"Self-defence" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... this time I had not fired a single shot, partly because I do not like missing, which it is so easy to do from the back of a swaying camel, and still more for the reason that I had not the slightest desire to kill any of these savage men unless I was obliged to do so in self-defence. Now, however, the thing was different, as I was fighting for my life. Leaning against my camel, which was dying and beating its head upon the ground, groaning horribly the while, I emptied the five cartridges of the repeater into those Black Kendah, pausing between each shot to take aim, with ...
— The Ivory Child • H. Rider Haggard
... you, sir, because he annoyed me. I got tired of it, an' so, this morning, I just put him out of his misery. An' what are you goin' to do about it? The man's dead, ain't he? An' I killed 'm in self-defence. I know the law. What right'd you to put a ravin' lunatic in with me, an' me sick ...
— The Mutiny of the Elsinore • Jack London
... sword?" No. And then: "Hadn't He even a stick with a point?" Though not naturally combative, I have always been a strong believer in the virtue of the counterattack as the best, or, indeed, the only efficient form of self-defence. ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... not quite accurate. The object of the Committee was to assist the Self-Defence groups of Russian Jews in resisting the pogroms. No arms were exported to Russia, as the groups in question, and indeed the Russian Revolutionists themselves, found it quite easy to purchase arms ...
— Notes on the Diplomatic History of the Jewish Question • Lucien Wolf
... spared that, has a right to deal with him as he pleases. But it is an untrue position, when taken generally, that, by the law of nature or nations, a man may kill his enemy: he has only a right to kill him, in particular cases; in cases of absolute necessity, for self-defence; and it is plain this absolute necessity did not subsist, since the victor did not actually kill him, but made him prisoner. War is itself justifiable only on principles of self-preservation; and therefore it gives no other right over prisoners, ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... sad materialist even in his sentimental moods, laughed at him, and winked. Overtop positively felt hurt at this unkind reception of his confidences, and never again alluded to the state of his feelings toward Mrs. Slapman, until subsequent occurrences made it necessary in self-defence. ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... my fist, I went at my foe, using the guard which my ally recommended. The result corresponded to a certain degree with the predictions of the Sergeant; I gave my foe a bloody nose and a black eye, though, notwithstanding my recent lesson in the art of self-defence, he contrived to give me two or three clumsy blows. From that moment I was the especial favourite of the Sergeant, who gave me farther lessons, so that in a little time I became a very fair boxer, beating everybody of my own size who attacked me. The old gentleman, however, made me promise never ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... Dutch squadron, to anchor near the entrance of the harbour, to take care that the ships riding near Cadiz do not escape,' and he took up a position that commanded St. Lucar as well as Cadiz. He was 'not to fight, except in self-defence,' without express instructions. At the mouth of St. Lucar he found some great ships, but they lay so near shore that he could not approach them, and finally they escaped in a mist, Raleigh very nearly running his own vessel aground. Meanwhile Essex ...
— Raleigh • Edmund Gosse
... practical validity, the deformed child of faith, peopling the midnight of the mind with fearful shapes and phrenetic suggestions, a monstrous brood of its own begetting, and making even good men ferocious in imagined self-defence. ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... instructions on that melodious instrument; and if you could hear the horrid sounds that come I especially at heavy rolls. When I hint he is not improving, there comes a confession: 'I don't feel quite right yet, you see!' But he blows away manfully, and in self-defence I try to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... upon Triscoe, as if to follow his thought while he read, and keep him up to the work, and he ignored the Marches so entirely that they began in self-defence to ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... strife, but to gratify lawless passions—cupidity, revenge, resentment—by deeds of personal high-handedness. Among the common people of the country and the towns, crimes of brutality and bloodshed were of daily occurrence; every man bore weapons for self-defence, and for attack upon his neighbor. The aristocracy and the upper classes of the bourgeoisie lived in a perpetual state of mutual mistrust, ready upon the slightest occasion of fancied affront to blaze forth into murder. Much of this savagery was due to the false ideas of honor and punctilio which ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volumes 1 and 2 - The Catholic Reaction • John Addington Symonds
... breath did this great patriot maintain the noble character of a captain the patron of peace, and a statesman the friend of justice. Dying, he bequeathed to his heirs the sword which he had worn in the war for liberty, and charged them "never to take it from the scabbard but in self-defence, or in defence of their country and her freedom;" and commanded them that, "when it should thus be drawn, they should never sheathe it, nor ever give it up, but prefer falling with it in their hands to the relinquishment thereof,"—words, the majesty and simple eloquence of which are not surpassed ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... intentional, only stupid; slow sympathy, dull sensibility; he did not suffer, nor comprehend, like a savage or a child. If the possibility of separation was new to her, would not he never have thought of it at all? But now, might he not see? Was not his unwonted self-defence itself admission of ...
— Life at High Tide - Harper's Novelettes • Various
... with Lucy Woodrow? This latter question recurred again and again through the night, and the answer came vehemently—no, no, and no again! He had nothing in common with the girl. He recited a score of her simple, silly opinions in self-defence, and, having strenuously reasserted his freedom, turned over to sleep, and slept never a wink all night. What disturbed him most was the fear of meeting Lucy Woodrow again. Perhaps she would avoid him now. There was no comfort in the thought. He knew that what had happened must alter their relations ...
— In the Roaring Fifties • Edward Dyson
... and I know the symptoms. She doesn't like to see you and me walking together. Last term she and I and Magsie and Tattie were in Dormitory 4. Magsie and Tattie did the 'twin cherries on one stalk' business all the time, so in self-defence Sadie and I had to chum, though we squabbled six times a day. I'm not going to be monopolized now, so she needn't think it. Let her chum with Vi if she likes, I'm sure I don't care. Hallo! Which stile do we go over here, ...
— A harum-scarum schoolgirl • Angela Brazil
... minister was deposed and his estates confiscated, Don Gomez was given this high post and treated as an acknowledged favorite, and most shamelessly, and the whole country was shocked. But matters of self-defence were now of first importance to the Castilians, and so they were compelled to overlook her misconduct for the moment and prepare to withstand the irate Alfonso's threatened invasion. He invited Henry, Count of Portugal, the ...
— Women of the Romance Countries • John R. Effinger
... very much, for there is a case on record where a doctor hypnotised a patient by reciting to him in a low voice a few verses of "The Walrus and the Carpenter." The psycho-analysts would probably say that the patient went to sleep in self-defence. We can well remember how we were lulled to sleep in earliest days to the following somewhat fearsome and original words sung to the ...
— Spirit and Music • H. Ernest Hunt
... of Sulu (Jolo) is cheerful and attractive. The day scene, enlivened by the Moro, passing to and fro with his lithe gait, in gay attire, with the barong in a huge sash, and every white man, soldier or civilian, carrying arms in self-defence, may well inflame the imaginative and romantic mind. One can hardly believe one is still in the Philippines. At night, the shaded avenues, bordered by stately trees, illuminated by a hundred lamps, present a beautiful, picturesque scene which carries the memory ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... guided? Likely enough. Be it so. Would you blame me for slaying the tiger or serpent—not by the naked hand, but by weapons that arm it? But what could tiger and serpent do more against me than the man who would rob me of life? He had his arts for assault, I had mine for self-defence. He was to me as the tiger that creeps through the jungle, or the serpent uncoiling his folds for the spring. Death to those whose life is destruction to mine, be they serpent or tiger or man! Derval perished. Yes! the spot in which ...
— A Strange Story, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... leisurely stripped off his superfluous clothing, and his form was large enough to strike terror into the hearts of those who had not made the art of self-defence a study for years, as I well knew that Fred had. The man's arms were brawny and muscular, and longer than Fred's, and when the two men took their positions, I confess that I had some fear for the safety of my friend. But if I looked fearful Fred did not, ...
— The Gold Hunter's Adventures - Or, Life in Australia • William H. Thomes
... to him. "You are not going to kill anyone, Luka? If they attack us, of course we shall shoot them down in self-defence, but I would not have anyone killed in cold blood ...
— Condemned as a Nihilist - A Story of Escape from Siberia • George Alfred Henty
... face crimson, his mouth twitching, all the fire and mastery gone from his eyes. He had thought, poor fool, that she was learning to care for him; for of late, in her game of self-defence, she had treated him with evident consideration and many little attentions of the voice and eyes. And now he understood. He saw the truth in every flash of her eyes, in every line of brow, mouth and chin. He turned, took the lantern from Cormick ...
— The Harbor Master • Theodore Goodridge Roberts
... as this that "gains the ends of States and makes men heroes." Napoleon did not discover it. Every single general who deserves to be entitled great has used it. Frederick, threatened by Austria, France, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden, used it in self-defence, and from the Seven Years' War the little kingdom of Prussia emerged as a first-class Power. It was such strategy which won back the Peninsula; not the lines of Torres Vedras, but the bold march northwards to Vittoria.* (* "In six weeks, Wellington marched ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... derived from the provocations of European imperialistic powers, including those countries that in domestic policy are democratic. And every fairminded person will recognize that, leaving China out of the reckoning, Japan's proximity to China gives her aggressions the color of self-defence in a way that cannot be urged in ...
— China, Japan and the U.S.A. - Present-Day Conditions in the Far East and Their Bearing - on the Washington Conference • John Dewey
... seven trials out of ten, is the most important thing in it. By its means it can generally be demonstrated whether the shooting was accidental or intentional—and whether or not the killing was in self-defence. ...
— Courts and Criminals • Arthur Train
... The self-assertion of this and other letters about this time was really self-defence, the invective against him, and the calumnies, being such as can hardly be credited by those not familiar with ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... government and the aristocracy of this country had subordinated persons to things, and treated the one like the other,—the poor, with some reason, and almost in self-defence, learned to set up rights above duties. The code of a Christian society is, Debeo, et tu debes—of Heathens or Barbarians, Teneo, ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... care? He's armed, isn't he? I shot him in self-defence. It'll be a warning to others. Will you stand aside, or d'ye ...
— The Amateur Cracksman • E. W. Hornung
... of the Dunciad showed Pope where his main strength as a poet lay. That the writers he had attacked, in many instances without provocation, should resent the ungrateful notoriety conferred upon them was inevitable. In self-defence, and to add to the provocation already given, he started a paper called the Grub Street Journal, which existed for eight years—Pope, who had no scruple in 'hazarding a lie,' denying all the time that he ...
— The Age of Pope - (1700-1744) • John Dennis
... voices of his friends in discussing his affairs. He did not mean that there were no kindly faithful hearts among them. Several might emerge as kind, as friendly as ever. But the monster of human society would behave as it always does in self-defence. It would shake itself, dislodge Edmund from its back, and then say quite kindly that it was a sad pity that he had fallen off. Every organism must reject what it can no longer assimilate, and a rich society by the law of its ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... AND MY FELLOW-MEMBERS OF THE LOTOS CLUB,—I have seldom in my lifetime listened to compliments so felicitously phrased or so well deserved. I return thanks for them from a full heart and an appreciative spirit, and I will say this in self-defence: While I am charged with having no reverence for anything, I wish to say that I have reverence for the man who can utter such truths, and I also have a deep reverence and a sincere one for a club that can do such ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... will convince his chamberlains with wine'—i. e., will refute by means of the confusion belonging to the tragedy itself, when aided by intoxication, all the arguments (otherwise plausible) which they might urge in self-defence. ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey, Vol. 2 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... Master Rob there hadn't woke up before morning, the 'gators and pirani, without counting the other critters, would have been having a treat. I tell you I'm ashamed of myself, and the sooner an end's made of me the better. Why, you ought to do it, sir, in self-defence." ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... It was not often that she needed help, and she knew that he could have helped her, had he been there. But she had to speak for herself. She said what she could; but in that self-examination which self-defence forces upon those who have never dissected their own hearts, a new and fearful truth sprang up, clear of all others, bright, keen, ...
— Taquisara • F. Marion Crawford
... infinite meanings which cluster round that blessed expression "home." Home is the one place in all this world where hearts are sure of each other. It is the place of confidence. It is the place where we tear off that mask of guarded and suspicious coldness which the world forces us to wear in self-defence, and where we pour out the unreserved communications of full and confiding hearts. It is the spot where expressions of tenderness gush out without any sensation of awkwardness and without any dread of ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... cavaliers of the cafes, the wildest denunciations of the treason that would consent to look at things as they are. The men who have ventured to support the common-sense view are speedily stormed into silence or timid self-defence. The sword of Guzman is brandished in the Chambers, the name of Pelayo is invoked, the memory of the Cid is awakened, and the proposition goes out in a blaze of patriotic pyrotechnics, to the intense satisfaction of the unthinking and the grief of the judicious. The senoritos go back ...
— Castilian Days • John Hay
... give rise to variation, the principal are climatic changes, different temperatures of any of a creature's environments, differences of abode, of habit, of the most frequent actions, and lastly of the means of obtaining food, self-defence, reproduction," &c. {105c} I will not dwell on the small inconsistencies which may be found in the passages quoted above; the reader will doubtless see them, and will also doubtless see that in spite ...
— Luck or Cunning? • Samuel Butler
... hesitate? Is it because you fear you will have to take second place in your family from now on—that you will no longer be able to dominate Sylvia? Are you afraid of putting into her hands a weapon of self-defence?" ...
— Sylvia's Marriage • Upton Sinclair
... creation, and especially, whether the law of continuity, which it has not pleased his Maker to break with respect to his bodily structure, and which binds that, in the unity of one great type, to the lower forms of animal life by the common conditions of nourishment, reproduction, and self-defence, has not rendered necessary both the physical appetites and the propensities which terminate in self; whether again the superior endowments of his intellectual nature, his susceptibility of moral emotion, and of those disinterested affections which, if not exclusively, he far more intensely possesses ...
— The Antiquity of Man • Charles Lyell
... growth: Invisible inheritances and possessions. Power and virtue of a true Book. Wagram Battlefield: War. Great Scenes beheld by the Pilgrim: Great Events, and Great Men. Napoleon, a divine missionary, preaching La carriere ouverte aux talens. Teufelsdroeckh at the North Cape: Modern means of self-defence. Gunpowder and duelling. The Pilgrim, despising his miseries, reaches the Centre ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... recalled to himself did not help him in the estimation of the teacher, who took it as a sign of guilt; while Theodore, once freed from his assailant, stood by as the martyr and peaceable boy who would not strike a blow, even in self-defence. Rob, meanwhile, frightened by the consequences of his disclosures to Jim, slunk off without waiting to bear testimony to the provocation which Jim believed himself to ...
— Uncle Rutherford's Nieces - A Story for Girls • Joanna H. Mathews
... self-defence to close upon him. Smith shouted aloud, although a hand on his throat almost choked him, "Go to the hotel, Mrs. Halsey; go in to your husband." Susannah knew now that he was fighting for her, not for himself; the allegiance of his glance gave her a thrill ...
— The Mormon Prophet • Lily Dougall
... Meditations will prove more likely to develop general principles of conduct, than to repel force by force. They furnish, however, the pharmacopoeia of medicine and not the practice of medicine. Now consider the personal means which nature has put into your hands for self-defence; for Providence has forgotten no one; if to the sepia (that fish of the Adriatic) has been given the black dye by which he produces a cloud in which he disappears from his enemy, you should believe that a husband has not been left without a weapon; and now the time ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part II. • Honore de Balzac
... either herself, or through her representatives, but always in such a way that the general equality shall never be violated, and that only the idler shall be punished for his idleness. Further, if society may not use excessive severity towards her lazy members, she has a right, in self-defence, to ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... victory as little as she understood the art of empire. From the earliest times, as it might seem, Florence, a Roman foundation after all, hated Fiesole, which once certainly was an Etruscan city. Time after time she destroyed it, generally in self-defence. In 1010, for instance, Villani tells us that "the Florentines, perceiving that their city of Florence had no power to rise much while they had overhead so strong a fortress as the city of Fiesole, one night secretly and subtly ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... find for these creatures is where, by some form of culture, we may induce predatory or parasitic species more effectively to do their destructive work on noxious forms of the class. So well fitted is this group for purposes of self-defence that however much man may interfere with the course of nature, he is not likely to sweep any of their multitudinous kinds from the earth, though experience clearly shows that by the methods above mentioned ...
— Domesticated Animals - Their Relation to Man and to his Advancement in Civilization • Nathaniel Southgate Shaler
... social instincts which had invested that stalwart shape with dangerous fascination, which had implied the hope of ultimate repentance, of redemption even in this world. The HOUR and the CIRCUMSTANCE had seized their prey; and the self-defence, which a lawless career rendered a necessity, left the eternal die of blood upon ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 3 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... Nevertheless, whilst in self-defence democracy will avoid increasing its officials, it will distinguish between officials and employees. It is bound to add to the number of its employees every year, as its municipal and imperial responsibilities grow steadily larger, and these employees, rightly regarded ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... thought of him, and a sarcastic tongue, which no one was eager to encounter, he remained the ugly duckling who refused to paddle properly in the green ponds of Public School tradition. He played games so badly that in sheer self-defence his fellows permitted him to play without them. Of 'fives' they made an exception, for in this he attained much proficiency, owing to a certain windmill-like quality of limb. He was noted too for daring chemical experiments, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... a cold look, a stinging remark. Had Mill any right to complain of these social penalties? Would it not rather amount to an interference with individual liberty to deprive any individual or any number of individuals of those weapons of self-defence? Those who themselves think and speak freely, have hardly a right to complain, if others claim the same privilege. Mill himself called the Conservative party the stupid party par excellence, and he took great pains to explain that it was so ...
— Chips From A German Workshop, Vol. V. • F. Max Mueller
... himself to be already in possession of the originals. Curll was too wary to commit himself to such a statement, which would have made him responsible for the theft; or, perhaps, have justified Pope in publishing the originals in self-defence. The matter slept till March 1735, when Curll wrote to Pope proposing a cessation of hostilities, and as a proof of goodwill sending him the old P. T. advertisement. This step fell in so happily with Pope's designs that it has been suggested that Curll was ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... But does this mean that if one threatens to take my purse, I am not allowed to use force to prevent it? That if he threatens to kill me, I am not to defend myself, because "the individual citizens are not allowed to settle their differences by force?" It is because of that, because the act of self-defence is an attempt to prevent the settlement of a difference by force, that ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... the road his prisoner had to go, sour and sulky, with much reluctance, being hurried in his march by the point of the Tory's sword. Hunter pursued his course, but constantly on the look-out for some means of self-defence. Fortunately, after they progressed a short distance, they approached a large fallen pine tree, around which lay a quantity of pine-knots, hardened and blackened by the recent action of fire. Hunter, in an instant, saw "his opportunity," immediately jumped to ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... maximum of protective force. I need say nothing further about the geographical conditions. Every one who studies a map can see for himself what is required by a country anxious to protect its shores or its boundaries. If we suppose that armaments are strictly limited to the needs of self-defence, and if we further assume that in the new Europe countries are not animated by the strongest dislikes against one another, but are prepared to live and let live (a tolerably large assumption, I am aware), we can readily imagine a steady process of curtailment ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... agreement in the evidence. The constable, standing near a small building in the yard, at this instant fired, and the fire had a fatal effect. No previous malice was proved against him; and his plea upon the trial was, that he had taken the life of his assailant in necessary self-defence. ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... Wolfe. "Oh, come! You did, as near as I can see the matter, what you downright had to do in self-defence. Suppose I got into trouble, where would you be? This second little matter flows clearly from the first. Mr. Gray is the continuation of Miss Galbraith. You can't begin and then stop. If you begin, you must keep on beginning; that's the truth. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 3 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... its value 'Till the crucible hath told. Ah! from one extreme to another Does my strange existence go: Yesterday in highest honour, And to-day so poor and low! Still, if I am self-reliant, Need I fear an alien foe? But, ah me, how insufficient Is my self-defence alone!— O new God to whom I offer Life and soul, whom I adore, In Thy confidence I rest me. Help me, Lord, I ask ...
— The Two Lovers of Heaven: Chrysanthus and Daria - A Drama of Early Christian Rome • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... more objection to her dancing or her flights of fancy. He fiddled for her and fed the flame of her imagination. She was the sunniest creature he had ever known; the bleak life of Lonely Farm had spurred her to greater lengths of self-defence; nothing could daunt her. She had an absorbing curiosity about life, out and beyond the Kenmore confines; and more to keep his own memory clear than to satisfy Priscilla, Farwell set himself to the task of educating the girl in ways that would have appalled ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... rapturous in order to prove that nothing had happened. They felt their partners' interest suddenly withdrawn from them and focussed upon the radiance at the door. No use ignoring that Radiance, even if one had in self-defence to pretend that it didn't matter much, and wasn't so marvellously dazzling ...
— A Soldier of the Legion • C. N. Williamson
... Miss Saunders wouldn't let it get dusty," said Mrs. Maybough, and then, in self-defence, Charmian gave Cornelia the worst character for housekeeping that she could invent from her knowledge of ...
— The Coast of Bohemia • William Dean Howells
... him when he solicited a caress; how she insisted on their betrothal being kept secret, and how many times she had postponed the date of the wedding. It was evident that she had received him only in self-defence, and on the pleading of Julien de Buxieres. Julien! the name threw a gleam of light across his brain, hitherto as foggy as the country around him. Might not Julien be the fortunate rival on whom Reine's affections were so obstinately ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... is one of the pioneers in Mariposa, and they tell me that he was one of the nerviest men that ever drew a gun in this town. He killed his man in those days, just as lots of other good men did, but it was in self-defence; and everybody was glad that the town was rid of the man he dropped, and so nothing was said about it. There was a coroner's jury, which gave a verdict of suicide, and explained their finding on the ground that it was suicidal for any man to draw on Dan ...
— Emerson's Wife and Other Western Stories • Florence Finch Kelly
... of Vico Equense, to which the silent cherub bears everlasting witness, was that of being a patriot and a Liberal (in the truest sense of that term) during the anxious times of the ill-fated Parthenopean Republic, that short-lived period of aristocratic government which was set up in self-defence by certain Neapolitan nobles, prelates and men of science after the abrupt departure of their cowardly King and Queen to Palermo. We all remember the terrible ending of that government: how the vile rabble-army of Cardinal Ruffo assaulted Naples; ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... crude one which he combats so superfluously—that he should appear, even for a moment, to be one of those, of whom there are far too many, who first misrepresent their adversary's view, and then elaborately refute it; who, in fact, erect a doll utterly incapable of self-defence and then, with a flourish of trumpets and many vigorous strokes, overthrow the helpless ...
— On the Genesis of Species • St. George Mivart
... time. A man cannot obey a woman constantly and retain his self-respect: the muscles of his arms reproach him if he does, and the man with his self-respect gone is a man with a grudge, he will learn to hate the agent who brought him low. A day may come when he will rise and beat her in self-defence, with his fists if he is sufficiently brutalised, some subtler, but no less efficient, weapon if his manhood refuses to be degraded—and this was our case. His wife had grabbed the reins and driven the matrimonial coach: driven it well, that is true, but the driver, by right of ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... system of defence and conciliation. The government there ought, therefore, in an especial manner, to avoid wars, or entering into alliances likely to create wars." It was not to forget "to pay a due regard to self-defence, or to guard against sudden hostilities from neighboring powers, and, whenever there was reason to apprehend attack, to be in a state of preparation. This was indispensably necessary; but whenever ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... defence and security against their enemies, and how sensible soever each colony has been of that necessity, yet they have never been able to effect such a union among themselves, nor even to agree in requesting the mother country to establish it for them." If they could not unite for self-defence against the French and the murderous savages, "can it reasonably be supposed there is any danger of their uniting against their own nation, which protects and encourages them, with which they have so many connexions and ties of blood, interest, and affection, and which, it is well known, ...
— Benjamin Franklin • John Torrey Morse, Jr.
... kindly meant of you, Mr. Stewart (said he, mournfully shaking his head), kindly meant, but in vain! I know that I was only acting in self-defence—that it was life against life—that I was perfectly justified, in the eyes of men, in taking the life of him who would have taken mine—but I cannot drive that last despairing look from my memory. I feel as if my brother's blood were crying out against my soul. O my poor Harry! would that the blow ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume VI • Various
... from fanning flames, or appealing to passions. But here is a broad ground upon which, by the very confession of our enemies, we stand on a higher platform. We went to war because we would not break a treaty, nor forsake a friend too weak for self-defence; Germany commenced the war by a treacherous act. Therefore, strong in the belief that the God of righteousness will cause the right to triumph, we can calmly look forward ...
— The Discipline of War - Nine Addresses on the Lessons of the War in Connection with Lent • John Hasloch Potter
... seemed to fit each other like tenon and mortice; though when the opportunity of making the joint had existed, a sort of moral laziness, together with our artificial, yet not unpraiseworthy, repugnance to offering a money gift, had brought me out rather a Levite than a Samaritan. In mere self-defence, I would have been constrained to keep up a series of general and impersonal reflections till the swagman lost his individuality—say, five or six hours—but I was rescued from this tyranny by the faint rattle of a buggy on the other side of the river. Idly turning my ...
— Such is Life • Joseph Furphy
... mind. But he overrated the amount of the resources at his disposal for his protection from the weight of aversion he had excited. He equally underrated the inveteracy of the dislike, and the degree of additional suspicion which his measures of self-defence would awaken. James had long looked forward to a day when he should 'have account of the presumption of the base instruments about the Queen who abused her ear.' That was his way of thinking of the Queen's favourite councillors. Cecil knew how to purchase ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... and man are supposed to have had their origin in a cord tied about the waist, from which was suspended crude implements (used for the slaying of beasts for food, and in self-defence); trophies of war, such as teeth, scalps, etc. The trophies suspended, partly concealed the body and were for decoration, as was tattooing of the skin. Clothes were not the result of modesty; modesty followed ...
— Woman as Decoration • Emily Burbank
... an ecstatic tone of self-defence, which set the Major laughing and saying, "My silly maid knows as little which gentleman put on ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... adherents of the court—through whom Charles demanded the reason of the sudden uprising which causelessly threatened his own person and the peace of the realm. The Huguenot leaders replied by denying any evil design, and showing that they had armed themselves only in self-defence against the manifested malice of their enemies.[450] Subsequent interviews between Conde and the envoys of Charles seemed to hold forth some hopes of peace. The king declared himself ready to furnish the Protestants with proofs of the uprightness of his intentions, ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... failures. Let him show such patronage to the hero of his memoir as the English judge showed to the poor prisoner at his bar, taking care that he should suffer no shadow of injustice from the witnesses; that the prisoner's own self-defence should in no part be defeated of its effect by want of proper words or want of proper skill in pressing the forcible points on the attention of the jury; but otherwise leaving him to his own real merits in the facts of his case, and ...
— The Posthumous Works of Thomas De Quincey, Vol. 1 (2 vols) • Thomas De Quincey
... situation which she had not thought to be compelled to face. If Mr. Selincourt did anything which took their trade away, and left them face to face with starvation, would it be their duty to sit down meekly and bear such an injustice, without attempting a blow in self-defence, and all because of that evil from the past which, although so long buried, had ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... its wit, charm, grace and intelligence. I nearly landed my phaeton into an omnibus in my anxiety to point out the ingratitude and want of purpose of the Irish; but he said that in the noblest of races the spirit of self-defence had bred mean vices and that generation after generation were born in Ireland with their blood discoloured by hatred of the ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... he had cultivated a habit of the muscles which conveyed an impression that he was devoted to athletic sports. His arms occasionally swung as if brandishing dumb-bells, his chest now and then spread itself to the uttermost, and his head was often thrown back in an attitude suggesting self-defence.' ...
— The House of Cobwebs and Other Stories • George Gissing
... divergent students of psychological law. Herbert Spencer analysed it with characteristic thoroughness. Nietzsche went farther. He reacted violently against the onslaughts of pity in his own soul, and in philosophical self-defence inverted the promptings of compassion. The war has shown the human need of self-defence against excessive sympathy. We are surfeited with horrors on land and sea; the ghastly truth of a carnage which exceeds anything known in history, of maimed and broken lives, of ...
— Mountain Meditations - and some subjects of the day and the war • L. Lind-af-Hageby
... breeze through the tree tops. In this way, during these twenty days, fourteen Spaniards were killed and many more wounded. Fifty Indians also fell struck by the bullets of the invaders. De Soto allowed himself only in a war of self-defence. He strictly prohibited his followers from doing any injury to the villages or the property of the natives, or of engaging in the slightest act of violence towards any who were not ...
— Ferdinand De Soto, The Discoverer of the Mississippi - American Pioneers and Patriots • John S. C. Abbott
... devastated as it went along, it was impossible that thousands of the wretched Irish should not themselves be driven by the most cruel necessity, for the preservation of their lives and of those of their families, to become thieves and plunderers in absolute self-defence. Their habitations, such as they were, having been destroyed and laid in ruins, they were necessarily driven to seek shelter in the woods, caves, and other fastnesses of the country, from which they issued forth in desperate hordes, ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... believed that Mr. Standifer will be put to any inconvenience beyond a necessary formal hearing to-day, as all the witnesses who were present unite in declaring that the deed was done in self-defence. ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... more like death. Several times I was on the point of going, but you know when there's been a painful scene you feel so sorry for the people who've made it that you can't bear to leave them to themselves. I did get up to go, once, in mere self-defence, but they both urged me to stay, and I couldn't help staying till they could talk of other things. But now tell me what you think of it all. Which should your feeling be with the most? That is what I want to get at ...
— A Pair of Patient Lovers • William Dean Howells
... now agree with me is of the highest dignity, yielding a tablature of benevolence and public spirit; befriending equally trade, gallantry, criticism, and politics: the applause of genius—the register of charity—the triumph of heroism—the self-defence of contractors—the fame of orators—and the gazette of ministers. Sneer. Sir, I am completely a convert both to the importance and ingenuity of your profession; and now, sir, there is but one thing which can possibly increase my respect for you, and that is, your permitting ...
— Scarborough and the Critic • Sheridan
... and wondered what had become of the impulse he had felt to scold Barker for the idea of getting married. But such a course now seemed not only far beyond his province,—he heard himself saying that to Mrs. Sewell in self-defence when she should censure him for not doing it,—but utterly useless in view of the further complications. "Well! This is great news you tell me—a great surprise. You're— you're going to take an important ...
— The Minister's Charge • William D. Howells
... said Malvina, in an attempt at self-defence; but she saw the look of her husband, and the ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... time, there was in that young man a feeling of comradeship and kindness which made him unwilling to make the position of Lieut. Feraud worse than it was. He did not want to talk at large about this wretched affair. At the inquiry he would have, of course, to speak the truth in self-defence. ...
— A Set of Six • Joseph Conrad
... cheap as our common humanity, on a national average. If every man had his aliquot proportion of the injustice done in this land, by law and violence, the present freemen of the northern section would many of them commit suicide in self-defence, and would court the liberties awarded by Ali Pasha of Egypt to his subjects. Long ere this we should have tested, in behalf of our bleeding and crushed American brothers of every hue and complexion, every new ...
— Clotel; or, The President's Daughter • William Wells Brown
... work early led her to apply the free agency of lay preachers; and later in life the refusal of the Church of England, upheld by the Courts, to consider her action legal in considering them to belong to the Established Church, drove her in self-defence to constitute her chapels into a connexion with a legal standing and rights. The hostility on the part of many within the Established Church of the eighteenth century, to true New Testament ministry and practice, on the one hand expelled the Wesleyans from ...
— Excellent Women • Various
... recollect, that some time ago (I think it was in the month of May) the Adelaide newspapers contained a short notice of a Port Lincoln native having been shot by the police in self-defence, and a letter in the 'Observer,' mentioned another as being shot by Mr.——, but as the charitable correspondent added, 'Unfortunately only in the arm, instead of through the body.' From these statements one would infer that the parties concerned in these transactions were ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... from the clammy crowded streets,—London, with a million twinkling lights gleaming sharp upon its native blackness, and looking, to a dreamer's eye, like some gigantic Fortress, built line upon line and tower upon tower,—with huge ramparts raised about it frowningly as though in self-defence against Heaven. Around and above it the deep sky swept in a ring of sable blue, wherein thousands of stars were visible, encamped after the fashion of a mighty army, with sentinel planets taking their turns of duty ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... explain, by substituting the image of our own idols, why in that case more specially they did so. Poor people! We do so cling to our particular self and self's preferences; we are so confidently material and literal! And one dreads to think of the cruel self-defence of posterity, when we shall try to push into its notice ...
— Hortus Vitae - Essays on the Gardening of Life • Violet Paget, AKA Vernon Lee
... rights and independence of the United States, as well as of the European nations; and had not President Madison and his war faction been in league with Napoleon, they would have resented it, instead of silently submitting, and thus becoming a party to it. In self-defence and retaliation upon the tyrant Napoleon, Great Britain, in January, 1807, issued Decrees of Council, declaring all French ports in a state of blockade, and declaring all vessels of neutrals liable to seizure which should engage in trade with France; and as the ...
— The Loyalists of America and Their Times, Vol. 2 of 2 - From 1620-1816 • Edgerton Ryerson
... provide for the security of his subjects; and as the encroachments made by France were hostile, it could never be unlawful, or irreconcile-able with the assurance of his majesty's peaceable disposition, to repel an aggressor; and that the same motive of self-defence had forced him to seize the French ships and sailors, in order to deprive that court of the means of making an invasion, with which their ministers in all the courts of Europe had ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... varied subject as man. So much depends on temper and character. One man taken by surprise reveals his true feeling; another, when taken off his guard, is irritated, and shuts up his heart in a sort of instinctive self-defence. The thoughtfulness of love will suggest the appropriate means, but some emphasis may rightly be given to the phrase in Christ's counsel, "between thee and him alone." Let there be an opportunity for a frank and private conversation. To appeal to an estranged friend before witnesses ...
— Friendship • Hugh Black
... those Norsemen of old! All were armed, for in their days the power and the means of self-defence were ...
— Erling the Bold • R.M. Ballantyne
... belief, as if they had been in danger of their lives. The argument is gratis dictum: and as Richard loved Hastings and had used his ministry, the probability lies on the other side: and it is more reasonable to believe that Richard acted in self-defence, than that he exercised a wanton, unnecessary, and disgusting cruelty. The collateral circumstances introduced by More do but weaken(17) his account, and take from its probability. I do not mean the silly recapitulation of silly omens which forewarned Hastings of his fate, and as omens ...
— Historic Doubts on the Life and Reign of King Richard the Third • Horace Walpole
... who would, the Russians and Persians, who were eager to avail themselves of so fair an occasion to establish a footing in India. Such a footing would have been manifestly incompatible with the peace and security of our dominions in India, and we were obliged, in self-defence, to give to Shuja the aid which he had so often before in vain solicited, to enable him to recover the throne of his very limited number ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... the graces of philosophy and poetry. Indeed the Romans were beginning to have much to do with the Greeks, and the war they entered upon now was the first for the sake of spreading their own power. All the former ones had been in self-defence, and the new one did in fact spring out of the Punic war, for the Carthaginians had tried to persuade Philip, king of Macedon, to follow in the track of Pyrrhus, and come and help Hannibal in Southern Italy. The Romans had kept him off by stirring up the robber AEtolians against him; ...
— Young Folks' History of Rome • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... companion from the water he seemed to be dead, and Tom was forced to the conclusion that he had killed him. He had done the deed in self-defence, and in the strict line of duty. He could not be blamed even by his enemies for the act. He felt no exultation, and hoped from the bottom of his heart that the man was prepared to meet his Maker, into whose presence he had ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... millinery and dress-making establishments at the West End of London, having observed in the newspapers statements of excessive labor in our business, feel called upon, in self-defence, to make the following public statement, especially as we have reason to believe that some of the assertions contained in the letters published in the ...
— Sunny Memories of Foreign Lands V2 • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... "Nay—self-defence," replied the knight. "And now, boy, the news of this battle, and the presence of yon crooked devil here in mine own wood, have broken me beyond all help. I go to Holywood for sanctuary; thence over-seas, with what I can carry, and to ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... woman is seldom so well equipped for self-defence as the man. Owing to her invincible ignorance of her own nature, she must be more or less at a disadvantage. And if this is true of women in general, it was doubly true of any one so specially prone to illusion as Audrey Craven, who would have had difficulty in recognising any part ...
— Audrey Craven • May Sinclair
... a servant across for Sarah whenever she stays at all late at Barracombe, and always have," said Mrs. Hewel, in hurried self-defence. "You must remember we are old friends; there never was any formality about ...
— Peter's Mother • Mrs. Henry De La Pasture
... the ambition of the Guises, the Calvinists in France would never have beheld a Conde or a Coligny at their head. Without the exaction of the tenth and the twentieth penny, the See of Rome had never lost the United Netherlands. Princes fought in self-defence or for aggrandizement, while religious enthusiasm recruited their armies, and opened to them the treasures of their subjects. Of the multitude who flocked to their standards, such as were not lured ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... sympathies, Chastellain regrets that circumstances have turned him towards England. Naturally he belonged to the French, and it was a pity that the machinations of the king, "whose crooked ways are well known to God, have forced him into self-defence. Yet on his forehead ...
— Charles the Bold - Last Duke Of Burgundy, 1433-1477 • Ruth Putnam
... I soon discovered, not only that the character of the book was very different from what the author's reputation had led me to expect, but also that my task would be one, not merely of criticism, but, in some degree, of self-defence. The remarks on myself, coming from a writer of Mr. Mill's ability and reputation, were such as I could not pass over without notice; while, at the same time, I felt that my principal duty in this instance was the defence of one who was no longer living ...
— The Philosophy of the Conditioned • H. L. Mansel
... surrounded in an instant, kissed, caressed, and thanked till he declared his life was in danger, and threatened to take up the hearth-broom in self-defence; finally they trooped off, to hold a consultation in ...
— Fernley House • Laura E. Richards
... men from the vessel had come to the assistance of the captain, and raised him to his feet. He was still full of vengeance, and wanted to chastise the boys. The young ruffians followed Noddy down the wharf, and he was compelled, in self-defence, to turn upon them again, and in presence of the drunken man he punished a couple of them pretty severely. One of the sailors came to his aid, and the foe was again vanquished. The appearance of a policeman ...
— Work and Win - or, Noddy Newman on a Cruise • Oliver Optic
... got hyar a minute sooner, Sally," he said, slowly, and there was a trace of self-accusation in his voice, "hit moutn't hev happened. I war jest a mite too tardy—but I knows ye hed ter kill him. I knows ye acted in self-defence." ...
— The Roof Tree • Charles Neville Buck
... which the individual is placed. This may be illustrated by the difference of moral sentiment which we attach to the act of taking away the life of another,—when this is done by an individual under the impulse of revenge,—by the same individual in self-defence,—or by a judge in the discharge of ...
— The Philosophy of the Moral Feelings • John Abercrombie
... romantic novels, "Jane la Pale," "La Derniere Fee," and their fellows.[*] Balzac, as we have seen was in terrible straits for money, and he knew that the Belgians, who at this time practised the most shameless piracy, would reprint the books for their own advantage, if he did not. Therefore, in self-defence, he determined to bring out an edition himself; though, as he consistently refused to acknowledge the authorship of these despised productions, the treaty was drawn up in the name of friends. Nevertheless, with his usual caution, he drew up a secret document which ...
— Honore de Balzac, His Life and Writings • Mary F. Sandars
... HIS OWN CAUSE. By this each person has at once divested himself of the first fundamental right of uncovenanted man, that is, to judge for himself, and to assert his own cause. He abdicates all right to be his own governor. He inclusively, in a great measure, abandons the right of self-defence, the first law of nature. Men cannot enjoy the rights of an uncivil and of a civil state together. That he may obtain justice, he gives up his right of determining what it is in points the most essential to him. That he may secure some liberty, he makes a surrender ...
— Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. • Edmund Burke
... whites. The integrity of their friendship has been tested on many occasions, and they have never proved false to their protestations. Their chiefs declare that a Crow was never known to kill a white man excepting in self-defence. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... not absolutely unprepared in the sense that the United States is unprepared, even for self-defence from external attack, but except for the fleet and her little expeditionary force, England had neither men nor equipment equal to the fighting ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward |
