"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... to have existed apart from Buddhism.[471] Caves decorated for Buddhist worship are found not only in the Tarim basin but at Tun-huang on the frontier of China proper, near Ta-t'ung-fu in northern Shensi, and in the defile of Lung-men in the province of Ho-nan. The general scheme and style of these caves are similar, but while in the last two, as in most Indian caves, the figures and ornaments are true sculpture, in the caves of Tun-huang and the Tarim not only is the wall prepared for frescoes, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... morsel of bread was left uneaten on the table, if an unexpected dish was served up at table, if she put a piece of ribbon into her hair, he used to heap violent, spiteful reproaches on her, torrents of rage which defile the mouth, and violent threats like those of a madman, who is tormented by some fixed idea. Monsieur d'Etchegorry had dismissed the servant and engaged a char-woman, whom he intended to pay, merely by small sums on account, and he used to go to market ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... "because it is a violation of right, being the sum of all unrighteousness which man can do to man," "violates the law of love," "degrades man, the image of God, into a thing," "necessarily tends to pollute the soul of the slave," "to defile the soul of the master," "restricts education, keeps the Bible from the slave, makes life insecure, deprives female innocence of protection, sanctions adultery, tears children from parents and husbands from wives, violates the divine institutions of families, and by hard ...
— Unitarianism in America • George Willis Cooke
... everything else is common to all that I have mentioned, there remains that which is peculiar to the good man, to be pleased and content with what happens, and with the thread which is spun for him; and not to defile the divinity which is planted in his breast, nor disturb it by a crowd of images, but to preserve it tranquil, following it obediently as a god, neither saying anything contrary to the truth, nor doing anything ...
— The Thoughts Of The Emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus • Marcus Aurelius
... Weed, the Leaves are all too few It's Nectar to defile as Others do - Ah, shun the Solecism and the Plug For Cattle-Kings and Stevedores ...
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Jr. (The Rubiyt of Omar Khayym Jr.) • Wallace Irwin
... this narrow defile through which the party traveled. But he agreed that they were breaking through the wall of the glacier on the right side. Aleukan, the big native ...
— On a Torn-Away World • Roy Rockwood
... who maketh mad, and the Furies that pursued Orestes, defile the day when I cross this step again,' he muttered as he swung under the arch and ran to follow the ...
— Privy Seal - His Last Venture • Ford Madox Ford
... since Jim came. They make a strong party, all armed, and determined to fight their way through. They are already twenty miles away; but we will overtake them to-morrow. I am to guide them. I know every cave and defile. Will you come?" ...
— Cudjo's Cave • J. T. Trowbridge
... a few weeks before, gaunt, footsore, and ragged, tramping the cross-ties yonder where the railway comes from the eastward, curving into view out of that deep green and gray defile, 'Thanase had come into this valley. So short a time before, because almost on his start homeward illness had halted him by the way and held him long in arrest. But at length he had reached the valley, and had lingered here for days; ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... some fat bacon, which is said to be good for them. Great sign of buffalo here; also saw one today galloping away through a gap[69] in the mountains. [June 23—71st day] To day we passed through a narrow defile in the mountains, where we were compeled to ford the river 3 times,[70] in less than 2 miles, we had to block up our waggon bed several inches; it is a very bad place, there is a way to go around, but I am told ...
— Across the Plains to California in 1852 - Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell • Lodisa Frizell
... to the sins they themselves commit every day, while they claim for themselves clearer light and knowledge than the child, and thereby condemn themselves rather than the child; when they darken and defile the pure and beautiful trust and admiration for its Heavenly Father, which God's Spirit puts into the child's heart, by telling it that it is doomed to I know-not-what horrible misery and torture when it dies; but that it can escape from that wretched end by thinking certain thoughts, and ...
— Sermons for the Times • Charles Kingsley
... narrowness, or its material poverty is hidden by its intellectual wealth. From its stock of mighty men—its heroes, and bards, and sages—who have brightened the roll of fame; or from its memorable battle-fields, on rude heath and in mountain defile; or from its achievements which have swelled the tides of human enterprise, and made the world its debtor; he draws the inspiration, he carries away the conviction of greatness—so that wherever its emblems come before his eyes, ...
— Humanity in the City • E. H. Chapin
... kind of magic aspired to this state of perfection. The priest, who was of this order, was to be a man of unblemished morals, and all who joined with him were bound to a strict purity of life. They were to abstain from women, and from animal food; and were forbid to defile themselves by the touch of a dead body. Nothing was to be forgotten in their rites and ceremonies; the least omission or mistake, rendered all their art ineffectual: so that this was a constant excuse for their not performing all that was required of them, though as their sole employment ...
— Thaumaturgia • An Oxonian
... the little picture of the young man with horse and hound going bravely up the rocky defile, accompanied by the companions who ride beside most men through this world, a curious impulse made Mrs Jo ...
— Jo's Boys • Louisa May Alcott
... but, in reality, a close pheasant preserve, occupying the banks of a ravine, which, after a deep and tortuous course, terminated in the declivity heretofore described as forming the park boundary. Luke plunged into the heart of this defile, fighting his way downwards, in the direction of the brook. His progress was impeded by a thick undergrowth of brier, and other matted vegetation, as well as by the entanglements thrown in his way by the taller bushes ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... of Grecia's skillful hand; Nor dazzling palace view, whose portals proud Each morning vomit out the cringing crowd; Nor wear the tissu'd garment's cumb'rous pride, Nor seek soft wool in Syrian purple dy'd, Nor with fantastic luxury defile The native sweetness of the liquid oil; Yet calm content, secure from guilty cares, Yet home-felt pleasure, peace, and rest, are theirs; Leisure and ease, in groves, and cooling vales, Grottoes, and bubbling brooks, and darksome dales; The lowing oxen, ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... churruck-posts for the edification of infatuated little crowds and the honor of horrid little goddesses; where plucky little widows perform their little suttees for defunct little husbands, grilling on little funeral piles; where mangy little Pariah dogs defile the little dinners of little high-caste folks, by stealing hungry little sniffs from sacred little pots; where omnivorous little adjutant-birds gobble up little glass bottles, and bones, and little dead cats, and little old slippers, and bits of ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 5, March, 1858 • Various
... chaste wives with arms; repel the foe with the sword; assist your friends; spare the wretched; favour the good; meet the treacherous face to face; punish offences; chastise the impious; inflict vengeance on those who, by base adultery, defile the marriage couch; beware of the wicked; trust no man too far." Thus having said, the Maiden falls frenzied to the ground: frenzied, indeed, for what she said, she said ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... in the task of crushing the few remaining Chinese garrisons, and also in cowing his Tungan allies, who already regarded their new ruler with a doubtful eye. By the month of September in the same year that witnessed the passage of the invading force through the Terek defile, the triumph of the Khoja's arms was assured. A few weeks later Mahomed Yakoob deposed his master, and caused himself to be proclaimed ruler in his stead. The voice of the people ratified the success of the man; and in 1866 Mahomed Yakoob, or Yakoob Beg, received at the hands of the Ameer ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... denied her "just authority," Knox said that he was as well content to live under her as Paul under Nero. This, again, can hardly be called an agreeable historical parallel! Knox hoped that he would not hurt her or her authority "so long as ye defile not your hands with the blood of the saints of God," as if Mary was panting to distinguish herself in that way. His hope was unfulfilled. No "saints" suffered, but ...
— John Knox and the Reformation • Andrew Lang
... they were not able to parry the sophistry of Curtius. I have ceased, therefore, to give them. Hamilton is really a colossus to the anti-republican party. Without numbers, he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile, where they might be finished; but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward, there is nobody but yourself who can meet him. His adversaries ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... rode down from the castle of Blentz toward the village. Just out of sight of the grim pile where the road wound down into a ravine Barney turned his horse's head up the narrow defile. In single file Butzow and the troopers followed until the rank undergrowth precluded farther advance. Here the American directed that they dismount, and, leaving the horses in charge of three troopers, set out once more with the balance ...
— The Mad King • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... valleys will be full.' Asked again, why she so terrified the lad? Replied: 'It is the law; we must seek a youth or a maiden of clean life, and under age, to receive messages and admonitions.' We conversed with many more words, but it is not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would degrade and defile the thoughts she uttered, and which my mind received that day. I broke the ring, and she passed, but to return once more next day. At even-song, a long discourse with that ancient transgressor, Mr B. Great horror and remorse; entire atonement and penance; whatsoever ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... flesh is nor beauty nor swift eyes Nor sound of mouth nor might of hands and feet, But thou, dear, hide my body with thy veil, And with thy raiment cover foot and head, And stretch thyself upon me and touch hands With hands and lips with lips: be pitiful As thou art maiden perfect; let no man Defile me to despise me, saying, This man Died woman-wise, a woman's offering, slain Through female fingers in his woof of life, Dishonourable; for thou hast honoured me. And now for God's sake kiss me once and twice And let me go; for the night ...
— Atalanta in Calydon • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... the songs of angels, "a sweet smelling savor to your Lord and King." It should be unintermittent—"the sacrifice of praise continually." One drop of poison will neutralize a whole cup of wine, and make it a cup of death, and one moment of gloom will defile a whole day of sunshine and gladness. Let us ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... adversaries, was mortally wounded between his eyes by an arrow. His companions were so terrified that they retreated with great loss. The enemy, however, irritated and ashamed, renewed the attack from another position on the side of Rocciaglia. They sought to enter the Pra del Torre by a narrow defile. At this moment a thick fog so confused them that they were afraid to move lest they should run into danger. The Angrognians, emboldened by this interposition of Providence, issued forth from their retreats, and by means of their knowledge of the locality cut off the escape ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... the laager. The final third lay full in view of the enemy, full up the increasing steepness of the mountain side, where, horses failing, it would be necessary to creep by stealth and upon the hands and knees. And, where the shelter ended, there lay before them a short defile between walls of naked rock, and ...
— On the Firing Line • Anna Chapin Ray and Hamilton Brock Fuller
... end. It is much easier to come to that bliss than to describe it. Also think what pain and what sorrow and tormenting they shall have who love not GOD above all things that one sees in this world, but defile their body in the pleasures and lusts of this life, in pride and greed and other sins; they shall burn in the fire of hell with the devil whom they served, as long as GOD is in heaven with His servants, ...
— The Form of Perfect Living and Other Prose Treatises • Richard Rolle of Hampole
... easily kill the captain, and if misfortune should come to pass, it may, just the same, fall on me as well. But my refusing it was in vain, and so I consented to it. Discipline goes above all! We started and soon reached the defile; not a Bedouin could be discovered, and only a few distant barren rocks looked rather suspicious. Night set in: we thought of preparing our supper, but suddenly a curious noise could be heard, and the next moment we were surrounded by a swarm of Bedouins. ...
— The Son of Monte-Cristo, Volume I (of 2) • Alexandre Dumas pere
... so shalt thou know That fellowship of love, His spirit only can bestow Who reigns in light above. Walk in the light! and sin, abhorr'd, Shall ne'er defile again; The blood of Jesus Christ, the Lord, Shall cleanse ...
— The Sea Lions - The Lost Sealers • James Fenimore Cooper
... pass of Bamian lie on the road leading from Kabul to Turkestan. The pass, at an elevation of 8,496 feet, is the only known defile over the Hindu Kush practicable for artillery. This valley was one of the chief centres of Buddhist worship, as gigantic idols, mutilated indeed by fanatical Mussulmans, conclusively prove. Bamian, with its colossal statues cut out in the rock, was among the wonders described by the Buddhist ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... pricked down on wood, May be made out a picture good Of the bright Southern Sieve. Who planned, and helped those slanderers vile, My name with base lies to defile? Unpitied, here ...
— Chinese Literature • Anonymous
... distinguished a twofold pollution or uncleanness; one, that of sin, whereby the soul was defiled; and another consisting in some kind of corruption, whereby the body was in some way infected. Speaking then of the first-mentioned uncleanness, no kind of food is unclean, or can defile a man, by reason of its nature; wherefore we read (Matt. 15:11): "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but what cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man": which words are explained (Matt. 15:17) as ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... wives, into the grounds upon which it is desired; and even when they are satisfied concerning the reasons of it, they go on but slowly, for they imagine that too great easiness in granting leave for new marriages would very much shake the kindness of married people. They punish severely those that defile the marriage-bed. If both parties are married they are divorced, and the injured persons may marry one another, or whom they please; but the adulterer and the adulteress are condemned to slavery. Yet if ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... sovereigns placed themselves under a tree, in front of the palace of the Thuilleries, within a few yards of the spot where Louis XVI. and many other victims of the revolution had perished; and they saw the last man of their armies defile past the town, and proceed to take a position beyond it, before they ...
— Travels in France during the years 1814-1815 • Archibald Alison
... dishonour; to make them frugal, and hardy, and masculine in the temper of their bodies and minds, that they may be the fitter for war whenever it does come upon them; but, above all, to watch diligently over their morals, and discourage whatever may defile or corrupt them—is the great business of government, and ought to be in all circumstances the principal object of a wise legislature. Unquestionably that is the happiest country which has most virtue in it; and to the eye of sober reason the poorest Swiss canton is a much nobler state than the kingdom ...
— Dialogues of the Dead • Lord Lyttelton
... reached that ruined cottage of which Elzevir had spoken, and in what had once been an oven, found the compass safe enough as Ratsey had promised. Then on again over the solitary hills, not speaking ourselves, and neither seeing light in window nor hearing dog stir, until we reached that strange defile which men call the Gates of Purbeck. Here is a natural road nicking the highest summit of the hill, with walls as sharp as if the hand of man had cut them, through which have walked for ages all the few travellers in this lonely place, shepherds ...
— Moonfleet • J. Meade Falkner
... made hideous by their grotesque juxtaposition with the wrecked fragments of civilization, in empty cans, broken bottles, battered hats, soleless boots, frayed stockings, cast-off rags, and the crowning absurdity of the twisted-wire skeleton of a hooped skirt hanging from a branch. The wildest defile, the densest thicket, the most virgin solitude, was less dreary and forlorn than this first footprint of man. The only redeeming feature of this prolonged bivouac was the cabin itself. Built of the half-cylindrical strips of pine bark, and thatched with the same material, it ...
— Frontier Stories • Bret Harte
... Duchy had to furnish troops in aid of Napoleon. In 1808 the Polish light cavalry, led by Kozietulski, won glory by the capture of Somosierra, a defile ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz
... woman who has vowed the vow of a Nazarite drink wine or defile herself by contact with a dead body (see Num. vi. 2-6), she is to undergo the ...
— Hebraic Literature; Translations from the Talmud, Midrashim and - Kabbala • Various
... the defile was made before the Htel de Ville, and delegates of the different socialist groups were formally received by the mayor and deputy-mayors, wearing their tricolour scarves ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards
... of the Oregon territory so vividly described in Captain Fremont's adventurous narrative, the Pyramid Lake, visited on the homeward journey from the Dallas to the Missouri river, is the most beautiful. The exploring party having reached a defile between mountains descending rapidly about 2000 feet, saw, filling up all the lower space, a sheet of green water some twenty miles broad. "It broke upon our eyes," says the narrator, "like the ocean: the neighbouring peaks rose high above us, and we ascended one of them to obtain ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... 9th we again entered a narrow defile and here with difficulty the vessels were forced along against a strong current; and over the pebbly bottom, against which they were constantly striking. At Nan-gan-foo, where we arrived in the evening, the river ceases to be navigable. Indeed the whole of the three last days' navigation might, ...
— Travels in China, Containing Descriptions, Observations, and Comparisons, Made and Collected in the Course of a Short Residence at the Imperial Palace of Yuen-Min-Yuen, and on a Subsequent Journey thr • John Barrow
... "I do but defile myself to speak with you, worshipper of idols," sternly spake the priest. "And yet I am constrained to instruct you. Listen—there is a power which even Rome has not been able to conquer. Know ...
— Vergilius - A Tale of the Coming of Christ • Irving Bacheller
... swards and clumps of trees, forming a park-like scene such as might have been witnessed in England. Presently, however, the character of the country suddenly changed, and we were passing through a rocky defile, arid and waterless, while at the end could be seen a wide open country without rock or tree stretching away as far as the eye could reach to ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... and forcing him to fight again. Philip, however, on his part, marched from Lerida in order to retire into Castile by way of Saragossa. Charles followed hotly, and a portion of his cavalry came up to the rear of the enemy in the defile of Penalva. Here the Spaniards posted a strong force of grenadiers, and the defile being too narrow for the cavalry to act, these dismounted, and a hot fight took place, in which both parties claimed the victory. However, Philip retired the same day in great haste. Charles, arriving three hours ...
— In the Irish Brigade - A Tale of War in Flanders and Spain • G. A. Henty
... now formed a procession and began to defile past him. "Smoking in the Court, half-a-crown," said one, in a dreadful voice. "Mr. BURROWES irregular in his attendance at Chapel, gated at eight," roared a second. "Mr. BURROWES persistently disorderly, sent down for the term," shouted a third; ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... Guy—if you have ever loved the poor Ellen, bow with her now. It is her prayer; and, oh, think, how weak is the vanity of this pride in a situation like yours. How idle the stern and stubborn spirit, when men can place you in bonds—when men can take away life and name—when men can hoot and hiss and defile your fettered and enfeebled person! It was for a season and a trial like this, Guy, that humility was given us. It was in order to such an example that the Savior died ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... wrong voice we should close them to the true one. I should think there was a great chance of being led to stop short at the material beauty, or worse, to link human passions with the glories of nature, and so distort, defile, profane them.' ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... to direct such concerns. He wants to begin at the top, for manual labor is held to be discreditable, and he would never defile his hands by the apprenticeship which the architects, engineers, and manufacturers of England cheerfully undergo; and he would be aghast to learn that the leading names of industrial enterprise in England belonged a generation or two since, or now belong, to men who wrought with their ...
— The Works of Rudyard Kipling One Volume Edition • Rudyard Kipling
... hanging from every point, which gave out a tinkling sound as I picked it up. I let it fall again as though it had scorched me, the memory of what stood between Madonna Paola and me rising like a warning spectre in my mind. I would not again defile myself by the garb of folly; not again would I incur the shame of playing the Fool ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... the coach entered the dark defile known as the "Devils' Descent." And, in fact, it needed all the noon sunshine to light up the gloom of that fearful pass. Here the delight of the impressible young foreigner ...
— Cruel As The Grave • Mrs. Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... Falls the upper Hudson passes through a long defile, over a precipice some hundred feet long. It was here that Cooper received much of his inspiration, and one of the most startling incidents in his "The Last of the Mohicans" is supposed to have been enacted at the falls. ...
— My Native Land • James Cox
... with the leaves of the dwarf sumach. A huge cliff stands up and seems to bar all passage. Yet the river foams in torrents at our side. Whence can it issue? What pass or cranny in that precipice is cloven for its escape? These questions grow in interest as we enter the narrow defile of limestone rocks which leads to the cliff-barrier, and find ourselves among the figs and olives of Vaucluse. Here is the village, the little church, the ugly column to Petrarch's memory, the inn, with its caricatures of Laura, and its excellent ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... happened to look towards the river, and never, while memory holds her seat, shall I forget the sight which presented itself. Six distinct St. Pauls lifted themselves through the cloudless morning air (so pure, that the smoke of a single cigar would defile it: I extinguished mine in awe) towards the blue transparent sky; nearer, and beneath this stately city of temples, were four Waterloo Bridges, piling their long arcades in graceful and harmonious regularity one above the other, with the chaste and lofty ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 394, October 17, 1829 • Various
... as we consider it separate and | Authorized Version: For I am the Lord guarded from all mixture and all access of | your God: ye shall therefore sanctify evil? | yourselves, and ye shall be holy; for | I am holy: neither shall ye defile Wherefore seeing that knowledge is of the | yourself with any manner of creeping number of those things which are to be | thing that creepeth upon the earth. accepted of with caution and | 1 Peter 1, 16: | | Authorized Version: For it is written, | Be ye holy; ...
— Valerius Terminus: of the Interpretation of Nature • Sir Francis Bacon
... he resolved to attempt the passage of the Gap, for he was so tired of inaction that peril and hardship seemed preferable to doing nothing. Returning to the road, he pursued his way with due diligence through the narrowing defile of the mountains, till he suddenly came upon a sentinel, who challenged him. Before he started from his hiding place, Tom had carefully loaded the revolver which he had taken from the rebel soldier; and, as he walked along, he carried the weapon ...
— The Soldier Boy; or, Tom Somers in the Army - A Story of the Great Rebellion • Oliver Optic
... with one touch of your finger, send that bursting spirit which throbs against your brow to flit forth free, and nevermore to defile ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... egress from this narrow defile: the absolute international disarmament of the world. There is no longer any object in such colossal fleets if the states of the world guarantee the freedom of the seas, and armies must be reduced to the lowest limit requisite for the maintenance of order in the interior. This will ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... Depuis ce defile jusqu'a Acre les montagnes sont peu elevees, et l'on y voit beaucoup d'habitations qui, pour la plupart, sont remplies d'Arabes. Pres de la ville je rencontrai un grand seigneur du pays nomme Fancardin. Il campoit en plein champ, et portoit ...
— The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, - and Discoveries of The English Nation, Volume 10 - Asia, Part III • Richard Hakluyt
... became convinced that the King of Poland was but trifling with him, and in the last week of September started to take the command of the centre, which was facing the entrance to the defile, at Pirna. Marshal Keith had been sent, a week after Fergus was wounded, to assume the command of the western column, hitherto commanded by ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... kirk of woods, The slave found that seclusion he desired. His only treasure was a Testament Hid in the friendly opening of a tree. Often the book was kept within his cot, At times lay next his heart, nor did its beat Defile the fruity knowledge on the leaves. The words were sweet as wine of Eshcol grapes To his parched lips. He saw the past arise. Vague were the people, and the pageant moved, Uncertain as the figures in the dusk; Yet One there ...
— Stories in Verse • Henry Abbey
... Necessity, a law given of old from the gods, eternal, sealed with mighty oaths, that when any heavenly creature (daemon) of those that are endowed with length of days, shall in waywardness of heart defile his hands with sin of deed or speech, he shall wander for thrice ten thousand seasons far from the dwellings of the blest, taking upon him in length of time all manner of mortal forms, traversing in turn the many ...
— A Short History of Greek Philosophy • John Marshall
... the son of England prove a thief, and take purses? a question to be ask'd. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of, and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch: this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest: for, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink, but in tears; not in pleasure, but in passion; not in words only, but in woes also:—and yet there is a virtuous ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... 'what stirrup, sir?' and then he went on: 'You English are not fit even for slaves. Be quick! Can't you see that your lord and his friends are waiting to see me ride?' he says, 'and don't defile those red reins with your dirty white hands!' Of course I knew he was dreaming, and I shook him, but only made him burst out into a lot more stuff—telling me I was to fall ill and ask for the Hakim to cure me, and then we should be all together ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... Wuellersdorf walked up the sand defile; Buddenbrook came to meet them. They exchanged greetings and then the two seconds stepped aside for a brief conference. They agreed that the opponents should advance a tempo and shoot when ten paces apart. Then Buddenbrook returned to his place. Everything was attended ...
— The German Classics Of The Nineteenth And Twentieth Centuries, Volume 12 • Various
... now, any blackguard, any whippersnapper, any shattered ancient can take any one of these women to himself for a minute or for a night, as a momentary whim; and indifferently, one superfluous time more—the thousand and first—profane and defile in her that which is the most precious in a human being—love... Do you understand—revile, trample it underfoot, pay for the visit and walk away in peace, his hands in his pockets, whistling. But the most horrible of all is that all this has come to be a habit with them; ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... man betroth a girl to his son, and his son have intercourse with her, but he [the father] afterward defile her, and be surprised, then he shall be bound and cast ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... the Sweetwater branch, crossing (1842) from that stream by the South Pass thirty-four years after Andrew Henry had first traversed it, over to the headwaters of the Colorado. The ascent to South Pass is very gradual, and there is no gorge or defile. The total width is about twenty miles. A day or two later Fremont climbed out of the valley on the flank of the Wind River Mountains. "We had reached a very elevated point," he says; "and in the valley below and among the hills were ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... forlorn-hope of thirty men was chosen, to force the perilous entrance to the foe. The command of this devoted corps was assigned to Francis Marion, still a lieutenant under the command of Moultrie, in the provincial regiment of Middleton. The ascent of the hill was by means of a gloomy defile, through which the little band, headed gallantly by their leader, advanced with due rapidity; a considerable body of the army moving forward at the same time in support of the advance. Scarcely had the detachment penetrated the defile, when the war-whoop gave the signal. The savages, ...
— The Life of Francis Marion • William Gilmore Simms
... before for the pay of the soldiers. Every tie of command and obedience now being broken among our troops, safety alone being the object, and all being involved in a frightful whirl, they rushed desperately to the narrow pass of the defile that descended to the Plan del Rio, where the general in chief had preceded, with the chiefs and officers accompanying him. Horrid indeed was the descent by that narrow and rocky path, where thousands rushed, disputing ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... the mountainous districts of Savoy; but, with experienced guides to lead them, the dragoons were able to defile through secret passes unknown to any but the natives, and to arrive unsuspected ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... barren branches, of tares and wheat, of good and bad, of sincere believers and hypocrites, of sheep and goats, &c., now as well as it was then? Is there not as great cause to separate and distinguish by church power, between the precious and the vile, the clean and the unclean, (who are apt to defile, infect, and leaven one another,) now as well as then? Ought there not to be as great care over the holy ordinances of God, to preserve and guard them from contempt and pollution, by a hedge and fence of ...
— The Divine Right of Church Government • Sundry Ministers Of Christ Within The City Of London
... though I detest the sect Of Epicurus for their manners vile, Yet what is true I may not well reject. Truth's incorruptible, ne can the style Of vitious pen her sacred worth defile. If we no more of truth should deign t' embrace Then what unworthy mouths did never soyl, No truths at all mongst men would finden place But make them speedie wings ...
— Democritus Platonissans • Henry More
... more cultivated picture; but in the steep and craggy mountains of the Danube, in its wild outlines and dilapidated castles, the imagination embraces a bolder range. At one time the river is confined within its narrowest limits, and proceeds through a defile of considerable altitude, with overhanging rocks menacing destruction. At another it offers an open, wild archipelago of islands. The mountains have disappeared, and a long plain bounds on each side of the river ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... dawn of morning the Austrian army—the first that ever entered the country—made its appearance in the pass, headed by Duke Leopold and his formidable cavalry. Suddenly, when the whole narrow defile was blocked with horse and foot, thousands of heavy stones and trees were hurled among them from the neighboring heights, where the peasant band, forming the Swiss force, lay concealed. The suddenness and vigor of this unexpected attack quickly ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... too-fierce light of the sun. He knew who she was; this must be Honnor Cunyngham, Lady Adela's sister-in-law; and of course he did not wish to intrude on the young lady's privacy; he would try to pass by behind her unobserved, though here the strath narrowed until it was almost a defile. ...
— Prince Fortunatus • William Black
... primeval elaboration is the simple, common-sense rule: Do not buy the trimmings, make the butcher trim meat before weighing, insist that soap-making shall not be brought back to defile the home, but remain where it belongs, a trade in which the workers can be protected by law, and its malodorousness ...
— Mobilizing Woman-Power • Harriot Stanton Blatch
... continued the pursuit alone after Fuentas left them, and towards nightfall entered the mountains into which the trail led. After sunset, the moon gave light until late in the night, when it entered a narrow defile, and was difficult to follow. Here they lay from midnight till morning. At daylight they resumed the pursuit, and at sunrise discovered the horses; and immediately dismounting and tying up their own, they crept cautiously to a rising ground which ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous
... all That I discern is such, as makes hope seem A fable and a dream. To your old homes A wretched crew succeed; to noble act or word, They pay no heed; for your eternal fame They know no envy, feel no blush of shame. A filthy mob your monuments defile: To ages yet unborn, We have become a ...
— The Poems of Giacomo Leopardi • Giacomo Leopardi
... him the means of subsistence. This will depend upon the value which he sets upon the opinions that be has to proclaim. If such a proposition is true, the world must efface its habit of admiration for the martyrs and heroes of the past, who embraced violent death rather than defile themselves by a lying confession. Or is present heroism ridiculous, and only past heroism admirable? However, nobody has a right to demand the heroic from all the world; and if to publish his dissent from ...
— On Compromise • John Morley
... o'clock at night we entered the famous pass of Dunghye. The road bears the appearance of a deep sandy ravine; the banks are rocky and woody, and in many places quite overhung by the forest-trees. We had accomplished about half the defile, when I was suddenly and rudely awakened from a dozing sleep by the shock of my palankeen coming to the ground, and by the most discordant shouts and screams. I jumped out to ascertain the cause of the uproar, and found, on inquiry, that a foraging party of tigers—probably speculating upon ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... of all justifications, the least fit to serve the turn of gentleman, logician, or Christian, was—"If I do not touch this pitch, another will; there will be just as much harm done; AND ANOTHER INSTEAD OF ME WILL HAVE THE BENEFIT; therefore it cannot defile me.—Offences must come, therefore I will do them!" "Imagine our Lord in the brewing trade instead of the carpentering!" she would say. That better beer was provided by the good brewer would not go ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... frequent, the squabbling of the former and the hooting of the monkeys constantly grating on the ear. There were innumerable pigeons and a few Floricans (a kind of bustard—considered the best eating game—bird in India). From the defile we emerged on an open flat, halting at Sulkun, a scattered village (alt. 684 feet), peopled by a bold-looking race (Coles)* [The Coles, like the Danghas of the Rajmahal and Behar hills, and the natives of ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... whose ancestor was some old hidalgo with as long an array of names and titles as has the Czar of All the Russias himself. Though he now lives in a forsaken-looking adobe hut with dirt floor and roof of sticks and turf that serves only to defile the raindrops that trickle through its many gaps—though his sallow wife and ill-favored children huddle round him or cook the scanty meal upon the mud oven in a corner of the room—he is yet a Spaniard, and glories in it. The tall, raw-boned man, straight ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various
... different part of the field were the Van Grolls of Antony's Nose, struggling to get to the thickest of the fight, but horribly perplexed in a defile between two hills, by reason of the length of their noses. So also the Van Bunschotens of Nyack and Kakiat, so renowned for kicking with the left foot, were brought to a stand for want of wind, in consequence of the hearty dinner ...
— Washington Irving • Charles Dudley Warner
... banks of the Nile already bristled with citadels, where the monarchs lived and kept watch over the lands subject to their authority: other fortresses were established wherever any commanding site—such as a narrow part of the river, or the mouth of a defile leading into the desert—presented itself. All were constructed on the same plan, varied only by the sizes of the areas enclosed, and the different thickness of the outer walls. The outline of their ground-plan formed a parallelogram, whose enclosure wall was often divided into ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... moment when the head of the column entered the defile before the Theatre of the Porte St. Martin a tremendous shout of "Vive la Republique!" came forth from every mouth as though shouted by one man. The soldiers continued to advance in silence, but it might have been said that their ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... the army, but it was ten times as difficult then as it is now, seeing that in our day there are so many truly Christian officers and common soldiers in the service. Drunkenness and swearing were dreadfully prevalent; indeed, in those days it was quite a rare thing to find an officer who did not defile his speech continually with profane oaths. But Colonel Gardiner was not a man to do things by halves: he was now enlisted under Christ's banner as a soldier of the Cross, and he must stand up for his new Master and never be ashamed of him anywhere. But to do this would bring ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... vale—in striking contrast to the scenery opposite—grass-grown elevations rise one above another in blooming terraces. Hemmed in by these stupendous barriers, the valley would be altogether shut out from the rest of the world, were it not that it is accessible from the sea at one end, and by a narrow defile at the other. ...
— Typee - A Romance of the South Sea • Herman Melville
... savannas, steppes, and occasionally of sandy deserts, which stretched away on each side of this margin both eastwards and westwards. Pretty nearly in the 10 centre of this hilly range lay a narrow defile, through which passed the nearest and the most practicable route to the River Torgau (the farther bank of which river offered the next great station of security for a general halt). It was the more essential to gain this ...
— De Quincey's Revolt of the Tartars • Thomas De Quincey
... your faith?" Miuesov was on the point of shouting, but he suddenly checked himself, and said with contempt, "You defile everything you touch." ...
— The Brothers Karamazov • Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... to a narrow defile which opened out before them and there were no more mountains ahead, but only foothills. And there, far and far away, they could see the sky as vaguely brighter. As they went on, indeed, a glory of red and golden colorings appeared at ...
— The Pirates of Ersatz • Murray Leinster
... reach); attain'able; conta'gion, communication of disease by contact or touch; contam'inate, to defile, to infect; contig'uous; contin'gent. ...
— New Word-Analysis - Or, School Etymology of English Derivative Words • William Swinton
... that the valley resolved itself into a narrow and rocky defile. The stream, level at first, soon came tumbling down amongst huge boulders; the path disappeared; out of the oaks and alder high cliffs of limestones began to lift themselves. The morning was unusually dark and grey, even for October, and as leaves, ...
— Scarhaven Keep • J. S. Fletcher
... above the timber-line, the trail ran around Crater Lake and gained the rocky defile that led toward Happy Camp and the first scrub-pines. To pack his heavy outfit around would take days of heart-breaking toil. On the lake was a canvas boat employed in freighting. Two trips with it, in ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London
... shrilly. "Thou wilt defile these tubs with the linen of bandoleros? Hast thou had thy silly head turned with a kiss? Not one shirt ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... them not, o Caesar, at each time That by our sinnes they are to wrathe prouok'd. Neither must you (beleue, I humblie praie) Your victorie with crueltie defile. The Gods it gaue, it must not be abus'd, But to the good of all men mildlie vs'd, And they be thank'd: that hauing giu'n you grace To raigne alone, and rule this earthlie masse, They may hence-forward hold it still in rest, All scattred ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... men at the left are cravens! they fly! they fly!—Ride to Lord Hastings, Sir Humphrey Bourchier, bid him defile hither what men are left him; and now, ere our fellows are well aware what hath chanced yonder, charge we, knights and gentlemen, on, on!—break Somerset's line; on, on, to the heart of ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... him lying, yet his body is not at all putrid, nor do the worms devour him, which consume men slain in battle. Doubtless he will drag him cruelly around the tomb of his dear companion when divine morn appears; but he does not defile him. Approaching, thou indeed thyself wouldst wonder how fresh[790] he lies, while the blood is washed away from around, nor [is he] polluted in any part. But all his wounds are closed, whatever were inflicted; ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... whole population which he governed was not supposed to exceed two hundred souls. In the neighbourhood of the little cluster of villages was some copsewood and some pasture land; but a little further up the defile no sign of population or of fruitfulness was to be seen. In the Gaelic tongue Glencoe signifies the Glen of Weeping; and in truth that pass is the most dreary and melancholy of all the Scottish passes, the very Valley of the Shadow of Death. Mists and ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... resolve, a purpose settled; Daniel was fully resolved, he had laid this charge upon his heart, that he would not defile ...
— The Covenants And The Covenanters - Covenants, Sermons, and Documents of the Covenanted Reformation • Various
... single warriors and knights, but in the hosts themselves! Here crowds of black archers rush down troop after troop from the mountain with the rage of a foaming torrent; on the other side high upon the rocks in the far distance a scattered crowd of flying men are turning round in a defile. The point of the greatest interest stands out brilliantly from the centre of the whole—Alexander and Darius both in armour of burnished gold; Alexander on Bucephalus with his lance in rest advances before his men and presses on the flying Darius, whose charioteer has ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... enclosure marks it from the unconsecrated dunes. Acacia-trees sprout amid the monuments, and break the tablets with their thorny shoots upthrusting from the soil. Where patriarchs and rabbis sleep for centuries, the fishers of the sea now wander, and defile ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece • John Addington Symonds
... a magnificent defile shadowed by sheer cliffs that on the eastern side rose to a height of five hundred feet. Fluttering rock pigeons circled far up in the azure riband that spanned the opposing precipices. From many a towering pinnacle, carved by the ages into fantastic imageries of a castle, ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... declivity of one of the ridges that form the valley to the left, as you go southward, and its site would have been a good one for a fortress, intended to defend the lower entrance of this mountain defile. At a proper distance, it looks not unlike the gray dilapidation of a Gothic castle, which has been crumbling and crumbling away for ages, until Time might be supposed to have imperceptibly stolen its massive pile from man, and given it back to Nature; its towers and battlements ...
— Passages From the English Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... the authority of Samuel, that the book of Esther does not defile the hands (14), i.e., that this book was not given by the inspiration of God. Samuel, however, explained that Esther was dictated by the Spirit of God, but only to be orally repeated, and ...
— The Worlds Greatest Books, Volume XIII. - Religion and Philosophy • Various
... which pervades the soul of anyone who has ever lived for long face to face with grandeurs and solitudes where human passions have no entrance. It is the adoration of the Greatness Who created the beauty which no touch can defile, no tongue slander, and nobody destroy. Under the stars, to which he confided so much of the thoughts which he had kept for himself in his youth and early manhood, Rhodes became a different man. There in the silence of the night or the dawn of early morning, when he started for those long rides ...
— Cecil Rhodes - Man and Empire-Maker • Princess Catherine Radziwill
... had left the plains of Dauphine. This period coincides well with what might have then been required to ascend, as the country was, on the neighbourhood of Grenoble or Echelles; while the ascent to the summit of the Little St Bernard, would not require more than half the time. 2. The narrow defile of St Jean de Maurienne, which leads from the plain of Montmelian to the foot of Mont Cenis, corresponds much more closely with the description, given both in Livy[25] and Polybius[26], of that in which the first serious engagement took ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various
... was beginning to yield to the pale tints of early dawn. A bat was sounding the departure of the hours of darkness with a singular note resembling the gurgling of liquid from a narrow bottle-neck. A neighing of horses was heard far up the defile; then, with the first rays of dawn, we distinguished a sledge driven by the baron's servant; its bottom was littered with straw; on ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian
... at ce pauvre garcon, and smiled the more for Mademoiselle Julienne's indignation. Suddenly, however, a shrill shout made him descend hastily, and the old Turk's voice might be heard in its highest key, no doubt shrieking out maledictions on all the ancestry of the son of a dog who durst defile his eyes with gazing at the shameless daughters of the Frank. Little Ulysse was, however, allowed to disport himself wherever he pleased; and after once, under Arthur's protection, going forward, he found himself made very welcome, and offered ...
— A Modern Telemachus • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The high powers still appealed to him for advice and help: of open meddling he would have no more; he did not care, he said, to make a post of himself for every dog of a theologian to defile. Advice, however, he continued to give in ...
— Short Studies on Great Subjects • James Anthony Froude |
