"Defensive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of this sort which now threatened Ratcliffe, there was one that, had he known it, might have made him more uneasy than any of those which were the work of senators and congressmen. Carrington entered into an alliance, offensive and defensive, with Sybil. It came about in this wise. Sybil was fond of riding and occasionally, when Carrington could spare the time, he went as her guide and protector in these country excursions; for every Virginian, however out at elbows, has a horse, as he ...
— Democracy An American Novel • Henry Adams
... Belfort, and here we saw the first signs of havoc wrought by gunfire. At Paris we had been within twenty miles of the battlefield where the German hosts were first turned back, but there was not much ruin wrought to buildings at the Marne. Men, unprotected by trenches or any of the later found defensive methods, bore the brunt of ...
— A Journey Through France in War Time • Joseph G. Butler, Jr.
... direct his attention to this line, and, selecting an isolated post for attack, would concentrate his forces upon it. This would be a condition of affairs which the Mexicans, pursuing their favorite system of guerrilla warfare, would probably prefer to any other. Were we to assume a defensive attitude on such a line, all the advantages of such a state of war would be on the side of the enemy. We could levy no contributions upon him, or in any other way make him feel the pressure of the war, but must remain inactive and await his approach, being in constant uncertainty ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Polk - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 4: James Knox Polk • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... later the Germans, no longer on the defensive, themselves went forth from their marshy forests conquering and to conquer. For century after century they swarmed out of the dark woodland east of the Rhine, and north of the Danube; and as their force spent itself, the movement was taken up by their brethren who dwelt along the coasts of ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... very carefully observed such whose mind or aspect were featured with any chearful and debonair lineaments; for such he boded were they that would despatch him; to that purpose he always went secretly armed, both offensive and defensive; and never stirred without a great guard. In his usual journey between Whitehall and Hampton Court, by several roads, he drove full speed in the summer time, making such a dust with his life-guard, part before and part behinde, at a convenient distance, for fear ...
— Royalty Restored - or, London under Charles II. • J. Fitzgerald Molloy
... suddenly finding herself on the defensive Lady Ryehampton blinked at him somewhat owlishly: "That's all very well," she said in a less severe tone. "But is there a kittens' home at all—a kittens' home with kittens in it? That's what I want ...
— The Terrible Twins • Edgar Jepson
... was no employment for them, and further, he was anxious that the frontiers of the empire should be more extensively occupied by sending colonists, he sent colonists to Signia and Circeii, to serve as defensive barriers hereafter to the city by land and sea. While he was thus employed a frightful prodigy appeared to him. A serpent sliding out of a wooden pillar, after causing dismay and a run into the palace, not so much struck the king's heart with sudden terror, as ...
— The History of Rome, Books 01 to 08 • Titus Livius
... inroads from the savage bands Lead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands; They sack the temples, the gay fields deface, And vow destruction to the Incan race. The king, undaunted in defensive war, Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar; Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood, And rouse fresh tribes ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... to attract them into the church, it has, in the long run usually been ineffectual. Too often the motive has been so thinly veiled and the program of the social hour has been given such a religious atmosphere that outsiders very naturally take a defensive attitude, and although they may enjoy the occasion they are perfectly ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... before the soldier takes his stand. He is to be fully equipped first: he is to take up his position second. We may note that, in all the list of his equipment, there is but one weapon of offence—the sword of the Spirit; all the rest are defensive weapons. The girdle, which is the first specified, is not properly a weapon at all, but it comes first because the belt keeps all the other parts of the armour in place, and gives agility to the wearer. Having girded your loins (R.V.) is better than having your loins ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house Against the ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 1 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... motives. Before the war was terminated I repaired to London on behalf of Russia, in order to propose to the Japanese government, in addition to the treaty of peace which was about to be discussed at Portsmouth, an offensive and defensive alliance, and to ask that Prince Ito be sent as first plenipotentiary, invested with full powers ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... no doubt that you love Timmy, but the question of whether you love your son confuses you and throws you on the defensive. You react strongly, evade answering, take refuge in exclamations and unfinished sentences. A species of stuttering. Can it be that you find it difficult to think of Timmy as your son? Do you doubt that ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... work we know from the bloody annals of the years which followed the British-American peace, when the men of the Cumberland and of Franklin were on the defensive continually. How cleverly Mire played his personal role we discover in the letters addressed to him by Sevier and Robertson. These letters show that, as far as words go at any rate, the founders of Tennessee were willing to negotiate with Spain. In a letter dated ...
— Pioneers of the Old Southwest - A Chronicle of the Dark and Bloody Ground • Constance Lindsay Skinner
... am between fifty and sixty—every moment is precious at that time of life. Besides, I've said all I can say; rest quiet—act on the defensive—entangle this cursed Vaudemont, or Morton, or whoever he be, in the mesh of your daughter's charms, and then get rid of him, not before. This can do no harm, let the matter turn out how it will. Read the papers; and send for Blackwell ...
— Night and Morning, Volume 5 • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... portion of the body grew upward in the form of a "visceral hump." Apparently the animal could not increase much in length and retain the advantage of the protection of the shell; and the shell was the dominating structure. It had entered upon a defensive campaign. Motion, slow at the outset, became more difficult, and the protection of the shell therefore all the more necessary. The shell increased in size and weight and motion became almost impossible. The snail represents the average result of the experiment. It can crawl, ...
— The Whence and the Whither of Man • John Mason Tyler
... the hideous reptile drew near, and, opening its jaws, let them come together with a snap! Even Jack was not proof against this. He started up, and looked about for a defensive weapon. We had nothing but our clasp-knives. ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... Hebrews, still the Karasmians maintained an immense front, which was constantly supplied by fresh troops. Confident in his numbers, and aware of the weakness of his antagonists, Arslan contented himself with acting on the defensive, and wearying his assailants by resisting ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... Parliamentarians, Sinn Feiners, Republicans and every other class of Irish Nationalist. The manifesto it issued stated: "The object proposed for the Irish Volunteers is to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to all the people of Ireland. Their duties will be defensive and protective and they will not attempt either aggression or domination. Their ranks are open to all able-bodied Irishmen without distinction of creed, politics, or social grade." And then it appealed "in the name of national unity, of national dignity, ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... illness to which for the last two years we had been subjected, Lord Wellington removed his headquarters to Visen, and the army went for the most part into cantonments on the valley of the Mondego. Lord Wellington knew that his troops were then only strong enough for defensive operations, and was therefore determined, unless strongly reinforced, not to take rash measures; but on the enemy's fresh invasion of Portugal he again shifted his headquarters to Celorico. After that we moved on to another small place, called, as far as I ...
— The Autobiography of Sergeant William Lawrence - A Hero of the Peninsular and Waterloo Campaigns • William Lawrence
... fights as he sleeps, without the protection of anything defensive. The sounds of the alarm were, therefore, hardly uttered before two hundred men were afoot, and ready for the battle or the chase, as either might be required. The escape was soon known; and the whole tribe ...
