Hardy
... pine-apple, the prickly pear, the sweet-sop, and the cherimoyer, the entire fruit is covered with sharp projections, stinging hairs, or knobby protuberances, on purpose to warn off the unauthorised depredator. It was this line of defence that gave the banana in the first instance its thick yellow skin; and, looking at the matter from the epicure's point of view, one may say roughly that all tropical fruits have to be skinned before they can be eaten. They are all adapted for ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... BURGOYNE (strongly deprecating this line of defence, but still polite). Don't you think, Mr. Anderson, that this is rather—if you will excuse the word—a vulgar line to take? Why should you cry out robbery because of a stamp duty and a tea duty and so forth? After ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... only thing to be done now was promptly to form a new line of defence, behind which the army could mask its retreat. This was skilfully and quietly done on the night after the battle, our troops not attempting to do more than hold the ground already won. In the morning they occupied the ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... what you have done to him," she wailed. "Tell me what you have done." Redwood took her hand and led her to the sofa, while he tried to think of a satisfactory line of defence. ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... a marked feature of the locality, and protruded from the soil in every imaginable shape. If we had only thrown the smaller stones together and covered them with earth we might have made, during the time we wasted, a line of defence from which we could not have been driven. The 2d of July taught us that we had still much to learn. As it was, we lounged about upon the grass, seeking what shade we could from the glare of another intensely hot day, and ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... extending from Haines' Bluff to Vicksburg, thence to Warrenton. The line of the enemy was about seven. In addition to this, having an enemy at Canton and Jackson, in our rear, who was being constantly reinforced, we required a second line of defence facing the other way. I had not troops enough under my command to man these. General Halleck appreciated the situation and, without being asked, forwarded reinforcements with all ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... letters were written with a fountain-pen, and Blade always uses one. That, however, is not evidence, as millions of people use fountain-pens. By the way, what is your line of defence?" ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... regarded merely as an extension of parliamentary privileges. The truth is that the old parliamentary oligarchy abandoned their first line of trenches because they had by that time constructed a second line of defence. It consisted in the concentration of colossal political funds in the private and irresponsible power of the politicians, collected by the sale of peerages and more important things, and expended on the jerrymandering of the enormously expensive elections. In the ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... descending from a side glacier high up at the back of the hills on our right, cut clean across the valley, like a great gash. The sides of the nullah were extraordinarily precipitous, and on the edge furthest from us stone sangars were already built as a second line of defence. Shere Ali occupied the village in front of the nullah, and we encamped six miles down the valley, meaning to attack in the morning. But the Chiltis abandoned their traditional method of fighting behind walls and standing on the defence. A shot rang out on the outskirts ...
— The Broken Road • A. E. W. Mason
... level, some forty feet higher, stood the palace of the rajah. It communicated with the courtyard, below, by a broad flight of steps. These led to an arched gateway, with a wall and battlements; forming an interior line of defence, should an assailant gain a footing in the ...
— With Clive in India - Or, The Beginnings of an Empire • G. A. Henty
... speed to repair the walls of the City, which had been first erected by Aurelian and afterwards repaired by Honorius at dates respectively 260 and 130 years before the entry of Belisarius. Time and barbarian sieges had wrought much havoc on the line of defence, the work of repair had to be done in haste, and to this day some archaeologists think that it is possible to recognise the parts repaired by Belisarius through the rough style of the work and the heterogeneous nature of the materials employed in it. All through ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... higher education. The world-struggle, we all feel, has shifted to another battlefield, and the future in every realm of human activity rests on the mastery of ideas. In that intellectual conflict, the primary school rooms are the trenches on the first line of defence; the college and university lecture halls stand out as the strategic heights from which the heavy artillery of ideas smashes the way to victory. Hold the college and university heights to-day, and the hinterland of industry, commerce, ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... main line of defence, when challenged in the House of Lords, was that he had a legal right to do what he had done. This was not disputed. "A man may persevere in doing what he has a right to do till the Chancellor shuts him up in Bedlam, or till the mob pelts him as he passes." But the reviewer ...
— Sydney Smith • George W. E. Russell
... were stationed at Brunswick, and Fraser's Highlanders quartered at Amboy. Afterwards the Royal Highlanders were ordered to the advanced posts, being the only British regiment in the front, and forming the line of defence at Mt. Holly. After the disaster to the Hessians at Trenton, the Royal Highlanders were ordered to fall back on the light infantry ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... windy strip of pasture, which falls off abruptly to the Bay of Salerno on the south: a regular embankment of earth runs along the side of the precipitous steeps, towards Sorrento. It appears to be a line of defence for musketry, such as our armies used to throw up: whether the French, who conducted siege operations from this promontory on Capri, under Murat, had anything to do with it, does ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... blocked the upper path for us; and yet beyond, Sir Edward Ford's regiment held the passes of the hills toward Oxford; so that for the while, and in face of us, messengers, troops, even artillery, might pass to and fro without challenge. This line of defence, though it forestalled us on every road, was weak in that it drew out Hopton's strength and attenuated it at too great distances. This our general perceived, and nursed ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... The line of defence now taken by the Utilitarians evidently degrades Mr Mill's theory of government from the rank which, till within the last few months, was claimed for it by the whole sect. It is no longer a practical system, fit to guide statesmen, but ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 2 (of 4) - Contributions To The Edinburgh Review • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... and breastwork. At daybreak on the 17th they were discovered from the sloop Lively, and her guns roused the British army. Before long a battery in Boston and the guns of other ships opened fire, but did little mischief. The insurgents received a small reinforcement, and formed a line of defence, protected by a low wall and rail, from their redoubt northward to the Mystic, in order to secure themselves from a flank attack. If Gage had placed a floating battery on the Mystic, which would have taken them on the left flank, and had landed troops to ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... say," answered Collingwood, regarding the solicitor earnestly, and speaking with great gravity of manner, "that that would make an admirable line of defence to any charge which Pratt was wicked ...
— The Talleyrand Maxim • J. S. Fletcher
... told—the tower in the centre was completely riddled by shots and shells; the bursting of these latter had disabled great numbers of the garrison. By seven o'clock the besieged had begun to retire from the most damaged part of their works; by half-past eight the whole outer line of defence was abandoned, and by nine the fire of the fort was extinct. The Turkish general, finding opposition hopeless, had sent to the Dey for commands; and in reply was ordered to retreat with his whole remaining force to the Cassaubah, and leave three negroes to ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... itself is no better for that. Far from it! {203} At the same time, I think it is proper for me to prove to you both the points in question—first, that if he makes such an assertion he will be lying; and secondly, what is the just line of defence. Now a just and straightforward defence must show either that the acts charged against him were not committed, or that having been committed, they are to the advantage of the city. {204} But Aeschines cannot do either of these things. For I presume that it is not possible for him ...
— The Public Orations of Demosthenes, volume 1 • Demosthenes
... men recalled from Salerno and the adjacent districts marched towards Capua. The river Volturno, which runs by that fortified town, was now chosen as the line of defence of the Bourbon monarchy. ...
— The Liberation of Italy • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... p.m. the 2nd Corps had got into position with their right on Le Cateau, their left in the neighbourhood of Caudry, and the line of defence was continued thence by the 4th Division towards Seranvillers, the left ...
— Sir John French - An Authentic Biography • Cecil Chisholm
... appointing him to defend at the Assizes a half-witted peasant accused of forgery. But Monsieur Savaron procured the poor man's acquittal by proving his innocence and showing that he had been a tool in the hands of the real culprits. Not only did his line of defence succeed, but it led to the arrest of two of the witnesses, who were proved guilty and condemned. His speech struck the Court and the jury. One of these, a merchant, placed a difficult case next day in the hands of Monsieur Savaron, ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... of Santa Cruz stands near the sea, on a plain of about two miles square, at the foot of the mountains. The population amounts to about 6,000 souls. It has a well fortified sea-line of defence, and a mole protected by a fort. It was on landing at this mole that Nelson lost his arm, and Captain Boscawen his life. The English colours taken on that occasion are preserved as trophies in the principal church. ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... of orders from the Division, we fell back on to a somewhat undefined line of defence covering the front of Festubert-Givenchy, and proceeded to dig ourselves in along a line entirely in the open fields, and very visible, I fear, to the enemy. Some battalions could not get sufficient tools, and were not ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... Sam's bluecoats, cheering and singing as new troops only do. There were no signs of the devastations of war until we approached the Monocacy river. During their campaign in Maryland, the rebels at one time made this river their line of defence: it was supposed that they would make here a stand against McClellan's advance from Washington. They had burnt the woodwork of the bridge, twisted the long iron rods of the structure to one side, destroyed ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... been engaged by, and had defeated, a Tripolitan cruiser, the latter was permitted to return home. Jefferson defended this course in a message to Congress saying, "Unauthorized by the Constitution, without the sanction of Congress, to go beyond the line of defence, the vessel being disabled from committing further hostilities, was liberated with its crew."[1220] Hamilton promptly espoused a different interpretation of the power given to Congress to declare war. "It is the peculiar and exclusive province of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... adequately for the secondary purpose of inshore and despatch work with a fleet. It was, moreover, on the ubiquity which their numbers gave them, and on their power of dealing with unarmed or lightly armed vessels, that we relied for our first line of defence against invasion. These latter duties were of course exceptional, and the Navy List did not carry as a rule sufficient numbers for the purpose. But a special value of the class was that it was capable of rapid and almost indefinite expansion from the mercantile marine. ...
— Some Principles of Maritime Strategy • Julian Stafford Corbett
... accessions of territory were small beside it, and to his eyes it seemed the fertile Canaan of French enterprise. Yet the very magnitude of this new success made for the undoing of New France, by scattering her feeble forces over the length and breadth of a continent and distending her line of defence so far that it could be easily pierced. La Salle, however, was driven irresistibly forward by the hot ambition which ruled him. His romantic vision pictured a greater New France in the valley of the Mississippi, governed by himself—a prosperous ...
— Old Quebec - The Fortress of New France • Sir Gilbert Parker and Claude Glennon Bryan
... he can prevent his QKt from being exchanged. As is readily seen, White can attack Black's KP a second time with P-Q4, whilst after Black's P-Q3 any other defensive move would hinder development. These considerations lead to the first main line of defence in which Black plays 3. ... P-QR3. After 4. B-R4 Black has the option of releasing the pin by playing P-QKt4 at some opportune moment. If White elects to exchange his Bishop for the Kt forthwith, he can remove ...
— Chess Strategy • Edward Lasker
... gladiators below to greater effort. In the Palace Gardens a line of Mendoza's men fought from behind the first barricade, while others dragged tables and bedding and chairs across the green terraces and tumbled them down to those below, who seized them and formed them into a second line of defence. ...
— Soldiers of Fortune • Richard Harding Davis
... With a wonderful energy that must command our admiration, though it be only of the kind that is accorded to Satan as pictured in "Paradise Lost," they passed the conscription law, abandoned the posts they still held on the frontier, and concentrated their forces on a shorter line of defence. ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger
... specified conditions. It is true that Christianity discouraged all sexual manifestations, and that therefore its ban fell equally on masturbation, but, obviously, masturbation lay at the weakest line of defence against the assaults of the flesh; it was there that resistance would most readily yield. Christianity thus probably led to a considerable increase of masturbation. The attention which the theologians devoted to its manifestations ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 1 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... all that time before you came forward?" Pettifer put the question with an air of triumph. "Why, Mr. Thresk, did you wait till the very moment when Mrs. Ballantyne was going to be definitely committed to a particular line of defence before you announced that you could clear up the mystery? Doesn't it rather look as if you had remained hidden on the chance of the prosecution breaking down, and had only come forward when you realised that ...
— Witness For The Defense • A.E.W. Mason
... need of necessity be so raised, is an idea which presents itself only when all the other ways out of the difficulty have been tried. But whoso imagines that the aesthetic fact is something pleasing to the eyes or to the hearing, has no line of defence against him who proceeds logically to identify the beautiful with the pleasurable in general, and includes cooking in Aesthetic, or, as some positivist has ...
— Aesthetic as Science of Expression and General Linguistic • Benedetto Croce
... seeing that the place was dangerous, she made her heap bigger so that the rampart might be in proportion to the danger. Then, perhaps, at the moment of starting on the cells, she disappeared, the victim of an accident, blown out of her course by a gust of wind. But this line of defence is not admissible in the Megachile's case. The proof is palpable: the galleries aforesaid are barricaded up to the level of the ground; there is no room, absolutely none, to lodge even a single egg. What was her object, I ask again, when she persisted in ...
— Bramble-bees and Others • J. Henri Fabre
... and moreover Greenwell did not implicate himself; he merely told of others, and consequently the seal of confession would not have been broken, even if Garnet had revealed the whole to the government. He chose, however, on his trial, to adopt this line of defence, namely, that he was not at liberty to disclose anything which was revealed to him in sacramental confession. One of the lords asked him if a man should confess to-day, that he intended to kill the king to-morrow ...
— Guy Fawkes - or A Complete History Of The Gunpowder Treason, A.D. 1605 • Thomas Lathbury
... with its armed guard, enough to deal with the handful of men who could be detached for such a dare-devil enterprise. But in the fleet of Knossos was her fate; and if once the fleet failed, she had no second line of defence on which to rely against any serious attack. There is every evidence that the fleet did fail at last. The manifest marks of a vast conflagration, perhaps repeated more than once during the long history of the palace, and the significant ...
— The Sea-Kings of Crete • James Baikie
... tangled hills facing north, and it was here that the French lines ran when the great attack began in the third week of February. On this side the Germans have advanced rather less than two miles; they have not reached the Charny Ridge, which is the true and last line of defence of the Verdun position, and they have not captured the two hills to the north, which are the advanced position, now the ...
— They Shall Not Pass • Frank H. Simonds
... however, wield pick or shovel long. He was too excited for that. He changed from one thing to another rapidly. Fires were to be kindled along the line of defence, and he set the example in this also. Then he remembered that blankets and other drapery had been used somewhere with great effect in beating back the foe; therefore he shouted wildly for his ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... Oh!"—with a shudder of horrified recollections she covered her eyes, as if to shut out the memory of it—"Oh! that night—that horrible night! Unknown to any of us, my baby, rising from the bed where I had left him sleeping, whilst I went outside to stand by Lord Chepstow, wandered beyond the line of defence, and, before anybody realized it, was out in ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew
... love philtres and my incantations. I am well aware that many persons, when accused of some crime or other, even if it has been shown that there was some real motive for the offence, have amply cleared themselves of guilt by this one line of defence, that the whole record of their lives renders the suspicion of such a crime incredible and that even though there may have been strong temptation to sin, the mere fact of the existence of the temptation should not be counted against them. We have no right to assume that everything that might ...
— The Apologia and Florida of Apuleius of Madaura • Lucius Apuleius
... its advance blocked by precipices, and a withdrawal was ordered, the advantage having been attained of forcing the enemy to disclose the position which he was holding. Further reconnaissances proved that the Afghan line of defence extended along the crest of a lofty and broken mountainous range from the Spingawai summit on the left to the Peiwar Kotul on the right centre, the right itself resting on commanding elevations a mile further south. The position had a front in all of about four miles. It was afterwards ...
— The Afghan Wars 1839-42 and 1878-80 • Archibald Forbes
... top, behind the parapet, ran a platform, from which the defenders discharged their arrows and other missiles against the enemy. Further back, at the distance of about thirty yards, came the main line of defence, which in general character resembled the second, but was loftier and stronger. There was, first, a third ditch (or moat, if water could be introduced), and behind it a wall thirty-five feet thick and sixty feet high, pierced by two rows of embrasures from which arrows ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... the day. The French troops of the line were stationed everywhere in the front, and commanded by Marmont and Mortier. Those battalions of the National Guard, whose spirit could be trusted, and who were adequately armed, took their orders from Moncey, and formed a second line of defence. The scholars of the Polytechnic School volunteered to serve at the great guns, and the artillery was, though not numerous, well arranged, and ...
— The History of Napoleon Buonaparte • John Gibson Lockhart
... table-land rising in a valley, affording a view of the road as far as Obidos. The various points of defence there, and on the flank, were held by strong parties of the enemy. A mile in the rear was a steep and lofty ridge that afforded a strong second line of defence. By the side of this ridge the road passed through a deep defile, and then mounted over a pass through the range of hills extending from the sea to the Tagus, and occupying the intermediate ground until close to Lisbon. Laborde's position was an embarrassing one. If he retired upon Torres Vedras ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... more thrown into the background in English minds by the interests of the British colonial empire in distant seas. Australia seemed looked upon at London as more important than Turkey or Egypt itself, and the idea that the first line of defence of India is at Constantinople, the seat of the Khalifat, seemed forgotten by the successors of Disraeli. It took seven years for the idea, born in 1881, of making Italy a connecting link in an Anglo-German ...
— The Life of the Rt. Hon. Sir Charles W. Dilke V1 • Stephen Gwynn
... the West, or, to speak more properly, his general Arbogastes, was instructed by the misconduct and misfortune of Maximus, how dangerous it might prove to extend the line of defence against a skilful antagonist, who was free to press, or to suspend, to contract, or to multiply, his various methods of attack. [116] Arbogastes fixed his station on the confines of Italy; the troops of Theodosius were permitted ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... unable to cope with them. There was only one thing to be done. The order was given to charge and capture the guns. With a ringing cheer, Her Majesty's 75th rushed on amidst a hailstorm of musketry, and the sepoys fled in terror to their next position; for they had constructed a line of defence from the signal-tower to the late Maharajah Hindoo Rao's house, and disputed every inch of the ground. However, by nine o'clock the army of retribution was in possession of the ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... companies went astray in the darkness: yet the first column of 2,000 men led by Victor rush at the palisades of Fort Mulgrave, tear them down, and sweep into the redoubt, only to fall in heaps before a second line of defence: supported by the second column, they rally, only to yield once more before the murderous fire. In despair, Dugommier hurries on the column of reserve, with which Buonaparte awaits the crisis of the night. Led by the gallant young Muiron, the reserve sweeps into the gorge of death; Muiron, ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... themselves when injured. It has been dealt with in a masterly manner by Driesch; and we may at once say that we do not think that Loeb has in any way contraverted his argument, nor even entered the first line of defence of that which is built up around what he calls by the somewhat forbidding name of ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... islands; some are cultivated and possess sugar-works. The most celebrated of them is named De Cobra, off which island ships cast anchor. On the opposite side of this city, a natural wall of rocks, called Los Organos, extends itself as far as the sea, and forms a perfect line of defence independently ...
— The World of Waters - A Peaceful Progress o'er the Unpathed Sea • Mrs. David Osborne
... outside, to fire a volley. It was thought a good trick, and accordingly I went into my bedroom and fired." Mr. Leeds very superfluously complained to the President. Landor adopted the worst possible line of defence, and so the University and this poet ...
— Oxford • Andrew Lang
... was stopped by the coming towards camp of a couple of Boers bearing a white flag; but they were only allowed to approach within the first line of defence. ...
— The Kopje Garrison - A Story of the Boer War • George Manville Fenn
... barricades facing north an angry altercation soon began between the French and Austrian commanders. The French line of barricades was but the third line of defence here, and only the streets had been fortified, not the houses; but by the Austrian retreat it had become the first, and the worn-out French sailors would have hastily to do more weary fatigue-work carting ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... be an easy matter now. Therefore I think we had better take up the bridge, and make the brook our line of defence." ...
— Field and Forest - The Fortunes of a Farmer • Oliver Optic
... had to deal with a bold adventuress, with a consummate actress, who, finding herself in a dangerous situation, had adopted this daring line of defence, and now by her personal charm sought to lure me ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... laboratory manges to exist among us, becauseof the secrecy in which it was surrounded, and the general confidence which it claimed as its due. Reform canot make headway so long as the dungeon is dark and the laboratory is locked. The strongest line of defence is the maintenance of ignorance, even though we have the curious anomaly, existing nowhere else, of Science covering herself with darkness and hiding behind ignorance. It was one of the ablest advocates for vivisection that America has produced, who, in an address ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... the attack that, for a time, it carried all before it. Daun's line of defence was broken, most of his cannon silenced, and for a time the Prussians advanced, carrying all before them. Had Ziethen been doing his part, instead of idly cannonading Lacy, the battle would have been won; but his ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... campaign in each instance ultimately resulted in failure. So far as the advance of Bragg and Kirby Smith into Kentucky was concerned, by it the South suffered a loss instead of a gain, and was compelled from that time on to act upon a steadily lessening line of defence. Bragg's report shows he took a smaller command out than he took into ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist
... I couldn't have borne for you to do anything—-queer'- —and there was a look in Gillian's face that went to Jane's heart, and under other circumstances would have produced a kiss, but she rallied to her line of defence. ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... slaves—men only at first, but as the work went on women too—were soon going and coming, bearing the most valuable of the household chattels, and these were so stacked in the centre of the enclosure that they would be safe so long as the palisade kept the enemy at bay, and would afterwards act as a line of defence. ...
— Mass' George - A Boy's Adventures in the Old Savannah • George Manville Fenn
... judge was in favour of the lawyer. "I do not quite see the full significance of the line of defence, but I think I must allow the question," was the judge's gentle and reluctant reply, for he was greatly impressed by this witness, by ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... hurriedly and ran out of the door facing Front Street Square. A string of flat cars had been run along the house-track in front of the station, and behind these the hard-pressed vigilantes, reinforced now by the railroad men, were taking up a new line of defence. Driven through the town in a running battle, they were in straits ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... disadvantage by never having stated their own cases. The proceedings must pass before them 'like a dream which they cannot grasp,' and their counsel, if they have counsel, can only guess at the most obvious line of defence. He gives instances of injustice inflicted in such cases, and suggests that the prisoners should be made competent witnesses before both the magistrates and the judge. This would often enable an innocent man to clear ...
— The Life of Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, Bart., K.C.S.I. - A Judge of the High Court of Justice • Sir Leslie Stephen
... one hundred and fifteen pieces of heavy cannon, and defended by twenty-five thousand Arabs and Turks; the harbour protected by nineteen gun-boats, two galleys, two schooners of eight guns each, and a brig mounting ten guns, ranged in order of battle, forming a strong line of defence, at secure moorings, inside a long range of rocks and shoals, extending more than two miles to the eastward of the town, which form the harbour, protects them from the northern gales, and renders it impossible for a vessel of the Constitution's ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... a heavy cannonade was commenced upon it, which the provincials sustained with firmness. They continued to labour until they had thrown up a small breast work stretching from the east side of the redoubt to the bottom of the hill, so as to extend considerably their line of defence. ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... with England the militia of the different States had furnished the means both of resistance and aggression, but their grave shortcomings, owing principally to the lack of competent officers, had been painfully conspicuous. After 1814, the principle that the militia was the first line of defence was still adhered to, and the standing army was merely maintained as a school for generals and a frontier guard. It was expected, however, that in case of war the West Point graduates would supply the national forces with a large number of officers who, despite their civil avocations, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... the 307th Bavarian Battalion.—Immediately upon receipt of this order you are to entrain your men with the 89th Ersatz Battalion for transportation to Peronne. Five Prussian regiments will relieve you here to-night, to fill up the gap in our third line of defence. You are to be as sparing as possible of ammunition, both for the rifles and the machine-guns, as we are warned that the supply may be interrupted. You will use the bayonet on every ...
— With Haig on the Somme • D. H. Parry
... insinuated that Lady Le Breton was only a half-pay officer's widow, living on her pension; and that her boys had got promotion at Oxford as poor scholars, through the Archdeacon's benevolent influence. It was too late now, however, to adopt that line of defence; and she fell back accordingly upon the secondary position afforded her by the chance of taking down Mrs. Oswald's intolerable insolence ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... courage to wander for days in their sylvan recesses. The mountains of the Vosges, on the eastern frontier of France, have never attracted much notice from Europe, except in 1813-14 for a few brief months, when they fell within Napoleon's line of defence against the Allies. But they are interesting for this among other features, that they do not, like some loftier ranges, repel woods; the forests and the hills are on sociable terms. "Live and let live" is their motto. For this reason, in part, these tracts in Lorraine ...
— The English Mail-Coach and Joan of Arc • Thomas de Quincey
... because by training, circumstance, and disposition he is passionately averse from action with the vulgar majority and from self-sacrifice in a common cause, and because he finds in the justification of Germany and, failing that, in the blackening of the Allies to an equal blackness, one line of defence against the wave of impulse that threatens to submerge his private self. But when at last that line is forced he is driven back upon others equally extraordinary. You can often find simultaneously in the same Pacifist paper, and sometimes even in the utterances of the ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... did not digest fully the arguments of the manuscript in his hand, and instead of a first-hand knowledge of Minturno and Scaliger had only the commonplaces of Plutarch. In spite even of Plutarch, allegory, not moral example, is his main line of defence. His fundamental basis is the stock Horatian "omne tulit punctum qui miscuit utile dulci," or as Harington paraphrases, "for in verse is both goodness and sweetness, Rubarb and Sugarcandie, the pleasant and the profitable."[394] The objection that poets lie Harington ...
— Rhetoric and Poetry in the Renaissance - A Study of Rhetorical Terms in English Renaissance Literary Criticism • Donald Lemen Clark
... have been more serious in public than his line of defence against the danger that menaced, but in friendly ears Mr Winter derided it as a practical possibility, like the Liberals, Young ...
— The Imperialist • (a.k.a. Mrs. Everard Cotes) Sara Jeannette Duncan
... my friend's benefit, some symptom of reassurance, some ground for felicitation. This rash challenge had consequences merely dreadful; the wretched volumes, imperturbable and impeccable, with their shyer secrets and their second line of defence, were like a beautiful woman more denuded or a great symphony on a new hearing. There was something quite sinister in the way they stood up to me. I couldn't however be dumb—that was to give the wrong tinge to my disappointment; so that later ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... Taking the direction of affairs wholly upon himself and asking no advice from his Greek captains, he failed to show any of the qualities of a great commander, and was speedily involved in difficulties with which he was quite incapable of dealing. Having had his first line of defence partially forced by a bold movement on the part of the Argives under Nicostratus, instead of trying to redeem the misfortune by a counter-movement, or a concentration of troops, he hastily abandoned to his generals the task of continuing the resistance ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... barricade. And these tactics were thoroughly successful, till the inferior troops were tempted to come down from the hill and chase the Bretons whom they had driven back. This suggested to William the device of the feigned flight; the English line of defence was broken, and the advantage of ground was lost. Thus was the great battle lost. And the war too was lost by the deaths of Harold and his brothers, which left England without leaders, and by the ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman
... A slightly bastioned wall or rampart line of defence, which sometimes surrounds the body of a place; when only flanked by turrets it is called a ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... craft. Sir Hyde acceeded to his proposal, adding two other ships of the line to the number demanded, and leaving the whole business to his management. It was on the 2nd of April that Nelson made the signal to weigh and engage the Danish line of defence. The difficulty of the navigation and the ignorance of the pilots were so great, that three of the ships grounded, and others were unable to take their proper station in the line. With those, however, that could approach the enemy, Nelson ventured ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... natural veil of doubt over horrors so utterly repulsive to the feelings that their existence is discredited; the latter, with a shallowness which Providence sometimes attaches to guilt, aware that some such accusations come too painfully and truthfully home, pronounce their own condemnation by their line of defence—recrimination. ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... this witness's defeat of her, she had an impulse to turn about, point her finger at Blake in the audience, and cry out the truth to the court-room and announce what was her real line of defence. But she realized the uproar that would follow if she dared attack Blake without evidence, and ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... told him that this line of defence was distasteful to her, that he had no right to make a personal matter of an abstract question of justice. It was through those personalities that he ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... ready for her. She has accepted the challenge; and though her army is not great, she is yet not unprepared. Between the enemy and Britain's shores there lies that mighty, invisible and invincible line of defence, the British navy. With the French armies on the one side and the Russian on the other, Germany can not last. In these days, with the terrible engines of destruction that science has produced, wars will be short ...
— The Major • Ralph Connor
... Argonne, where, while waiting for his reinforcements, he was able for some time to hold the invaders in check. At length Brunswick made his way past the defile which Dumouriez had chosen for his first line of defence; but it was only to find the French posted in such strength on his flank that any further advance would imperil his own army. If the advance was to be continued, Dumouriez must be dislodged. Accordingly, on the 20th of September, Brunswick directed his artillery against the hills of Valmy, where ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... held a line of defence with strongly fortified posts at Columbus, Fort Henry, Fort Donelson, Bowling Green, Mill Spring, and Cumberland Gap. It was determined to pierce this line near the centre, along the Tennessee River. This ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... in which Queen Anne had dismissed the Bishop of Worcester from the office of Almoner for similar interference. Nor did Lord Nugent, a relative of the Duke of Chandos, deny the facts alleged; on the contrary, he avowed them, and adopted a line of defence which many must have thought an aggravation of the charge, since it asserted that to prevent such interference was impossible, and therefore the House would but waste its time in trying. However, on this occasion the House took the view which he thus suggested ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... may be permitted in reference to the line of defence advanced by the Commissioners against the inroad of proportional representation. Mr. Humphreys has dealt with this with sufficient fullness in Chapters X and XI which deal with objections to proportional representation; and I ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys |
