"Defensively" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... answered defensively. "I'd sooner face a tribe of wild Indians any day than you twins when ...
— Prudence of the Parsonage • Ethel Hueston
... House with slitted eyes and bristling mustache—business of silent sleuth on the trail of the furniture-fakir! He'd pause at each door and with an eagle glance take a comprehensive survey; then, defensively, offensively, he examined things in detail. From our rambling attics to our vast and cavernous cellars did he go; and not a word crossed his lips until he had completed this conandoyley ...
— A Woman Named Smith • Marie Conway Oemler
... hung back until Colonel Pride's voice shook them into action. In a body they charged him now, so suddenly and violently that he was forced to give way. Cunningly did he ply his sword before them, but ineffectually. They had adopted fresh tactics, and engaging his blade they acted cautiously and defensively, advancing steadily, and compelling ...
— The Tavern Knight • Rafael Sabatini
... waited defensively. More baiting, without a doubt—and she was not in the mood to remember any promises about being a nice, gentle little thing. The figure came close, stooped, and took her by the arm. In the half—light she knew ...
— Good Indian • B. M. Bower
... March, all almond-blossom and snows against the blue—a wonderful fortnight. In London on the way back they had their first awkward encounter. Coming out of a theatre one evening, Gyp heard a woman's voice, close behind, say: "Why, it's Bryan! What ages!" And his answer defensively drawled out: ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... said Mr. Hurley defensively. "We all make mistakes. I knew I'd made a mistake as soon as I got here, but I couldn't get away quietly enough. And you talked so loud. Ye'll admit I had just cause for suspicion. And being a very agreeable ...
— The Lion's Share • E. Arnold Bennett
... rather difficult burrowing into the future," returned Colville defensively. Accepting the challenge, he added: "Yes, I should really like to meet a few Etruscans in Fiesole this morning. I should feel as if I'd got amongst my contemporaries at ...
— Indian Summer • William D. Howells
... admit," Dr. Davenport said defensively, "but it's built according to the schematics ...
— The Foreign Hand Tie • Gordon Randall Garrett
... right down to it," argued Jarvis defensively, "anarchy is the ideal form of government, if it works. Emerson said that the best government was that which governs least, and so did Wendell Phillips, and I think George Washington. And you can't have any form of government ...
— Valley of Dreams • Stanley Grauman Weinbaum
... sharp-pointed nose of hers that could tell for hours afterward whether Father had been smoking "those nasty, undignified little cigarettes—why don't you smoke the handsome brier pipe that Harris gave you?" She brightly commented that the letter was from Boston. But Father didn't follow her lead. He defensively tucked the letter in his inside coat pocket and trotted up-stairs ...
— The Innocents - A Story for Lovers • Sinclair Lewis
... because I've thought so much. Love and duty, yes; I see them as the same. Duty without love would be hard, and there isn't any love without duty." Fanny evidently grew aware of her threatening incoherence. "It isn't necessary to tell you in so many words," she said defensively; "you are only ...
— Cytherea • Joseph Hergesheimer
... more a breach of truth than "your humble servant," at the bottom of a challenge, is; they are universally agreed upon and understood to be things of course. They are necessary guards of the decency and peace of society: they must only act defensively; and then not with arms poisoned with perfidy. Truth, but not the whole truth, must be the invariable principle of every man who hath either religion, ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... always been that defensively armed merchantmen must not fire on submarines or on any other warships, except in self-defense. The Germans have twisted a passage in a document taken from a transport which they sank into meaning that merchant vessels have instructions ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... up her hand defensively, with a laugh. It was still a most delicate hand, like ivory, a little yellowed with age, but fine, the veins standing out a little upon it, the finger-tips still pink. "You speak," she said, "as if you expected me to take the law in my own hands. ...
— Old Lady Mary - A Story of the Seen and the Unseen • Margaret O. (Wilson) Oliphant
... ditches, one on each side of the deep railroad-cut. These redoubts had been located by Colonel Poe, United States Engineers, at the time of our advance on Kenesaw, the previous June. Each redoubt overlooked the storehouses close by the railroad, and each could aid the other defensively by catching in flank the attacking force of the other. Our troops at first endeavored to hold some ground outside the redoubts, but were soon driven inside, when the enemy made repeated assaults, but were always driven back. About 11 a.m., Colonel ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... thought a Christmas funeral wouldn't hurt," interposed Bennet, defensively. "Can't we even have a funeral for fun on Christmas?" ...
— Christmas - A Story • Zona Gale
... of course, he isn't," she answered defensively. "He'd say so—he wouldn't keep a matter like that secret. It isn't ...
— Apron-Strings • Eleanor Gates
... drunk," Clayton said defensively. "A man doesn't know what he's doing when he's drunk." He frowned in concentration. He knew he'd have to think up ...
— The Man Who Hated Mars • Gordon Randall Garrett
... defensively. "Nearly, yes. But not all. Some people don't have them. Some people are born with bluish splotches on their skin, but they fade out while they're children. When they grow up they're just like—the ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... and prevent them concentrating their forces. The central position of Mafeking on the Western line, and the stores and supplies which had been collected in the town, attracted Baden-Powell to it. It was singularly ill-adapted to hold defensively ...
— A Handbook of the Boer War • Gale and Polden, Limited
... corners of his mouth unevenly, and the expression in his eyes set Mary's heart to fluttering. She could not bear it, somehow! To give him up was even harder than she had expected, and suddenly her lids drooped defensively to hide the bright glitter that smarted in ...
— Shoe-Bar Stratton • Joseph Bushnell Ames
... the first line of infantry. If it is to be used for attack, it is better to keep it retired from view till the last moment, in order to strengthen its attack by the powerful moral effect of a surprise. And, used defensively, it will be best posted on the flanks of the second line; since, in advancing to charge, it must have a clear space in its front of at least two hundred or three hundred yards, to enable it to act ...
— A Treatise on the Tactical Use of the Three Arms: Infantry, Artillery, and Cavalry • Francis J. Lippitt
... flop I'd nail down all the coin that was handy, and then I'd buy me a flock of automobiles—and have a table reserved for me at the Knickerbocker for dinner every night—and...." Imagination flagged. "Well," he concluded defensively, "I can tell you one thing I ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... whether I did not think that he might himself withdraw from office when we came to the declaration of war. All along he had been acting against his feelings, but still defensively. He did not think that he could regard the offensive in the same light, and was disposed to retire. I said that a defensive war might involve offensive operations, and that a declaration of war placed the case on no new ground of principle. It did not make the quarrel, ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... coast," said Betty defensively. "I wouldn't give a cent a hundred for a little short coast down a gentle slope. Want me to take you down on ...
— Betty Gordon at Boarding School - The Treasure of Indian Chasm • Alice Emerson
... we must decide how we mean to act against the rebels. Shall it be offensively or defensively? Each way has its disadvantages and its advantages. Offensive warfare offers more hope of the enemy being speedily crushed; but a defensive war is surer and less dangerous. Consequently we will collect the votes according to the proper ...
— The Daughter of the Commandant • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... issues were joined in war. The South aggressively, offensively sought the extension and perpetuation of slavery. The North passively, defensively stood ready to protect her free territory, but not to interfere with slavery. And there was no day during the first two years of the war when the North would not have cheerfully granted the slave institution an indefinite lease of legal existence upon the condition that ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... what the French call a petit bourg; it lay at the base of a sort of huge mound on the summit of which stood the crumbling ruins of a feudal castle, much of whose sturdy material, as well as that of the wall which dropped along the hill to inclose the clustered houses defensively, had been absorbed into the very substance of the village. The church was simply the former chapel of the castle, fronting upon its grass-grown court, which, however, was of generous enough width to have given up its quaintest corner to a little graveyard. Here the ...
— The American • Henry James
... the girl defensively, "that you really want to know how he is, but Mr. Trew is quite well, and he isn't in the least eccentric, and he doesn't profess to ...
— Love at Paddington • W. Pett Ridge
... (During all this the hawk is feinting and darting in his efforts to catch a chicken, and the chickens are dancing defensively, the hen trying to ...
— The Mule-Bone: - A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts • Zora Hurston and Langston Hughes
... one of the leading eyesores of that breezy and expensive boulevard. As you pass by in your limousine, or while enjoying ten cents worth of fresh air on top of a green omnibus, it jumps out and bites at you. Architects, confronted with it, reel and throw up their hands defensively, and even the lay observer has a sense of shock. The place resembles in almost equal proportions a cathedral, a suburban villa, a hotel and a Chinese pagoda. Many of its windows are of stained glass, and above the porch stand two terra-cotta ...
— Piccadilly Jim • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... I said, defensively, "my wife and I play cribbage. On Sundays she reads to me the weekly letter from her mother. That law books are not a recreation remains yet ...
— Strictly Business • O. Henry |