— The Last of the Mohicans • James Fenimore Cooper
... solitude, that face was almost always cryptic and emotionless; for Penrod had come into his twelfth year wearing an expression carefully trained to be inscrutable. Since the world was sure to misunderstand everything, mere defensive instinct prompted him to give it as little as possible to lay hold upon. Nothing is more impenetrable than the face of a boy who has learned this, and Penrod's was habitually as fathomless as the depth of his hatred this morning for ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington
... was not accepted by the Duchess, who still made efforts to retain the services of a man who was necessary to her administration. She begged him, notwithstanding the purely defensive and watchful attitude which he had now assumed, to take measures that Brederode should abandon his mischievous courses. She also reproached the Prince with having furnished that personage with artillery ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... as he was told, but he realised they had been speaking of him and felt on the defensive. However, he sat down as near to Caesar as he could. They talked of all manner of people and things of which he knew nothing, traditional jokes cropped up, and Aymer's propensity for teasing asserted itself in a prominent manner. Renata never failed to respond and never failed ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... and French armies till we could be relieved by Sir Henry Clinton or by a fresh army and fleet from England. It was too well known from the first that the army was but ill-supplied with guns, and indeed with all the munitions of war requisite for carrying on offensive, or even defensive, operations against the enemy. This became still more evident when the guns and ammunition were landed from the ships-of-war, and the crews were summoned on shore to work them. Every effort was made to put our positions in an efficient state ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... and facility in, English can be built up on such a basis; rather the laws should be deduced from examples. Philology, etymology, syntax are derivatives, not foundations. "Practice makes perfect" is a saying that needs to be followed by the old scholastic defensive "distinguo." Practice in reading, rather than practice in writing, makes good English composition possible. The "daily theme" may be overdone; it is of little use unless thought keeps ahead ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... ancient piece of defensive armour for the head; it covered the face, leaving an aperture in the front, secured by bars: this was called the visor. The helmet is now placed over a coat of arms; and by the metal from which it is made, the form, and position, denotes the ...
— The Manual of Heraldry; Fifth Edition • Anonymous
... to hold back any bold adventurer who attempted to penetrate into the mysterious depths of this desolate wilderness. Solitude is averse to being surprised in dishabille, and surrounds herself with all sorts of defensive obstacles. ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... of anger they flung themselves upon him, and the struggle began anew. In their rage and impetuosity, however, they fought without method, and the Knight was able for a short interval, by skilful play, to sweep aside their points and to parry their blows. But it forced him to fight wholly on the defensive, and his age and wounds left no doubt as to the ultimate result. His arm grew tired, and the grip on his sword hilt weakened. . . His enemies pressed him closer and closer. . . A blow got past his guard and pierced his thigh. He had strength for only one ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... Rupert would not have judged and condemned his prospective brother-in-law on the evidence of his bridge play alone. The tragic part of it was that he smiled and fumbled through life just as fatuously and apologetically as he did at the card-table. And behind the defensive smile and the well-worn expressions of regret there shone a scarcely believable but quite obvious self-satisfaction. Every sheep of the pasture probably imagines that in an emergency it could become ...
— The Toys of Peace • Saki
... her on the defensive, and with one of those sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a little push from her. In his ticklish position he nearly lost his balance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse, though a ...
— Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman • Thomas Hardy
... sympathetic with his mother, and with Mary, in the dreadful hour when they supposed him lost; and had it not been for the great perplexity occasioned by his return, she would have received him, as a relative, with open arms. But now she felt it her duty to be on the defensive,—an attitude not the most favorable for cherishing pleasing associations in regard to another. She had read the letter giving an account of his spiritual experience with very sincere pleasure, as a good woman should, but not without an internal perception ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... I had been the greater fool. Your universal sceptic—if he choose to affect that character,—no man is it—is impregnable; his true emblem is the hedgehog ensphered in his prickles; that is, as long as you are observing him. For if you do not thus irritate his amour propre, and put him on the defensive, he will unroll himself. Speaking, reasoning, acting, like the rest of the world, on the implied truthfulness of the faculties whose falsity he affirms, he will save you the trouble of confuting him, ...
— The Eclipse of Faith - Or, A Visit To A Religious Sceptic • Henry Rogers
... that she was crying until a tear splashed hot upon her hand. She did not hear the door open as Benis reentered the room, but she sprang to her feet, alert and defensive, at ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... people. It is less important to us than to the {80} French. Why should we not then let Lower Canada, which desires to place a barrier against aggression by the west, decide the question and make her defensive powers as strong as she likes? It would be no great stretch of liberality on our part to accord it to her.' During the debates on Confederation in the Canadian Assembly, in the following year, Macdonald derided the notion that a government would ever 'overrule the independent opinion of the Upper ...
— The Fathers of Confederation - A Chronicle of the Birth of the Dominion • A. H. U. Colquhoun
... which no standing law can embrace. We should also join in this opinion and give up any attempt at a theory, were it not that a great number of propositions make themselves evident without any difficulty, as, for instance, that the defensive form, with a negative object, is the stronger form, the attack, with the positive object, the weaker—that great results carry the little ones with them—that, therefore, strategic effects may be referred to certain centres of gravity—that ...
— On War • Carl von Clausewitz
... last minute! And I thought I was being so nice to you. Well, I shall know better another time!" Sometime ... at the risk of annoying her, he made up his mind that he would find out where she had gone, and even dreamed of a defensive alliance with Forcheville, who might perhaps have been able to tell him. But anyhow, when he knew with whom she was spending the evening, it was very seldom that he could not discover, among all his innumerable acquaintance, some one who knew—if only indirectly—the man with whom she had ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... he saw them to be middle-aged and young—a mother and daughter evidently. The elder with a quick, defensive movement walked to the doorway and stood there, blocking it. He heard the younger exclaim, "A tramp!" and then she came forward, squeezing in beside her mother. Hostility and apprehension were ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... was of force, for the defensive armour of the fifteenth century had reached a pitch of cumbrousness that required long practice for a man to be ...
— The Herd Boy and His Hermit • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a trap. For a moment Lanyard was able to accomplish no more than to smother resistance in a rib-crushing embrace; no sooner did he relax it than all attempts to shift his hold were anticipated and met half way, forcing him back upon the defensive. ...
— The False Faces • Vance, Louis Joseph
... probably the suddenness and unexpectedness of it that took Walton aback. Up till now his antagonist had been fighting strictly on the defensive, and was obviously desirous of escaping punishment as far as might be possible. And then the fall at the end of round one had shaken him up, so that he could hardly fight at all at their second meeting. Walton naturally expected that it would be left to him to do the leading ...
— The Head of Kay's • P. G. Wodehouse
... sitting on the sofa, rushed up upon this, and went up and down the room in a violent frenzy, exclaiming—"God eternally d—n it!" etc., etc. "Flesh and blood cannot stand this. I only spoke upon the defensive, which Ripon's speech at the beginning of the session rendered quite necessary. I cannot be expected to give up my position in the country, neither do I think that it is to the Queen's ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Volume 1 (of 3), 1837-1843) • Queen Victoria
... replied the shooter, a great red-headed, freckly faced fellow, with backward-lying whiskers, crowned in a drab rustic. 'Oh, pretty middling,' repeated he, not knowing whether to act on the friendly or defensive. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... that in this prison no swords or fire- arms, or even cudgels, are kept; nor is it probable that, so long as its present excellent management continues, any weapon, offensive or defensive, will ever be ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... tell you, that I write to you seldom -. it is a fortnight since my last; and nothing material has happened in this interval. The rebels are intrenching and fortifying themselves in Scotland; and what a despicable affair is a rebellion upon the defensive! General Hawley is marched from Edinburgh, to put it quite out. I must give you some idea of this man, who will give a mortal blow to the pride of the Scotch nobility. He is called Lord chief Justice; frequent and sudden executions are his passion. Last winter he had intelligence ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole
... demi-paradise, This fortress built by Nature for herself Against infection and the hand of war, This happy breed of men, this little world, This precious stone set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive to a house, Against the envy of less happier lands; This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England, This nurse, this teeming womb of royal kings, Fear'd by their breed, and famous by their birth, Renowned for their deeds ...
— The Tragedy of King Richard II • William Shakespeare [Craig, Oxford edition]
... the darkness: but how long, O man! could you make it endure? What could you do with your artificial light, if God did not cause His sun to shine? Without it grows no grass, no corn. On the hand lying upon the book there fell a bright sunbeam. How soon, at other times, would Gellert have drawn the defensive curtain! Now he watches the little motes that play ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach
... Roselawn a couple of days before he had a chance to do more than observe Elise Durwent as one of the party. She had been his partner at tennis and bridge, and a dozen times he had exchanged light talk with her, but there was always about her the defensive shield of impersonal cordiality. When he spoke to her it was almost in a drawl, but no matter to what a lackadaisical level he reduced his voice, her replies were always punctuated by a retort that had in it the sense of sting, as Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana accompanies his song with ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... we can scarcely say that one quality predominates over the other. But Imogen is less imaginative than Juliet, less spirited and intellectual than Portia, less serious than Helen and Isabel; her dignity is not so imposing as that of Hermione, it stands more on the defensive; her submission, though unbounded, is not so passive as that of Desdemona; and thus while she resembles each of these characters individually, she stands wholly ...
— Characteristics of Women - Moral, Poetical, and Historical • Anna Jameson
... United States should, in the course of this campaign, be in a situation to co-operate in vigorous enterprises, which may be formed. It appears that the design of the Court of London, pointed out by the debates in Parliament, is to reduce, by a defensive war, their operations upon this continent. The Minister of his Most Christian Majesty has at present no information relative to the plans of the approaching campaign. But whatever they may be, it would ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. XI • Various
... her plump cherub cheeks had melted away under the glow of measles, and the hooping process had lengthened and narrowed her small person into a demure little thread-paper of six years old, omnivorous of books, a pet and pickle at school, and a romp at home—the sworn ally, offensive and defensive, of stout, rough-pated, unruly Bernard. Stella was the loveliest little bit of painted porcelain imaginable, quite capable of being his companion, and a perfect little fairy, for beauty, gracefulness, and quickness of all kinds. Alda was delighted ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... were able to send fleets unhindered wherever they wished; and when Spain entered as an ally, in 1779, their combined navies swept the Channel, driving the humiliated British fleet into port. England was called upon to make defensive war at home, at Gibraltar, in the West Indies, and finally in India, at a time when the full strength of the country was already occupied ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... enthusiastic. The more he reflected on the incident, the more he appreciated both the extent of M. Belmont's mistake and the profundity of the wound that must rankle in his proud spirit. He, therefore, resolved to hold himself purely on the defensive and to enter upon explanations to the simple extent of direct replies to direct charges. The stake was Pauline herself. On her account he was prepared to push prudence to the limit of his own humiliation, and to make every concession ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... the defensive.] All Roberts's savin's have gone. He 's always looked forward to this strike. He says he's no right to a farthing when the others are suffering. 'T is n't so with all o' them! Some don't seem to care no more than that—so long as they get ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... Camille had held herself prudently on the defensive; she had betrayed neither Calyste's secret nor that of Beatrix. The great artist was capable of treachery to every one, and Mademoiselle des Touches ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac
... was a secret document, but everybody knew that it required Italy to join with Austria and Germany in the event of their being compelled to engage in a defensive war. Therefore the first question for Italy was whether the war declared by Austria against Serbia and by Germany against Belgium, although apparently aggressive, was in reality defensive. There was a further question for Italy—what would happen to her if she decided against ...
— The Drama Of Three Hundred & Sixty-Five Days - Scenes In The Great War - 1915 • Hall Caine
... State. There was trouble if not danger lurking behind it, if such two States were to join in an actual federation. Whatever was desirable for mutual advantage might be attained without offensive and defensive alliance. The two Governments, however, knew how to manipulate matters. The closer union scheme was carried through before the Jameson incursion, and soon after that event an offensive and defensive alliance completed the federation. The Afrikaner Bond then had advanced ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... history, and may be able to say something which will not be open to the charge of, "Oh! Another boring book about the War!" As I conceive it, my hospital book will be an analysis of the mind and character of the British working-man with his defensive armour off, and not an attempt to give any views on military or medical ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... property, insisted that the change of government in France had abrogated all claims which the alliance gave to monarchical France; that, even if this were not so, the United States was pledged to aid her only in a defensive war, and this war with England was entirely offensive on her part; that to give aid to the maddened revolutionists was to identify ourselves irrevocably with destructive fanatics, bloody regicides, and wild propagandists. These zealots, they said, had already ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... well officered. Each side cherished the delusion that it had a monopoly of courage and endurance. One Southern man was thought equal to five Northern men in a fair contest, and if the former were given the advantage of a defensive position, any odds of numbers would be taken. There was nearly, though not quite, as much boasting on the part of our own press and people. The first severe battles made an end of the greater part of ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... subjugation and the ruin of its neighbors. For a time, Kandar had tried to arm for its own defense. It had a space-fleet which in quality was probably equal to Mekin's, but in quantity was hopelessly less. Also it had a defensive policy. It did not dream of any but a defensive war. And no war was ever won by mere defense. There could be no defense against the building-up of tensions, the contriving of incidents, the invention of insults. It ...
— Talents, Incorporated • William Fitzgerald Jenkins
... that the Great Spirit is displeased with all nations who wantonly engage in war; they abstain, therefore, from all aggressive hostilities. But though thus unoffending in their policy, they are called upon continually to wage defensive warfare; especially with the Blackfeet; with whom, in the course of their hunting expeditions, they come in frequent collision and have desperate battles. Their conduct as warriors is without fear or reproach, and they can never ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... were made to remain on duty, in positions occupied only at night as a rule. Our purely defensive position was lucky that day, for we were exposed only to slight artillery fire; but on our right a regiment of our division, in one of the terrible emplacements of October 14th, received an awful punishment, of which the inconclusive result cost several hundred lives. Here in our great village, ...
— Letters of a Soldier - 1914-1915 • Anonymous
... country. Fortunately for all parties but the Rebels, those reverses came suddenly and with such emphasis as to create serious doubts in the European mind as to the superiority of the South as a fighting community. In an evil hour for his cause, General Lee abandoned that wise defensive system to which he had so long and so successfully adhered, and made a movement into the Free States. What was the immediate cause of his change of proceeding will probably never be accurately known to the existing generation. On the face of things no good political reason ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 13, No. 75, January, 1864 • Various
... of March, not only shows that statement to be erroneous, but establishes the fact that Lord Buckingham peremptorily refused to entertain the negotiation until he should have received a positive assurance that a certain defensive and hostile agreement, into which those gentlemen had entered, was to be considered as abandoned. This agreement, or association, was called the Round Robin (although not really a round robin, being merely a declaration, ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... great danger, as at the time of the Persian invasions (492-479 B.C.), a number of the States would combine to form a defensive league; at other times they made war on one another. The federal principle, such as we know it in the United States in our state and national governments, never came into play. At different times Athens, Sparta, and Thebes ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... we supped together, discussing the matter all the time, I persisting that the possession of arms was my only offence, and he replying that if it were so I should have awaited the alcalde fearlessly, as it stood to reason that a man had a right to keep defensive weapons in his own room. To this I answered that I had only come to him to avoid passing the night in prison, as I was certain that the man had told ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... soon after the 10th of June. A frigate brought the orders to set all ships and cannon in defensive condition; an East Indian ship had reported the proximity of many American privateers. One of these had even been captured. The Hessian officers thereupon set all cannon in order and arranged for the distribution of the men in the case of an attack. ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... empty place near the top, opposite to the master, who, after the usual compliments, without further ceremony, asked me, 'What we meant by calling Christ, God?' War being thus unequivocally declared, I had nothing to do but stand upon the defensive. Mirza Ibraheem argued temperately enough; but of the rest, some were very violent and clamorous. The former asked 'if Christ had ever called himself God—was he the Creator or a creature?' I replied, 'The Creator.' The Moollahs looked at one another. Such a confession had never before been ...
— Life of Henry Martyn, Missionary to India and Persia, 1781 to 1812 • Sarah J. Rhea
... pensive and hungry, and gave all its meager earnings to a small invalid brother or drunken father. But the Sawyer orphans were neither pensive nor appealing. There was a defiant belligerency about them that stifled the avenues of pity and put one on the defensive. They were wild and gay, and uproarious, too, and with the exception of Tim, the eldest, they were strong and robust. He certainly looked as though he had been starved, body and soul; but his other unorphan-like qualities were so obtrusive ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... that!' said Mr Pecksniff, still smiling at the fire. 'There is disinterestedness in the world, I hope? We are not all arrayed in two opposite ranks; the OFfensive and the DEfensive. Some few there are who walk between; who help the needy as they go; and take no part ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... to leave some of the best troops to confront Schwarzenberg between Nogent and Montereau, under Victor and Oudinot, hard fighters both, with instructions not to engage in any decisive battle, not to allow themselves to be trapped into that, but to stand on the defensive, to hold the River Seine, to retreat foot by foot, if pressed, to take advantage of every cover, to hold the enemy in check, to contest every foot of the way, to assume a strength which ...
— The Eagle of the Empire - A Story of Waterloo • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... Grant determined to hold Thobal; where he could, he thought, defend himself, and afford refuge to any who had escaped the massacre. As soon as the enemy had retired, we all set to work to prepare a defensive position; by setting fire to the crops, so as to prevent the enemy from creeping up unseen, and by making ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... stoutly defensive. G.J. grew self-conscious. Moreover, her slang disturbed him. It was the first slang he had heard her use, and in using it her voice had roughened. But he remembered that Concepcion also used ...
— The Pretty Lady • Arnold E. Bennett
... The importance of defensive armor has ever been felt. The warriors of ancient times went to the field in coats-of-mail, and both Homer and Virgil dilate upon the exquisite carving of the shield. The hauberk and corselet were used by the Crusaders, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 8, No. 46, August, 1861 • Various
... who posed as German patriots; while the Humanist party, roused by the attacks made upon Reuchlin by the Dominicans of Cologne, backed by the Scholastic Theologians, were not sorry to see their opponents challenged in their own special department, and obliged to act on the defensive. The knights or lower nobles, too, who had been deprived of many of their privileges by the princes, were ready for any scheme of violence in the hope that it might conduce to their advantage; and the lower classes ground down for ...
— History of the Catholic Church from the Renaissance to the French • Rev. James MacCaffrey
... little wretched mutton chops; we resented the imposition, although the sudden appearance of 4 or 5 officers of the imperial guard almost rendered it doubtful whether we ought to act too warmly on the defensive, as they seemed to patronise our hostess; however, we refused to pay ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... Patsy calmly, "there is no love-making in it, you understand—they are both too old, of course. But Julian is the handsomest and richest bachelor in our parts, and Miss Aline—well, she is Miss Aline and owner of the Balmacminto estates. So I think she and uncle make—what is it called?—a kind of defensive and offensive alliance. I know Uncle Ju had nearly to fight old Sir Bunny Bunny the other day. He interviewed the old fellow. He had come to propose his son, who is such a donkey that the very village urchins bray after him and pretend to ...
— Patsy • S. R. Crockett
... may be associated with a habit of life in which food conditions are simple and stimuli mandatory. As we rise in the scale toward backboned and warm-blooded animals, the males become larger in size; and this reversal of relation, like the development of offensive and defensive weapons, is due to the superior variational tendency of the male, resulting in characters which persist in the species wherever ...
— Sex and Society • William I. Thomas
... soldier excitedly, and, forgetting all the words that had passed, he fetched the oblong, round-faced shield from the table and held it ready for Marcus to thrust his left arm through the loop and then grasp the hand-hold firmly, and draw the piece of defensive armour before his breast. "Well done! Now think that I'm going to ...
— Marcus: the Young Centurion • George Manville Fenn
... you!" muttered the boy, on the defensive. He carried a large bag of what seemed to be chocolate creams, from ...
— The Sturdy Oak - A Composite Novel of American Politics by Fourteen American Authors • Samuel Merwin, et al.
... but the window-sashes hummed with the steady thunder of a battle going on somewhere among the mountains. Knowing the Alsatian frontier fairly well, I understood that a battle among the mountains must mean that our First Corps had been attacked, and that we were on the defensive ...
— The Maids of Paradise • Robert W. (Robert William) Chambers
... council associated by Russia with the sovereign, freed themselves from the Russian guarantee; aided by Prussia, compelled the Russian troops to evacuate the country; devised a constitution, which they laid before the cabinets of London and Berlin; concluded an offensive and defensive alliance with Prussia on the 29th of March, 1790, and, on the 3d of May, 1791, carried into effect the new constitution ratified by England and Prussia, and approved of by the emperor Leopold. During the conference, held at Pilnitz, ...
— Germany from the Earliest Period Vol. 4 • Wolfgang Menzel, Trans. Mrs. George Horrocks
... links these, that not only bind together their obligated votaries, but that recognize and embrace, because of worthiness and plighted faith, that behind the back as well as face to face, have a defensive, kindly word and a brother's generous deed; that, amid the upheavals of communities and the crumbling of nations, systems and governments, swerve not from their course, and are corralled by no arbitrary bounds, and that, whatever ...
— The Jericho Road • W. Bion Adkins
... traced back in a similar way, though it must be admitted that the racial survivals are usually less convincing than those from the infancy of the individual. The nasal expression in disgust was originally a defensive movement against bad odors; and the set lips of determination went primarily with the set glottis and rigid chest that are useful in lifting heavy weights or in other severe muscular efforts. Such movements, directly useful in certain simple situations, become linked up with analogous ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... had undergone one of its swift changes. It had grown defensive and a little fierce. She should not see Blossom!—this other child who could walk away over the sand to meet Elises, whoever Elises were. She should not see Blossom! Blossom ...
— Judith Lynn - A Story of the Sea • Annie Hamilton Donnell
... Mr. Lincoln whirled about in his long arms an imaginary dog, and pushed its tail end toward the jury. This was the defensive plea of 'son assault demesne'—loosely, that 'the other fellow brought on the fight,'—quickly told, and in a way the dullest mind would ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... pronounced discrepancy. Garments may make a little difference, but they do not account for it all. I think perhaps that man's stronger physique, naturally greater activity, and severer strokes prevent the girl from playing her own game. She has to be nearly always on the defensive, and thus plays ...
— Lawn Tennis for Ladies • Mrs. Lambert Chambers
... those whom he found to be untruthful or not straightforward. Naturally he did not offer any unnecessary encouragement to bores and dullards, but in his intercourse with these undesirables and wasters of his time he adopted none of the "offensive-defensive" methods of, say, Dr. Johnson or Lord Westbury. He armed himself with a cold correctitude of politeness, and lowered the social temperature instead of ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley - A Character Sketch • Leonard Huxley
... the object of his pursuit standing irresolutely on the border of the carriage drive, evidently uncertain whether to strike across the Park or make for the bustling pavements of Knightsbridge. He turned round sharply with an air of defensive hostility when he ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... thrown suddenly on the defensive. The Irish troops, on which he counted as a balance to the Scots, had been cut to pieces by Fairfax or by Waller, and both in the North and in the South he seemed utterly overmatched. But he was far from despairing. Before the advance of Essex he had answered Newcastle's cry for aid by despatching ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... 274 above. The jack was "a horseman's defensive upper garment, quilted and covered with strong leather" (Nares). It was sometimes also strengthened with iron rings, plates, or bosses. Cf. Lyly, Euphues: "jackes quilted, and covered over with leather, fustian, or canvas, over thick plates of yron that are sowed to ...
— The Lady of the Lake • Sir Walter Scott
... The Sung military group was faced as early as in 1131 with furious opposition from the greater gentry, led by Ch'in K'ui, one of the largest landowners of all. His estates were around Nanking, and so in the deployment region and the region from which most of the soldiers had to be drawn for the defensive struggle. Ch'in K'ui secured the assassination of the leader of the military party, General Yo Fei, in 1141, and was able to conclude peace with the Juchen. The Sung had to accept the status of vassals and to pay annual tribute ...
— A history of China., [3d ed. rev. and enl.] • Wolfram Eberhard
... somewhere in his thirties, easygoing of face, brownish of hair, bluish of eye and moderately good-looking. His posture wasn't the best and he had a slight tummy but he was a goodish masculine specimen by Mid-Western standards. He stared out at them, defensive now that it was obvious they were strangers. Were they selling something, or in what other manner were they attempting to intrude on his well being? His eyes went from the older man's thin face, to the football hero ...
— The Common Man • Guy McCord (AKA Dallas McCord Reynolds)
... an almost startling change in Philippa's face. The banter which had served her with so much effect, which she had relied upon as her defensive weapon, was suddenly useless. Lessingham had created an atmosphere around him, an atmosphere ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had schooled himself since Jack Witherspoon's departure in every defensive measure against the secret plotters. And so his voice was suave and measured as he simply said, "I think, Mr. Wade, that I shall have to regretfully decline this promotion. I am perfectly well satisfied as I am. I know nothing of the details of our ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... with kind eyes; something in his voice suddenly made her put away all thought of the defensive airs that a girl, in certain situations, is expected to assume. She perceived that he wanted to make her understand something, and now her only wish was to help him to say it. "You are not happy," she murmured, simply, her voice dying away in a kind ...
— Georgina's Reasons • Henry James
... moved together up the steps of the porch, and he stood there looking at her, quelling the up-rush of admiration and avid hunger in his eyes. Then she said curtly, for in these days she was always on the defensive, and meant to be doubly so with him whom she secretly feared, "Ye're in ther house now. Ef ye wants ter mek a killin' with me, tek off yore hat. Don't folks hev no manners whar ...
— A Pagan of the Hills • Charles Neville Buck
... was no adequate preparation for resistance. The British Navy, indeed, was an overwhelming force as compared to the French; but its hands were fully occupied, and the fleet Nelson had just left in the Baltic could not yet be recalled. It was, however, in purely defensive measures, in the possession of a force similar to that by which the proposed attack was to be made, and in dispositions analogous to coast defences, that the means were singularly defective, both in material and men. "Everything, my dear ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... that Mr. Alexander McGee was standing in the doorway, his hand resting lightly on the jamb. A sudden color suffused Wayne's cheek; his hand reached for his book, which he drew towards him hurriedly, yet half automatically, as he might have grasped some defensive weapon. ...
— The Bell-Ringer of Angel's and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... said, "whatever is harsh, aggressive, cynical, mean, sneering, selfish in me has been externally acquired. You scrape even a spineless mollusc too long with a pin, and the irritation produces a defensive crust. I began boy-like by being so damned credulous and impulsive and affectionate and tender-hearted that even my kid sister laughed at me; and she was only three years older than I. Then followed that period of social loneliness, ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... in the background, with a continual menace. It shapes the character of a people and enters into all their political and educational progress. To keep on friendly terms with a powerful next-door neighbour, or to build defensive works high enough to make hostility a safe game, is the lifework of its statesmen and its politicians. Great crises and agitations shake the nation convulsively when cowardice or treachery or laziness has allowed that ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... religion, our modern categories furnish the noblest mental formulae in which the religious spirit ever had opportunity to find expression. We who believe this have no business to be modest and apologetic about it, as though upon the defensive we shyly presented it to the suffrages of men. It is a gospel to proclaim. It does involve a new theology but, with multitudes of eager minds in our generation, the decision no longer lies between an old and a new theology, but between new theology and no theology. No longer can they ...
— Christianity and Progress • Harry Emerson Fosdick
... waltzing round the most striking curves, some of them almost elliptical. Tremendous gradients lead through tunnels and over bridges, and the swerving carriages run often in alarming proximity to the edge of precipitous ravines. What a splendid position for defensive purposes! Had the present war been declared three weeks earlier De Aar would have been quite unable to stand against the Boers, and thus the enemy might with his amazing mobility have made a swift ...
— With Methuen's Column on an Ambulance Train • Ernest N. Bennett
... form the invading army. All were clothed in their most terror-inspiring attire, with as great a proportion of feathers and skins as could be mustered. Their arms consisted of sumpitans, spears and swords, daggers, with shields and padded jackets for their defensive armour, while each man carried his provisions in a basket on his back. This time they proposed attacking a tribe some way to the north, with whom they had ...
— Mark Seaworth • William H.G. Kingston
... obliged to come armed each Sabbath, and the sentinels were ordered to keep their matches constantly lighted for use in their match-locks. They were also commanded to wear armor, which consisted of "coats basted with cotton-wool, and thus made defensive against Indian arrows." In 1650 so much dread and fear were felt of Sunday attacks from the red men that the Sabbath-Day guard was doubled in number. In 1692, the Connecticut Legislature ordered one fifth of the soldiers in each town to come armed to each meeting, and that nowhere ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... may have had secret information—for they had their spies in every department—that the long-meditated disarmament had been determined upon, and immediately decided to anticipate the offensive by a strong defensive of their own choosing. At any rate, Monday found them fully prepared, each in his ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... wakened from his dream of foreign conquests, Louis XIV. now sought only to defend his own frontier; and the arms which had formerly been at the gates of Amsterdam, and recently carried terror into the centre of Germany, were now reduced to a painful defensive on the Scheldt and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various
... initiated Eloise into a new way of performing old duties, as coolly as if no indignant word or thought had ever passed between them. And meanwhile, in place of their ancient warfare, but with no later friendship, Eloise and Mrs. Arles had tacitly instituted an offensive and defensive alliance against the common enemy. This the common enemy soon perceived, laughed at it a little grimly at first, then accepted it, as a kind of martyrdom expiatory of all previous sins, that a man ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 79, May, 1864 • Various
... than the complete change of position which was brought about during the eight years after the death of President McKinley. At the end of that period, both the industrial corporations and the railways were on the defensive, and the public had secured the whip hand. Industry, especially the railroads, was tamed and hobbled—some thought, crippled. Many factors contributed to the revolution. President Roosevelt was its most active agent, to be sure,—its "gigantic advertiser" ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... men in all Tibet, it would be impossible to feed them for a week, there or in Sikkim. Such reports unfortunately spread a panic in Dorjiling: the guards were called in from all the outposts, and the ladies huddled into one house, whilst the males stood on the defensive; to the great amusement of the Amlah at Tumloong, whose insolence to us increased proportionally.] as we heard that the Lassoo Kajee was stationed at Namtchi with a party for that purpose, and all communication cut ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... to Connecticut concludes a general power to make defensive war with these terms: "and upon just causes to invade and destroy the natives or other ...
— Opinion of the Supreme Court of the United States, at January Term, 1832, Delivered by Mr. Chief Justice Marshall in the Case of Samuel A. Worcester, Plaintiff in Error, versus the State of Georgia • John Marshall
... speaker closely. When he paused, she was ready for him. "But, even without a marriage, at any time now a treaty based on the marriage may be signed. A treaty for a mutually defensive alliance. Austria encroaches daily, and has Germany behind her. We are small fry, here and in Karnia, and we stand ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... decades have been rich in stories that need only a set of notes to reveal their approximate faithfulness to things that actually happened. But there is an emphasis upon revolt and disillusion and confusion in these latest novels that is new. They are no longer on the defensive, no longer stories of boys struggling to adapt themselves to a difficult world (men of forty- odd still write such stories); their authors are on the offensive, and with a reckless desire to accomplish their objectives, they shower us with such a profusion of detail, desert the paths ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... glowed and her eyes were bright with unshed tears. Abruptly she abandoned the defensive and blurted out the thing that had been latent so long between them. Her voice took a note of passion. "Nothing I can do ever does please you, since that Miss Heydinger ...
— Love and Mr. Lewisham • H. G. Wells
... not more or less immediately develop antibody-resistance. So that in interstellar medicine tormals were priceless. Let Murgatroyd be infected with however localized, however specialized an inimical organism, and presently some highly valuable defensive substance could be isolated from his blood and he'd remain in his usual exuberant good health. When the antibody was analyzed by those techniques of microanalysis the Service had developed,—why—that was ...
— Pariah Planet • Murray Leinster
... was founded in 1291 as a defensive alliance among three cantons. In succeeding years, other localities joined the original three. The Swiss Confederation secured its independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1499. Switzerland's sovreignty and ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... as we have seen with domestic disturbance, and with further danger on the side of Scotland, which Charles had succeeded in agitating, concluded, on the 23rd of June, a league, offensive and defensive, with Francis, the latter engaging to send a fleet into the Channel, and to land 15,000 troops in England if the emperor should attempt an invasion from the sea.[378] For the better consolidation of this league, and to consult ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... Northern Russia, and will lead to an easy and complete success for the Central Powers. That we lay down the frontier rectification as conditio sine qua non forms a justifiable measure to protect an important interest for the Monarchy of a purely defensive nature. It is energetically demanded by the entire patriotic public opinion of Hungary. It appears out of the question that a Minister of Foreign Affairs, had he taken up another attitude in the matter, would have been able to ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... for those Sanganians and those Mallabars and professed pirates," wrote the Directors in 1699, "we see no cause why you should not wage an offensive as well as a defensive war against them when they fall in your way: but it is hardly worth the while to keep small vessels to look after them, for they are poor rogues and nothing to be got of them to answer ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... were present representing the National League, the American Association, and the Northwestern League. At that meeting the so-called Tripartite Agreement was drawn up and agreed to, which substantially was an offensive and defensive alliance, embodying a mutual respect of all contracts and other obligations, and all rights of the parties to the agreement to territorial rights, players under ...
— Spalding's Baseball Guide and Official League Book for 1895 • Edited by Henry Chadwick
... said Cotton Mather, now on the defensive, "just let the village-lad try it. Why, the beauty of real bait-fishing is that it requires more skill than any other kind of angling. To present your bait to the wary old trout without frightening him; to make it move in the water so that it shall ...
— Days Off - And Other Digressions • Henry Van Dyke
... near the door, looking at the picture, with one hand up in a defensive sort of way, as if he thought it might swing ...
— My Man Jeeves • P. G. Wodehouse
... instructions of the General in Chief on September 11 and developed during the five following weeks with the ampleness we have just seen. The movements of troops carried out during this period were methodically combined with the pursuit of operations, both defensive and offensive, from the Oise to ...
— World's War Events, Vol. I • Various
... National army, which had established itself on the borders of one of the southernmost States of the Confederacy, and was menacing lines of communication of prime necessity to their maintenance of the defensive line within which those commanders had withdrawn their discomfited armies. At length, one evening, on dress parade, there were read 'General orders, headquarters Fourth division,' for a march at daylight the next morning. Some days would yet be ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... subtle physical elements radiating round the human body and acting in a defensive role by preventing the penetration of unhealthy elements from ...
— Reincarnation - A Study in Human Evolution • Th. Pascal
... socially, he yielded to her shrinking from the opportunities of social advancement that opened to them, and held aloof with her. This kept him a country person in his experiences much longer than he need have remained; and tended to that sort of defensive secretiveness which grew more and more upon him, and qualified his conduct in matters where there was no question of his knowledge of the polite world. It was not until after his wife's death, and until his daughters ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... British Empire. Moreover, it was very difficult of attack, for it was defended by a range of exceedingly unpleasant and precipitous hills, the passes through which were held by the Turks. Hence the agitation of the authorities and the sudden importance of Ayun Musa as a defensive barrier to Suez. ...
— With Our Army in Palestine • Antony Bluett
... Italian Commanders, and at the battles of Lodi, Castiglione, Rivoli, &c. established his character as a brave and consummate general. Spain had already, towards the end of 1795, concluded not merely a peace with France, but also entered with her into a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, which was this year followed up by her declaring war against Great Britain. In Germany, a suspension of arms was concluded between France, Bavaria, Wirtemburgh, and Baden; and Saxony and Hesse agreed to a neutrality, while in Italy peace was made by Parma, ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... was attainted under Richard II in 1397, but restored to his honours and liberty two years later under Henry IV. It is curious that the most interesting associations of the place should be connected with his successors in the earldom. Although built entirely for defensive purposes, we find it thus early used as a prison, and during the two following centuries it seems to have been regarded as one of the most convenient places in which to lodge prisoners of rank, and in consequence ...
— Authorised Guide to the Tower of London • W. J. Loftie
... of Italy were involved in the schemes of present and domestic ambition; and the distance or proximity of each object determined in their eyes its apparent magnitude. A more enlarged view of their interest would have taught them to maintain a defensive and naval war against the common enemy; and the support of Scanderbeg and his brave Albanians might have prevented the subsequent invasion of the kingdom of Naples. The siege and sack of Otranto by the Turks diffused a general consternation; and Pope Sixtus was preparing to fly ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 6 • Edward Gibbon
... the objects pursued by British policy on the African continent are inherently pacific and defensive. It desires no man's territory; it desires only to live in peace and develop the great African territories and populations intrusted to its care. And looking at the future from the broadest points of view, looking at the magnitude of its material African interests and the future welfare of the ...
— World's War Events, Volume III • Various
... stool on which he was wont to take his humble frugal meals. It was exactly what he needed. He had no idea of assaulting Bridget. He recognized all her admirable qualities, which filled in the shortcomings of his shiftlessness with admirable exactitude. He meant to act strictly on the defensive, a system of warfare that was familiar to him. For though he had never before risen up in open revolt, he had never counted mere self-preservation as an insult to ...
— The Dew of Their Youth • S. R. Crockett
... next court at Frankfort, and thither Mr. D. repaired to take revenge for the personal indignity he had suffered. Judge R. is as remarkable for resolute fearlessness as for talents, firmness, and integrity; and after having provided himself with defensive weapons, entered upon the discharge of his duties with the most philosophic indifference. On passing from his hotel to the court-house, the Judge noticed that a man of great size, and evidently of tremendous muscular strength, followed him so closely as to allow no one to step between. He ...
— The Book of Anecdotes and Budget of Fun; • Various
... Erastians, assuming the name of Presbyterians, Independents, Socinians, and Quakers: all of whom Kettledrummle proposed, by one sweeping act, to expel from the land, and thus re-edify in its integrity the beauty of the sanctuary. He next handled very pithily the doctrine of defensive arms and of resistance to Charles II., observing, that, instead of a nursing father to the Kirk, that monarch had been a nursing father to none but his own bastards. He went at some length through the life and conversation ...
— Old Mortality, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... the national disaster might be turned into a blessing. Many circumstances favoured the realisation of these hopes. Prussia, on discovering that her interests no longer coincided with those of her partners of 1772, changed sides, and by-and-by even went the length of concluding a defensive and offensive alliance with the Polish Republic. She, with England and other governments, backed Poland against Russia and Austria. Russia, moreover, had to turn her attention elsewhere. At the time of Nicholas Chopin's arrival, ...
— Frederick Chopin as a Man and Musician - Volume 1-2, Complete • Frederick Niecks
... prepared defensive position, the most accurate and only practicable method of determining the range will generally be to take the ...
— Manual of Military Training - Second, Revised Edition • James A. Moss
... against the enemy's line-of-battle ships and steamers, falling without notice upon our coast? What will guard our cities from tribute, our merchant-vessels and our navy-yards from conflagration? Here, again, we see a wise forecast in the system of defensive measures which, especially since the close of the war with Great Britain, has been steadily followed ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... definite and practical, his mastery of the sword delightful; but he had little imagination, he did not divine, he was merely a brilliant performer, he did not conceive. I saw that if I put him on the defensive I should have him at advantage, for he had not that art of the true swordsman, the prescient quality which foretells the opponents action and stands prepared. There I had him at fatal advantage—could, I felt, give him last reward of insult at my pleasure. Yet a lust of fighting got into ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... exciting time to venture upon the continent. The very atmosphere seemed permeated with terror of Napoleon. Each country was on the defensive, struggling openly or surreptitiously to preserve its threatened liberty; while the one topic of conversation was the defeat or the success of armies. Thus the correspondence of the young travellers, so eagerly awaited and devoured ...
— The Letter-Bag of Lady Elizabeth Spencer-Stanhope v. I. • A. M. W. Stirling (compiler)
... Fort Richmond, mounting one hundred and forty guns. To the right and left of the fort, are Batteries Hudson, Morton, North Cliff, and South Cliff; mounting about eighty guns of heavy calibre. It is stated that the new work on Sandy Hook will be armed with two hundred guns, which will make the defensive armament of the Lower Bay and Narrows over six hundred and thirteen guns, which, together with the fleet of war vessels that could be assembled for the protection of the city, would render the capture of New York by an enemy's fleet a hazardous, ...
— Lights and Shadows of New York Life - or, the Sights and Sensations of the Great City • James D. McCabe
... just indignation of the inhabitants. At length the sovereign of Hungary, disgusted with the campaign, refused to remain any longer in Palestine,—a defection which compelled the King of Jerusalem, the Duke of Austria, and the Master of the Hospitallers to take up a defensive position on the Plain of Cesarea. The knights of the other military orders, the Templar and Teutonic, seized upon Mount Carmel, which they fortified for the occasion. But their fears were relieved in the spring of the following year by the arrival of a large body of new and most zealous ...
— Palestine or the Holy Land - From the Earliest Period to the Present Time • Michael Russell
... a high voice of defensive complaint. "No'm, Miss Julia, I ain' lef no baskit on no front po'che! I got jus' th'ee markit baskits in the livin' worl' an' they ev'y las' one an' all sittin' right where I kin lay my han's on 'em behime ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... force of arms to turne their neighbours out of a possession of above 1400 years, to make roome for their Trojan Horse of ecclesiastical discipline (a practice never justified in the world but either by the Turk or by the Pope): this put us upon the defensive part. They must not think that other men are so cowed or grown so tame, as to stand still blowing of their noses, whilst they bridle them and ride them at their pleasure. It is time to let the world see that this discipline which they so much adore, is ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 212, November 19, 1853 • Various
... and bare. There was a bed, with a blue cover, a cupboard, a great chest, a pair of joint-stools, a hinged table in the chimney-corner, and hung upon the wall the old soldier's armoury of bows and defensive armour. Hatch began ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... ironclad is sunk by the torpedo. How very little margin lay between this country and starvation through action of submarines! Suppose the enemy had possessed five times as many submarines from the first, would our defensive measures have prevailed? How small an extension in the enemy's power in the air would have enabled him in a single night to leave London a mass of ruins, its whole population which had not fled dying in torment ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... seriously. "Mr. Councillor," he replied, "as to our defensive measures, we have passed the point of diminishing returns. We have more knowledge now than we are capable of employing against the plague. Had we not neglected the physical sciences as we have for the ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... Raymond. "A heavy snow like this is all in our favour, since we stand on the defensive; it makes it more difficult for the Yankee ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... heaven-instructed heroine. A second convoy arrived; the waggons and troops passed between the redoubts of the English; while a dead silence and astonishment reigned among the forces, so lately enterprising and resistless. Joan now called on the garrison no longer to stand upon the defensive, but boldly to attack the army of the besiegers. She took one redoubt and then another. The English, overwhelmed with amazement, scarcely dared to lift a hand against her. Their veteran generals became spell-bound and powerless; and their soldiers were ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... "they laugh at me because I have no hat, and they say nothing to M. Montcrabeau, who is going to supper in a cuirass of the time of the Emperor Pertinax, from whom it probably came. See what it is to have defensive arms." ...
— The Forty-Five Guardsmen • Alexandre Dumas
... direct message from heaven. It comes by way of the nursery, and is a child's cry. The heart of Alice Grey stops beating for several seconds. Then it says, 'My Molly!' The nurse appears, starts, and is at once on the defensive. ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... the affair, but as Rex drew back he was surrounded and hemmed in by Greif's comrades, who tore the rapier from his grasp, pressed his gloved hands, untied the strings and loosed the buckles of his jerkin, wiped the slight perspiration from his face, and divested him of all his defensive accoutrements almost before he had breath to speak. A couple of novices rubbed his arm, while twenty young fellows congratulated him in an undertone. The two who were nearest were the student whom Bauer ...
— Greifenstein • F. Marion Crawford
... required for the actual conquest of the colonies the Boers had never cultivated or acquired. The men who in six months and six days could not rush little Mafeking hoped in vain to capture Cape Town, unless they caught it napping. But in defensive warfare, in cunningly setting snares like that at Sanna's Post, in skilful concealment as at Modder River, when all day long most of our men were quite unable to discover on which side of the stream the Boer entrenchments were, and in what they called clever trickery, ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... particularly to the Anglo-Americans, exists among them, and, unless they coalesce, no serious difficulty need be apprehended from them. Not so, however, should they be induced to unite for purposes offensive and defensive; their strength would then become apparent, create confidence, and in all probability induce them to give vent to their long-suppressed desire to revenge past wrongs, which is restrained, as they openly and freely confess, ...
— Diary in America, Series Two • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... this phenomenon with amazement and indignation, and seemed by his looks to appeal to Mrs Chick and Miss Tox against it. Little Paul, who had come in after Florence, backed towards Miss Tox as the Captain waved his book, and stood on the defensive. ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... was done, and by their complaints and accusations were wellnigh bringing the war back again, Nicias persuaded the Athenians and the Lacedaemonians, besides the peace, to make a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, as a tie and confirmation of the peace, which would make them more terrible to those that held out, and the firmer to each other. Whilst these matters were on foot, Alcibiades, who was no lover of tranquillity, ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... point. He is certainly planning it all out in a wonderful way. He consults Rooke almost hourly on the maritime side of the question. The Lord High Admiral has been a watcher all his life, and very few important points have ever escaped him, so that he can add greatly to the wisdom of the defensive construction. He notices, I think, that something is going on outside ourselves; but he keeps ...
— The Lady of the Shroud • Bram Stoker
... impartiality and even his satisfaction with a little punishment of the students, if they were aggressive. "But," said he, "don't begin the fight and put yourselves in the wrong. If my boys come over, thrash them well, but let them strike the first blow." Having put them in the strongest defensive attitude, believing that they had the doctor with them, he went round to the students and applied the same inducements to the defensive, leaving them under the persuasion that he entirely approved their fighting, and then he went home and left ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... In contrast to the defensive tactics which other ladies of his acquaintance had adopted, tactics of a patently coy and coquettish nature, this self-collected manner was new and spicy, challenging to powers never as yet fully exerted while ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... on and the messenger found Ramsey. She had just been rejoined by her old nurse, and to both servants her questions were prompt and swift. Their low replies plainly disturbed her, and she wheeled to the bishop where he still stood addressing the Gilmores and a dozen others in a manner loftily defensive. He forestalled her speech with good-natured haste. "Now, if our gay and happy young sister will ask me to do something befitting a minister of the ...
— Gideon's Band - A Tale of the Mississippi • George W. Cable
... could never more be any security for him. To-day Madame Dammauville menaced him; tomorrow it would be some one else. Who? He did not know. Every one. And it was the anguish of his position to be condemned to live hereafter in fear, and on the defensive, without repose, without forgetfulness. ...
— Conscience, Complete • Hector Malot
... occult causes, scholastic entities are invented to explain the phenomena of nature—to the positive, when at length it is recognised that human knowledge cannot pass beyond the region of phenomena. With these stages corresponds the progress of society from militarism, aggressive or defensive, to industrialism. The several abstract sciences—those dealing with the laws of phenomena rather than with the application of laws—are so arranged by Comte as to exhibit each more complex science resting ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... the clear briny depths above and beneath! If the angels ever look out of their sphere of intense spiritual realities to indulge in a laugh, methinks such a lonely tripod-sitter, cased over with his invulnerable, non-conducting cloak and hood,—shrinking, dodging, or bracing himself up on the defensive, as the crowd fans him with its rush or jostles up against him,—like the man who fancied himself a teapot, and was forever warning people not to come too near him,—might furnish a subject for a planetary joke ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... the westward on both sides of the Hudson. The greater part of his army occupied a rocky and mountainous district known by the name of the Highlands. There he carried on a sort of Fabian warfare, ever avoiding a regular engagement, always on the defensive, and retreating when pursued. So ill-formed and ill-disciplined were the American forces at this time that he had no other resource than to act as he did. His army was still further weakened by the loss ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... which proposal all agreeing, they bade Pietro strip himself: but while, already divining his fate, he was so doing, an ambuscade of full five-and-twenty men at arms fell suddenly upon them, crying:—"Death, death!" Thus surprised, they let Pietro go, and stood on the defensive; but, seeing that the enemy greatly outnumbered them, they took to their heels, the others giving chase. Whereupon Pietro hastily resumed his clothes, mounted his nag, and fled with all speed in the direction which he had seen the damsel take. But finding no road ...
— The Decameron, Vol. II. • Giovanni Boccaccio
... right well that her words had been ungrateful and unjust; yet in her heart she was more vexed with Honor for having pushed her into a corner than with herself for her defensive flash of resentment. More than all was she overwhelmed by a sense of utter helplessness, of not knowing where to turn or what ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... majority. Never, in the years following the formation of the Empire, did his speech in the German Parliament rise to a higher pathos than when he was asserting the military supremacy of the Emperor, or calling upon the parties to forget their dissensions in maintaining the defensive strength of the nation, or showering contempt upon liberal deputies who seemed to think that questions of national existence could be solved by effusions of academic oratory. Over and over, during the last decade of his official career, did he declare ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke |
