"Undefended" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shrug the shoulders, resign oneself; submit with a good grace &c (bear with) 826. Adj. surrendering &c v.; submissive, resigned, crouching; downtrodden; down on one's marrow bones; on one's bended knee; unresistant, unresisting, nonresisting; pliant &c (soft) 324; undefended. untenable, indefensible; humble &c 879. Phr. have it your own way; it can't be helped; amen &c (assent) 488; da locum melioribus [Lat.]; tempori ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... rest and food. They would soon be at their threatening work again. Answer to them could not long be continued. When the fire from the fort ceased all would be over. The exultant savages would swarm over the undefended walls, and torture and outrage be the lot of all who were not fortunate enough to ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 1 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... fissures beneath the abdominal plates or of the wide hiatus behind the corselet, but plunges her weapon, at the base of the throat, through a gap of a fraction of a millimetre. Let us just mention the Mantis-hunting Tachytes. Does she make for the most undefended point when she stabs, first of all, at its base, the Mantis' dreadful engine—the arm-pieces each fitted with a double saw—at the risk of being seized, transfixed and crunched on the spot if she misses her blow? Why does she not strike at the creature's long abdomen? That ...
— More Hunting Wasps • J. Henri Fabre
... be spiked," they screamed. "The Eagle wins!—the Eagle wins!" And indeed it seemed that it must be so. Straight at Peter's undefended face drove Morella's lance, but lo! as it came he let fall his reins and with his shield he struck at the white plumes about its point, the plumes torn from his own head. He had judged well, for up flew those plumes, a little, a very little, yet far enough to give ...
— Fair Margaret • H. Rider Haggard
... half mad with desire to revenge themselves upon those who had given them their wounds; but all along it was the same; they were at a terrible disadvantage in their approach, their enemies having their undefended bodies as marks for their weapons, while they had only head and shoulders to strike at, the rest of their bodies being safe, ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... go undefended. The fact of his value to the Three J's, if ever in doubt, was proved beyond question by the fact that they paid a good lawyer to keep him out of gaol. And it was notorious that the Three J's never ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... to the one they had travelled. The hollow was covered with tents and wooden huts, the latter put together with a solidity which showed that they were permanent structures, and suggested that whatever enterprise the brigands entered upon, this stronghold was never left undefended. ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... Caraffa reminded them that he had spoken as a Lutheran during the Council, and he replied that he had put the argument for the sake of discussion only, that Protestants might not say that they had been condemned undefended. The feud continued, and when Pole was legate in England, Caraffa, who was then Pope, recalled him in disgrace, appointing Peto as his successor; and he sent his friend, Cardinal Morone, to the prison of the ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... being the family name of Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca. Its position, etc., may be determined by reference to the curious volume of maps published at Madrid by Don Francisco Javier Brabo in 1872. ** That a mission could be so undefended as to need trenches, that a Jesuit should ask leave to make such elementary defences, even in the face of imminent danger, seems to prove that the Jesuits at least in 1636 had no intention of defying the sovereign ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... Parma, a clear proof of the real disposition to revolt. There is abundance of food and cattle in the country, all of which will be at our service and cannot be kept from us. Everywhere there are safe and roomy harbours, almost all undefended. An invading force can be landed with ease, and there will be no lack of local pilots. Fifteen thousand trained soldiers will be sufficient, aided by the Catholic English, though, of course, the larger the ...
— English Seamen in the Sixteenth Century - Lectures Delivered at Oxford Easter Terms 1893-4 • James Anthony Froude
... George's seconding of important nature; most dubitative, wholly passive, you would rather say, though the River, in his quarter, lay undefended. He did, at last, cross the Rhine about Mainz; went languidly to Worms,—did an ever-memorable TREATY OF WORMS there, if no fighting there or elsewhere. Went to Speyer, where the Dutch joined him (sadly short of numbers stipulated, ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIV. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... Burgundians began to show the qualities which belong to superior discipline, and the great mass of Liegois were compelled to retreat, and at length to fly. Soon the whole became a confused tide of fighters, fliers, and pursuers, which rolled itself towards the city walls, and at last poured into the undefended breach through ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol VIII • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... afar off." The Marquis of Danfield did spur his black war-horse, with his sword poised high in air towards the noble Viscount of Lessingholm, and with fierce cries the noble viscount raised also his sword, and was in act to strike the undefended head of his assailant. "Stop, Frederick!" cried a voice, which proceeded from the Earl Fitzoswald; "it is Danfield himself!" whereupon the young gentleman did ward off the blow aimed at him by the marquis, and passed on. All this I saw ere I gave up hopes of getting out by the gate; ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 344, June, 1844 • Various
... is usually a coward at heart. The sinking of unarmed merchant ships and of hospital ships by the German U-boats, the bombing of undefended towns and hospitals, and the firing upon Red Cross workers were acts of brutes and cowards. So it is not strange that the great German fleet which all through the war, except at the battle of Jutland, had hidden in security behind the guns of Heligoland ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... Frost King (vulg. Jack Frost) has come down upon us with all his might. Banished from the pleasant shores of Boston, he has come with his cold scythe and ice pincers to our undefended little island, and is tyrannizing in every corner and over every part of every person. Nothing is too great for him, nothing too mean. He condescends even to lay hold of the nose (an offence for which any one below the dignity of a King—or a President—would ...
— Yesterdays with Authors • James T. Fields
... built was due to the inroads of the French, who had invaded and partially destroyed the town on two occasions; for in those days the English coast between Portland and Plymouth was practically undefended. By way perhaps of reprisal Teignmouth contributed seven ships and 120 mariners to Edward III's expedition ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... from the tabernacle on Zion, and he had sent back the ark to its rest; but though he has to cry to God from beyond Jordan, He answers "from His holy hill." He and his men camped amidst dangers, but one unslumbering Helper mounted guard over their undefended slumbers. "I laid me down and slept" there among the echoes of the hills. "I awaked, for Jehovah sustained me;" and another night has passed without the sudden shout of the rebels breaking the silence, or the ...
— The Life of David - As Reflected in His Psalms • Alexander Maclaren
... washing, on the ground of a missing pocket handkerchief, the which Mrs. Edwards believed to have been abstracted by the favourite pickle of Miss Blanche's class, if only a confession could be elicited from him when undefended by his furious mother. Mrs. Egremont was listening with actual interest and sympathy to the history of Betsy Butter's struggles, and was inquiring the way to her cottage, when she was called off to be introduced to the arrivals who were ...
— Nuttie's Father • Charlotte M. Yonge
... in our hammocks; a most agreeable change after the hot stones upon which we had generally been compelled to court repose during our exploration. We had both suffered much inconvenience from the attacks of flies upon our visual organs, necessarily exposed and undefended as they had been when we were occupied during the observations and in viewing the strange scenes of the last eighteen days. The irritation upon the lids produced a copious discharge, which fairly sealed them up at night; so ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... who in their turn were met and routed by the Bengal Cavalry and 5th Lancers. At the first rush a number of the enemy succeeded in getting into the north-east zareba, the east side of which was at the moment undefended, and for a few minutes the marines were in a dangerous position, but while the front rank continued to fire on the enemy on their side, the rear rank faced about, and, fighting back to back, soon cleared the zareba of the ...
— Our Soldiers - Gallant Deeds of the British Army during Victoria's Reign • W.H.G. Kingston
... he sneered with contempt. The old, childish agony, the blindness that could recognize nobody, the palpitating antagonism as of a raw, helpless, undefended thing came back ...
— The Rainbow • D. H. (David Herbert) Lawrence
... him from attempting the passage. They accordingly turned to the right and went up the river as far as Amiens, but were still unable to cross, till, after following the course of the river about fifty miles farther, they fortunately came upon an undefended ford and passed over before their ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... the capture of Liege. The Germans evidently were led to believe they had gained a great victory; whereas the forts, which are the only object of the campaign, are still intact. The city itself is undefended, and there is no great military reason why the Belgians should not allow it to be taken. The German troops that had invested the town have not taken over the administration, but appear to be confining ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... Adams (who like David had spent his time well between 1901 and 1905 and was now an accomplished and serviceable barrister's clerk) soon set to work to chum up with other clerks in this clerical hive and get for his master small briefs, small chances for defending undefended cases in which hapless women ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... a little labour, the small vessel was got into the water, and Mr Lutter, taking a scull in his hand, paddled over to the other side, and embarked the gentleman in the blue coat. Paddling towards an undefended part of the castle, he taught him how to clamber up the wall; and Mr Samson, wiping the stains of his climbing from the knees of his nether habiliments, looked round the castle-yard. "Well! who'd have thought that such a monstrous strong-looking place should be stormed by a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... possessed of weapons. And as we remained thus, an instant, like silly sheep awaiting the butcher, I heard the framework creak and crack, and there ran splits all across the glass. In another moment, the whole thing would have been torn away, and the cabin undefended, but that the bo'sun, with a great curse at us for our landlubberly lack of use, seized the other cover, and clapped it over the window. At that, there was more help than could be made to avail, and the battens and wedges were in place in a trice. ...
— The Boats of the "Glen Carrig" • William Hope Hodgson
... such a harrying as it received that winter. So great was the terror created by the cruelties practised that garrisons of the barons' castles, it is said, fled on the news of the king's approach, leaving the castles undefended to fall into his hands. The march extended as far as Scotland. Berwick was taken and burnt, and the parts of the country about were laid waste in revenge for the favour which King Alexander had shown the barons. In March, 1216, John returned to the neighbourhood of London, ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... Craney Island, on Fort Meigs, on Sacketts Harbor, and on Sandusky have been vigorously and successfully repulsed; nor have they in any case succeeded on either frontier excepting when directed against the peaceable dwellings of individuals or villages unprepared or undefended. ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... ambitions have been invested? I think, if my memory serves me, they have only twice during the course of these seven months been seen upon the open sea. Their object in both cases was the same—murder, [cheers,] civilian outrage, and wholesale destruction of property in undefended seaside towns, and on each occasion when they caught sight of the approach of a British force they showed a clean pair of heels, and they hurried back at the top of their speed to the safe seclusion of their mine fields and their closely ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War, Vol 2, No. 1, April, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... too short to enable them to descend it, and the officer in command hesitated as to what course to adopt. The mysterious silence maintained by the enemy was disquieting. That the Turks had all fled and the tower was undefended did not occur to the officer in command, and he feared that they must have placed mines in the breach, and were for the present abstaining from showing themselves or firing a shot, in hopes of tempting him to make an assault. Before he could decide what was best ...
— At Aboukir and Acre - A Story of Napoleon's Invasion of Egypt • George Alfred Henty
... only privacy. You may watch or may surprise everything else. The nest is retired, not hidden. The chase goes on everywhere. It is wonderful how the perpetual chase seems to cause no perpetual fear. The songs are all audible. Life is undefended, ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... great peril. After this act we felt refreshed and encouraged; and I observed that the voices of my companions assumed a more cheerful tone than before. Our trials, however, were but commencing. As the sun rose in the sky, his beams struck down on our undefended heads and scorched us dreadfully, till Jack bethought him of fastening his handkerchief over the top of his, and we followed his example. Instead of breakfast, we each of us took a quid from Sandy's box, and that had the effect of staying our appetites ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston
... such similar attack that the British warships were patrolling every mile of water. The British coast must be protected. No more German raiders must be allowed to slip through and bombard undefended ...
— The Boy Allies at Jutland • Robert L. Drake
... She was silhouetted there, no longer self-confident and defiant but a figure of wistful unhappiness. From the raw wetness, her bare shoulders and arms were unprotected. Her hair fell in heavy braids over the sheer silk of her night dress and her bosom was undefended against the ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... and Missouri was admitted with SLAVERY engraved on her forehead. "We'll dissolve the Union!" unless the Indians be driven out of the South!! The North forgot her treaties, parted with humanity, and it is done—the defenceless Indians are forced to "consent" to be driven out, or they are left, undefended, to the mercies of southern land-jobbers and gold-hunters. "We'll dissolve the Union! If the Tariff" [established at her own suggestion] "be not repealed or modified so that our slave-labor may compete with your free-labor." ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... saw the light of day it saw it under the eyes of policemen and Bank managers and all the servants and all the family and the Beales and True, and half the village beside, who had got wind of the strange happenings at the Castle and had crowded in through the now undefended gate. ...
— Harding's luck • E. [Edith] Nesbit
... would detach itself from ordinary theories of moralities and immoralities. He would see with singular clearness all sides of the incident. He would not be indignant, or annoyed or embarrassed. He had had an interest in Robin as a creature representing peculiar loveliness and undefended potentialities. Sometimes she had felt that this had even verged on a tenderness of which he was himself remotely, if at all, conscious. Concerning the boy Donal she had realised that he felt something stronger and deeper than any words of ...
— Robin • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... front door, the people had collected in such crowds in the hall, to get a little air, that it was fully ten minutes before we could get in. We had the benefit of a strong harsh breeze playing about our undefended necks and shoulders. As soon as we were fairly in, though, we were recompensed for our sufferings in this respect. We went from the arctic to the torrid zone; it was like an August day at ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... time, is one of the most extraordinary that can be imagined. Carriages coming slowly by, with everybody standing on the seats or on the box, holding up their lights at arms' length, for greater safety; some in paper shades; some with a bunch of undefended little tapers, kindled altogether; some with blazing torches; some with feeble little candles; men on foot, creeping along, among the wheels, watching their opportunity, to make a spring at some particular ...
— Pictures from Italy • Charles Dickens
... the town appeared undefended; but, when the French King's men approached, they found the English posted in front of the outbuildings, wherefore they were compelled to retreat. When the Maid beheld this, she seized her standard and threw herself ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... must have been prodigious, and it is inconceivable how Livy could have attached so much importance to the mere disgrace. If the Roman army had not been almost annihilated, it would not have been necessary to give up the defence of the city, as was done, for the city was left undefended and deserted by all. Many fled to Veii instead of returning to Rome: only a few, who had escaped along the high road, entered the city ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... they encamped as near by as possible, so that anything left behind could easily be fetched and any omission readily supplied. [2] Cyaxares stayed in Media with a third of the Median troops in order not to leave their own country undefended. Cyrus himself pushed forward with all possible speed, keeping his cavalry in the van and constantly sending explorers and scouts ahead to some look-out. Behind the cavalry came the baggage, and on the plains ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... laws which had been slowly built up in a thousand years. These principles, as codified by the two Hague Conventions, were immediately swept aside in the fierce struggle for existence, and civilized man, with his liquid fire and poison gas and his deliberate; attacks upon undefended cities and their women and children, waged war with the ...
— The Constitution of the United States - A Brief Study of the Genesis, Formulation and Political Philosophy of the Constitution • James M. Beck
... of Prince Talitzin ostensibly for a supper. With wine and wassail they nerved themselves for the desperate deed. Just at midnight a select number entered the garden of the palace, by a private gate, and stealing silently along, beneath the trees, approached a portal which was left unbarred and undefended. One of the guardians of the palace led their steps and conducted them to an apartment adjoining that in which the tzar slept. A single hussar guarded the door. He was instantly struck down, and the conspirators in a body rushed into the ...
— The Empire of Russia • John S. C. Abbott
... And if these powers appear in love and truth, I think they must be gods, and worship them. But if their secret will is manifest In blind decrees of sheer omnipotence, That punish where no fault is found, and smite The poor with undeserved calamity, And pierce the undefended in the dark With arrows of injustice, and foredoom The innocent to burn in endless pain, I will not call this fierce almightiness Divine. Though I must bear, with every man, The burden of my life ordained, I'll keep My soul unterrified, and tread the path Of truth and honour with a steady ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... the British to show? They've gained the territory within gunshot of their fleet; but at White Plains, though they were four to one, they dared not attack us, and valiantly turned tail about, preferring to overrun undefended country to assaulting our position. I tell you General Washington is the honestest, bravest, most unselfish man in the world, and ...
— Janice Meredith • Paul Leicester Ford
... "undefended places" as "weak points; that is to say, where the general is lacking in capacity, or the soldiers in spirit; where the walls are not strong enough, or the precautions not strict enough; where relief comes too late, or provisions ...
— The Art of War • Sun Tzu
... cast a grapnel cleverly, and, swung abreast of the main chains, were grimly busied in boarding the undefended side in silence. One had already his leg over the ship's rail, and below him three more were clambering resolutely, one above the other. The rest of them, standing up in a body with their faces to the ship, were so oblivious of everything in their purpose, that they staggered ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... had almost certainly come to Britain, not indeed otherwise than by the routes established by Rome, but certainly long before the official Roman mission of Gregory the Great. It had certainly been largely swamped by later heathen invasions of the undefended coasts. It may then rationally be urged that the hold both of the Empire and its new religion were here weaker than elsewhere, and that the description of the general civilization in the last chapter is proportionately irrelevant. This, however, is not ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... Charles Cotton, Sir Arthur had concluded that an attack at the mouth of the Tagus was impracticable, owing to the strength of the French there, the position of the forts that commanded the entrance of the river, and the heavy surf that broke in all the undefended creeks and bays near. There was then the choice of landing far enough north of Lisbon to ensure a disembarkation undisputed by the French, or else to sail south, join Spencer, and act against the ...
— With Moore At Corunna • G. A. Henty
... 'mid that company, There was an elder, one more wise and bold; That undefended so the sex to see, Was inly wroth, and could no longer hold: To the relater of that history He turned; and, "Many things we have been told" (Exclaimed that ancient) "wherein truth is none, And of such ...
— Orlando Furioso • Lodovico Ariosto
... abundantly proved, it was a waste of labor so far as answering its purpose was concerned. In the hands of a strong emperor like Hoangti it might well defy the Tartar foe. In the hands of many of his weak successors it proved of no avail, the hordes of the desert swarming like ants over its undefended reaches, and pouring upon the feeble country that sought defence in walls, not ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... men in the airplane and the man in charge of the cave," said Jack. "Dollars to doughnuts, the cave is undefended right this minute. What do you say to capturing it and laying ...
— The Radio Boys on the Mexican Border • Gerald Breckenridge
... attempted to pull them down; others began to climb over them. Some forced their hands through the openings to seize the bamboo spears as we thrust them out at our enemies. I caught sight of a number of pirates making their way to one side where the fort was undefended. Nothing now, it seemed to me, could prevent them from getting in; but when I shouted out, Potto Jumbo joined me, and we rushed to the spot. Just then a loud shouting was heard coming up from the bottom of the hill. I could distinguish through the opening, for the space was clear where we then were, ...
— In the Eastern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... noticeable feature, pyramidal, swelling largely towards the top and divided in the centre into two distinct lobes by a single marked furrow which gave his expression a hint of the wistful. Looking at that forehead one was strangely conscious of the brain beneath. There seemed no bony structure; the mind, undefended, was growing and pushing the confining walls ...
— The Night Horseman • Max Brand
... habits and manners of the common sea-horses, twisted together by their long thin bodies into one inextricable mass of living matwork, or anchored firmly with a treble serpentine coil to some projecting branch of coralline or of quivering sea-wrack. Bad swimmers by nature, utterly unarmed, and wholly undefended by protective mail, the pipe-fish generally can neither fight nor run away: and therefore they depend entirely for their lives upon their peculiar skulking and lurking habits. Their one mode of defence is not to show themselves; ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... abandon on such a pretence provinces which were in need of great support. And then prayers were seconded by embassies from several important cities which entreated him not in a doubtful and disastrous crisis to leave them wholly undefended, when by his presence he might at once deliver them from the greatest dangers, by the mere terror which his mighty name would strike into ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... uncertainty; and, indeed, with great doubts on our minds whether we were not thus early destined to witness the wreck, and the defeat of the expedition. The men got slowly and cautiously into the boat, and placed themselves so as to leave no part of her undefended. Hopkinson stood at the bow, ready with poles to turn her head from anything upon which she might be drifting. Thus prepared, we allowed her to go with the stream. By extreme care and attention on the part of the men we passed this formidable barrier. Hopkinson in particular ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... to dwell on the Mesopotamia Commission and its condemnation of the bureaucratic system prevailing here. Lord Hardinge vindicated himself and India. The bureaucratic system remains undefended. I recall that bureaucratic inefficiency came out in even more startling fashion in connection with the Afghan War of 1878-79 and 1879-80. In February 1880, the war charges were reported as under L4 millions, and the accounts showed ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... humiliating this country. I agree with hon. Gentlemen who have said that it would be discreditable to England, in the light of her past history, that she should leave any portion of her Empire which she could defend, undefended. But still it is admitted—and I think the speech of the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Calne (Mr. Lowe) produced a great effect upon those who heard it—the House admitted that in case of war with ...
— Speeches on Questions of Public Policy, Volume 1 • John Bright
... attached to Tushin's battery had been moved away in the middle of the action by someone's order, the battery had continued firing and was only not captured by the French because the enemy could not surmise that anyone could have the effrontery to continue firing from four quite undefended guns. On the contrary, the energetic action of that battery led the French to suppose that here—in the center—the main Russian forces were concentrated. Twice they had attempted to attack this point, but on each occasion had been ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... vessels, and such rewards have already been paid out. In view of these facts, which are satisfactorily known to it, the Imperial Government is unable to consider English merchant vessels any longer as "undefended territory" in the zone of maritime war designated by the Admiralty Staff of the Imperial German Navy, the German commanders are consequently no longer in a position to observe the rules of capture otherwise usual and with which they invariably complied before ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... one false alarm was succeeded by another, Jack plucked up a little heart. He began to make allowance for native exaggeration and laughed at his own former fears. If the men-of-war should come to Oa, were they likely to bombard an undefended village full of women and children, or burn, pillage, and destroy as mercilessly as he had been told? Bah! a pack of Kanaka lies, the gradual distortion of the truth as it passed along the line, until one burned house became a hundred and one village ...
— Wild Justice: Stories of the South Seas • Lloyd Osbourne
... joyless morning late arose, and found A dreadful desolation reign around— Some buried in the snow, some frozen to the ground. The rest were struggling still with death, and lay The Crows' and Ravens' rights, an undefended prey: Excepting Martin's race; for they and he Had gain'd the shelter of a hollow tree: But soon discover'd by a sturdy clown, He headed all the rabble of a town, 630 And finish'd them with bats, or poll'd them ...
— The Poetical Works of John Dryden, Vol I - With Life, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes • John Dryden
... to be quite sure whether it was more or less that was lost, but he thought the Insurance offices must have found it out by that time. It's a pity there's only three of us, for that will leave one side o' the house undefended." ...
— Charlie to the Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... respectively four and five miles distant from our outworks. Bulwaan stands across the opening afar off like a huge, bevelled, flat-topped bar placed, as it might be, for a horse-shoe magnet to attract it. The whole curve of our defensive works must stretch nearly nine miles. In addition, there is an undefended opening nearly two miles long, where the straggling town lies naked to its enemies, or rather screened by nothing more formidable than belts of mimosa, Australian willow, and eucalyptus trees. Between the town and Bulwaan, ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... really filthy the grubbers are, or how stupid junkmen can be, and there would be a fresh corpse cooling. The fight would spread and the victors would be eaten by the wildlife that swarmed over the undefended perimeter. No, ...
— Deathworld • Harry Harrison
... do not plume yourself on winning an undefended case where you have it all your own way in the absence of your opponents. In Sparta you will find some one to plead properly for their customs. But now, as I have described ours to you, not apparently to your satisfaction, I may fairly ask you to take your turn ...
— Works, V3 • Lucian of Samosata
... that thus approached, the relieving ship passed slowly ahead, until nearly her whole length protected the undefended side of her consort, delivering her fire with fearful rapidity. The Plantagenets seemed to imbibe new life from this arrival, and their starboard guns spoke out again, as if manned by giants. It was five minutes, perhaps, ...
— The Two Admirals • J. Fenimore Cooper
... not tell him now. She did not look at him. She sat bowed forward, her elbows on her knees, and her chin propped on her hands, while she cried, quietly, with slow tears that rolled down her bare, undefended face. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... police had been decoyed away previously nearly 100 miles by false intelligence as to Moran and his gang. Our town and treasure were thus left undefended for forty-eight hours, while a daring criminal and his associates mingled unsuspected with all classes. We have always regarded the present system—facetiously called police protection—as a farce. This latter ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood
... of course been jocular; but strange to say it was quite the ground I found myself taking with regard to our young lady after I had begun to know her. I couldn't have said what I felt about her except that she was undefended; from the first of my sitting with her there after dinner, under the stars—that was a week at Folkestone of balmy nights and muffled tides and crowded chairs—I became aware both that protection was wholly absent from her life and that she was wholly indifferent ...
— Embarrassments • Henry James
... injury be dispensed with: but since it is the young, the idle, the thoughtless, and the ignorant, on whom the drama can be supposed to operate as a lesson for conduct, an aid to experience and a guide through life, and since such persons are generally unfurnished with ideas and undefended by principles, prompt to receive first impressions, and easily susceptible of false opinions and pernicious sentiments, it becomes a matter of great importance to the commonwealth that this very powerful engine, (acting as it does upon our youth through the delightful medium of amusement, and by ...
— The Mirror of Taste, and Dramatic Censor - Volume I, Number 1 • Stephen Cullen Carpenter
... the Balkan allies had been in territories different from what had at first been anticipated. The Turks had put up their main fight down in Thrace, leaving the greater area of Macedonia comparatively undefended. Thus the Bulgarians, while doing the heaviest fighting, had been concentrated in a small territory, hammering away at the main forces of the Turks, while the Serbian and Greek armies had been able to overrun much larger territories ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume I (of 8) - Introductions; Special Articles; Causes of War; Diplomatic and State Papers • Various
... soldiers in the neighbourhood of Durbelliere was neither expected, or even feared by the inhabitants of the chateau, or it would not have been left by Henri, as it had been, perfectly undefended. The truth was this: the royalists had hitherto been so very generally successful against the republicans; and that, when every odds of number, arms, and position had been in favour of their enemies, that they had learnt to look with contempt ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope
... dreadfully alarmed at the idea that he might surprise her young mistress. She thought it possible, too, that he might be accompanied by other Redskins, and that they should perhaps carry her off; or, at all events, finding the house undefended, they might pillage it, and get away with their booty before the return ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... panic-stricken, thinking that the enemy were coming that moment against them, and unanimously shout "to arms;" some in their alarm rush into the town; Vercingetorix orders the gates to be shut, lest the camp should be left undefended. The Germans retreat, after slaying ...
— "De Bello Gallico" and Other Commentaries • Caius Julius Caesar
... idea of crippling this base, from which her pursuers were radiating, that the Emden made her raid here. Had she found it temporarily undefended she could at one blow seriously have embarrassed the English cruisers patrolling these waters and at the same time cause a terrific loss to English commerce by sinking the many merchantmen at anchor in ...
— Current History, A Monthly Magazine - The European War, March 1915 • New York Times
... advantage can accrue. The absence of any law of copyright no doubt gives to the American publisher the power of reprinting the works of English authors without paying for them, seeing that the English author is undefended. But the American publisher who brings out such a reprint is equally undefended in his property; when he shall have produced his book, his rival in the next street may immediately reprint it from him, and destroy the value of his property by underselling him. It is probable that the first American ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... or species of birds or mammals that is accused of offenses sufficiently grave to merit destruction shall be condemned undefended and unheard, nor without adequate evidence of a character which would be acceptable ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... corridor's end relieved the blankness of wall and let in a flood of reddish Alphardian sunlight; Farrell slowed to look out, wondering how long he had lain unconscious, and felt panic knife at him when he saw Xavier's scouter lying, port open and undefended, ...
— Control Group • Roger Dee
... thousand light-years from Tanith. He rejected immediately the idea of launching a preventative attack; his ships might reach Xochitl to find it undefended, and then return to find Tanith devastated. Things like that had happened in space-war. The only thing to do was sit tight, defend Tanith when Viktor attacked, and then counterattack if he had any ships left by that time. Prince Viktor was probably ...
— Space Viking • Henry Beam Piper
... least some starved fragment of ancient hedge is usually taken advantage of in the erection of these forlorn dwellings. But, in the present case, such a kind of shelter had been disregarded. Higher Crowstairs, as the house was called, stood quite detached and undefended. The only reason for its precise situation seemed to be the crossing of two footpaths at right angles hard by, which may have crossed there and thus for a good five hundred years. Hence the house was exposed ...
— The Great English Short-Story Writers, Vol. 1 • Various
... Canadians and Indians, without the loss of a single man. An American attempt to recapture Michilimackinac, by a force of a thousand men, was a total failure, the only exploit of the expedition being the inglorious pillage and destruction of the undefended trading-post of ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... statesmen and government at the capital; through, his faithful service to the law, that jealous mistress, and his generous advocacy of the rights, and resentment of the wrongs, of the unfriended and the undefended; through his season of stormy politics with its "estuations of joys and fears;" through the crush and crowd of labors and solicitudes which beset him as minister of finance in the tensions and perils of war; through ...
— Eulogy on Chief-Justice Chase - Delivered by William M. Evarts before the Alumni of - Dartmouth College, at Hanover • William M. Evarts
... the enemy had it in their power to employ. Nothing is so unaccountable in this expedition as the manner in which such means were thrown away—the spectacle of Persian impotence. First, the whole line of upward march, including the passage of the Euphrates, left undefended; next, the long trench dug across the frontier of Babylonia, with only a passage of twenty feet wide left near the Euphrates, abandoned without a guard; lastly, the line of the Wall of Media and the canals which offered such favorable positions for keeping the Greeks out of the cultivated ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... when we would criticize Rumania for her early inactivity, that she was, in the words of her King, "a small power with a small army surrounded by giants"; that she had a western frontier 1,000 kilometres long—greater than the English and French fronts combined—and a Bulgarian frontier, almost undefended and near her capital, stretching for other hundreds of kilometres on the south. With Russia in retreat, Rumania would have been instantly annihilated if she had acted. She had to wait till she could be reasonably sure of protecting ...
— World's War Events, Vol. II • Various
... track-hounds jumped in to take part in the killing. The big dogs more than occupied the wolf's attention and took all the punishing, while in a trice one of the greyhounds, having seized him by the hind-leg, stretched him out, and the others were biting his undefended belly. The snarling and yelling of the worry made a noise so fiendish that it was fairly bloodcurdling; then it gradually died down, and the second wolf lay limp on the plains, killed by the dogs, unassisted. This wolf was rather heavier and decidedly ...
— Hunting the Grisly and Other Sketches • Theodore Roosevelt
... Uhlans did not attempt to force an entrance through the rear of the house, which was absolutely undefended, Rod never could tell. Perhaps they were of the "one-idea" class of men, who, having made up their minds to do a thing in a certain way, could not deviate from the ...
— The Big Five Motorcycle Boys on the Battle Line - Or, With the Allies in France • Ralph Marlow
... and the man flashed the thin electric ray up and down the passage. It wavered hither and thither, and at last fell directly on his face. He was anything but a coward, but he was thinking of Niti—and what if a knife-stab left her undefended? But to his amazement, although they were both looking straight at him, the expression of neither face changed in the slightest. They had not seen him. The Queen had answered his prayer. He was no longer in the world of three dimensions, ...
— The Mummy and Miss Nitocris - A Phantasy of the Fourth Dimension • George Griffith
... do nothing? I asked Lancelot impatiently. Could we not make a sortie and destroy the boats that lay down there all undefended? But Lancelot shook his head. The way to the sea was doubtless covered by our enemies in the wood. We should only volunteer for targets if we attempted to stir outside our stockade. There was nothing ...
— Marjorie • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... indeed order me to remain where we are; but I have since discovered that the black dogs have attacked the Christian settlement, as it is called, and you know as well as I do that Gascoyne would not let slip the chance to pitch into the undefended village of the niggers, and pay them off for the mischief they have done to us more than once. At any rate, I mean to go round and blow down their log huts with Long Tom; so you can go ashore if you ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... assault was repulsed with prodigious slaughter, The other was the attack upon Arklow, in the north. On the capture of Gorey, on the night of June 4, as the immediate consequence of Colonel Walpole's defeat, had the rebels advanced upon Arklow, they would have found it for some days totally undefended; the whole garrison having retreated in panic, early on June 5, to Wicklow. The capture of this important place would have laid open the whole road to the capital; would probably have caused a rising in that great city; and, in any event, would have indefinitely prolonged ...
— Autobiographic Sketches • Thomas de Quincey
... animosities, quarrels, and factions; resulting in deaths, banishments, affliction to all good men, and the advancement of the most unprincipled; for the good, confiding in their innocence, seek neither safety nor advancement by illegal methods as the wicked do, and thus unhonored and undefended they sink into oblivion. ...
— History Of Florence And Of The Affairs Of Italy - From The Earliest Times To The Death Of Lorenzo The Magnificent • Niccolo Machiavelli
... courthouse, he insisted that the handcuffs should remain on; and then Mr. Jones, taking the only course left to a man of spirit under the circumstances, threw down his brief and indignantly quitted the desecrated justice hall. Fearing the consequences of leaving the prisoners utterly undefended, Mr. Cottingham, the junior counsel for the defence, refrained from following Mr. Jones's example, but he, too, protested loudly, boldly, and indignantly against the cowardly outrage, worthy of the worst days of ...
— The Dock and the Scaffold • Unknown
... morning, when the sun was high in the heavens, that he awoke, aroused by the ringing of the alarm bells, the blare of trumpets and beating of drums. During the night the Versaillese, finding a gate undefended, had effected an ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... defence are outflanked. From Switzerland and Italy, from the peaks of the conquered Alps, it may irresistibly pounce upon the centime of the Austrian monarchy and invade the exposed provinces of the undefended Prussian kingdom. And now let it please Providence to elevate upon the Russian throne a prince full of ambition and thirst of conquest, and the subjugation of Germany, the dissolution of all the empires still existing, a double universal monarchy would, under the present circumstances, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... missed him, for she, too, had new ways to walk. Clayton Rand came often now. He seemed to be fascinated, perhaps by her beauty and the simplicity of her mien, and perhaps by the dignity of her undefended state. She never asked him into her house, though she would drive and walk with him. Her strength, that summer, seemed to her boundless. She could work all day and sit up half the night sewing old finery or washing and ironing it, ...
— Country Neighbors • Alice Brown
... shore, and keeping under the protection of the batteries, which were now established on every cape, almost as if the sea-coast of the channel on the French side had been the lines of a besieged city, no one point of which could with prudence be left undefended by cannon. Boulogne was pitched upon as the centre port, from which the expedition was to sail. By incredible exertions, Bonaparte had rendered its harbour and roads capable of containing two thousand vessels of various descriptions. The smaller sea-ports of Vimereux, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 10, Supplementary Number, Issue 263, 1827 • Various
... celerity, that, although he fell on his back a well-clothed and decent burgher-seeming serving-man, he arose a forked, uncased, bald-pated, beggarly-looking scarecrow. Without respect to the pain which his undefended toes experienced from the sharp encounter of the rocks over which they hurried him, those who had detected Andrew proceeded to drag him downward towards the road through all the ...
— Rob Roy, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... Fashionable Intelligence in the daily press that a divorce had been arranged and would shortly take place, between Luke Sharper, Esq., formerly of Jawbones, Halfpenny Hole, and Mabel, his wife. The case was undefended, and the day after the decree was ...
— If Winter Don't - A B C D E F Notsomuchinson • Barry Pain
... inveterated in the religion, all which are so powerfull and of such nature, that they maintain their Princes in their dominions in what manner soever they proceed and live. These only have an Estate and defend it not; have subjects and govern them not; and yet their States because undefended, are not taken from them; nor their subjects, though not govern'd, care not, think not, neither are able to aliene themselves from them. These Principalities then are only happy and secure: but they ...
— Machiavelli, Volume I - The Art of War; and The Prince • Niccolo Machiavelli
... explaining myself. If your husband's suit is undefended, he will obtain a decree which will leave you a single woman in six months. Now, whatever you may think to the contrary, there is not a club in London that would hold me in any way bound to marry you after the manner in which you have behaved. ...
— The Irrational Knot - Being the Second Novel of His Nonage • George Bernard Shaw
... King's Proctor having learnt the facts, the decree was rescinded. Then the husband brought an action for divorce, but could not obtain it, having already admitted his own adultery by leaving the previous case undefended. He took the matter up to the Court of Appeal, but his petition was dismissed, the Court being of opinion that "to grant relief in such a case was not in the interest of public morality." The safest way in England to render what is legally termed marriage absolutely ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 6 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... newspaper controversialists and by the suburban season-ticket holders whose minds the newspapers make. They still defend the citadel on the side on which nobody is attacking it, and leave its weakest front undefended. ...
— Getting Married • George Bernard Shaw
... to the foreshore, a broadening scree of rubble, ruined masonry, broken beams of timber—some of them smouldering; and over the top of it shone the blaze of the town. But the actual gap appeared to be undefended, and, better still, the rubbish on the near side had so piled itself that for half the way up the stormers could climb under cover, protected from the enfilading fire. Already the major had dropped on hands and knees and was leading the way up, scrambling from heap to heap of rubbish. ...
— Corporal Sam and Other Stories • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... volunteer companies. The Japanese were pouring fresh troops into these centres of trouble, but the rebels, by an elaborate system of mountain-top signalling, were avoiding the troops and making their attacks on undefended spots. Reports showed that they were badly armed and lacked ammunition, and there seemed to be no effective organization for sending them weapons ...
— Korea's Fight for Freedom • F.A. McKenzie
... an undefended ford much higher up, cross under cover of the new darkness and attack us in heavy force on the flank. Suppose we get aboard the train at once, cannon and all, and ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... Highlands to seek out and disperse the insurgents, has declined giving them battle at Coryarrick, and marched on northward with all the disposable force of government to Inverness, John-o'-Groat's House, or the devil, for what I know, leaving the road to the Low Country open and undefended to the Highland army.' ...
— Waverley, Or 'Tis Sixty Years Hence, Complete • Sir Walter Scott
... was strongly fortified. Commodore Foote came down the river with seventeen gunboats, and on March 16th began a bombardment which was kept up for three weeks with little effect; but early in April Pope got upon the Tennessee shore, in the undefended rear of the island, and by intercepting its communication to the south, forced it to surrender, April 8th. Seven thousand prisoners, one hundred heavy siege guns, several thousand small arms, besides large stores ...
— History of the United States, Volume 4 • E. Benjamin Andrews
... troops by which they were defended formed a front of but three miles. This left the extreme left of the Russians open to an attack by a ford opposite the village of Almatack. Against Menzikov, Marshal St. Arnaud and Lord Raglan could oppose 63,000 men and 128 guns. The weakness of the undefended left flank of the Russian army was discovered from the French ships. St. Arnaud laid his plans accordingly. On the morning of September 20, the attack was begun. The warships steamed up the river ...
— A History of the Nineteenth Century, Year by Year - Volume Two (of Three) • Edwin Emerson
... seat of the caliphate; and no sooner did he get the six score of Musteazem's chief men into his hands, than he ordered them to be beheaded, and prepared for an attack. Nor, as he rightly anticipated, was there much danger of an obstinate resistance. In fact, not only was the city undefended by any regular force: it was divided against itself. The citizens were formed into various sects, all at daggers drawn, and much more earnest in their conflicts with each other than in resolution to ...
— The Boy Crusaders - A Story of the Days of Louis IX. • John G. Edgar
... had to the general usage of the profession, especially as to the rates of commission to be charged for the collection of undefended claims. Except in this class of cases, agreements between counsel and client that the compensation of the former shall depend upon final success in the lawsuit—in other words contingent fees—however common such agreements may be, are of a very dangerous tendency, and to be ...
— An Essay on Professional Ethics - Second Edition • George Sharswood |
