Free TranslationFree Translation
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Desertion   Listen
noun
Desertion  n.  
1.
The act of deserting or forsaking; abandonment of a service, a cause, a party, a friend, or any post of duty; the quitting of one's duties willfully and without right; esp., an absconding from military or naval service. "Such a resignation would have seemed to his superior a desertion or a reproach."
2.
The state of being forsaken; desolation; as, the king in his desertion.
3.
Abandonment by God; spiritual despondency. "The spiritual agonies of a soul under desertion."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |





"Desertion" Quotes from Famous Books



... the feelings of better times; but it was probably intercepted, for no answer came. This added deeply to my chagrin. My absence must give rise to conjecture; my fall had been unseen even by my men; and while I believed that my character was above the scandal of either pusillanimity or desertion, it still remained at ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... In spite of the desertion of her English and foreign subscribers the Scots, encouraged in their stubborn resolution, and flattered by hopes that captivated their imaginations, decided to enter the project alone. A stately house in Milne Square, then the most modern and fashionable part of Edinburgh, was purchased ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean

... again, "they could not bring that husband back; they could not cleanse that selfish heart. Was hers the only one he had wounded? Steeped in selfishness, impotent for faithful attachment and manly enduring love—had it not survived remorse, was it not accustomed to desertion?" ...
— Love affairs of the Courts of Europe • Thornton Hall

... Cousin Feenix was a thoughtful sight, as he smoothed his long wristbands and stealthily adjusted his wig. But all these sights were of short duration, being speedily broken up by coffee, and the desertion of the room. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens

... soldier who was out on pass take it away from him, pronouncing it fraudulent, but would allow him to proceed on his way; shortly he would be hailed again, by a "pal," and having, of course, no pass to exhibit, he would be arrested charged with desertion. ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith

... Earnshaw who helped him to ruin by her desertion, and Hindley who perverted him by early oppression, they suffered at his hands. But not the sinless, the constant, the noble; misery, in the end, shifts its dull mists before the light of such clear spirits: [Greek: ta ...
— Emily Bront • A. Mary F. (Agnes Mary Frances) Robinson

... sometimes wander on to some other part of the case than that they are instantly discussing; who do not anticipate some future effect, or dally with some apprehension of future peril, while they should consider only the next word or sentence. This momentary desertion of the exact purpose never occurred to Follett; he fitted the thought to its place; the word to the thought; and allowed the action only to take care of itself, as it always will with an earnest speaker. His, therefore, was rather ...
— Minnesota and Dacotah • C.C. Andrews

... to which, however, she made many objections. There was, indeed, a tragedy connected with her own matrimonial circumstances, which did not make her well inclined to join such a party. Her heart was not at ease within her as to her desertion of Mr Whittlestaff. Whatever the future might bring forth, the present could not be a period of joy But in the middle of the argument, Mr Whittlestaff spoke with the voice of authority. "Accept Mr Hall's kindness," he said, "and go over for a while ...
— An Old Man's Love • Anthony Trollope

... wonder by what simplicity she expects our present meals to be seasoned with mirth. If she is a widow, she lives honoured and uncontrolled, at the head of her late husband's household. But I know at least of one widowed woman in the world, before whom the words desertion and betrayal ought never to be mentioned, since no one has been made so bitterly ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott

... simple one—I wasn't there and he didn't think of me. But Judas murmured that there might be another reason—he never allows a disciple to desert him, whatever reason may be for so doing. But there was no desertion on my part. My father's illness! Wait in any case, Judas had said, till the Master has fallen out of his mood, for he is in his blackest now; we dare not speak to him. But I couldn't believe that ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore

... bed-rolls?" Casey asked, when he turned toward her again. She pointed to the tent, and Casey went and dragged forth the packed belongings of the two. It was perfectly plain that they had deliberately planned their desertion, for everything was ready to ...
— Casey Ryan • B. M. Bower

... had one protector. Behind him stood the power of a New York newspaper, and, with that, he felt he had the power of the United States. There is no flinching, no desertion in the great army of news-gatherers. There should ...
— Plotting in Pirate Seas • Francis Rolt-Wheeler

... need we add, but (reverting to the city) that such and so grievous was the harshness of heaven, and perhaps in some degree of man, that, what with the fury of the pestilence, the panic of those whom it spared, and their consequent neglect or desertion of not a few of the stricken in their need, it is believed without any manner of doubt, that between March and the ensuing July upwards of a hundred thousand human beings lost their lives within the walls of the city of Florence, which before the deadly ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio

... These poor lads have chosen me cap'n, after your desertion, sir"—laying a particular emphasis upon the word "desertion." "We're willing to submit, if we can come to terms, and no bones about it. All I ask is your word, Cap'n Smollett, to let me safe and sound out of this here ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... aristocrats, without Russia, always ready to sow and nurture discord. Hence new troubles—the confederation of Targowica, Russian demands for the repeal of the constitution and unconditional submission to the Empress Catharine II, betrayal by Prussia, invasion, war, desertion of the national cause by their own king and his joining the conspirators of Targowica, and then the second partition of Poland (October 14, 1793), implying a further loss of territory and population. Now, indeed, the events were hastening ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks

... "But being the—ah—truly feminine creature she is, your remarkable aunt, with more or less reason, has leapt to the conclusion that we are the cause of what she terms your 'desertion', and is a ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol

... interests, his tastes, his convenience, or possibly, his caprice might suggest," and it was the wife's duty to follow him. If she refused to accompany him, no matter upon what ground she based her refusal, she was guilty of desertion. A promise by the husband before marriage as to the establishment of the place of residence of the family, created a moral obligation only and was a mere nullity in law. Whenever there was a difference of opinion between husband and wife in regard to the location of the common ...
— Legal Status Of Women In Iowa • Jennie Lansley Wilson

... mob of Cincinnati gentlemen, incensed at the freedom of his press in its defiance of slavery; or by his bold and constant maintenance in the courts of the cause of fugitive slaves in the face of the resentments of the public opinion of the day; or by his fearless desertion of all reigning politics to lead a feeble band of protestants through the wilderness of anti-slavery wanderings, its pillar of cloud by day, its pillar of fire by night; or as Governor of Ohio facing the intimidations ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts

... of the 26th a desertion of an extraordinary nature took place. Five male convicts conveyed themselves, in a small boat called a punt, from Rose Hill undiscovered. They there exchanged the punt, which would have been unfit for their purpose, for a boat, though very small ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins

... that she should live in her own way, withholding from the social riot which she dreaded, and seeking rest in out-of-the-way parts of the shore, where more of nature was to be found and less of fashion. Maud feared lest her mother should feel this as an unkind desertion, but Mrs. Enderby was far from any such trouble; it relieved her from the occasional disadvantage of having by her side a grown-up daughter, whose beauty so strongly contrasted with her own. So Maud spent her ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing

... and his own nerves were on edge at the thought of the coming separation. If the child cried or appealed to him for protection, he would not like to say what he might do. Flight appeared to be his safest course, but Darsie felt a pang of disappointment and wounded love at this desertion of her cause, and the smart did not ...
— A College Girl • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... discomforted, to the castle of the Garde Doloureuse, and not without losing several of their number by the way, some straggling owing to the weariness of their horses, and others taking the opportunity of desertion, in order to join the bands of insurgents and plunderers, who had now gathered together in different quarters, and were augmented by recruits from ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott

... into notice! How easy the task! I need but mount the rostrum, I need but put pen to paper, and my adversaries would be brought to shame, and mankind taught to do me justice. Incontrovertible facts were in my favour; and to foster doubts and fears would be cowardice, self-desertion, and folly! ...
— The Adventures of Hugh Trevor • Thomas Holcroft

... sovereigns, and difficult audiences—he hints at the next coffee-house that he had imagined a stranger might have rested two days in a free country, without being measured, and questioned, and without detailing his history, as though he were suspected of desertion; and ventures on some implied comparison between the ancient "Monsieur le Commandant," and the modern "Citoyen Maire."—To his utter astonishment he finds, that though there are no longer emissaries of the ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady

... He had some doubts about his alleged motives: the man was animated with a most vindictive hatred of the Union government, all his former officers and most of his former comrades. No one ever learned what injury, real or fancied, had driven Sergeant Ames to desertion and treason, but in a few minutes Mosby was sure that the man was through ...
— Rebel Raider • H. Beam Piper

... of congress March 3, and a presidential proclamation of March 11, 1865, all deserters who failed to report themselves to a provost marshall within sixty days, forfeited their rights of citizenship as an additional penalty for the crime of desertion, thus losing their ballot without possibility of its restoration except by an act of congress. Whenever this may be done collectively or individually, these men will become State voters by and through the United ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume III (of III) • Various

... last a sad affair; at Troop Beating three men were brought out to be shot, all found guilty of desertion, one from the 4th Pennsylvania, one from the 6th Massachusetts, and one from the 3rd New York. The troops were drawn up on the grand parade. Two of the men were reprieved by the General; the third was shot.... ...
— The Hidden Children • Robert W. Chambers

... administrative difficulties in such a scheme which were sufficiently obvious, though by no means insuperable; but what weighed far more heavily in the minds of the Ulster members was the anticipation that their acceptance of the proposal would probably be represented by enemies as a desertion of all the Irish Loyalists outside the four counties named in the amendment, with whom there was in every part of Ulster the most powerful sentiment of solidarity. The idea of taking any action apart from these friends and associates, and of adopting a policy ...
— Ulster's Stand For Union • Ronald McNeill

... and Quebec. Nothing could be found out definitely. Certainly the British were looking for the weakest spot, wherever it was. So Montcalm did the best he could to defend nearly thirty miles of shoreline with the reduced army of 13,000 men which he now had. Sickness, desertion, losses in battle, and the reinforcements for Lake Champlain had taken away a good 4,000. Again he reinforced Bougainville, and told him to watch more carefully than ever the menaced thirteen miles between Cap Rouge and Pointe aux Trembles. He himself looked after the garrison ...
— The Passing of New France - A Chronicle of Montcalm • William Wood

... prison at Orleans. 29. The army of Dillon routed near Tournay, and that general massacred by his own soldiers near Lisle (sic). The French routed near Mons under the command of General Byron. May 2. Suppression of the military houses of Monsieur and the Count d'Artois. 6. Desertion of the royal German regiment. 8. Report of the murder of several commissaries. 10. Pethion, in the commune of Paris, presents a silver sword to Rene Audu, a heroine of the 6th of October 1789. Decree concerning prisoners of war. 11. New disorders ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz

... over everything—the great, empty front of the house with its gloomy, cavernous boxes and grim, grey gallery—the dark, dismal flies—the chilly wings—all hushed and still, and impregnated with the sense of desertion. But with this man beside her, who, she knew, would do anything he could to help, the place did not look quite so bad to Gladys as it had done the day before. There was a ray of light now where, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell

... Patterson, who was not only a rogue but also a fool—a flashy one, who turned the head of a lone, lorn young widow, who certainly was not infallible in judgment. In two years the wife got a divorce from him, on the grounds of cruelty and desertion, at Salem, Massachusetts. Her third marital venture was Doctor Asa G. Eddy, a practising physician—a man of much intelligence and worth. From him Mrs. Eddy learned that the Science of Medicine was not much of a science after all. Mrs. Eddy used to say ...
— Little Journeys To The Homes Of Great Teachers • Elbert Hubbard

... a region in which the ordinary course of nature had been arrested, and over which the wrath of the Omnipotent appeared to hang? Or was it that a more genial season in the country to which they migrate, rendered their desertion of it at the usual period unnecessary? Most sincerely do I hope that the latter was the case, and that a successful destiny will await the bold and ardent traveller [Note 10. Dr. Leichhardt had started to cross the Continent some time before.] who ...
— Expedition into Central Australia • Charles Sturt

... immediate motives of their desertion must be imputed to their landlords, may be reasonably concluded, because some Lairds of more prudence and less rapacity have kept their vassals undiminished. From Raasa only one man had been seduced, and at Col there was no wish ...
— A Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland • Samuel Johnson

... found its neighbourhood deserted—not a living thing of any sort was there except one Chinaman poking his stick into the rubbish. Pippin was away down the coast engaging an engineer; and on his return, Scorrier had not the heart to tell him of the desertion. He was spared the effort, for Pippin said: "Don't be afraid—you've got bad news? The men have gone ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... removed. The remainder was distrained, but the tumults of pestilence succeeded and hindered it from being sold. Things were allowed to continue in their former situation, and the house was carefully secured. We had no leisure to form conjectures on the causes of this desertion. An explanation was afforded us by the narrative of this youth. It is probable that the servants, finding their master's absence continue, had pillaged the house ...
— Arthur Mervyn - Or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 • Charles Brockden Brown

... the last sentence, she seemed for the moment to have forgotten my presence, and stood, looking off over the calm grey sea, with absent unrecognizing gaze. After a brief silence she turned to me with a smile: "Pardon my mental desertion. It is not good to talk of our own lives. We all become Adams again, and imagine ourselves ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor

... him was dead. His desertion of her must have finished the dissolution of their marriage. It had been cowardly—he should have faced her and declared what he was going to do and what she ...
— Second Sight • Basil Eugene Wells

... tyrannical character of this advocate of infallibility was given in his treatment of the German emperor, Henry IV. For presuming to disregard the pope's authority, this monarch was declared to be excommunicated and dethroned. Terrified by the desertion and threats of his own princes, who were encouraged in rebellion against him by the papal mandate, Henry felt the necessity of making his peace with Rome. In company with his wife and a faithful servant, he crossed the Alps in midwinter, ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White

... somebody clapped you on the shoulder with orders to come away. But this lesson, precious as it was did not console our men for their beating. They were cross with the long night-march as well as with Lord Grey's desertion. We dragged our way back to Lyme very slowly, losing a good fifty of our number by desertion. They slipped away home, after falling out of the ranks to rest. They had had enough of fighting for the Duke; they were off home. The ...
— Martin Hyde, The Duke's Messenger • John Masefield

... possession of their estates. The two principal delinquents, the marquis of Villena and the archbishop of Toledo, made a show of resistance for some time longer; but, after witnessing the demolition of their castles, the capture of their towns, the desertion of their vassals, and the sequestration of their revenues, were fain to purchase a pardon at the price of the most humble concessions, and the forfeiture of an ...
— History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella V1 • William H. Prescott

... in her flesh—and even in that of her phlegmatic husband—was the base desertion to the enemy's camp of Abel Flique. In the days when Madame Caille was unmarried, and when her ninety kilos were fifty still, Abel had been youngest commis in the very shop over which she now held sway, and the most devoted suitor in all her train. Even after ...
— Lords of the Housetops - Thirteen Cat Tales • Various

... brother's part, was treated almost as ill as Mrs. Brownrigg's apprentices. Driven to despair, the unhappy youth tried to run away. Then the fury of the old tyrant rose to madness. The Prince was an officer in the army: his flight was therefore desertion; and, in the moral code of Frederic William, desertion was the highest of all crimes. "Desertion," says this royal theologian, in one of his half-crazy letters, "is from hell. It is a work of the children ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay

... would be wise for him to leave town. He rebelled at the idea. He did not wish to leave, for business matters were in such shape, or rather in such chaos, that it would be extremely awkward for him to meet his employers and explain his desertion at that time. Moreover there were several homes in the town open to him whenever he chose, where were many attractions. It was a lazy pleasant life he had been leading here, fully trusted, and wholly disloyal to the ...
— Marcia Schuyler • Grace Livingston Hill Lutz

... of the situation flashed upon her. It was hard for her vanity to accept Van Loo's desertion as voluntary and final. What if that hateful woman had lured him away by some trick or artfully designed message? She was capable of such meanness to insure the fulfillment of her prophecy. Or, more dreadful ...
— The Three Partners • Bret Harte

... which is sailing from the shore, it only appears that the shore also recedes; in life it is truly thus. He who retires from the world will find himself, in reality, deserted as fast, if not faster, by the world. The public is not to be treated as the coxcomb treats his mistress; to be threatened with desertion, in ...
— Lives of the Poets: Gay, Thomson, Young, and Others • Samuel Johnson

... really afraid of being shot? Well, I can set your fears on that score at rest. I know that the penalty for desertion in the face of the enemy is death, but we are not in the face of the enemy now. The country is ...
— George at the Fort - Life Among the Soldiers • Harry Castlemon

... settlement in the beginning, prolonged its roof of tumultuous green fans, and turned and ruffled overhead, and sang its silver song all day in the wind. The place had the indescribable but unmistakable appearance of being in commission; yet there breathed from it a sense of desertion that was almost poignant, no human figure was to be observed going to and fro about the houses, and there was no sound of human industry or enjoyment. Only, on the top of the beach, and hard by the flagstaff, a woman of exorbitant stature and as white as snow was to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. XIX (of 25) - The Ebb-Tide; Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... office of earl-marshal at the queen's coronation. On the first alarm of Wyat's rebellion, the veteran duke was summoned to march out against him; but his measures, which otherwise promised success, were completely foiled by the desertion of the London bands to the insurgents; and the last military expedition of his life was destined to conclude with a hasty and ignominious flight. He soon after withdrew entirely from the fatigues of public life, ...
— Memoirs of the Court of Queen Elizabeth • Lucy Aikin

... precious garments, St. Ephrem adds crowns, to all these generous soldiers, one only excepted, who was their faint-hearted companion, already mentioned. The guard, being struck with the celestial vision and the apostate's desertion, was converted upon it; and by a particular motion of the Holy Ghost, threw off his clothes, and placed himself in his stead among the thirty-nine martyrs. Thus God heard their request, though in another ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler

... reconciled to the desertion of her princes. When the Court was moved to Milan, and then to Ravenna, she felt she had been uncrowned. Time after time the Senate appealed to Honorius to shew himself, at least, to his Roman subjects, since political reasons were against his dwelling among them. This journey ...
— Saint Augustin • Louis Bertrand

... significant that among all contemporary writers who have made mention of the Black Death—as it has been agreed to call it—the Black Death in the reign of Edward III.—there is little mention of any panic, few ugly tales of desertion of the dying, no flagrant instances of miserable creatures crying that the wells were poisoned. On the contrary, we have proof that as a rule men died at their posts during all that trying time, ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp

... guard room awaiting sentence. One of the prisoners is Private Watson, mentioned before in connection with the scarecrow. These four men had been tried by general court-martial on serious charges—two for striking officers, the other two for desertion and making away with their kits. As a matter of fact they were incorrigible. The evening orders announced that the brigade would parade at 9 a.m. the following day, when the proceedings of the court-martial would be read to the ...
— A Soldier's Life - Being the Personal Reminiscences of Edwin G. Rundle • Edwin G. Rundle

... half puzzled, half amused at their sudden desertion of her, when sounds of approaching wheels caught her attention. Turning, she saw Josie Manning coming toward the house, in an open carriage driven ...
— Donald and Dorothy • Mary Mapes Dodge

... accept all obligations which the war in duty and honor imposed upon us. The splendid victories we have achieved would be our eternal shame and not our everlasting glory if they led to the weakening of our original lofty purpose or to the desertion of the immortal principles on which the national government was founded, and in accordance with whose ennobling spirit it has ever since ...
— America First - Patriotic Readings • Various

... in this desertion the knell of the enterprise upon which he had embarked. Nevertheless, he disdained to return to port: so sending the "Mellish" and a second prize, which the British afterwards recaptured, back to Massachusetts, he continued his cruise along the Nova Scotia coast. Again he sought ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot

... carry you—we consider ourselves at your service." I expressed a wish to take a look at the Exertion, possibly we might hear something of Mr. Bracket. Nickola said "very well," so got under way, and run for her, having a light westerly wind. He then related to me the manner of their desertion from the pirates; as nearly as I can recollect his own words, he said, "A few days since, the pirates took four small vessels, I believe Spaniards; they having but two officers for the two first, the third fell to me as prize ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms

... rapid that the door closed on the departing pair before the other members had time to understand what was happening. Then a sense of the indignity put upon them by Osric Dane's unceremonious desertion began to contend with the confused feeling that they had been cheated out of their due without ...
— Xingu - 1916 • Edith Wharton

... unfriendly. Pan was welcome, and soon they became fast friends. Every Saturday Pan rode over to Uncle Ike's place, stealing some of the time he was supposed to be spending with Lucy. The little girl pouted and cried and railed at Pan for such base desertion, but he only laughed at her. Any time he wanted he could have Lucy. She grew sweeter and more lovable as she grew older, facts Pan took to his heart, but he chose the old man's stories of war and Indians in preference ...
— Valley of Wild Horses • Zane Grey

... his wounds, he fled to Oenone for help, but died just as he came into her presence. She bathed the body with her tears, and stabbed herself to the heart, a very foolish act for so faithless a man. Miss Hosmer represents her as a beautiful shepherdess, bowed with grief from her desertion. ...
— Lives of Girls Who Became Famous • Sarah Knowles Bolton

... on men whom he had already proved to be broken reeds, the Homes and Kers (Roxburgh) of the Border, and the futile and timid Traquair. When he came among them they forsook him and fled; on September 10, at Kelso, Sir Robert Spottiswoode recognised the desertion and the danger. ...
— A Short History of Scotland • Andrew Lang

... cultivation by frequent manuring. In fact, the soil is wretched; so bad that the natives, by felling the forest and burning the timber upon the ground, can only produce one crop of some poor grain; the land is then exhausted, and upon its consequent desertion it gives birth to an impenetrable mass of low jungle, comprising every thorn that can be conceived. This deserted land, fallen again into the hand of Nature, forms the jungle of Ceylon; and as native cultivation has thus continued for some thousand years, the immense tract of country now ...
— The Rifle and The Hound in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker

... her affectionately, and owned she had been more mortified by her fancied desertion than she had been willing to own even to herself, repeatedly assuring her that for many years she had not made any acquaintance she so much wished to cultivate, nor enjoyed any society from which she had derived so ...
— Cecilia vol. 2 - Memoirs of an Heiress • Frances (Fanny) Burney (Madame d'Arblay)

... life, if I am to diagnose its ailments. Latterly London has become distasteful to me; it seems like a huge mirror reflecting all the horrors, the shams, the vices of the poor scarred world. To retire to Hatton in the companionship of Yvonne would be delightful, but would also be desertion. No idle chance brought us together to-day, Don; it was that Kismet to which the Arab ascribes every act of life. I was hesitating on a brink; you pushed me over; and at this very hour I am falling into the arms of Fate. I believe ...
— The Orchard of Tears • Sax Rohmer

... already. "The old * * * has got his allowance. He won't ask for no more. Who was he, to be meddling? You was old enough in all conscience, July-ar!" His pronunciation of her name has a hint of a sneer in it—a sneer at the woman he victimised, some time in the interval between his desertion of his wife and his final error of judgment—dabbling in burglary. She might have been spared insult; for whatever her other faults were, want of affection for her betrayer was not among them, or she would not have run the risks of concealing ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan

... were tightly closed. Nathaniel held his breath, tried to still the tumultuous pounding of his heart as he waited for a sound of life—a step beyond those doors, a woman's voice, a child's cry. But none came. The stillness of desertion hovered about him. He went to one of the five doors. It was not locked. He opened it silently, with the caution of a thief, and there loomed before him a ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood

... been done toward that end, even though not originally intended! As our armies advance into the enemies' country, thousands of slaves are practically emancipated by the flight and desertion of their rebel masters. The rules and articles of war have been so altered by Congress as to forbid our military forces from returning to bondage any who flee from it. The President has proposed, and Congress has entertained, the proposition of aiding the States in emancipation. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I, No. V, May, 1862 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... inch. The Arrapahoes having suffered a great deal, retired from the league, and having now nothing to fear from the south, we turned against our assailants on our northern boundaries. Notwithstanding the desertion of the Arrapahoes, the united tribes were still three times our number, but they wanted union, and did not act in concert. They mustered about fifteen thousand warriors, from the Umbiquas, Callapoos, Cayuses, Nez-perces, Bonnaxes, Flat-heads, and some of the Crows, who had not yet ...
— Monsieur Violet • Frederick Marryat

... of Ruskin's life would be incomplete without mention of the great sorrows that darkened his days but gave eloquence to his writings. The first was the desertion of his wife, who married the painter Millais, and the second was the loss by death of Rose La Touche, a beautiful Irish girl whom he had known from childhood. She refused to marry him because of their differences of religion; even refused to see him in her fatal illness ...
— Modern English Books of Power • George Hamlin Fitch

... an unjust burden. To return home late and exhausted, to be hardly equal to the economic demand, to see the prenuptial ideals fade, to pass from disappointment to discouragement and from chronic irritability to a broken home is not uncommon. The boy is unfortunate if the "incompatibility" end in desertion or divorce, and equally unfortunate if it ...
— The Minister and the Boy • Allan Hoben

... in the Asher case told Mr. Rogers of the desertion of Cornwall and the case by Judge Finch he said; "I suppose we must depend upon Cornwall alone or get Mr. Low or Judge Hall to help him. This company is through with Finch. I certainly would have trembled in my shoes, had I known Cornwall was handling ...
— Chit-Chat; Nirvana; The Searchlight • Mathew Joseph Holt

... disorder. Quite a number of the battalion got together, and in spite of hunger, thirst, defeat, and dreadful weariness, pushed on to the High Bridge. So anxious were the men to escape capture and the insinuation of desertion, that when threatened with shooting by the rear guard if they did not move on they scarcely turned to see who spoke: but the simple announcement, "The Yankees are coming!" gave them a little new strength, and again they struggled painfully along, dropping in the road sound ...
— Detailed Minutiae of Soldier life in the Army of Northern Virginia, 1861-1865 • Carlton McCarthy

... prepared by that character, so amply and beautifully drawn, to pity her to the utmost demand that may be made on our pity—to judge her leniently, even if in her desertion she finally give way to inordinate and incurable grief. But we are not prepared to see her sinking from depth to depth of despair, in wilful abandonment to her anguish, without oft-repeated and long-continued ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson

... whom upon this road he had walked and ridden and laughed, ghosts of old thoughts and recollected words. He came to a thick grove of trees, a broken fence, a gateway with no gate. Inattentive to these evidences of desertion, he turned in at the gate and rode along a weedy and neglected drive. At the end of it he came to an open space before a ruined house. The aspect of the tumbling walls and unroofed rooms roused him at last completely from his absorption. He dismounted, and, ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason

... in the porch, between pillars of rotting wood, listening to the rain dripping from the roof into the puddles of slushy snow, he was conscious of a sensation of utter desertion and loneliness such as he had never before experienced. The forbidding aspect of the house had the immediate effect of lowering his spirits. It might well have been the abode of monsters or demons in a child's wonder tale, creatures ...
— The Empty House And Other Ghost Stories • Algernon Blackwood

... clemency, and may even raise doubts as to your sincerity in future?"—"It would be much more exposed to doubt were I to pardon them."—"But, Sire...."—"Don't you trouble your head about it ... what is the strength of the army?"—"Sire, I do not know; I only know that it has been much weakened by desertion and by discharges, and that few of the regiments consist of more than three hundred men."—"So much the better; those who are good for nothing have probably left the army; the good soldiers will have remained. Do you know the names of the officers who command the maritime districts, and ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon

... Her desertion of the parish church was observed, and of course nobody was surprised that Miss Radcliffe had turned Papist. The old Radcliffes were all Papists; there was Popery in the blood, and it came out like the gout, missing a couple of generations. Then again ...
— More Pages from a Journal • Mark Rutherford

... this content you? No. You must drive the good old gentleman into paralysis and illness unto death—out of his mind—and you must overwhelm the poor, gentle girl with drunken brutality and cruelty, and to cap all, with desertion. And this is not enough—my God! think of it! this is not enough!—but you must come with the others to force Indian war upon our Valley, upon your old neighbors! There are hundreds lying dead here to-day in these woods—honest men whose ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic

... field of Jemappe, after Doumourier's victory: 'It was on the third day after the victory obtained by general Doumourier over the Austrians, that I rode across the field of battle. The scene lies on a waste common, rendered then more dreary by the desertion of the miserable hovels before occupied by peasants. Everything that resembled a human habitation was desolated, and for the most part they had been burnt or pulled down, to prevent their affording shelter to the posts of the contending armies. The ground was ploughed up by the wheels ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt

... dash for shelter from the building, he did not believe his chances were any better than those of the man he left behind him. He started, with the intention of making his way by a circuitous course to the river, but had not gone far when he was struck by the baseness of his desertion of his friend. He, therefore, turned about with the resolve to try to do something for him, but had no more than caught sight of the structure again when he descried the Professor coming like ...
— The Land of Mystery • Edward S. Ellis

... notice the difference, and, even if she did, she would probably sit quite as close, if only for the sake of the other eggs of her own laying. Once the ugly nestling is hatched, there comes swift awakening. Yet there is no thought of reprisal or desertion. It looks rather as if the little foster-parents are hypnotised by the uncouth guest, for they see their own young ones elbowed out of the home and continue, with unflagging devotion, to minister to the insatiable appetite ...
— Birds in the Calendar • Frederick G. Aflalo

... the favourite dream of adventurers. Nay, the dream grew to such an absorbing desire, that men heard of it as a disease known as "the gold fever." And quiet people at home were told that it was hardly safe for a ship to enter some of the Australian harbours, on account of the certainty of the desertion of the crew, under whatever penalties, that they might repair ...
— Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II • Sarah Tytler

... would needs exchange the torn and inky fustian sleeves for the blue jacket and white lapelle; and he suggested, as the reader knows, the engaging our friend Alan in the matter of Poor Peter Peebles, just opened by the desertion of young Dumtoustie, whose defection would be at the same time concealed; and this, Drudgeit said, 'would be felling two dogs with ...
— Redgauntlet • Sir Walter Scott

... her head, as if the idea amused her. And Mr. Thompson, perceiving that a potential desertion which moved him to sympathy did not trouble her at all, turned his attention to the letter in his hand. He opened the envelope. There were half a dozen ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... was not born under a fortunate star. Two days after starting, a contagious fever broke out on board the 'Ark Raleigh,' and in a tumult of panic, without explaining her desertion to the admiral, she hastened back in great distress to Plymouth. The rest of the fleet crossed the Atlantic successfully, and Newfoundland was taken in the Queen's name. One ship out of the remaining four ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse

... pause in the fashionable season to visit some distant relatives, and if ever any one coupled her flight and the departure of Castrani together, it was not made the subject of remark. Alexandrine kept what she knew to herself, and of course Archer Trevlyn did not proclaim his own desertion. ...
— The Fatal Glove • Clara Augusta Jones Trask

... convictions from the system to which his life is irrevocably wedded. No, keep still, Padre Lluc I think ever as you think now, lest the faith that seems a fortress should prove a prison, the mother a step-dame,—lest the high, chivalrous spirit, incapable of a safe desertion, should immolate truth or itself on the ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... distress, the innocent and delicate Damayanti with every mark of good fortune, fell into a profound slumber. And, O monarch, while she slept, Nala, with heart and mind distraught, could not slumber calmly as before. And reflecting on the loss of his kingdom, the desertion of his friends, and his distress in the woods, he thought with himself, 'What availeth my acting thus? And what if I act not thus? Is death the better for me now? Or should I desert my wife? She is truly devoted to me and suffereth this distress for my sake. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... was no other than Cuchillo, showed symptoms on his sinister countenance of some secret terror. His flight might not have been unobserved even in the tumult of action, or some of the Indians might have noticed his desertion, and hence his fears. But Cuchillo was not a man to undertake a bold stroke without calculating the chances. As a hunter wishing to take the lion's whelps, throws him some bait to distract his attention, so Cuchillo had delivered to the lords of the desert his companions as ...
— Wood Rangers - The Trappers of Sonora • Mayne Reid

... hakim!" Then he turned on his heel at once, as if afraid of being twitted with desertion. He seemed to want to get outside, where he could keep out of range of words, yet not ...
— King—of the Khyber Rifles • Talbot Mundy

... Jacko, and, according to the story as at present told, especially of Mickey O'Dowd. Much as she would have wished to have kept the man at the station for protection, she did not think of disobeying her husband's orders. So Mickey was fed, and then sent back with the flask—with tidings also as to the desertion of that wretched ...
— Harry Heathcote of Gangoil • Anthony Trollope

... of 'Strafford' hung in the balance; it was saved by Macready and Miss Helen Faucit. After this they must have been better supported, as it was received on the second night with enthusiasm by a full house. The catastrophe came after the fifth performance, with the desertion of the actor who had sustained the part of Pym. We cannot now judge whether, even under favourable circumstances, the play would have had as long a run as was intended; but the casting vote in favour of this view is given by the ...
— Life and Letters of Robert Browning • Mrs. Sutherland Orr

... and conversed with the angel outside and the angel inside, had departed to find their friends. Peter and John, having, the one entered, the other looked into the tomb, and seen only the folded garments of desertion, returned home, but Mary lingered weeping by the place which was not now even the grave of the beloved, so utterly had not only he but the signs of him vanished. As she wept, she stooped down into the sepulchre. There sat the angels in holy contemplation, one at the head, the other at the feet ...
— Miracles of Our Lord • George MacDonald

... the mill, at least the Seniors and Juniors; of Sophs and Freshs they were sublimely unconscious. Greeted by frequent slaps on the shoulder, and hearty "How are you, old fellows," they piloted Kitty to a seat in the chapel. An excellent place, but the girl's satisfaction was marred by Fletcher's desertion, and she could not see anything attractive about the dashing young lady in the pink bonnet to whom he devoted himself, "because she ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott

... such sentiment in the Indian character. Children leave their infirm parents to die alone, and be eaten by the wolves;[32] or treat them with violent indignity,[33] when the necessity of migration gives no occasion for this barbarous desertion. Young savages have been known to beat their parents, and even to kill them; but the display of attachment or reverence for them, is quite unknown. Like the beast of the forest, they are no sooner ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel

... promised honor to himself and to his corps, the gratitude of his country, the greatest service to his beloved commander-in-chief. Desertion, for such a purpose, carried with it no dishonor, and any stain upon his character would vanish when the truth became known. The conference was a long one; in the end Lee's arguments proved efficacious; Champe yielded, and ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris

... his men. His loss was a sad one to the pirates, because they regarded him as their most valiant leader, and because, next to Captain Sharp, he was best beloved by them. In fact, his loss meant the desertion of a number more of the buccaneers, who left their companions and returned over land, as Captain Coxon and his ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester

... trouble to prevail upon the King to make any offer of compromise. Even Lord Hervey was strongly of opinion that the attempt would be a failure, that the proffered concession would be wholly thrown away; such a movement, he said, would neither put off the battle nor gain the King one single desertion from the ranks of the enemy, while to the King's own party it would seem something like a lowering of the flag. Walpole, however, persevered, and he carried his point. A deputation, headed by the new Lord Chancellor, ...
— A History of the Four Georges, Volume II (of 4) • Justin McCarthy

... found guilty of desertion. The judge fined him (a bottle), and ordered that he be confined within the city limits for one day. Smith paid the fine, but pleaded to be let off from the imprisonment. Judge Wilson was firm (for once in his life), so poor Smith had to serve ...
— Forty Years a Gambler on the Mississippi • George H. Devol

... to have attempted, by false prophecies or otherwise, under pretext of consulting with the spiritual world, to make innovation in the state. But no general denunciation against witchcraft itself, as a league with the Enemy of Man, or desertion of the Deity, and a crime sui generis, appears to have been so acted upon, until the later period of the sixteenth century, when the Papal system had attained its highest pitch of power and of corruption. The influence of the Churchmen ...
— Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft • Sir Walter Scott

... overweeningly proud of it, was willing to condescend to ship as cabin-boy in order to make the pilgrimage to Typee. Of course, the Galilee would have sailed from the Marquesas without me, for I was bent on finding another Fayaway and another Kory-Kory. I doubt that the captain read desertion in my eye. Perhaps even the berth of cabin-boy was already filled. At any rate, ...
— The Cruise of the Snark • Jack London

... whispered he, as they turned at last into the utter darkness and desertion of the narrow Rue Toison d'Or, "if this is wot yer calls Gay Paree, this precious black slit between two rows of houses, I'll take a slice of the Old Kent Road with thanks. Not even so much as a winkle-stall in ...
— Cleek, the Master Detective • Thomas W. Hanshew

... his kindness; and when they reached the shore the kind-hearted man called one of his boatmen and ordered him to show Miss Wilmot the way to Mrs. Williams' residence. As Kate approached the house she noticed the air of desertion about it, and her heart sank for fear her brother might be dead. Running hastily up the steps, she rang the bell, which was answered by a female domestic, who was too old and too infirm to attend the funeral. Kate accosted her by saying, ...
— Tempest and Sunshine • Mary J. Holmes

... Shoshonee guide and his son had left us, and been seen running up the river several miles above. As he had never given any notice of his intention, nor had even received his pay for guiding us, we could not imagine the cause of his desertion, nor did he ever return to explain his conduct. We requested the chief to send a horseman after him to request that he would return and receive what we owed him. From this however he dissuaded us, and said very frankly, that his nation, the ...
— History of the Expedition under the Command of Captains Lewis and Clark, Vol. I. • Meriwether Lewis and William Clark

... again at Meissenheim. Mannheim also capitulated to the Austrians. The winter was now far advanced; both sides were weary of the campaign, and an armistice was concluded. Austria, notwithstanding her late success, was, owing to the desertion of Prussia, in a critical position. The imperial troops also refused to act. The princes of Southern Germany longed for peace. Even Spain followed the example of Prussia and concluded a treaty with the ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks

... Dorrit's party. The shame, desertion, wretchedness, and exposure of the great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, and the swift clouds of the dismal night. This was the party from which Little Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first grey ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens

... told him), he would with all his heart have kept from him; adding that he was glad at soul that he had no other child, for this behavior of Desdemona would have taught him to be a tyrant and hang clogs on them for her desertion. ...
— Tales from Shakespeare • Charles and Mary Lamb

... courage—must pause before the awful mandate that condemns an equal suffering to those he loves, which he cannot withhold or suffer for? In the spectacle of these innocents struggling against disgrace, perhaps disease, poverty, or desertion, what avails his haughty, all-defying ...
— A Waif of the Plains • Bret Harte

... to the war on the part of the Union; and his arrest was made because he was laboring, with some effect, to prevent the raising of troops, to encourage desertion from the army, and to leave the rebellion without an adequate military force to suppress it. He was not arrested because he was damaging the political prospects of the administration or the personal interests of the commanding general, but because he was damaging ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. II • John T. Morse

... craft of Indian hunters, and all the lore the wise men of his tribe could teach him, Hiawatha grew from childhood into manhood, and by much questioning learned from old Nokomis the story of his mother's cruel desertion. Full of wrath, he determined to be revenged on his father, Mudjekeewis, and in spite of his grandmother's warnings, the youth set out on his long journey. Wearing his magic moccasins (or deerskin ...
— The Children's Longfellow - Told in Prose • Doris Hayman

... lifeblood of the country to which they belong. They elevate and uphold it, fortify and ennoble it, and shed a glory over it by the example of life and character which they have bequeathed. "The names and memories of great men," says an able writer, "are the dowry of a nation. Widowhood, overthrow, desertion, even slavery, cannot take away from her this sacred inheritance.... Whenever national life begins to quicken.... the dead heroes rise in the memories of men, and appear to the living to stand by in solemn spectatorship and approval. No country can be lost which feels herself overlooked ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles

... his Honoured Friend, Sir John Mynts. John Mennis, a Vice-Admiral of the fleet and knighted in 1641, refused to join in the desertion of the fleet to the Parliament. After the Restoration he was made Governor of Dover and Chief Comptroller of the Navy. He was one of the editors of the collection called Musarum Deliciae (1656), in the first poem of which ...
— The Hesperides & Noble Numbers: Vol. 1 and 2 • Robert Herrick

... will, not anyhow if I have a voice in the matter. I am Gwen's lieutenant, you know, specially enrolled to prevent any deserting. There is a heavy penalty for desertion." ...
— The Tidal Wave and Other Stories • Ethel May Dell

... side to perform the elementary duties of companionship, desertion, for example, should obviously give the other mate the right to relief, and clearly the development of any disqualifying habit, drunkenness, or drug-taking, or the like, or any serious crime or acts of violence, should give grounds for a final release. Moreover, the modern ...
— A Modern Utopia • H. G. Wells

... Cleopatra had counted on—and as soon as the breeze shifted the royal galley of Cleopatra spread its crimson sail and, followed by the entire Egyptian division, sailed through the lines and headed south. Antony immediately left his flagship, boarded a quinquereme and followed. This contemptible desertion of the commander in chief was not generally known in his fleet; as for the disappearance of the Egyptian squadron, it was doubtless regarded as a good riddance. The battle, therefore, went ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott

... service of the King to that of the heir apparent, was the Duke of Newcastle;, (95) Who, having married his sister to Lord Townshend, both his royal highness and the viscount had expected would have adhered to that connexion-and neither forgave his desertion.-I am aware of the desultory manner in which I have told my story, having mentioned the reconciliation of the King and Prince before I have given any account of their public rupture. The chain of my thoughts ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... which she had been untrue when she took Feller's place. There could be no choice of sides in war unless you believed in war. One who fought for peace must take up arms against all armies. Her part as a spy appeared to her clad in a new kind of shame: the desertion of ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... case. Mr. Fairfax was evidently on duty. His manner all the evening was that of a man who has been consciously culpable, and is trying to atone for bad behaviour. And your favourite was wounded by his desertion—I could see that." ...
— The Lovels of Arden • M. E. Braddon

... them? They are deeply engraven in my heart, and I believed them true,—I loved you, Lope—Oh! I loved you as never woman loved before, and how was such affection requited? Alas! had I suffered the most terrible of deaths, it had been kind compared with thy desertion." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio

... Fraser had a new nurse. Arlie disappeared, and her aunt replaced her a few hours later and took charge of the patient. Steve took her desertion as an irritable convalescent does, but he did not let his disappointment make him unpleasant to Miss ...
— A Texas Ranger • William MacLeod Raine

... sure that you are right," she admitted. "I am not really worried at all. It is a very annoying manner, however, in which to go away, this,—a desertion most unceremonious. And now Andrea here tells me that at any moment he may ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... reappeared again as they did to renew their attacks. For this reason, the whole army was very earnest with Antony to march into Armenia to take revenge. But he, with more reflection, forbore to notice the desertion, and continued all his former courtesies, feeling that the army was wearied out, and in want of all manner of necessaries. Afterwards, however, entering Armenia, with invitations and fair promises he prevailed upon Artavasdes to meet him, when he seized him, bound him, and carried him ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough

... minutes he had read them all. They proved to be epistles from a lady who signed herself Juanita de Montalvo, written to the Count Juan de Montalvo, whom she addressed as her husband. Very piteous documents they were also, telling a tale that need not be set out here of heartless desertion; pleading for the writer's sake and for the sake of certain children, that the husband and father would return to them, or at least remit them means to live, for they, his wife and family, were sunk in ...
— Lysbeth - A Tale Of The Dutch • H. Rider Haggard

... they resign themselves to an act of which their reason does not approve and they wake up unhappy, sometimes for ever.... It is difficult, for the woman who resists appears to the man a sort of monster, abominable and detestable. Ah, there must be no desertion before possession! Because we have given him our lips, we must make him a present of our lives! Because we have consented to certain pleasures, we must, so that he may enjoy a greater, sacrifice our future to him!... ...
— The Choice of Life • Georgette Leblanc

... up, do you?" and looked at me as if she were going to try her hand. A. said "Yes," and looked at me, smiling sadly. I don't know what motive prompted me—whether my vanity was alarmed at her threatened desertion or that she had really made some impression on me by her love, probably a little of both—but I said: "No, don't; come and sit down here," making way for her, and she joyfully came and nestled against me. From that time I ceased to treat her with ridicule, and kissed her at other ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 5 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis

... she had had little to do, ever, beyond snooze in the shade and eat, and run sometimes behind the pony—a task which came as easily to her as did the other less active parts of her employment. Her desertion, particularly at a crisis, made Rosemary McClean cry, and set her father ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy

... d'Angleterre, et de tous les maux, dont ce roiaume a t afflig depuis le regne de Jacques I. & qui ont caus la perte de Charles I. & la desertion de Jacques II. ACologne, chez Pierre Marteau, ...
— The Library of William Congreve • John C. Hodges

... (mental and physical intoxication); that the insanity caused by the former is almost invariably incurable, whereas the victims of the latter generally recover, as is natural. The poor old gentleman with the cross owes the overthrow of his mind to the desertion of his mistress. We saw the chapel, where a padre says mass to these poor creatures, "the Innocents," as they are called here. They do not enter the chapel, for fear of their creating any disturbance, but kneel outside, in front ...
— Life in Mexico • Frances Calderon De La Barca

... friends and his wife the story of his days of desertion. A name summed it up, Djenan-el-Maqui. With the utmost vivacity, however, he had described all he had eaten, drunk, smoked, and done in that hospitable house and garden; the impression he had made upon the occupants and ...
— The Way of Ambition • Robert Hichens

... when the pain is over which the bridle and the fall had given him, having with difficulty taken breath, is full of wrath and reproaches, which he heaps upon the charioteer and his fellow-steed, for want of courage and manhood, declaring that they have been false to their agreement and guilty of desertion. Again they refuse, and again he urges them on, and will scarce yield to their prayer that he would wait until another time. When the appointed hour comes, they make as if they had forgotten, and he reminds them, fighting ...
— Phaedrus • Plato

... concealed by the water. If the Britons had shown their wonted resolution this position must have been impregnable. But Caswallon's men were disheartened and shaken by the slaughter on the Kentish Downs and the desertion of their allies. Caesar rightly calculated that a bold demonstration would complete their demoralization. So it proved. The sight of the Roman cavalry plunging into the steam, and the legionaries eagerly pressing on neck-deep in water, proved altogether too much for their nerves. ...
— Early Britain—Roman Britain • Edward Conybeare

... The desertion of so many pueblos with abundant pottery and other evidences of active living is one of the mysteries of this prehistoric civilization. No doubt, with the failure of water-supplies and other changing physical conditions, occasionally communities sought better living in other ...
— The Book of the National Parks • Robert Sterling Yard

... voted money enough to repay the sum with interest. Between the battle and the news of peace, Jackson also signed the order for the execution of six militiamen whom a court-martial had found guilty of mutiny and desertion. There were circumstances which seemed to recommend these men to mercy, and in after years the order was cited along with other things to prove that Jackson was ...
— Andrew Jackson • William Garrott Brown

... was accidentally killed, and Mary's child, named John after his father, was born shortly after the ploughman's death. It was then that Mark Brand sought out his old love, and to better purpose than before. His passion for her had been strengthened by what he was pleased to call her desertion of him. He proposed marriage, and offered to adopt the boy. Mary Wyvis accepted both propositions, and left England with him almost immediately, in order to escape ...
— A True Friend - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant

... Angostura by the Cassiquiare are afraid to ascend as far as Esmeralda, and therefore that mission would have been much better placed at the point of the bifurcation of the Orinoco. It is probable that this vast country will not always be doomed to the desertion in which it has hitherto been left, owing to the errors of monkish administration and the spirit of monopoly that characterises corporations. We may even predict on what points of the Orinoco industry and commerce ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt

... the masters, the apathy of the provinces, the bad state of cultivation, the exactions of agents, the corruption of the tribunals, the vexations of the captaincies, indolence, the indebtedness and exigencies of the seignior, desertion, misery, the brutality and hostility of vassals, all proceeds from the same cause and terminates in ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine

... such a state of things, be certain duties inalienably connected with the position of man, others inalienably connected with the position of woman. For the one to assume the duties of the other becomes, first, an act of desertion, next, an act of usurpation. For the man to discharge worthily the duties of his own position becomes his highest merit. For the woman to discharge worthily the duties of her own position becomes her highest merit. To be noble the ...
— Female Suffrage • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... they were indignant. What had they to be grateful for? A constitution to which he had not kept true an instant; the institution of the National Guard, which he had begun to neutralize; benedictions, followed by such actions as the desertion of the poor volunteers in the war for Italian independence? Still, the people were not quite alienated from Pius. They felt sure that his heart was, in substance, good and kindly, though the habits of the ...
— At Home And Abroad - Or, Things And Thoughts In America and Europe • Margaret Fuller Ossoli

... Oh, impossible! the proclamation of martial law last Tuesday made Sandstone virtually Dictator in the metropolis, and to resign now is flat desertion. ...
— Press Cuttings • George Bernard Shaw

... study its provisions with more care than he had previously done, and this close examination revealed the fact that the measure is one in every way worthy of support. (Pretty thin!) It cannot be denied that this desertion has had a damaging effect. Jex and Fluke have returned to their iniquitous allegiance, with six or eight others of lesser calibre, and it is reported and believed that Tubbs and Huffy are ready to go back. It is feared that the University swindle is stronger ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... cried Miss Nellie, agreeing thoroughly in the sentiment her aunt had expressed, the desertion of the Captain and Bob, in addition to the fact of Dick having been also taken away, having affected the young lady more than she had acknowledged. "What shall we do first to ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson

... to hear the new man, was much moved, and came home talking about him with a stammering unction, and many furtive looks at David. He had tried to remonstrate several times on the lad's desertion of chapel and Sunday school, but to no purpose. There was something in David's half contemptuous, half obstinate silence on these occasions which for a man like Reuben made argument impossible. To his morbid inner sense ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward

... merciless humanity—even as it sickened his soul beyond recovery in this world, up from the lowest depths of his being there came the indestructible thing. It was the thing that never dies, the love that defies injury, shame, crime, deceit, and desertion, and lives pityingly on, knowing all, enduring all, desiring no touch, no communion, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker

... also wired the post at Fort Clowdry, and had received the post adjutant's answer that a guard would be sent to bring Private Hinkey back for trial on the charge of desertion. ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock

... a director. Not knowing my state, and I being incapable of telling him of it, he grew weary of the charge. At length he gave it up, and wrote to me to take another director. I made no doubt but God had revealed to him my wicked state; and this desertion of me seemed a most certain mark of my reprobation. This was during the life of my husband. But now my renewed solicitations, and his sympathy with me on my husband's death, prevailed on him to resume my direction, which to me still proved of very little service. I ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon

... daughters just growing into womanhood, whom it was obviously her first duty to protect. The marriage, therefore, might be regarded as not merely a revolt against conventional morality, but as leading to a desertion of country, religion, and family. Her children, her husband's friends, and her whole circle were certain to look upon the match with feelings of the strongest disapproval, and she admitted to herself that the objections ...
— Samuel Johnson • Leslie Stephen

... was willing likewise to give up his opposition to Mr. Hastings, to suspend the execution of many rightful things, and to concede them to the public necessity. Accordingly he agreed to terms with Mr. Hastings. But what was the price of that concession? Any base purpose, any desertion of public duty? No: all that he desired of Mr. Hastings was, that he should obey the orders of the Company; and among other acts of the obedience required was this, that Mahomed Reza Khan should be put into ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. X. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... as a "bribe to Neptune," for a while made a stronger appeal; but, ranging as it did from five to almost any number of pounds under one hundred per head, it proved a bribe indeed, and by putting an irresistible premium on desertion threatened to decimate the very ships it was intended to man. In 1795 what was commonly known as the Quota Scheme superseded it. This was a plan of Pitt's devising, under which each county contributed to the fleet according ...
— The Press-Gang Afloat and Ashore • John R. Hutchinson

... the public administration was betrayed, soon afterward, by a new disorder, which arose from the smallest beginnings. A spirit of desertion began to prevail among the troops; and the deserters, instead of seeking their safety in flight or concealment, infested the highways. Maternus, a private soldier, of a daring boldness above his station, collected ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 03 • Various

... search for truth seems unsuitable to the grand ruins of a feudal land, I still think my colleague's question by no means devoid of rel'vancy. The last charge against the accused was one of burglary; the next charge on the paper is of bigamy and desertion. It does without question appear that the defence, in aspiring to rebut this last charge, have really admitted the next. Either Innocent Smith is still under a charge of attempted burglary, or else that is exploded; but he is pretty well fixed for attempted ...
— Manalive • G. K. Chesterton

... not, of course, known why the last word was never finished. It may have been that he felt too keenly the cruelty of his companions' desertion of him to bring himself to write the word; or perhaps the death agony overtook him before he could finish it. At any rate, it speaks a whole crushing world of reproach to those whose disregard of duty cost their noble leader's life. It has its ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 5, March, 1878 • Various



Words linked to "Desertion" :   desert, absence without leave, rejection, tergiversation, unauthorized absence, exposure, decampment, bolt, defection, apostasy, deviationism, abscondment, abandonment, forsaking, withdrawal



Copyright © 2024 e-Free Translation.com