"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... novelist stimulates your jaded palate by introducing a duel fought with butchers' knives by the light of lanterns. One genius subsists by murder, as another does by bigamy and adultery. Scott would have recoiled from the blood as well as from the ordure, he would have allowed neither to defile his noble page. He knew that there was no pretence for bringing before a reader what is merely horrible, that by doing so you only stimulate passions as low as licentiousness itself—the passions which were stimulated by ...
— Lectures and Essays • Goldwin Smith
... know, for instance," asked Schill, indignantly, "why we lost the important defile of Koesen? In consequence of the night-sweat of General ...
— Napoleon and the Queen of Prussia • L. Muhlbach
... expedition as far as Bethlehem, and with so large a force that David and his few followers were shut up in their fortress—for how long we do not know—probably for some days. It was very dull and wearisome business, imprisoned in a rocky defile and unable to do anything, while the Philistines were stealing the harvests that grew on the very spot where he ...
— Bible Stories and Religious Classics • Philip P. Wells
... so many woes, had been sent on ahead, guarded by the first division, and if its own wagons, well horsed as for the most part they were, got over the ground at a satisfactory pace, the requisitioned vehicles, most of them empty, delayed the troops and produced sad confusion among the hills of the defile of Stonne. After leaving the hamlet of la Berliere the road rises more sharply between wooded hills on either side. Finally, about eight o'clock, the two remaining divisions got under way, when Marshal MacMahon came galloping up, vexed to find there those troops ...
— The Downfall • Emile Zola
... beech-woods of Itchkeria. Then began the fight. The hostile tribes of all the region round were up in arms, and waiting in the depths of the woods for the enemy. As his vanguard reached the first narrow and precipitous defile they were received by a murderous fire from behind numerous trunks of trees which, felled across the way, served as breast-works for the one party and obstacles to the progress of the other. Besides these barricades, the barriers no less difficult of removal, which were woven ...
— Life of Schamyl - And Narrative of the Circassian War of Independence Against Russia • John Milton Mackie
... and they always pause at Venice a few days. To-morrow we shall see them in the Piazza, and at Florian's, and St. Mark's, and the Ducal Palace; and the young ladies will cross the Bridge of Sighs, and will sentimentally feed the vagabond pigeons of St. Mark which loaf about the Piazza and defile the sculptures. But now our travelers are themselves very hungry, and are more anxious than Americans can understand about the table-d'hote of their hotel. It is perfectly certain that if they fall into talk there with any of our nation, the respectable English father ...
— Venetian Life • W. D. Howells
... Gerard distinguishes between the summits that rise in the middle of the plateau, where he states the elevation of the snow-line to be between 18,000 and 19,000 feet, and the northern slopes of the chain of the Himalaya, which border on the defile of the Sutledge, and can radiate but little heat, owing to the deep ravines with which they are intersected. The elevation of the village of Tangno is given at only 9300 feet, while that of the plateau surrounding the sacred lake of Maqasa is 17,000 feet. Captain Gerard finds the ...
— COSMOS: A Sketch of the Physical Description of the Universe, Vol. 1 • Alexander von Humboldt
... rout of the nations. Stannum saw defile before him Silence, "eldest of all things"; Brahma's consort Saraswati fingered her Vina; and following, Siva and his hideous mate Devi, who is sometimes called Durga; and the brazen heavens turned to a typhoon that ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... release those souls who are condemned to sojourn in a pool of blood.[893] This, too, is a superstition countenanced only by Chinese Buddhism, for the punishment is incurred not so much by sinners as by those dying of illnesses which defile with blood. Many other rites are based on the notion that objects—or their paper images—ceremonially burnt are transmitted to the other world for the use of the dead. Thus representations in paper of servants, ...
— Hinduism and Buddhism, An Historical Sketch, Vol. 3 (of 3) • Charles Eliot
... Pindus; and on the south, the almost impenetrable range of Mount Oeta divides it from the provinces of Hellas. The only pass by which an army can march into Greece is that of Thermopylae, which is a long narrow defile, overhung on the right by the rocks of Mount Oeta, and flanked on the left by impassable morasses, which finally lose themselves in the waters of the gulf of Mulia. A few narrow and difficult tracts traverse the ridge of Oeta; but these, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 348 • Various
... seized his poncho, stamped out into the storm, and tramped for two hours with a driving sleet in his face, his thoughts a fury of holy anger against unholy things, and back of it all the feeling that he was the knight of true womanhood. She had sent him forth and no man in his presence should defile the thought of her. It was during that tramp that he had made up his mind to ally himself with God's people. Whether it would do any good in the long run in his search for God or not, whether he even was sure ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... seventeen and Emmy twenty. There still followed weeks, long months - melancholy moods returned again, discouragements - there were also walks through the dusky parks. And the hungry dogs continued to whine and to howl and the thought-flies continued to buzz and to defile themselves. Man may be reasonable and patient; he has natures to control, apparently for his own good, that are neither reasonable nor patient; that themselves never rest and demand guidance from a spirit, that does need rest; that always ...
— The Bride of Dreams • Frederik van Eeden
... thirsting for the public, consented. Then the publisher wrote again to say that the immortal treatise must be spiced; a little politics flung in: "Nothing goes down, else." The author answered in some heat that he would not dilute things everlasting with the fleeting topics of the day, nor defile science with politics. On this his Mentor smoothed him down, despising him secretly for not seeing that a book is a matter of trade and nothing else. It ended in Aubertin going to Paris to hatch his Phoenix. He had not been there a week, when a small deputation ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade
... Fremont came up the North Platte and 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 a number of lakes ...
— The Romance of the Colorado River • Frederick S. Dellenbaugh
... who defile and deface it, be sure, No longer their wrong or their fraud we endure; We will scatter in scorn every link of the chain, With which they would fetter our free souls ...
— War Poetry of the South • Various
... Rome for her Caesar yearns. In safety range the cattle o'er the mead: Sweet Peace, soft Plenty, swell the golden grain: O'er unvex'd seas the sailors blithely speed: Fair Honour shrinks from stain: No guilty lusts the shrine of home defile: Cleansed is the hand without, the heart within: The father's features in his children smile: Swift vengeance follows sin. Who fears the Parthian or the Scythian horde, Or the rank growth that German forests yield, While Caesar lives? who trembles at the ...
— Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace • Horace
... Western Armenia, Tiribazus, offered safe passage through his province, but scouts brought information that large forces were collecting, and would dispute the passage of a defile through which the army must pass. This point, however, was reached by a forced march, and the enemy ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... not disguise from him that this was what he had done. Because of Ranny's wife, Respectability, the enduring soul of the Randalls and the Ransomes, could never lift up its head superbly any more. All infamies and all abominations that could defile a family were summed up for John Randall in the one word, adultery. It was worse than robbery or forgery or bankruptcy; it struck more home; it did more deadly havoc among the generations. It excited more interest; ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... beginning of the real ascent of the famous St. Gothard Road. The higher we went, the more wildly roared the storm. There was something appalling in the fierce volleyings of the wind along the stark and broken faces of the precipice: it was like the rattle of thunder. In the sombre defile of the Schoellenen the air rushed as through a funnel. We could see nothing save the thread-like road illuminated by our steadfast lanterns—the sole beacon of safety in this welter. We had a ghostly impression of winding through a narrow gorge, the river roaring in its depths; then, dashing ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... suffering were also highly commended by Mencius. In one place he writes to this effect: "Though you denude yourself and insult me, what is that to me? You cannot defile my soul by your outrage." Elsewhere he teaches that anger at a petty offense is unworthy a superior man, but indignation for a great cause ...
— Bushido, the Soul of Japan • Inazo Nitobe
... Miss Jenkyns gave her party, in following her directions, and in cutting out and stitching together pieces of newspaper so as to form little paths to every chair set for the expected visitors, lest their shoes might dirty or defile the purity of the carpet. Do you make paper paths for every guest to ...
— Cranford • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... and they walked on through the gloom of the defile. Presently their path became rough and broken, blocked with large stones and heavily shadowed by cedars projecting from the rocks above and draped with vines. He held out his hands and she took them, and he helped her across the rough places. ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... come quite happily to Christian names—'surely you care for keeping the language pure. Surely you think it regrettable that the younger generation should defile ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... beautiful valley through which a clear river wound among green 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 ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... is at last broken by a sound like the heavy roll of thunder; and if the moon were now to break through the clouds, it would gleam upon eight field pieces which are being carefully drawn behind a little elevation in the ground, which lies opposite the defile occupied by the Austrians. ...
— Berlin and Sans-Souci • Louise Muhlbach
... says, "The boasted Vale of Tempe, is a defile; it is something like Matlock, but wilder; more savage than Salvator Rosa, and with nothing of Claude. I cannot tell why the ancients made such a fuss about it; perhaps because half of them never saw it, and took its character ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 486 - Vol. 17, No. 486., Saturday, April 23, 1831 • Various
... appearance of a huge pyramid. From the joyful exclamations of the Indians I felt confident that our journey was nearly at an end. The tired mustangs were urged forward, and half an hour later we entered a defile, passed round the face of the cliff on a narrow ledge of rock, where two could not ride abreast, and emerged upon a platform from whence an easy descent led to the plain below. On reaching its grassy surface, the Indians set forward at full ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman
... accumulated fragments of the heights above; and on the upper border of this slope there stood perpendicular walls of granite of three or four thousand feet high, while among those dizzy altitudes, the goats and sheep bounded in playful security. This defile had been the scene of an exploit. One of the Crees, whom they had met a few days before, had been tracked into the valley along with his wife and family by five warriors of a hostile tribe. On perceiving the odds against him, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 380, June, 1847 • Various
... those mountainous districts permitted the descent of the Persian army from Thessaly, bounded to the west by steep and inaccessible cliffs, extending as far as Mount Oeta; to the east by shoals and the neighbouring sea. This defile received its name Thermopylae, or Hot Gates, from the hot-springs which rose near the base of the mountain. In remote times the pastoral Phocians had fortified the place against the incursions of the Thessalians, and the decayed remains of the wall and gates of their ancient garrison were ...
— Athens: Its Rise and Fall, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... which he should be most carefully instructed,—that is, maintaining the sexual purity of his body. He should be taught from the beginning to think of his body as the sacred temple of his soul, which it is a sin against nature and against God to defile. That the child's body be kept uncontaminated is one of the most priceless gifts his parents can bestow upon him; the value of this was so keenly felt in antiquity that at a certain period of Greek supremacy the laws were ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley
... 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 of thorn and hazel, the entwined and ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth
... 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 him persecution ...
— Amos Huntingdon • T.P. Wilson
... of joy prevail, And echo wide from hill to vale; Ye warlike clans, arise and hail Your laurell'd chiefs returning. O'er every mountain, every isle, Let peace in all her lustre smile, And discord ne'er her day defile With sullen shades ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... pike. Meanwhile, Wilson was to strike up the Berryville pike, carry the Berryville crossing of the Opequon, charge through the gorge or canyon on the road west of the stream, and occupy the open ground at the head of this defile. Wilson's attack was to be supported by the Sixth and Nineteenth corps, which were ordered to the Berryville crossing, and as the cavalry gained the open ground beyond the gorge, the two infantry corps, under command of General Wright, were expected ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... need to be jealous for the sake of other men's goods. Thou seemest to me to be a wanderer, even as I am, and the gods it is that are like to give us gain. Only provoke me not overmuch to buffeting, lest thou anger me, and old though I be I defile thy breast and lips with blood. Thereby should I have the greater quiet to-morrow, for methinks that thou shalt never again come to the hall of Odysseus, son ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... nature,—danger, lest by filling our ears with the 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
... would actually leave her in this horrible wilderness. He was at a loss what course to take. He would gladly have given the enraged beast his liberty; he would have let him rush away amid the night and exhaust his fury, had he not feared that in this narrow defile his iron-shod hoofs might come thundering over the ...
— Undine - I • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... parochial district of Buhi, I made a second unsuccessful attempt to reach the highest point of the Iriga. We arrived in the evening at the southern point of the crater's edge (1,041 meters above the level of the sea by my barometrical observation), where a deep defile prevented our further progress. Here the Igorots abandoned me, and the low-landers refused to bivouac in order to pursue the journey on the following day; so I was obliged to return. Late in the evening, after passing ...
— The Former Philippines thru Foreign Eyes • Fedor Jagor; Tomas de Comyn; Chas. Wilkes; Rudolf Virchow.
... torn, on my own threshold, by ravenous dogs—even the dogs which I myself have reared with food from my table, to guard my house. They will tear my flesh and drink my blood! It may well become a young man to lie slain on the field, for he is highly honored in his death; but when dogs defile an old man's head and beard, this is the most lamentable ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... insurrection was not decidedly admitted, when the masses disowned the movement, all was over with the combatants, the city was changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... women, that is to say: the females of man, nothing more. They are above all what men make them, and as we are generally vicious and spoilt, since from the most tender age we take care to defile ourselves in the street, in the workshop or on the school-benches; as the atmosphere we breathe is corrupt, we have no claim to believe that our wives, our sisters and our daughters can remain unspotted by our touch, and that this same ...
— The Grip of Desire • Hector France
... . . . . . . 'My sister,' quoth she, 'hath a living good, And hence from me she dwelleth not a mile, In cold and storm she lieth warm and dry In bed of down. The dirt doth not defile Her tender foot; she labours not as I. Richly she feeds, and at the rich man's cost; And for her meat she need not crave nor cry. By sea, by land, of delicates* the most, Her caterer seeks, and spareth for no peril. She feeds on boil meat, bake meat and roast, And hath, ...
— English Literature For Boys And Girls • H.E. Marshall
... pebbles; but not until it reached the place where she stood had it done irretrievable damage. The roadbed was washed out, but the streambed remained, and the banks from which to fill in more dirt; but when the flood struck the Gorge it backed up into a lake, for the narrow defile was choked. Trees and rocks and rumbling boulders had piled up against its entrance, holding the waters back like a dam; and when they broke through they sluiced everything before them, gouging the canyon down to the bedrock. Now twelve years had passed by and only a hazardous ...
— Wunpost • Dane Coolidge
... And again in the defile of Gondo, I find "Viola (saxatilis?) name yet wanted;—in the most delicate studding of its round leaves, like a small fern more than violet, and bright sparkle of small flowers in the dark dripping hollows. Assuredly delights in shade and ...
— Proserpina, Volume 2 - Studies Of Wayside Flowers • John Ruskin
... be divided by a high and close fence, and one portion, appropriately fitted up, should be assigned exclusively for the use of boys, and the other for girls. Over this entire arrangement the most perfect neatness, seclusion, order, and propriety should be enforced, and every thing calculated to defile the mind, or wound the delicacy or the modesty of the most sensitive, should receive attention in private, and be made a matter of ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... rejected: all the common wants and grosser feelings of our natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion. Corporeal attributes and necessities are thrown on one side, as they would destroy the charm of perfectability. Nothing can soil, or defile, or destroy my heroine; suffering adds lustre to her beauty, as pure gold is tried by fire: nothing can kill her, because she is all mind. As for my men, you will observe when you ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... while if this land was cast away into desert by the power of the Almighty God because of the worship of the Golden Calf; and then remembering that it was cast into desert for the sins of the cities of the plain, he said: how could I have thought else? As soon as this rain ceases we will go up the defile and at the end of it the lake will lie before us deep down under the Moab mountains. He remembered too that he would have to reach to the cenoby before the day was over, ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... blessed words give us a hint, at least, of the answer to that most perplexing of all questions, Why was evil ever permitted to disturb the harmony and mar the beauty of God's primal creation, defile heaven itself, fill earth with corruption and violence, and still exist even in eternity? Ah, we tread on ground here where we need to be completely self-distrustful, and to cleave with absolute confidence and dependence ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... in a black cloak, and placed two pistols in her belt, and she carefully concealed the dark lantern. The mole-hole of the Hussites yawned before her! A long, dark, black defile, the more gruesome since it did not run straight but round about; the entire tunnel so like a catacomb, was vaulted, hewn out of the hard quartz. The walls were already as black as a scaffold, with the ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai
... gain no tidings of the Cavalier in my own proper person—of that I am certain; because the people there will either not know, or be so effectually cautioned—there would be no use in fishing in such water. Ah! your heart's blood Puritans will never defile themselves by questioning such as me. 'Slife, I think Old Noll himself could hardly make me out! I wonder what would Barbara say now, if she were to behold me in this disguise! I should not like ...
— The Buccaneer - A Tale • Mrs. S. C. Hall
... 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 ...
— Cynthia's Chauffeur • Louis Tracy
... that lady of large eyes, beholding them ready to lay violent hands on her, rebuked them and said, 'Defile me not by your touch!' And in a great alarm she then called upon her spiritual adviser, Dhaumya. Jayadratha, however, seized her by her upper garment, but she pushed him with great vigour. And pushed ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... reached the spring, having ridden all day across the plain. We descried it, as we approached, close in to the mountain foot, and marked by a grove of cotton-woods and willows. We did not take our horses near the water; but, having reached a defile in the mountain, we rode into it, and "cached" them in a thicket of nut-pine. In this thicket we spent ...
— The Scalp Hunters • Mayne Reid
... this canyon, McCloud, one day on a hunting trip, found himself with two Indians pocketed in the rough country, and was planning how to escape passing a night away from camp when his companions led him past a vertical wall of rock a thousand feet high, split into a narrow defile down which they rode, as it broadened out, for miles. They emerged upon an open country that led without a break into the valley of the Crawling Stone below the canyon. Afterward, when he had become a railroad man, McCloud, sitting at a camp-fire with Glover and Morris Blood, heard them discussing ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman
... her. He repeated how dearly he loved her, quieted all her apprehensions of the gods' anger by assuring her that Balder, the good, must view their innocent passion with approving eyes, said that love as pure as theirs could defile no sanctuary, and plighted his troth to her before ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... this activity, brute terrors, like the scurrying of rats in a deserted attic, filled the more remote chambers of his brain with riot; the hand of the constable would fall heavy on his shoulder, and his nerves would jerk like a hooked fish; or he beheld, in galloping defile, the dock, the prison, the gallows, and the ...
— Short Stories for English Courses • Various (Rosa M. R. Mikels ed.)
... influences that stand between humanity and its redemption. He is a very excellent, a very estimable man,—but he is not shocked at intemperance, he would not have slavery disturbed, he sees a necessity for war. Does Christ know who and what sort of a woman it is that touches him? Will he defile himself by such a contact? Can he expect to accomplish anything by familiarity with such matters? Why is he not satisfied with a good ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... more than a few rods, his force had been attacked by the regiment which had just escaped from the field of battle. They had been ordered by some superior officer on the ground to attack the major's command; and the regiment had rushed into the narrow defile, where only a portion of it could be brought into action. The sharpshooters were rapidly reducing the numbers at the head of the column, though the ranks were immediately filled up by ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic
... 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 pace slackened, and many of them regarded the crowd ...
— The History of a Crime - The Testimony of an Eye-Witness • Victor Hugo
... sea also came idle rumors, as false reports steal into history and defile fair fames. Was it longer ago than yesterday that I walked with my cousin, then recently a widow, and talked with her of the countries to which she meant to sail? She was young, and dark-eyed, and wore great hoops ...
— Prue and I • George William Curtis
... see the tar smeared over his face, even if it did look like a map of the devil's wild land, as he kicked and scratched and tried to bite, swearing all the time like a pirate. It seemed a degrading kind of thing to defile a human being in that way. The leader came up to me and said, "That was good work, Dutchy. Lucky I was right about its being a single-barrel, ain't it? Help get his team hitched up. We want to ...
— Vandemark's Folly • Herbert Quick
... 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 that it is about 10 ms. & very sandy. ...
— Across the Plains to California in 1852 - Journal of Mrs. Lodisa Frizzell • Lodisa Frizell
... attained had the Austrian Emperor and staff understood the absolute need of concentration in attacking a commander who had already demonstrated its supreme importance in warfare. Yet the difficulties of marching an army of 47,000 men through the narrow defile carved by the Adige through the Tyrolese Alps, and the wide extent of the French covering lines, led to the adoption of a plan which favoured rapidity at the expense of security. Wuermser was to divide his forces for ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... long ago ceased to be used. Once, doubtless, it was the highway into Wallaria from the north, but that was long ago, not within the memory of the oldest man. Nature herself had closed the way by casting a great spur of the mountain into the deepest and narrowest part of the defile. It was still possible to climb this, but it had effectually closed the pass for all useful purposes; and the castle, which in old times had been used to guard the way, had fallen into decay. It stood gaunt against ...
— Princess Maritza • Percy Brebner
... least, were play'd; And was it like the Pharisee If I in secret bow'd my face With joyful thanks that I should be, Not as were many, but with grace And fortune of well-nurtured youth, And days no sordid pains defile, And thoughts accustom'd to the truth, Made ...
— The Angel in the House • Coventry Patmore
... tongue and our German rights! How disgraceful it is that Germans should attack Germans at the bidding of the foreign oppressor! Therefore, we will punish the Saxons and Bavarians in the name of God and the Holy Virgin. We will let them advance down the defile, and attack them only after they are in it. They cannot retrace their steps, for we are behind them; nor can they advance very far, for Father Red-beard will meet them in front. Now come and let us make festive preparations, as it behooves those who are expecting distinguished guests. We ...
— Andreas Hofer • Lousia Muhlbach
... to tell Otto how Baron Conrad had fulfilled the pledge of revenge that he had made Abbot Otto, how he had watched day after day until one time he had caught the Trutz-Drachen folk, with Baron Frederick at their head, in a narrow defile back of the Kaiserburg; of the fierce fight that was there fought; of how the Roderburgs at last fled, leaving Baron Frederick behind them wounded; of how he had kneeled before the Baron Conrad, asking for mercy, and of how Baron Conrad had answered, "Aye, thou shalt have ...
— Otto of the Silver Hand • Howard Pyle
... through the forest, they left the main body behind, and soon reached the end of the defile. The woods were still dense on their left and front; but on their right lay a great marsh, covered with alder thickets and rank grass. Suddenly the air was filled with yells, and a rapid though distant fire was opened from the thickets and the forest. ...
— Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV • Francis Parkman
... on the high racks eight feet up to be safe from them; even empty tins are carried off, boots, hats, soap, etc., are esteemed most toothsome morsels, and what they can neither eat, carry off, nor destroy, they defile with elaborate ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... entered the Buryea or Hingan mountains. This chain extends across the valley of the Amoor at nearly right angles, and the river flows through it in a single narrow defile. The mountains first reach the river on the northern bank, the Chinese shore continuing low for thirteen miles higher up. There are no islands, and the river, narrowed to about half a mile, flows with a rapid current. In some places it runs five miles an hour, and its depth is from fifty to a ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... an unguarded word, from any warm emotion or eagerness, which caused such a mist, as it then could neither prevent nor remedy, having so often experienced its own efforts, to be useless, and even hurtful, as they did nothing else but sill more and more defile it. There is in such case no other way or means of remedy, but in waiting till the Sun of Righteousness dissipate those fogs. The whole work of purification comes from God only. Afterward this conduct becomes natural; then the soul can say ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... I pushed on as rapidly as possible in order to cross in daylight the very dangerous defile at Lead Mines. This place, distant seventy-one miles from Pitsani, was passed at 5.30 P.M., ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 1 (of 6) - From the Foundation of Cape Colony to the Boer Ultimatum - of 9th Oct. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... broken column, a lonely pool with a star-beam on its quiet surface,—yet it awes us. We remember it when phantasmal pictures of bright Damascus, or of colossal pyramids, of bazaars in Stamboul, or lengthened caravans that defile slow amidst the sands of Araby, have sated the wondering gaze. Why were we detained in the shadowy procession by a thing that would have been so commonplace had it not been so lone? Some latent interest must attach to it. Was it there that a vision of woe had lifted ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... sixteen miles from Calcutta. At this station there were four regiments of sepoys, and no Europeans except the regimental officers. One day a low-caste native, known as a lascar, asked a Brahmin sepoy for a drink of water from his brass pot. The Brahmin refused, as it would defile his pot. The lascar retorted that the Brahmin was already defiled by biting cartridges which had been greased with cow's fat. This vindictive taunt was based on truth. Lascars had been employed at Calcutta in preparing the new cartridges, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... to wander where she listeth; No immurement must defile (So the ancient law insisteth) This, the hallowed bride ...
— Fringilla: Some Tales In Verse • Richard Doddridge Blackmore
... just reached the summit of the hill, when they uttered an exclamation, or rather shout, and galloped forward. The Englishman was aroused from his sulky revery. He stretched his head from the carriage, which had attained the brow of the hill. Before him extended a long hollow defile, commanded on one side by rugged, precipitous heights, covered with bushes and scanty forest trees. At some distance he beheld the carriage of the Venitians overturned; a numerous gang of desperadoes were rifling it; the young man and his servant were overpowered and partly stripped, ...
— Tales of a Traveller • Washington Irving
... is unclean, And into Swarga such shall enter not. The Krodhavasha's wrath destroys the fruits Of sacrifice, if dogs defile the fire. Bethink thee, Dharmaraj; quit now this beast! That which is seemly ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... forward, found himself no less pleased than the other. The embroidered sword-strap and overshadowing trees conjure up for him an hour of the past where he, a young lieutenant, is leading a little column of white-coats through a forest defile in America. The Indian scouts suddenly come gliding in, the fire of an enemy is heard, little spots of smoke burst on the mountain side and dissolve again. Shrill yells resound on every hand, brown arms brandish flashes of brightness. The young commander ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... After passing a steep defile, rendered almost impracticable for troops by rugged rocks and exuberant vegetation, he descended into a beautiful valley or plain, extending along the coast, and embraced by arms of the mountains which approached the sea. His advance into the country was watched by the keen eyes of Indian scouts ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... 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 ...
— Yama (The Pit) • Alexandra Kuprin
... spoke the last words, and a look in his bold eyes that many trained coquettes would have shrunk from—a look that I should be sorry and angry to see turned on any woman in whom I felt an interest—a look such as Selim Pasha might wear as the Arnauts defile into his harem-court, bringing the ...
— Guy Livingstone; - or, 'Thorough' • George A. Lawrence
... not putrefy. In other respects Bees are very careful about the cleanliness of their dwellings; they remove with care and throw outside dust, mud, and sawdust which may be found there. Bees are careful also not to defile their hives with excrement, as Kirby noted; they go aside to expel their excretions, and in winter, when prevented by extreme cold or the closing of the hive from going out for this purpose, their bodies become so swollen from retention of faeces that when at last ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... rest brought Quickly the cunning woman; went then the stout-in-heart 55 The men their lord to tell that the holy woman was Brought to his chamber-tent. The famous then in mind Was glad, the ruler of cities; he thought the beautiful maiden With spot and stain to defile: that Judge of glory would not Allow, the Keeper of honor, but him from that deed restrained 60 The Lord, the Ruler of hosts. Went then the devilish one, The wanton [warrior-prince],[4] with [mickle] band of men, The baleful his bed to seek, where he his life should lose Quickly within ...
— Elene; Judith; Athelstan, or the Fight at Brunanburh; Byrhtnoth, or the Fight at Maldon; and the Dream of the Rood • Anonymous
... led the van, moving down through a defile, into which, after a time, his whole army found themselves crowded. Meantime, the Prince of Wales had planted his army just where he would tempt John into that trap and had set his archers in good position. These men were clad in green, like Robin Hood's men, and carried ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... centre-spot, whose walls of clay Hide sots and striplings at their drink or play: Within, a board, beneath a tiled retreat, Allures the bubble and maintains the cheat; Where heavy ale in spots like varnish shows, Where chalky tallies yet remain in rows; Black pipes and broken jugs the seats defile, The walls and windows, rhymes and reck'nings vile; Prints of the meanest kind disgrace the door, And cards, in curses torn, lie fragments on the floor. Here his poor bird th' inhuman Cocker brings, Arms his hard heel and clips his golden wings; With spicy food ...
— The Parish Register • George Crabbe
... wish to penetrate the cloud of smoke which rose in volumes from the discharge of musketry, on whose wing, at every round, he dreaded might be carried the fate of his grandfather. At last the firing ceased, and the troops were commanded to go forward. On approaching near the contested defile, Thaddeus shuddered, for at every step the heels of his charger struck upon the wounded or the dead. There lay his enemies, here lay his friends! His respiration was nearly suspended, and his eyes clung to the ground, ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter
... I left utterly all my Learning: I should hereby, first wound and defile mine own soul; and also I should herethrough give occasion to many men and women of full sore hurting. Yea, Sir, it is likely to me, if I consented to your will, I should herein by mine evil example in it, as far as in me were, slay ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... like those of the ignorant laity, are according to the flesh. It has pleased Our Lady and my patron saint to bless the pittance to which I restrain myself, even as the pulse and water was blessed to the children Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, who drank the same rather than defile themselves with the wine and meats which were appointed them by the ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott
... where the five dead cows were stretched out was the beginning of a long, narrow defile, or gorge which ran back into the hills. Some of these hills were quite high and were covered with a growth of timber. Others consisted of big rocks piled in fantastic fashion as though there had ...
— The Boy Ranchers in Death Valley - or Diamond X and the Poison Mystery • Willard F. Baker
... hailed her more rapturously than they had done before, and were never weary of talking of the beautiful woman who was not afraid to wear her pretty clothes into their wretched houses, which, lest she should soil and defile them, gradually grew more clean ...
— Miss McDonald • Mary J. Holmes
... our men wounded, and the little waggon, upon which I was riding, was ordered up in the advance to take them in. Unfortunately, to keep clear of the troops, the driver kept too much on one side of the narrow defile through which we passed: the consequence was, that the waggon upset, and I was thrown out a considerable distance down the precipice.' 'And broke ...
— The Poacher - Joseph Rushbrook • Frederick Marryat
... diverting himself at chess; and in his letter to the pope he repeats the language he had held to the erring prelate, viz. "Was it right, I say, and consistent with thy duty, to sport away thy evenings amidst the vanity of chess, and defile the hand which offers up the body of the Lord, and the tongue that mediates between God and man, with the pollution of a sacrilegious game?" Following up the same idea that statutes of the church of Elna, in the 3rd vol. of the ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 1 - "Chtelet" to "Chicago" • Various
... and momentary energy, he was evidently incapable of renewing the struggle. The Chamber of Representatives, which, from its first institution, had shown itself unfavourable to the Imperial system, and opposed to revolutionary excesses, appeared to be earnestly occupied in threading a perilous defile, by avoiding all violence and every irrevocable engagement. Popular passion sometimes murmured, but suffered itself to be easily restrained, and even stopped voluntarily, as if unaccustomed to action or dominion. ...
— Memoirs To Illustrate The History Of My Time - Volume 1 • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... Not for its value did thy servant pick up the coin, but because on one side it bore the name of God, and on the other the likeness of the King. Thy servant feared that someone, not seeing the coin, would tread it into the dirt, and thus defile both the name of God and the face of the King. Let the King judge if by so doing I ...
— The Cat and the Mouse - A Book of Persian Fairy Tales • Hartwell James
... d'Isle, to which that general had now advanced, was a narrow pass or defile, between steep and closely hanging hills. While advancing through this ravine in the morning, the Constable had observed that the enemy might have it in their power to intercept his return at that point. He had therefore left the Rhinegrave, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... out whether anyone could see her—hoping, perhaps, someone would see her while she was feeling so nice and new. Then, dropping the blind, she went back to the glass and began to pin her hair up. When this was done she stood for a long minute looking at her old brown skirt and blouse, hesitating to defile her new-found purity. At last she put them on and drew up the blind. The sunlight had passed off the pear-tree; its bloom was now white, and almost as still as snow. The little model put another sweet into her mouth, and producing ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... raise the rosy goblet high, The senior's chalice and belie The tongues that trouble and defile, For we have yet a little while To linger, you and youth and ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... visionary,—and regarded the body as a sacred temple of the soul, to be kept beautiful; for beauty is as much an eternal idea as friendship or love. Hence he threw no contempt on art, since art is based on beauty. He approved of athletic exercises, which strengthened and beautified the body; but he would not defile the body or weaken it, either by lusts or austerities. Passions were not to be exterminated but controlled; and controlled by reason, the light within us,—that which guides to true knowledge, and hence to virtue, and hence to happiness. ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... the bronze brazier, and stooping down, he took from the heap of fuel a clean white stick, with the pincers, which he carefully laid upon the fire. Then with his left hand he gently fanned the flames, and his mouth being protected by the linen cloth in such a manner that his breath could not defile the sacred fire, he began slowly and in a voice muffled by the bandage he wore, to recite the beginning of the ...
— Marzio's Crucifix and Zoroaster • F. Marion Crawford
... village to the source, the way led us through such pleasant scenery and such acceptable strawberries, that we only kept up our periodical remonstrances on principle, and, after we had wound rapidly down through a grand defile, and turned a sudden angle of the rock, the first sight of that which we had come to see amply repaid us all the trouble we had gone through. The source of the Orbe is sufficiently striking, but the Loue is by far more grand at the moment ...
— Ice-Caves of France and Switzerland • George Forrest Browne
... the excuse of the hatred and rage begotten by persecution. Are we on the way to a parody which shall have no other excuse than the reckless search after fodder for degraded appetites—after the pay to be earned by pasturing Circe's herd where they may defile every monument of that growing life which should ...
— Impressions of Theophrastus Such • George Eliot
... group of dark-cloaked figures outside crept off in single file like a slithering serpent, moving down the rock defile toward where in the cauldron pit the lights of the mine shone on its dark ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various
... the sheikh, as they entered the mountainous country, after a three days' march across the wilderness. "Look at these tracks of horses and camels in the defile. The marks are fresh. See that your guns are primed!" ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol III • Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton, Eds.
... peroration was undoubtedly very moving, very intimate, very modern, and Langham up to a certain point was extremely susceptible to oratory, as he was to music and acting. The critical judgment, however, at the root of him kept coolly repeating as he stood watching the people defile out of the church: 'This sort of thing will go down, will make a mark; Elsmere is at the beginning ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... approached the Pass, a narrow defile winding down between high hills from this table-land to the plain below. To say that we feared an ambush, would not perhaps convey a very clear idea of how I felt on ...
— Vanished Arizona - Recollections of the Army Life by a New England Woman • Martha Summerhayes
... Sabianism, or the religion of the ancient fire-worshippers. They bow in adoration before the rising sun, and kiss his first rays when they strike on a wall or other object near them; and they will not blow out a candle with their breath, or spit in the fire, lest they should defile ...
— The Book of Religions • John Hayward
... between the hours of half-past eleven till three, stumbling and squelching in the mire, and knowing that should the enemy appear, should they but shoot one of the oxen of the leading waggon of the convoy, and thus block the cramped defile, all chance of getting safely through to Ladysmith would be at an end. This was by no means a happy reflection to fill men's minds in the dripping, almost palpable, darkness of the night, and the resolute spirit of the gallant ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... Amazon is recognizable as destined to become a magnificent stream. There are neither rapids nor obstacles of any sort until it reaches a defile where its course is slightly narrowed between two picturesque and unequal precipices. No falls are met with until this point is reached, where it curves to the eastward, and passes through the intermediary chain of the Andes. Hereabouts are a few ...
— Eight Hundred Leagues on the Amazon • Jules Verne
... the woman said to this poor, miserable litte scrap of humanity as the soldiers pushed her roughly aside. "Spit on the aristocrat!" And the child tortured its own small, parched mouth so that, in obedience to its mother, it might defile and bespatter a beautiful, ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... that mine ear Upon this earth so evil, Against Thy name and pow'r should hear The wicked rage and cavil. Let not the poison and the gall Of slanderers defile me; If I such filth should touch at all It surely would beguile me, ...
— Paul Gerhardt's Spiritual Songs - Translated by John Kelly • Paul Gerhardt
... after day, for week after week, for month after month, they marched southward and westward across the Desert, and in the centre of their host, mounted upon camels, rode Tua and Asti veiled. Once the hillmen attacked them in a defile of some rugged mountains, but they beat them back, and once there was a great battle with other tribes of the wilderness, who, hearing that they had a goddess among them, sought to capture her for themselves. These tribes also they ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... following the victory at the Trebia, Hannibal led his army, now recruited by many Gauls, across the Apennines, and moved southward. At Lake Trasimenus he entrapped the Romans under Flaminius in a mountain defile, where, bewildered by a fog that filled the valley, the greater part of the army was slaughtered, and the ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... nor thought the while, That falshood such a tale could tell: That dark deceit could e'er defile, The tongue that talk'd ...
— Poetic Sketches • Thomas Gent
... atheistic school, of Diderot and Helvetius, drove the masses from stupidity even to impiety, and the demagogues of '93 forced them from impiety to Atheism, and from Atheism to blood. Demagogues, those poisoners of liberty, corrupt every revolution in which they mingle; they defile every thing that they touch; they dishonor every truth which they profess, by polluting or perverting it. The age and philosophy, Heaven and earth, desire what we too desire,—freedom of conscience, voluntary worship,—liberty ...
— Atheism Among the People • Alphonse de Lamartine
... an observation station cunningly hidden in a haw thicket on the brow of a steep and heavily wooded defile overlooking the right side of the river valley—-the river, however, being entirely out of sight. Standing here we heard the guns speak apparently from almost beneath our feet, and three or four seconds thereafter we saw five little puffballs of white smoke uncurling above a line of trees ...
— Paths of Glory - Impressions of War Written At and Near the Front • Irvin S. Cobb
... for the time was September of 1790, two months after the passing—on the motion of that downright Breton leveller, Le Chapelier—of the decree that nobility should no more be hereditary than infamy; that just as the brand of the gallows must not defile the possibly worthy descendants of one who had been convicted of evil, neither should the blazon advertising achievement glorify the possibly unworthy descendants of one who had proved himself good. And so the decree had been passed abolishing hereditary nobility and consigning family escutcheons ...
— Scaramouche - A Romance of the French Revolution • Rafael Sabatini
... Arica. Careful preparations were made for a desert march, and on the 12th of March 1880 the advanced corps started inland for Moquegua, which was occupied on the 20th. Near Moquegua the Peruvians, some 2000 strong, took up an unusually strong position in the defile of Cuesta de los Angeles. But the great numerical superiority of the assailants enabled them to turn the flanks and press the front of the Peruvian position, and after a severe struggle the defence collapsed (March 22nd), ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... had only twenty thousand, and the sovereign of the East no more than five and thirty thousand, men. The inferiority of number was, however, compensated by the advantage of the ground. Constantine had taken post in a defile about half a mile in breadth, between a steep hill and a deep morass, and in that situation he steadily expected and repulsed the first attack of the enemy. He pursued his success, and advanced into the plain. But the veteran legions of Illyricum rallied under ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 1 • Edward Gibbon
... destroy a four year old bull by a single impact upon that animal's gnarly forehead. No stone wall had ever been known to resist its downward swoop; there were no trees tough enough to stay it; it would splinter them into matchwood and defile their leafy honors in the dust. This irascible and implacable brute—this incarnate thunderbolt—this monster of the upper deep, I had seen reposing in the shade of an adjacent tree, dreaming dreams of conquest and glory. It was with ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce, Volume 8 - Epigrams, On With the Dance, Negligible Tales • Ambrose Bierce
... the body for his watch-house; the eyes and ears for his port-holes; the tongue therewith to cry, Who comes there? as also to call for aid, when anything unclean shall attempt with force and violence to enter in, to defile the house. ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... fine rate, and the exercise was most exhilarating. In a short time, as they were cantering along a defile, they received a sharp fire from each side, which rather reduced their numbers; but they revenged themselves for this loss when they regained the plain, where they burnt two villages, slew two or three hundred head of women, and bagged children without number. On their ...
— The Voyage of Captain Popanilla • Benjamin Disraeli
... It was a foliated jester's cap, with a bell 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 for the amusement ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... bed. In his visit to Sicily, after ridiculing many strange objects which that country affords, he ran away suddenly in the night from Messini, terrified by the smoke and rumbling at the summit of Mount Aetna. And though in words he was very valiant against the barbarians, yet upon passing a narrow defile in Germany in his light car, surrounded by a strong body of his troops, some one happening to say, "There would be no small consternation amongst us, if an enemy were to appear," he immediately mounted his horse, and ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... and gird him with fire and sword. From land to land, from hill to hill, from Hereford to Caerleon, from Caerleon to Milford, from Milford to Snowdon, through Snowdon to yonder fort, built, they say, by the fiends or the giants,—through defile and through forest, over rock, through morass, we have pressed on his heels. Battle and foray alike have drawn the blood from his heart; and thou wilt have seen the drops yet red on the way, where the stone ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... with one touch of your finger, send that bursting spirit which throbs against your brow to flit forth free, and nevermore to defile her purity by ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley
... too. Her face was set towards the sea and its great sincerity, which murmurs against the lies and the deceptions of many lives that defile the land, and takes so many more to itself that they may persist no longer in their evil doing. And perhaps it was her vision of the sea that swept from Lily any desire to be a coquette, or to be maidenly,—that is, false. She looked from the sea ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens
... Willow's Wells was not a long one, and the cattle could stand a fast pace. So it was not long after the herd had left the Star until it straggled up a defile in the hills and out upon the level where Deveny's men had to ride to take the south trail ...
— 'Drag' Harlan • Charles Alden Seltzer
... of Jaen, we passed through Andujar and Bailen, and on the third day reached Carolina, a small but beautiful town on the skirts of the Sierra Morena, inhabited by the descendants of German colonists. Two leagues from this place, we entered the defile of Despena Perros, which, even in quiet times, has an evil name, on account of the robberies which are continually being perpetrated within its recesses, but at the period of which I am speaking, it was said to be swarming with banditti. We ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... orchestra, into which only the mellowest brass and the subtlest strings were admitted, and the Cafe du Ciel, charmingly situated among the trees, where the boulevard became a bridge, for a moment, at the mouth of the river Sly. Here one might gaze up the green rocky defile through which the Sly made pebbly music, and through which wound romantic walks and natural galleries, where far inland ...
— The Quest of the Golden Girl • Richard le Gallienne
... 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 already fallen on his white ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... the price of his redemption, which he thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship and ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... then—the condition which she had appended to her help! To see his sister, and yet to leave her as she was!—Horrible contradiction! But could he not employ Miriam for his own ends?—outwit her?—deceive her?—for it came to that. The temptation was intense: but it lasted only a moment. Could he defile so pure a cause by falsehood? And hurrying past the Jewess's door, hardly daring to look at it, lest the temptation should return, he darted upstairs to his own little chamber, hastily flung open the door, ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... 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 ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough |
