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More "Defensive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she was, there was in her nature a certain reserve which compelled admiration. When not on the defensive for what she considered her rights, she had a decided sweetness that drew me irresistibly. I did not approve of her methods, but my sympathy was deep for this child of freedom forced to live in the painful restrictions of ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... asked Raymond. "A heavy snow like this is all in our favour, since we stand on the defensive; it makes it more difficult for the Yankee ...
— Before the Dawn - A Story of the Fall of Richmond • Joseph Alexander Altsheler
... saw Joan, both glanced at her deprecatingly, but quite ready to assume a defensive attitude. Ashamed of having allowed her indignation to carry her so far, she was, however, inclined to be conciliatory; and therefore, with an effort, managed to say, as ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... so. 'How are things on the right?' they said to the runner. 'Bad,' said the runner, and he went back, though Lord knows what he went back to. The Boche was through right enough. 'We'll have to make a defensive flank,' said the platoon commander. He was a Daleswood man too. Came from the big farm. He slipped down a communication trench with a few men, mostly bombers. And they reckoned they wouldn't see any of them any more, for the ...
— Tales of War • Lord Dunsany
... quickly along the curving road to the Common where she was to receive her guests. Reaching the long narrow green, where a few cows nibbled placidly as in the days when a green in the center of the village was a necessary defensive measure, she walked idly up and down. The straggling road under the great elms passed the plain white meeting-house, dating from 1813, the Academy with its belfry, the little general store and post-office combined, and wound out of sight between dignified old houses, "like Aunt ...
— The Wide Awake Girls in Winsted • Katharine Ellis Barrett
... Such ready belief and general inconsequentiality bothered Janet. She did not know, of course, that Jonas was hardly the sort of a Texan to feel comfortable in having a woman stand before him in the defensive, stating her case. Upon her first appearance he had concealed his surprise and rallied nobly to the courtesies of the occasion; it was sufficient that he was in the presence of the fair. Having heard enough to get ...
— The Wrong Woman • Charles D. Stewart
... set in the silver sea, Which serves it in the office of a wall, Or as a moat defensive of ...
— The Roman and the Teuton - A Series of Lectures delivered before the University of Cambridge • Charles Kingsley
... alone in the drawing-room. Again Captain Roughsedge thought her pale, and was even sure that she had lost flesh. This time it was hardly possible to put these symptoms down to Marsham's account. He chafed under the thought that he should be no longer there in case a league, offensive and defensive, had in the end to be made with Mrs. Colwood for the handling of cousins. It was quite clear that Miss Fanny was a vulgar little minx, and that Beechcote would have no peace till it was rid of her. Meanwhile, the indefinable change ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... thrown over his arm, and a blue handkerchief bound round his left hand. His dress in other respects was that of a military man of the period; a long-waisted, broad-tailed coat, with a good deal of gold lace and many large buttons upon it, enormous riding boots, and a heavy sword. He had no defensive armour on, indeed, though those were days when the soldierly cuirass was not yet done away with; and on his head he only wore an ordinary hat ...
— The King's Highway • G. P. R. James
... mine, but the teaching of God, and accordingly I wish ignorant people like myself knew it; for even if a soul were in this state, it must not rely so much upon itself as to go forth to the battle, because it will have enough to do in defending itself. Defensive armour is the present necessity; the soul is not yet strong enough to assail Satan, and to trample him under foot, as those are who are in the state of which I ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... classified roughly according to the impulses which they embody. Property is the direct expression of possessiveness; science and art are among the most direct expressions of creativeness. Possessiveness is either defensive or aggressive; it seeks either to retain against a robber, or to acquire from a present holder. In either case an attitude of hostility toward others is of its essence. It would be a mistake to suppose that defensive possessiveness is always justifiable, while ...
— Political Ideals • Bertrand Russell
... of the universe is solved for Eucken through life and action. While continual contemplation and thought is apt to paralyse us, "action is the best defensive weapon against the dangers and trials of human existence." "Doubt is not cured by meditation, but by action." He believes that we can attain certainty through action of much that cannot be justified on rational grounds. If we wish to understand ...
— Rudolph Eucken • Abel J. Jones
... selfishness which distinguishes Protection to-day. The situation was peculiar, and required the application of strictly business methods to a threatening and immediate emergency. Great Britain was oppressing the country commercially by every method her council could devise. Defensive legislation was imperative. Moreover, if the country was to compete with the nations of the world and grow in independent wealth, particularly if it would provide internal resources against another war, it must manufacture extensively, and its manufactures must be protected. ...
— The Conqueror • Gertrude Franklin Atherton
... contests with the Romans for glory and empire. But now they had abandoned their former ambitious hopes, having been weakened by great defeats, so that, having fortified themselves with high and strong walls, and furnished the city with all sorts of weapons offensive and defensive, as likewise with corn and all manner of provisions, they cheerfully endured a siege, which, though tedious to them, was no less troublesome and distressing to the besiegers. For the Romans, having never been accustomed to stay away from home, except in summer, and for no great length of ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... mother's, and her curly hair, he preserved a frozen indifference. For Camors had other anxieties, of which Madame de Tecle knew nothing. The manner of Madame Campvallon toward him had assumed a more marked character of aggressive raillery. A defensive attitude is never agreeable to a man, and Camors felt it more disagreeable than most men—being so little ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... louder than before, and we all sprang back and stood on the defensive. For myself, having forgotten my club, and not having taken the precaution to cut another, I buttoned my jacket, doubled my fists, and threw myself into a boxing attitude. I must say, however, that I felt somewhat uneasy; and my companions afterwards ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... by the din, had retired to a recess formed by the bulkhead of the cabin and the fixed wash-basin and was acting strictly on the defensive. ...
— Wilmshurst of the Frontier Force • Percy F. Westerman
... But these I forbear to mention, because they cant but be very shocking to the Reader as well as the SPECTATOR. In this manner they carry on a War against Mankind; and by the standing Maxims of their Policy, are to enter into no Alliances but one, and that is Offensive and Defensive with all Bawdy-Houses in general, of which they have declared ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... true, even now, that all the Quakers oppose defensive war: for some of them do not; they have told me so," continued Franklin. "They oppose aggressive warfare; but let a privateer come up the river, or savages attack our town, and they will fight for their homes as hard ...
— From Boyhood to Manhood • William M. Thayer
... about Yates's danger territory. Twice, by the hardest kind of line bucking, it was placed within the ten-yard line, and twice, by the grimmest, most desperate resistance, it was lost on downs and sent hurtling back to near mid-field. But Yates was on the defensive, even when the oval was in her possession, and Harwell experienced the pleasurable—and, in truth, unaccustomed—exultation that comes with the assurance of superiority. Harwell's greatest ground-gaining plays now were the two sequences from ordinary formation and full-back forward. ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour
... "Helene," he said, "I am interested in Mr. Brott. No, don't look at me like that. You need have no fear. My interest is in him as a man, and not as a politician. The other days are over and done with now. I am on the defensive and ...
— The Yellow Crayon • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... improve upon acquaintance. I have seldom spent any length of time in the enforced society of a disagreeable person without finding that I liked him better at the end than at the beginning. Very often one finds that the disagreeable qualities are used as a sort of defensive panoply, and that they are the result, to a certain extent, of unhappy experiences. Since I met our friend I have learnt a fact about him, which makes me view him in a somewhat different light, I ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... young men fought cautiously, their heavy sabres flashing and glinting in the morning light as they thrust and parried with lightning rapidity. Later on Landauer seemed inclined to attack, and his blows on Helmar's weapon rang out in quick succession. Acting purely on the defensive, the latter parried the onslaught with an ease that puzzled and angered his opponent, until incautiously he fell into the trap by redoubling his attack. Helmar had reckoned on this. He hoped soon to tire the bully out, and a faint smile passed over his face, as with a head parry he ...
— Under the Rebel's Reign • Charles Neufeld
... amusing correspondence that followed that call, the great preacher was on the defensive from the first, and in reading over two or three letters that, because of blots or errors, had to be recopied, I am fairly amazed at the temerity of some of my remarks. In one place I charge him with "standing upon his closed ...
— Stage Confidences • Clara Morris
... seriously.' He was naturally more than half a Jew; his features were Jewish, his thinking was Jewish, and he believed after a fashion in the Jewish sacred books, or, at anyrate, read them continuously, although he had added to his armoury defensive weapons of another type. In nothing was he more Jewish than in a tendency to dwell upon the One, or what he called God, clinging still to the expression of his forefathers although departing so widely from them. In his ethics and system of life, as well ...
— Clara Hopgood • Mark Rutherford
... 24, the Salt Lake newspapers contained stories to the effect that the Germans had entered into an alliance offensive and defensive with the Aguinaldo government and would furnish equipments for an army of 150,000 men. We were on the Union Pacific Railroad at the time, and I called the attention of Don Felipe Agoncillo to this remarkable intelligence and asked him what he thought of it. He said emphatically ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... conquered from the aristocracy and now hold fast in Slave States an area of two hundred thousand square miles, inhabited by four millions of people—a district larger than France. Three years ago, every Slave State was virtually in the grasp of the rebels, and the Union was really put upon the defensive to protect freedom in the Free States and the national capital. Now, by a masterly series of campaigns in the West and Southwest, ranging from the Alleghanies to the Gulf, in which we have never lost a decisive battle, we have saved all the Territories of the United States, cut ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 6, No 5, November 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... walked in wide strides, and would sometimes use the tail of his gown on the blackboard. Like so many clergymen and schoolmasters, he had early distrusted his natural impulse in conversation, and had adopted the defensive precaution of a rather formal and sonorous speech, which habit had made a part of him. His general effect was of one who is earnestly keeping up things that might otherwise give way, keeping them up by act and voice, keeping up an atmosphere of vigour and success in ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... steady shot a few yards off, and then plied his bayonet till he got a moment's pause to re-load, came off well; the flurried soldier, who was not quite sure whether to stand or retire, who missed or only wounded his man, and then stood strictly on the defensive, was most likely overpowered ...
— For Fortune and Glory - A Story of the Soudan War • Lewis Hough
... of the Chiboque remark, "They have only five guns;" and about midday, Njambi collected all his people, and surrounded our encampment. Their object was evidently to plunder us of every thing. My men seized their javelins, and stood on the defensive, while the young Chiboque had drawn their swords and brandished them with great fury. Some even pointed their guns at me, and nodded to each other, as much as to say, "This is the way we shall do with him." I sat on my camp-stool, with my double-barreled gun ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... our duty to give a particular account of the defensive means of the French Admiral. The road of Algeziras, six miles distant from Gibraltar, is open to the eastward. It is shallow, with sunken rocks in several parts. The town is nearly in the centre, at the bottom of the Bay; about a third of a mile from which ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, Vol. I • Sir John Ross
... all I said, though it sounded extravagant, was absolutely true to fact. What we afterwards alluded to as an attack was really an attempt at repulse. The action was very far from being aggressive—it was not even defensive, in the usual sense: it was undertaken under the stress of desperation, and in its essence ...
— Heart of Darkness • Joseph Conrad
... authority is now established by the act of parliament and explanatory act, that he denied the same. Being also examined anent the excommunication at Torwood, he declined to answer, as being an ecclesiastical matter, and they a civil judicatory. He owned the lawfulness of defensive arms in cases of necessity, and denied that those who rose at Bothwel, &c. were rebels; and being interrogate anent the Sanquhar declaration, he declined to give his judgment until he had more time to peruse the contents thereof. He further declared, ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... single-handed, all those mighty bowmen thus advancing (to the rescue). Though they shot dense showers of arrows and hurled innumerable lances, fighting with determination, yet they were unable even to look at the son of Radha. Indeed, the son of Radha, that master of all weapons offensive and defensive, by shooting dense showers of shafts checked all those great bowmen. The high-souled Sahadeva, however, quickly approaching (the spot where Duryodhana was), and invoking without loss of time a (celestial) weapon, pierced Duryodhana with twenty ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... worlds formed what they called a defensive league and with characteristic human rationality promptly attacked us. Naturally, they didn't get far. We had a bigger and better fleet and we were organized while they were not. And so they were utterly defeated at ...
— A Question of Courage • Jesse Franklin Bone
... opening of boxing with swift defensive watchfulness, Charley Burns had darted at his man. Before anyone knew what was happening his left crashed between Jefferson's eyes, a blow that caused him to reel back almost ...
— Malcolm Sage, Detective • Herbert George Jenkins
... pathognomonic sign requires deliberate, careful, and gentle manipulation. Sometimes the slightest of movements will be sufficient for its development, after much rougher handling has failed to discover it. Perhaps the failure in the latter case is due to a sort of defensive spasmodic rigidity caused by the pain resulting from ...
— Special Report on Diseases of the Horse • United States Department of Agriculture
... Impossible for him and his friends to endeavour to hold their ground: they were too vastly outnumbered; the most they could do was to hold together and use every opportunity of retreat, standing in the meanwhile on the defensive. There was no adequate body of police on the Green; the riot would take its course unimpeded by the hired servants of the capitalist State. Redgrave little by little fought his way to within sight of Mutimer; he ...
— Demos • George Gissing
... remember Retzsch's drawing of destiny in the shape of Mephistopheles playing at chess with man for his soul, a game in which we may imagine the clever adversary making a feint of unintended moves so as to set the beguiled mortal on carrying his defensive pieces away from the true point of attack. The fiend makes preparation his favorite object of mockery, that he may fatally persuade us against our taking out waterproofs when he is well aware the sky is going to clear, foreseeing that the imbecile ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... reported that their men had obeyed instructions to the letter. No acts of violence had as yet been committed by any of the American crews. The ex-sailors, though chafing at their inaction, had assumed the defensive throughout. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... the expedition were that they should proceed eight miles into the bush, and there make three zerebas, or defensive enclosures of bushes, capable of sheltering ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... heard about his brutalities and about his seven wives, so terrified was she that she refused to leave England, and the affair had to be abandoned. Elizabeth's rejection of his proposals, and also of his plan for an alliance offensive and defensive against Poland and Sweden, so infuriated Ivan that he confiscated the goods of the English merchants, and this friendship was temporarily ruptured. But amicable relations were soon restored between Elizabeth and her barbarian admirer. If she had heard of his awful vengeance in 1571, she had ...
— A Short History of Russia • Mary Platt Parmele
... another intitled the remonstrance of the nobility, &c. a tract on church government, and an instruction for defensive arms, &c. the general assembly appointed him, Mr. Calderwood and Mr. Dickson, to prepare a directory for the worship of God, which not only had the desired effect, but at length brought about uniformity in all ...
— Biographia Scoticana (Scots Worthies) • John Howie
... plant will also feed an animal, and as many animals betray a felonious desire to appropriate to their own wicked ends the food-stuffs laid up by the palm for the use of its own seedling, the coco-nut has been compelled to inclose this particularly large and rich kernel in a very solid and defensive shell. And, once more, since the palm grows at a very great height from the ground—I have seen them up to ninety feet in favourable circumstances—this shell stands a very good chance of getting broken in tumbling to the earth, so that it has been ...
— Falling in Love - With Other Essays on More Exact Branches of Science • Grant Allen
... extremity. The protector summoned all his forces from every quarter, in order to relieve a place of such importance; and he appeared so much superior to the French, that they shut themselves up within the city, and resolved to act upon the defensive.[**] But the garrison of the castle, having received a strong reenforcement, made a vigorous sally upon the besiegers; while the English army, by concert, assaulted them in the same instant from without, mounted the walls by scalade, and bearing down all resistance, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... table, and maintained together a friendly, though short intercourse, I will not demand the combat before you are duly prepared. Proceed to the first great town, where you can be furnished with horse and harnessing, with arms offensive and defensive; provide a trusty squire, assume a motto and device, declare yourself a son of chivalry, and proclaim the excellence of her who rules your heart. I shall fetch a compass; and wheresoever we may chance to meet, let us engage with equal arms in mortal combat, that shall ...
— The Adventures of Sir Launcelot Greaves • Tobias Smollett
... walnut, bulging above the ears,—and the man was of a sallying temper. He lay there putting bit by bit of his plot before the Chief for his approval, with a careful construction, that upon the expression of any doubt of its working smoothly in the streets of Milan, caused him to shout a defensive, "But Carlo says yes!" ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... feel that I might now commence the attack, but my master's lessons all came clear and vivid before me, and knowing that, as the weaker, it was my duty to act on the defensive, I waited, while we watched each other cautiously, my adversary evidently expecting that ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... assault must be, not to prove that the doctrines are scientifically unsound, but that they tend to the impoverishment and debasement of the masses. These propositions are three, and I lay down as my thesis—for I abhor defensive warfare—that ...
— The Inhumanity of Socialism • Edward F. Adams
... a move on at last. We don't know where we are going or why we are going or even if we are really going at all. It may be that we are on our way to the Continent; it may be that we are on our way to the coast to assume the defensive; it may be that the authorities are pulling our legs and are watching from behind the hedges en route to see how we take it. We march on till we are told to stop. We stop till we are told to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, December 2, 1914 • Various
... many of these conspicuous insects would be eaten. It is the abundance of the eatable kinds that gives value to the inedibility of the smaller number; and this is probably the reason why so many insects rely on protective colouring rather than on the acquisition of any kind of defensive weapons. In the long run the powers of attack and defence must balance each other. Hence we see that even the powerful stings of bees and wasps only protect them against some enemies, since a tribe of birds, the bee-eaters, have been developed which feed upon them, ...
— Darwinism (1889) • Alfred Russel Wallace
... dear. We all have 'em. Sometimes, if I didn't smoke I should scream. No woman really likes to see her husband flirting openly with her friends. I'm no saint; but my wickedness is defensive. Now, ...
— The Silent Barrier • Louis Tracy
... false charges against him brought on a serious illness, and on his recovery he received orders to conduct an expedition into France. William Lewis of Nassau had for sometime been urging upon the States-General that the time for remaining upon the strict defensive was past, and that, when the enemy's efforts were weakened and distracted, the best defence was a vigorous offensive. At first he spoke to deaf ears, but he found now a powerful supporter in Maurice, and the ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson
... speaking of the power of dialectic, says that it surrounds all disciplines like a defensive enclosure, and elevates those that use it to the good itself, and the first unities; that it purifies the eye of the soul; establishes itself in true beings, and, the one principle of all things, and ends at last in that which is no longer hypothetical. ...
— Introduction to the Philosophy and Writings of Plato • Thomas Taylor
... by the village blacksmith, for, although we were men of peace, we thought it advisable to provide against what were known as single-stick encounters, which were then by no means uncommon, and as curved handles would have been unsuitable in the event of our having to use them either for defensive or offensive purposes, ours were selected with naturally formed ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... pasquinade and sneer is to put the prospective daughter-in-law on the defensive, and prepare her mind, unconsciously to herself, to regard her future husband's mother as her natural enemy. Many a girl marries with the preconceived notion that, to preserve her individual rights, and to rule in her own small household, ...
— The Secret of a Happy Home (1896) • Marion Harland
... one day on the young Welshman, made with unwonted and bitter sarcasm by an effeminate and luxurious scion of nobility, roused the indignation of Percy. Retorting haughtily on the defensive, a regular war of tongues took place. The masterly eloquence of Percy carried the day, and he hoped young Myrvin was free from all further attacks. He was mistaken: another party, headed by the defeated but enraged Lord, who had been roused to a state of fury by young Hamilton's appearance, surrounded ...
— The Mother's Recompense, Volume I. - A Sequel to Home Influence in Two Volumes. • Grace Aguilar
... power of narrative, constantly renewed if not always logically sustained and connected, that Dumas' excellence, if not his actual supremacy, lies; and the fact may dispense us from saying any more about his plots. As to Character, we must still keep the offensive-defensive line. Dumas' most formidable enemies—persons like the late M. Brunetiere—would probably say that he has no character at all. Some of his champions would content themselves with ejaculating the two names "D'Artagnan!" and "Chicot!" shrugging their shoulders, and abstaining ...
— A History of the French Novel, Vol. 2 - To the Close of the 19th Century • George Saintsbury
... of conduct. I'm no' intending to abandon the dog. I am commended here for my humanity, but the bit dog I must let starve for a technicality." Instantly, as the magistrate half rose from the bench, the landlord saw that he had gone too far, and put the court on the defensive. In an easy, conversational tone, as if unaware of the point he had scored, he asked if he might address his accuser on a personal matter. "We knew each other weel as laddies. Davie, when you're in my neeborhood again on a wet day, come in and dry yoursel' by my fire and tak' another cup o' kindness ...
— Greyfriars Bobby • Eleanor Atkinson
... Roselawn a couple of days before he had a chance to do more than observe Elise Durwent as one of the party. She had been his partner at tennis and bridge, and a dozen times he had exchanged light talk with her, but there was always about her the defensive shield of impersonal cordiality. When he spoke to her it was almost in a drawl, but no matter to what a lackadaisical level he reduced his voice, her replies were always punctuated by a retort that had in it the sense of sting, ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... various reasons, more sociable with the other sex than those who are still on the universal mock-defensive. A ship, like a distant country, thaws even English reserve, and women in general are disposed to admit ecclesiastics to certain privileges. No wonder then that Miss Rolleston, after a few days, met Mr. Hazel half-way; ...
— Foul Play • Charles Reade
... times had been very few. He did not preach good sermons; he faced that now, unflinchingly. He was not broad minded; new thoughts were unattractive, hard for him to assimilate; he had championed always theories that were going out of fashion, and the half-consciousness of it put him ever on the defensive; when most he wished to be gentle, there was something in his manner which antagonized. As he looked back over his colorless, conscientious past, it seemed to him that his life was a failure. The ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... sent Marshal Grouchy the next day at noon, with thirty-two thousand men to look after the enemy, but then it was quite too late. In those fifteen hours they had time to re-form, to communicate with the English, and to act on the defensive. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... thought, in public discussion, and almost universally in the columns of the public press. One of the most vital questions among us then is, not so much as to how we shall prepare, but how shall we prepare adequately for defensive purposes, in case of any emergency arising, without being thrown too far along the road of militarism, and without an inordinate preparation that has been the scourge and the bane of many old-world countries for so many years, and that quite as much as anything has been provocative ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... Russian general of German descent, who, trained in the engineer corps, greatly distinguished himself by his defensive operations at Sebastopol during its siege by the French and English in the Crimean War, and subsequently by the reduction of Plevna, his greatest achievement, which brought to a close the war with Turkey in 1877; subsequently became commander-in-chief ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... was the safest place. Austria's note to Serbia was issued without consulting Italy. One point of the Triple Alliance provided that no member should take action in the Balkans before an agreement with the other allies. Such an agreement did not take place. The alliance was of defensive, not aggressive, character and could not force an ally to follow any enterprise taken on the sole account and without a notice, as such action taken by Austria against Serbia. It was felt even then that Italy would eventually cast its lot ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... other, for position. It was hard to realize that human motions could be so graceful, light and easy. Then head-knives were drawn, and cuts right, and cuts left, cuts at every part of the body from the head to the ankles, were added to the motion; the man on the defensive for the moment making suitable parries with ...
— The Head Hunters of Northern Luzon From Ifugao to Kalinga • Cornelis De Witt Willcox
... realist and romanticist, frank lover of the flesh, lofty idealist, impressionist and judge, philosopher, dramatist, essayist, master of the comic and above all, Poet. Eloquence, finesse, strength and sweetness, the limpid and the cryptic, are his in turn: he puts on when he will, like a defensive armor, a style to frighten all but the elect. And they who persist and discover the secret, swear that it is more than worth the pains. Perhaps the lesson of it all is that a first-class writer, creative and distinctive, is a phenomenon transcending school, movement or ...
— Masters of the English Novel - A Study Of Principles And Personalities • Richard Burton
... Phoebe, instantly on the defensive, "he is just exactly that, Caroline Darrah Brown—and he doesn't seem to be able to get over it. I'm afraid it's ...
— Andrew the Glad • Maria Thompson Daviess
... Republicans and every other class of Irish Nationalist. The manifesto it issued stated: "The object proposed for the Irish Volunteers is to secure and maintain the rights and liberties common to all the people of Ireland. Their duties will be defensive and protective and they will not attempt either aggression or domination. Their ranks are open to all able-bodied Irishmen without distinction of creed, politics, or social grade." And then it appealed "in the name of national unity, of national ...
— Ireland Since Parnell • Daniel Desmond Sheehan
... stood on the defensive, posting sentinels, and making other preparations for a fight. Actual hostilities soon ensued. The Mormons captured some arms which their opponents had obtained, and took them, with three prisoners, to Far West. "This was a glorious day, indeed," ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn
... he the choice? M. Guizot has eloquently described the position of Charlemagne towards the Saxons. Il y fit face par le conquete; la guerre defensive prit la forme offensive: il transporta la lutte sur le territoire des peuples qui voulaient envahir le sien: il travailla a asservir les races etrangeres, et extirper les croyances ennemies. De la son mode de gouvernement et la fondation ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 5 • Edward Gibbon
... wife were filling the air with their outcries. Selina was giggling with hysteria. Marcus, terrified, but too brave to run, had picked up a jagged stone with his left hand and stood on the defensive. His swollen right arm, from which the shirt sleeve had been torn, dangled at his side, the back of the hand twisted where the palm should have been. The shirt itself was a mass of grass stains and was spotted with the ...
— McTeague • Frank Norris
... them to alter the line of policy they had adopted, or to recall from the assistance of their brethren of the English Parliament that auxiliary army of twenty thousand men, by means of which accession of strength, the King's party had been reduced to the defensive, when in full ...
— A Legend of Montrose • Sir Walter Scott
... always liked babies since she was a very little girl, and she became wholly wrapped up in her own human venture. The summer while the child was coming had drawn her very close to Marion Reddon, with whom she had established a staunch bond of the woman's league, offensive and defensive, against men. Marion, she felt, understood both babies and men. Although she could not approve of all Marion's ideas about the relations of the sexes, she admired the frank, brave, humorous way in which she solved her ...
— One Woman's Life • Robert Herrick
... in his Italian prison, though occasionally he was brought out, questioned and then taken back again. Thus at Ferrara he informed Captain Ciano about the whole organization of the Austrian offensive and defensive forces, and especially about Pola and Split. Sesan begged to be allowed to take part in the action against the Austrian fleet, and, at Rome, where he came before Captain Soldati, of the Bureau of Information, he made the same request. With two motor launches he undertook to organize communication ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... that made Athens great. It proved to be more than was necessary for defensive war against Persia, or even for the aggressive war which was carried on in Asia Minor and Egypt. It also more than sufficed for sending out the colonies which Athens founded in Italy and elsewhere. The remainder of the fund was used in Athens, ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... begun on the next day, but the small band of English, Sikhs, and Goorkhas which composed the force was quite inadequate to the task entrusted to it, and, in truth, could do nothing but act on the defensive against the horde of rebellious sepoys, who outnumbered them ...
— A Narrative Of The Siege Of Delhi - With An Account Of The Mutiny At Ferozepore In 1857 • Charles John Griffiths
... most vigorous measures, and a stronger defensive force than the Province could supply, would be necessary to overawe the hostile purposes displayed by Spain, or repel them if put in execution, Oglethorpe resolved to represent the state of affairs to the British ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... the loyal confidence with which most of the popular party were beginning to regard the King was turned into hatred and suspicion. From that moment, the Parliament was compelled to surround itself with defensive arms. From that moment, the city assumed the appearance ...
— The Rise of the Democracy • Joseph Clayton
... were panic-stricken, and half of them bolted, with the kirangozi at their head, carrying off all the double-ration cloths as well as their own. At this time, the sultan, having changed tactics, as he saw us all ready to stand on the defensive, sent back his hongo; but, instead of using threats, said he would oblige us with donkeys or anything else if we would only give him a few more pretty cloths. With this cringing, perfidious appeal I refused to comply, until the sheikh, still more cringing, implored me ...
— The Discovery of the Source of the Nile • John Hanning Speke
... he had come on deck King Olaf was more intent upon observing his enemies than in arraying his own small armament. He had seen from the first that it would be his place to assume the defensive, and he had given the order for his ships to be drawn up in ...
— Olaf the Glorious - A Story of the Viking Age • Robert Leighton
... yielded to her shrinking from the opportunities of social advancement that opened to them, and held aloof with her. This kept him a country person in his experiences much longer than he need have remained; and tended to that sort of defensive secretiveness which grew more and more upon him, and qualified his conduct in matters where there was no question of his knowledge of the polite world. It was not until after his wife's death, and until his daughters began to grow up into the circles where his money and his business ...
— The Quality of Mercy • W. D. Howells
... broke out gloriously, warming and drying our chilled, wet forms. Nearly all that day we maintained a line of battle confronting the pursuing enemy. One brigade would take a defensive position, while the other would march about five miles to a commanding point, where it in turn would form a line. The first brigade would then give way, pass through the second, and take position well to the rear. Thus, although retreating, ...
— Taken Alive • E. P. Roe
... most amiable and commonplace. There was no oratory and no defiance of anybody. What had been accomplished, however, was that, in the absence of organized government, the conservative elements in the county had formed an offensive and defensive league for mutual protection, as the by-laws ran, "against frauds and swindlers, and to prevent the stealing, taking, and driving away of horned cattle, sheep, horses, and other stock ...
— Roosevelt in the Bad Lands • Hermann Hagedorn
... followed the speaker closely. When he paused, she was ready for him. "But, even without a marriage, at any time now a treaty based on the marriage may be signed. A treaty for a mutually defensive alliance. Austria encroaches daily, and has Germany behind her. We are small fry, here and in Karnia, and we stand ...
— Long Live the King • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... furnished with tusks like unto the shafts of ploughs and decked with girdles made of gold, and covered with fine blankets and therefore, resembling the lotus in hue. And they were all darkish as rocks and always musty, and procured from the sides of the Kamyaka lake, and covered with defensive armour. And they were also exceedingly patient and of the best breed. And having made these presents, those kings were permitted to enter. O king, these and many others, coming from various regions, and numberless other illustrious kings, brought ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Part 2 • Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa
... complain that the Allies are too frequently on the defensive forget that it is very difficult to be as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 2nd, 1914 • Various
... in the true spirit of amity and good faith that they have themselves displayed throughout these trying months; and it is in that belief that I request that you will authorize me to supply our merchant-ships with defensive arms should that become necessary, and with the means of using them, and to employ any other instrumentalities or methods that may be necessary and adequate to protect our ships and our people in their legitimate and peaceful ...
— Why We are at War • Woodrow Wilson
... and practises co-operation between her army and navy. Her hands are free for offence in home waters, since she has no distant network of coveted colonies and dependencies on which to dissipate her defensive energies. Finally, she is, compared with ourselves, economically independent, having commercial access through her land frontiers to the whole of Europe. She has little to ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... There they would find the second statue; but this they must spare, because, on account of the great fame of its creator, it was more valuable than the other. The fair-haired artist was ill, and it would be no difficult matter to take him alive, even if he should put himself on the defensive. Hermon, on the contrary, was a strong fellow, and to bind him without injuring him severely would require both strength and skill. Yet it must be done, for only in case Hanno succeeded in delivering ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... put action to the thought and under Pierre (II) Chambiges, a relative of the Chambiges of Fontainebleau and Saint Germain, the Petite Galerie, a mere means of communication between the two chateaux, and not the least to be likened to a defensive structure, was begun and work thereon carried out between 1564 and 1571, though it remained for Thibaut Metezeau, in 1595-1596, to carry it on a stage further under ...
— Royal Palaces and Parks of France • Milburg Francisco Mansfield
... has been commendably careful to avoid, as far as possible, giving real offence. Yet her criticism is sufficiently free to be piquant, and, on the whole, as salutary as it is entertaining. 'Why need Australians always be on the defensive?' asks more than once an Englishman in one of her novels. The author seems to have put the same question to herself as an Australian, and to have decided that ultra-sensitiveness is a worse vice than affectation, ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... defensive I said, "But we must admit that the so- called Christian nations are the most ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... a swift light upon her face. He had said, "leave us"—not "leave me." And his voice was gentle. Surely he was the kind-hearted and chivalrous rancher of his own simple letters. She began to feel a woman's sense of superiority. On the defensive, she replied: "I don't know ...
— The Sagebrusher - A Story of the West • Emerson Hough
... ideals was demolished by the intimacy of common life, and she found him as merely human as the Hintock people themselves, a new foundation was in demand for an enduring and stanch affection—a sympathetic interdependence, wherein mutual weaknesses were made the grounds of a defensive alliance. Fitzpiers had furnished none of that single-minded confidence and truth out of which alone such a second union could spring; hence it was with a controllable emotion that she now watched the ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... realize that until we have done away with capitalism, aristocracy and anti-Christian clericalism, it is our duty to be prepared to defend our homes and our native land. And therefore we are in favour of maintaining national defensive forces in the highest possible state of efficiency. But that does not mean that we are in favour of the present system of organizing those forces. We do not believe in conscription, and we do not believe ...
— The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists • Robert Tressell
... the shooter, a great red-headed, freckly faced fellow, with backward-lying whiskers, crowned in a drab rustic. 'Oh, pretty middling,' repeated he, not knowing whether to act on the friendly or defensive. ...
— Mr. Sponge's Sporting Tour • R. S. Surtees
... You understood You too, defensive and morose, Encloaked your secret puppyhood— Your secret ...
— Twenty • Stella Benson
... event which had lately excited so much general alarm. With a promptness inconceivable, his lordship planned every species of precautionary defence, while engaged in executing his offensive operations: and it is anxiously hoped, that his excellent defensive arrangements, made on this occasion, though happily not then needed, will be carefully treasured in the archives of the Admiralty, for immediate adoption, should any attempt ever be made, by a rash and powerful enemy, to ...
— The Life of the Right Honourable Horatio Lord Viscount Nelson, Vol. II (of 2) • James Harrison
... mentioned evil-speaking. As we were moving slowly along in the crowd from church, Johnson jogged my elbow, and said, 'Did you attend to the sermon?' 'Yes, Sir, (said I,) it was very applicable to us.' He, however, stood upon the defensive. 'Why, Sir, the sense of ridicule is given us, and may be lawfully used[1152]. The authour of The Government of the Tongue would have us treat ...
— The Life Of Johnson, Volume 3 of 6 • Boswell
... which the sick hunter spoke, they derived new information about the war. The reports were more and more accurate, but unfavorable for Fumba. The little travelers learned that he was conducting a defensive campaign, and that the Samburus under the command of their king, named Mamba, occupied a considerable expanse of the Wahima country and had captured a multitude of cows. The villagers said that the war was raging principally ...
— In Desert and Wilderness • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... been understood, and the orders had gone out by galloper to "Get a move on!" each commanding officer strained every nerve at once to strike where a blow would have the most effect. There was no thought of anything but action, and offensive, not defensive action. Until some one at the head of things proved still to be alive, and had had time to form a plan, each divisional commander acted as he saw fit. That was all that any one was asked to do at first: to act, ...
— Told in the East • Talbot Mundy
... plain, an uninteresting re-building of 1823, but the carved wood of its portals is beautiful. The towers, as in other maritime Cathedrals of Provence, recall the perils and dangers of their days; and these towers of Frejus, although none the less practically defensive, have a more churchly appearance than those of Antibes, Grasse, and Vence. Over the vestibuled entrance rises the western tower. Its heavy, rectangular base is the support of a super-structure which was replaced in the XVI century by one more in keeping with ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... monograph, he said, for his own amusement, upon the early forms of our present offensive and defensive weapons. Could I tell him about the first Deuber spheres and the earlier disintegrator rays and the crude atomic bombs we tried back when I first entered ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science January 1931 • Various
... a touch of embarrassment in Mr Abney's manner, for which I could not at first account. He was stately, but with the rather defensive stateliness which marked his announcements that he was about to pop up to London and leave me to do his work. He coughed once or twice before proceeding to the business of ...
— The Little Nugget • P.G. Wodehouse
... Corinth, she appealed to Athens, where ambassadors from Corinth also appeared. Their arguments are stated in the speeches which are so characteristic of Thucydides. The Athenians after careful consideration decided to conclude a defensive alliance with Corcyra, for they dreaded the acquisition of her navy by Corinth. But circumstances turned this into an offensive alliance, for Corinth attacked and would have won a complete victory at sea but for timely Athenian succour. In the east Athens ...
— Authors of Greece • T. W. Lumb
... and attributed his change of heart to mercenary motives. Douglass seems to have borne himself with rare dignity and moderation in this trying period. He realized perfectly well that he was on the defensive, and that the burden devolved upon him to justify his change of front. This he seems to have attempted vigorously, but by argument rather than invective. Even during the height of the indignation against him Douglass disclaimed ...
— Frederick Douglass - A Biography • Charles Waddell Chesnutt
... works abound with the most impressive truths, in all the simplicity of thought and language, yet he never elevates nor delights. Too faithful an observer of the miserable human nature before him, he submits to expedients; he acts on the defensive; and because he is in terror, he would consider security to be the happiness of man. In Religion he would stand by an established one; yet thus he deprives man of that moral freedom which God himself has surely allowed us. Locke has the glory of having first given distinct ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... with the French, who, as he had learned, had gained great successes in Europe; and, believing from their account that their country was much stronger than England, he had sent envoys to the Mauritius, to propose an offensive and defensive alliance against England. The envoys had been politely received, and some of them had proceeded to France, where Tippoo's proposal had been accepted. They committed France, indeed, to nothing, as she was already at war with England; but the French were extremely glad to embrace ...
— The Tiger of Mysore - A Story of the War with Tippoo Saib • G. A. Henty
... retreat from Milan, the Austrian commander had moved with sufficient rapidity to save Verona and Mantua from passing into the hands of the insurgents. He was thus enabled to place his army in one of the best defensive positions in Europe, the Quadrilateral flanked by the rivers Mincio and Adige, and protected by the fortresses of Verona, Mantua, Peschiera, and Legnano. With his front on the Mincio he awaited at once the attack of the Piedmontese and the arrival ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... might be said as to the spies being sent from the Camp to enrol themselves amongst the insurgents, and who, report says, urged them to attack the Camp, which was repudiated by the diggers—they saying they would act upon the defensive. ...
— The Eureka Stockade • Carboni Raffaello
... really a work of time and toil to go about making our defensive preparations for the night; first closing the iron gate, then the ponderous and complicated fastenings of the house door, then the separate barricadoes of each iron-barred window on the lower floor, with a somewhat slighter arrangement above. There ...
— Passages From the French and Italian Notebooks, Complete • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... attacked, his presence would add to the defensive strength, but such an attack would not be made if he was not there. Desperate and defiant as the rustlers had been, it would be an injustice to represent them as ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... of nature—to the positive, when at length it is recognised that human knowledge cannot pass beyond the region of phenomena. With these stages corresponds the progress of society from militarism, aggressive or defensive, to industrialism. The several abstract sciences—those dealing with the laws of phenomena rather than with the application of laws—are so arranged by Comte as to exhibit each more complex science resting on a simpler, to which it adds a new order of truths; the whole erection, ascending ...
— A History of French Literature - Short Histories of the Literatures of the World: II. • Edward Dowden
... corrupted being possessed of these tremendous powers; would he not be a demon let loose on earth? Grant that the same privilege be accorded also to the good; and in what state would be society? Engaged in a Titan war,—the good forever on the defensive, the bad forever in assault. In the present condition of the earth, evil is a more active principle than good, and the evil would prevail. It is for these reasons that we are not only solemnly bound to administer our lore only to those who will not misuse and pervert it, ...
— Zanoni • Edward Bulwer Lytton
... and so surely dealt that succor should be impossible, the National army, which had established itself on the borders of one of the southernmost States of the Confederacy, and was menacing lines of communication of prime necessity to their maintenance of the defensive line within which those commanders had withdrawn their discomfited armies. At length, one evening, on dress parade, there were read 'General orders, headquarters Fourth division,' for a march at daylight the next morning. ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 6, No 4, October, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... battle outside Atlanta, a siege, or a flanking bit of military chesswork, the great Union commander is dragged now into a purely defensive battle. Where ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... As it was, the rash action of the Democratic Convention made it reasonably clear from the beginning that the ticket was doomed to defeat. The progress of the canvass strengthened this impression; the Democracy was placed everywhere on the defensive; its own declarations shotted every gun that was aimed against it; and its orators and organs could neither make effective reply nor divert public ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... with palms, ... but they are constantly menaced with burial by the sands. The only remedy employed by the natives consists in little dry walls of crystallized gypsum, built on the crests of the dunes, together with hedges of dead palm-leaves. These defensive measures are aided by incessant labor; for every day the people take up in baskets the sand blown over to them the night before and carry it back to the other side of the dune."—Memoires sur le ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... maintained by Luther was that there should be no resort to secular power in support of the Reformation, and no appeal to arms for its defense. He rejoiced that the gospel was confessed by princes of the empire; but when they proposed to unite in a defensive league, he declared that "the doctrine of the gospel should be defended by God alone.... The less man meddled in the work, the more striking would be God's intervention in its behalf. All the politic precautions suggested ...
— The Great Controversy Between Christ and Satan • Ellen G. White
... their box, and Craven was sure they were all talking about Lady Sellingworth and him. He saw Braybrooke's broad-fingered hand go to his beard and was almost positive his old friend was on the defensive. He was surely saying, "No, really, I don't think so! I feel convinced there is nothing in it!" Craven's eyes met Lady Sellingworth's, and it seemed to him at that moment that she and he spoke together without the knowledge of ...
— December Love • Robert Hichens
... and largest group, which in its enormous numbers was to the others as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired neither peace nor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at the Drissa or anywhere else, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor Bennigsen, but only the one most essential thing—as much advantage and pleasure for themselves as possible. In the troubled waters of conflicting and intersecting ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... suffered a great disaster in the loss of two gallant regiments, one of which had only ten days earlier gained for itself proud distinction by being first to crown the heights of Talana, near Dundee, where British infantry proved worthy of its most glorious traditions. As a purely defensive measure, if nothing more, the fight of yesterday was forced upon us. Like some other operations in this brief but eventful campaign, it came too late, but, whether timely or not, a battle was inevitable unless we meant to sit down tamely and be ...
— Four Months Besieged - The Story of Ladysmith • H. H. S. Pearse
... had stood on the defensive, and had husbanded the lives of his men; but he now desired to make as great a slaughter as possible, so as to inspire the enemy with dread of the Grecian name. He therefore marched out beyond the wall, without waiting to be attacked, and the battle began. ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... whole line of the army were field-pieces and Maxims, and the gunboats were within reach to aid in shelling the enemy. The British soldiers then built a square sand rampart called a zarilea, and their Egyptian allies dug defensive trenches. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... State would at once stay in the Union and stand aloof from it. Neutrality really signified a refusal to perform those obligations which nevertheless were admitted to be binding, and it made of the State a defensive barrier for the South, not to be traversed by Northern troops on an errand of hostility against Confederate Secessionists. It was practical "non-coercion" under a name of fairer sound, and it involved the inconsequence of declaring that the dissolution ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... 25th August [24th, if it were of moment]. Bouille followed thither; dined again. Besides Officers, there were present several Polish Princes, the Bishop of the Diocese, and the Abbot Bastiani. King made pleasantries about religion [pity, that]; Bastiani not slow with repartees", of a defensive kind. "King told me, on one occasion, 'Would you believe it? I have just been putting my poor Jesuits' finances into order. They understand nothing of such things, CES BONS HOMMES. They are useful to me in forming my Catholic Clergy. I have arranged it with his Holiness the Pope, who ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... the living tissues trying to defend themselves, Lister returned afresh to the study of methods. He knew that he had to reckon with germs in the wound itself, if the skin was broken, with germs on the hands and instruments of the operator, and with germs on the dust in the air. He must find some defensive power which was able to kill the germs, at least in the first two instances, without exercising an irritating effect on the tissues and weakening their vitality. The relative importance of these various factors in the ...
— Victorian Worthies - Sixteen Biographies • George Henry Blore
... becoming also food for the monsters, they set about fortifying the high hill Gerundewagh, that their lives might be safe from the appalling danger, and within their fortification they collected all sorts of defensive materials. Having made themselves tolerably secure, they had leisure to view the war of extermination, which the snakes waged with the sons of the land who were not ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... themselves, or their friends, from any unjust aggressors; or out of good-nature or in compassion assist an oppressed nation in shaking off the yoke of tyranny. They indeed help their friends, not only in defensive, but also in offensive wars; but they never do that unless they had been consulted before the breach was made, and being satisfied with the grounds on which they went, they had found that all demands of reparation were rejected, so that ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... prince. Most of the people were his slaves and fighting men. His private warriors, or his bodyguard, were armed with krisses, campalans, and spears, with shields of carabao hide, and coats of mail of buffalo-horn, as defensive armor. The favorite weapons of the datto were elaborately inlaid with the ivory cut from the tusks of the wild boar. His dress was also distinctive, and when new must have been very brilliant. It was fastened with pearl buttons, while along the outside seams of his tight pantaloons a row of ...
— The Great White Tribe in Filipinia • Paul T. Gilbert
... line of legions extending its entire length, they must have laughed at such a defence; even when duplicated later, as it was, by the Emperor Hadrian, in 120 A.D.; and still twice again, first by Emperor Antoninus, and then by Severus. For the swift transportation of troops in the defensive warfare always carried on with the Picts and Scots, magnificent roads were built, which linked the Romanized cities together in a network of ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... in the clear briny depths above and beneath! If the angels ever look out of their sphere of intense spiritual realities to indulge in a laugh, methinks such a lonely tripod-sitter, cased over with his invulnerable, non-conducting cloak and hood,—shrinking, dodging, or bracing himself up on the defensive, as the crowd fans him with its rush or jostles up against him,—like the man who fancied himself a teapot, and was forever warning people not to come too near him,—might furnish a subject for a planetary joke not unworthy of translation into the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... succeeded by Alexander Smythe of Virginia, who accomplished nothing of importance during the remainder of the season. The situation of the Americans at the close of 1812 was this: The army of the northwest was occupying a defensive position among the snows of the wilderness on the banks of the Maumee River; the army of the centre, under General Smythe, was resting on the defensive on the Niagara frontier, and the army of the north, under General Bloomfield, was also resting ...
— Sustained honor - The Age of Liberty Established • John R. Musick,
... while he was in such a dream of defensive battle, marking out some strip of street or fortress of steps as the limit of his haughty claim, that the King had met him, and, with a few words flung in mockery, ratified for ever the strange boundaries of his soul. Thenceforward the fanciful idea of ...
— The Napoleon of Notting Hill • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... about the value of their charms and passes, thirty-four of the poor fanatics were lying beside their prophet in front of the redoubt. A number more were carried off hurt or dying, and thenceforward the Taranaki natives were reduced to the defensive. ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... biting air for a moment, dropped it, and the swords were rapidly crossed. The reputation which Rachieff had won as a duellist was certainly well deserved, since his feints and thrusts were admirable, while Denviers, whose coolness in critical circumstances never deserted him, acted mainly on the defensive, parrying his ...
— The Strand Magazine, Volume V, Issue 30, June 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... the insult which they had made me, without their tarnishing the glory that they had merited in chastising the English & the savages, their friends, of their perfidy. We were nevertheless always upon the defensive, & we apprehended being surprised at the place where we were as much on the part of the English, as of those of the savages, their friends; that is why we resolved of coming to establish ourselves in the place where we are at present, & which is, as you see, difficult enough of access for ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... my military operations by stripping the department of troops to the lowest possible defensive limit. But this was what I had so earnestly urged before, when in a subordinate position; and I was glad to do it when the responsibility rested upon me. My loss of troops to Grant was returned with interest as soon as practicable after Vicksburg ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... "A balsamic taste, slightly piquant but agreeable," he observed. "A dangerous wine, Scroggs! It carries no warning; your older kind is like a world-worn coquette whose glances at once place you on the defensive. This maiden vintage, just springing into glorious womanhood, comes over you like ...
— The Strollers • Frederic S. Isham
... the society are carried on: alike in war, in negotiation, and in migration. Afterwards, while this upper class grows distinct from the lower, and at the same time becomes more and more exclusively regulative and defensive in its functions, alike in the persons of kings and subordinate rulers, priests, and soldiers; the inferior class becomes more and more exclusively occupied in providing the necessaries of life for the community at large. From the soil, with which it comes in most ...
— Essays: Scientific, Political, & Speculative, Vol. I • Herbert Spencer
... which should give him the claim of a kinsman. Such a court, however unable to make head against the collective power of Rome, might yet present a front of resistance to any single partisan who should happen to acquire a brief ascendancy; or, at the worst, as a merely defensive power, might offer a retreat, secure in distance, and difficult access; or might be available as a means of delay for recovering from some else fatal defeat. It is certain that Augustus viewed Egypt with jealousy as a province, which might be turned to ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... United States, Running Bear rallied his young men, and they fled the reservation and the ways and protection of the white men, and took to the mountains, where they lived by raiding the ranches in the neighborhood, and maintaining a sort of defensive partnership with Whipple's band ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... asked," said he, "by the committee, whether I have any defensive evidence? I am confounded by such a question. Where is there a possibility of obtaining defensive evidence? Where am I to seek it? I have often, of late, gone to the dungeon of the captive, but never have I gone to the grave of the dead, ...
— Irish Wit and Humor - Anecdote Biography of Swift, Curran, O'Leary and O'Connell • Anonymous
... and—if that were possible to her—more lovable, but, in spite of these things, she could not help feeling that there was something in this new and delightful nature that was foreign to herself ... foreign, and even, subtly, hostile. It seemed to her that in some peculiar way he was on the defensive. Up to a certain point she could enter freely into his confidence, but after that point she knew in her heart that there was something that he denied her. Now, more than ever in her life, she wanted to feel that he was wholly hers; and now, if she ...
— The Tragic Bride • Francis Brett Young
... in her most matter-of-fact voice, giving Geof a glance of quick intelligence, and putting herself instantly on the defensive; "I should have said it was rather touch and go with their feelings. Ah! There's Mr. Kenwick, pretending he doesn't ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... Confederate commander, and it was clear to him that his policy was to husband his resources and preserve them as best he could for the assault, which it was reasonable to expect would occur during the day. He recognized the fact that his guns were only defensive and he had little or no offensive power with which to contend with his adversaries. Acting on this conviction he had the light guns dismounted and covered with sand bags, and the same precaution was adopted to preserve some of the shell guns or fixed carriages. The ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... are formed of bone exquisitely jointed together like the sections of a skull; these are covered externally with a horny skin, forming, no doubt, an excellent defensive armor, about an inch in thickness; but the idea of their being impenetrable to a ball, if struck fair, is a great fallacy. People may perhaps complain because a pea rifle with a mere pinch of powder may be inefficient, but a common No. 16 fowling-piece, with two drachms of powder, ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... victories of the Hebrews, still the Karasmians maintained an immense front, which was constantly supplied by fresh troops. Confident in his numbers, and aware of the weakness of his antagonists, Arslan contented himself with acting on the defensive, and wearying his assailants by resisting ...
— Alroy - The Prince Of The Captivity • Benjamin Disraeli
... measures, and a stronger defensive force than the Province could supply, would be necessary to overawe the hostile purposes displayed by Spain, or repel them if put in execution, Oglethorpe resolved to represent the state of affairs to the British Ministers, and straightway embarking, set sail for England.[1] He arrived ...
— Biographical Memorials of James Oglethorpe • Thaddeus Mason Harris
... Lodi, Castiglione, Rivoli, &c. established his character as a brave and consummate general. Spain had already, towards the end of 1795, concluded not merely a peace with France, but also entered with her into a treaty of alliance, offensive and defensive, which was this year followed up by her declaring war against Great Britain. In Germany, a suspension of arms was concluded between France, Bavaria, Wirtemburgh, and Baden; and Saxony and Hesse agreed to a neutrality, while in Italy peace was made by Parma, Sardinia, and Naples. Bonaparte and the ...
— Memoirs of Henry Hunt, Esq. Volume 1 • Henry Hunt
... imprecation on the eyes, timbers, and psychological existence of Mr. Jennings, very little edifying. One thing, however, made amends for the license of his tongue; the evident sincerity and warmth with which his coarse but kindly nature proffered instant aid, both offensive and defensive. ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... port of the King of Bijapur to Goa; he despatched three ships with artillery and reinforcements to Malacca; and he ordered Dom Garcia de Noronha to blockade Calicut. He then set to work to complete the defensive fortifications of the island of Goa. The events of the preceding siege showed that it was not sufficient to build a wall round the city of Goa, but that the whole island must be adequately fortified. For this purpose he rebuilt ...
— Rulers of India: Albuquerque • Henry Morse Stephens
... illogical to the point of absurdity, for by it the "neutral" State would at once stay in the Union and stand aloof from it. Neutrality really signified a refusal to perform those obligations which nevertheless were admitted to be binding, and it made of the State a defensive barrier for the South, not to be traversed by Northern troops on an errand of hostility against Confederate Secessionists. It was practical "non-coercion" under a name of fairer sound, and it involved the inconsequence of declaring that the dissolution of an indissoluble ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... make it at once a decoy and a hornet's nest. I despise war and men of war so much that I have somewhat studied their campaigns, and I suggested, friend Clayton, that the stairway was a good tactical defensive position—is that the vain term?—to send a volley out the main door, and a flank fire on every door and window on the sides of Cowgill's hall. It also commanded the back yard by a window on the staircase. A door beneath the staircase was barricaded. There was a festival, or feast, given that night, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... In event of disaster the Boers would have seized an immense quantity of military stores accumulated in the camp, and at the railway station. What is worse, they would have isolated the still smaller force lately thrown forward to Dundee, so as to break the strong defensive position of the Biggarsberg, which cuts off the north of Natal, and can only be traversed by three difficult passes. Dundee was just as much threatened from the east frontier beyond the Buffalo River, where the Transvaal Boers of the Utrecht and Vryheid district have been mustered in strong force ...
— Ladysmith - The Diary of a Siege • H. W. Nevinson
... begins actual hostilities without any formalities, the nation invaded is generally assisted by several allies, {352} keeps itself on the defensive, gives orders to those who live at a great distance to join the main body of the nation, prepares logs for building a fort, and every morning sends some warriors out upon the scout, choosing for that purpose those who trust more to their heels ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... politics and warfare is part of the stumbling block in the minds of men. As they see it, a nation is primarily a fighting organization; and its principal business is offensive and defensive warfare; therefore the ultimatum with which they oppose the demand for political equality—"women cannot ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... my inheritance of storms hath been In other elements, and on the rocks Of perils, overlooked or unforeseen, I have sustained my share of worldly shocks, The fault was mine; nor do I seek to screen My errors with defensive paradox;[ac] I have been cunning in mine overthrow, The careful pilot of my ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 4 • Lord Byron
... lips as he asked the question. It was perhaps unfair to so embarrass Frank but Grinnell's substitute back was tempted to "fish" for compliments as a defensive gesture against Coach Edward's analysis of his ability. Should Frank agree that there was very little difference, in his opinion, between Dave and himself, Mack felt that this alone might prove the ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... ought to be attended to, and is of weight in your deliberations on the subject of your last letter. I spent yesterday afternoon and evening with Mr Dickinson. He is a true Bostonian. It is his opinion, that, if Boston can safely remain on the defensive, the liberties of America, which that town has so nobly contended for, will be secured. The congress have, in their resolve of the 17th instant, given their sanction to the resolutions of the county of Suffolk, one of which is to act merely on the ...
— The Writings of Samuel Adams, vol. III. • Samuel Adams
... and at length granted, him satisfaction, and urged by his impatience, he adopted the part of an assailant with inconsiderate eagerness. The Master, with equal skill, and much greater composure, remained chiefly on the defensive, and even declined to avail himself of one or two advantages afforded him by the eagerness of his adversary. At length, in a desperate lunge, which he followed with an attempt to close, Bucklaw's foot slipped, and he fell on the short grassy ...
— Bride of Lammermoor • Sir Walter Scott
... in the dreadful hour when they supposed him lost; and had it not been for the great perplexity occasioned by his return, she would have received him, as a relative, with open arms. But now she felt it her duty to be on the defensive,—an attitude not the most favorable for cherishing pleasing associations in regard to another. She had read the letter giving an account of his spiritual experience with very sincere pleasure, as a good woman should, but not without an internal perception how ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 26, December, 1859 • Various
... succeeded by heavy file-firing from the whole force at the camp. An attack had evidently been made, and a regular fight was going on: it was therefore to be expected that my small force would soon have to act on the defensive. Spare ammunition was quickly in readiness, ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... other apostles, and with them a multitude of people, including some scribes or rabbis.[797] There was evidence of disputation and disturbance amongst the crowd; and plainly the apostles were on the defensive. At the unexpected approach of Jesus many of the people ran to meet Him with respectful salutations. Of the contentious scribes He asked: "What question ye with them?" thus assuming the burden of the dispute, whatever it might be, and so relieving ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... the great catastrophe, he gradually reconquers the territory west of Jordan, and is scheming how to recover also the lost Judah. Thus it comes to protracted struggles between Abner and David, in which fortune is most on the side of the latter; yet he does not leave the defensive or gain the sovereignty over Israel. That falls into his hands rather by treachery. Abner himself, indignant at the ingratitude of his royal nephew, offers the crown to his rival, and enters into negotiations with him about it; but as he immediately afterwards falls a victim ...
— Prolegomena to the History of Israel • Julius Wellhausen
... a naval battle in which he had forty-five ships and three thousand men, while Olaf had less than half that number of men and ships. Olaf won the battle by a shrewd stratagem. He told his men to act at first only on the defensive, holding back their weapons until the enemy ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 9 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. Scandinavian. • Charles Morris
... on to tell me, that, despite this preponderance of armed force on the side of the Johnsons, they were visibly alarmed at the temper of the people and were making preparations to act on the defensive. Sir John had set up cannon on the eminence crowned by the Hall, and his Roman Catholic Highlanders were drilling night and day to perfect themselves as a military body. All sorts of stories came down from Johnstown and up from Guy Park, as to the desperate ...
— In the Valley • Harold Frederic
... are offensive and defensive. The use of force to obtain justice for injuries done, is offensive war. The making use of force against any power that attacks a nation or its privileges, is defensive war. A war may be defensive ...
— The Government Class Book • Andrew W. Young
... executed. The service rendered by this battery has forever set at rest the question of the proper tactical use of the machine gun arm, both on the offensive and defensive. These things are now beyond the realm of theory. They are a demonstrated problem. The solution is universally acknowledged ...
— The Gatlings at Santiago • John H. Parker
... time, as they are still mainly in a pastoral stage, living on the produce of their herds, and eating more meat than bread. They fight and undergo hardships and willingly sacrifice their lives for their country and for liberty. They wear little defensive armour, and depend mainly on their mobility; they are not much good at a close engagement, but generally victors in a running fight, relying more on their activity than ...
— Mediaeval Wales - Chiefly in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Centuries: Six Popular Lectures • A. G. Little
... the savage bands Lead fire and slaughter o'er the labor'd lands; They sack the temples, the gay fields deface, And vow destruction to the Incan race. The king, undaunted in defensive war, Repels their hordes, and speeds their flight afar; Stung with defeat, they range a wider wood, And rouse fresh tribes for future ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... motion, was beginning to breathe quickly. The sweat stood on his brow, he struck more and more wildly, and with less and less strength or aim. He was aware—it could be read in the glare of his eyes—that he was being reduced to the defensive; and he knew that to be fatal. An oath broke from his panting lips and he rushed in again, even more recklessly, more at random than before, his sole object now to kill the other, to stab him at close quarters, no ...
— The Wild Geese • Stanley John Weyman
... true. The spirit of aggressiveness was absolutely foreign to the Polish temperament, to which the preservation of its institutions and its liberties was much more precious than any ideas of conquest. Polish wars were defensive, and they were mostly fought within Poland's own borders. And that those territories were often invaded was but a misfortune arising from its geographical position. Territorial expansion was never the master-thought of Polish statesmen. ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... last turned to the leader who had conquered province after province for it, and had sent him orders to march, with his whole army, to bring the struggle to a close. The soldiers rejoiced at the thought that they were at last to meet a real Burmese army. Hitherto they had generally stood on the defensive, and had to fight the climate rather than the foe; and it seemed to them that the campaign was likely to ...
— On the Irrawaddy - A Story of the First Burmese War • G. A. Henty
... chanced that there was a large tree just out of musket-shot from the main gate of the Abbey, and under this we halted. Had they opened the great doors in order to attack us, I should have charged home upon them; but, as I had expected, they stood upon the defensive, lining the long wall and pouring down a torrent of hootings and taunts and derisive laughter upon us. A few fired their muskets, but finding that we were out of reach they soon ceased to waste ...
— The Exploits Of Brigadier Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... meditates an important design, of a man, in a word, who contemplates a wrong step. Your exterior is disquieting to a woman who knows the consequences of a passion such as yours. Remember that as long as you let it appear that you are making preparations for an attack, you will find her on the defensive. Have you ever heard of a skillful general, who intends to surprise a citadel, announce his design to the enemy upon whom the storm is to descend? In love as in war, does any one ever ask the victor whether he owes his success to force or skill? He has conquered, he receives the crown, ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... property upon the ocean would be withdrawn from one mode of plunder, but left exposed meanwhile to another mode, which could be used with increased effectiveness. The aggressive capacity of great naval powers would be thereby augmented, while the defensive ability of others would be reduced. Though the surrender of the means of prosecuting hostilities by employing privateers, as proposed by the conference of Paris, is mutual in terms, yet in practical effect it would ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Franklin Pierce • Franklin Pierce
... soul might save me the blushing trouble of a reply. I am plunged in, past hope of a retreat; and since my fate has pointed me out for ruin, I cannot fall more gloriously. Take then, Philander, to your dear arms, a maid that can no longer resist, who is disarmed of all defensive power: she yields, she yields, and does confess it too; and sure she must be more than mortal, that can hold out against thy charms and vows. Since I must be undone, and give all away; I'll do it generously, and scorn all mean reserves: I will be brave in love, and lavish ...
— Love-Letters Between a Nobleman and His Sister • Aphra Behn
... Wounded and on the defensive, Missy tried to make her tone chilly. "I wish you wouldn't be so indelicate, Aunt ...
— Missy • Dana Gatlin
... halls in the castle, all of the most quaint and curious forms, but yet of the most elaborate and beautiful workmanship. There were swords, and daggers, and bows and arrows, and spurs, and shields, and coats of mail, and every other species of weapons, offensive and defensive, that the warriors of the middle ages were accustomed to use. Rollo was most interested in the bows and arrows. They were of great size, and were made in a style of workmanship, and ornamented with mountings and decorations, which Rollo had never dreamed of seeing ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... since the conditions that produced the setting up of the defensive machinery were unhappy, I'd say that happiness will play a large part in the situation. That happiness and a normal occupation will do a great deal to maintain the status quo. Of course I would advise no return to the unhappy environment, ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... to the foot of the stairs Bobby waited for a defensive reply, for a sign, perhaps, that the Panamanian was offended and proposed to depart. Paredes, however, went upstairs, ...
— The Abandoned Room • Wadsworth Camp
... Joubert's delay at Paris, and it is certain that the enemy did take Alexandria and Mantua during that month's delay, and thus were enabled to add the besieging forces to their main army, so that Joubert was about to retreat to the Apennines, and to assume a defensive position, when Suvaroff forced him to accept battle. But something should be allowed for the genius of the Russian general, who was one of the great master-spirits of war, and who seldom fought without being completely victorious. He had mostly been employed against the Turks, whose military ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 13, No. 78, April, 1864 • Various
... only little stumps that were hardly an apology for wings. Fred wanted to see the Chinese junks and the little ship, while William was bent on having the Moorish gun, the Turkish sword, the Japanese "happy despatch," and all the other weapons, offensive and defensive, taken down, that he might have a better view of them. The old man, at all times very ready and willing to gratify his little friends, was never more so than when he found them so much interested in the contents of his cabin; for every little curiosity or treasure there had an association ...
— Cast Away in the Cold - An Old Man's Story of a Young Man's Adventures, as Related by Captain John Hardy, Mariner • Isaac I. Hayes
... governments that overshadow them now as mountains overshadow molehills. The Saracens captured and pillaged Genoa nine hundred years ago, but during the following century Genoa and Pisa entered into an offensive and defensive alliance and besieged the Saracen colonies in Sardinia and the Balearic Isles with an obstinacy that maintained its pristine vigor and held to its purpose for forty long years. They were victorious at last and ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... also where this idea that it is necessary artificially to stimulate the defensive zeal of each country by resisting any tendency to agreement and understanding leads. It leads even so good a man as Lord Roberts into the trap of dogmatic prophesy concerning the intentions of a very complex heterogeneous nation of ...
— Peace Theories and the Balkan War • Norman Angell
... quartered in mud hovels, ravaged by disease, and reduced by desertions to three thousand, or at the most to three thousand two hundred men. They had lost nearly all their horses. Far from being able to continue the attack it was hard for them to maintain the defensive and to hold out in those miserable wooden towers, which, as Le Jouvencel said, were more profitable to the besieged than ...
— The Life of Joan of Arc, Vol. 1 and 2 (of 2) • Anatole France
... were rejected, and the contest continued during several years, without any notable achievement on either side, the war being unpopular with the Turkish soldiery; while the civil dissensions of his kingdom, with his consequent inferiority of numbers, kept Sobieski generally on the defensive. In his intrenched camp at Zurawno, with only 15,000 men, he had for twenty days kept at bay 100,000 Turks under the serasker Ibrahim, surnamed Shaitan or the devil, when both sides, weary of the fruitless struggle, agreed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... Britain to go to war merely to prove that she could put herself in a good posture for defence. The main secret of strategy, he would add, is to impose your idea of the campaign on your enemy; to take the initiative out of his hands; to throw him on the defensive and keep him nervously speculating what move of yours may be a feint and what a real attack. If the Ministry had given the Major his head, so to speak, Agincourt at least might ...
— The Mayor of Troy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... strenuous exertions he brought up to a total of 85,000 men. King John sent word that he was coming, lest any should say that he had come secretly as a thief. The Dervishes resolved to remain on the defensive, and, fortifying themselves in an enormous zeriba around the town, ...
— The River War • Winston S. Churchill
... insensible of that proud beat of the heart which is aroused by the fierce joy of combat. Tom struck out first and a blow was parried, but not returned; another and another blow,—still parried, still unreturned. Kenelm, acting evidently on the defensive, took all the advantages for that strategy which he derived from superior length of arm and lighter agility of frame. Perhaps he wished to ascertain the extent of his adversary's skill, or to try the endurance of his wind, before he ventured on the hazards of attack. Tom, galled ...
— Kenelm Chillingly, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Americans, when well officered. Each side cherished the delusion that it had a monopoly of courage and endurance. One Southern man was thought equal to five Northern men in a fair contest, and if the former were given the advantage of a defensive position, any odds of numbers would be taken. There was nearly, though not quite, as much boasting on the part of our own press and people. The first severe battles made an end of the ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... twenty-second day of July, a new treaty was signed at Vienna between the emperor and the kings of Great Britain and Spain, tending to confirm the former. In August, a treaty of union and defensive alliance between the electorates of Saxony and Hanover was executed at Dresden. The court of Spain expressing some doubts with regard to the pregnancy of the duchess of Parma, she underwent a formal ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... was defensive; he expected to be called on for explanations, to be required to soothe resentment; his mental condition was more or less that of a schoolboy expecting ...
— Youth Challenges • Clarence B Kelland
... distinction were either killed or wounded; and the emperor himself, who, on all occasions of danger, inspired and guided the valor of his troops, was obliged to expose his person, and exert his abilities. The weight of offensive and defensive arms, which still constituted the strength and safety of the Romans, disabled them from making any long or effectual pursuit; and as the horsemen of the East were trained to dart their javelins, and shoot their arrows, at full speed, and in every possible direction, [88] the cavalry of ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 2 • Edward Gibbon
... insisted upon serving them with refreshments during the night, but hitherto all her persuasions had been unavailing, for the dangers that beset them on every hand had banished all other thoughts than those of determined defensive operations. ...
— Wild Western Scenes • John Beauchamp Jones
... their galleys, the depredators burned habitations, slew the men, and carried off such women as they thought would fetch a price. They even assaulted castles. At last we were driven to the employment of a defensive guard cooperative on land and water. I was a captain. Our fights with the rovers were frequent and fierce. Neither side ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... threw them into consternation, but they quickly rallied, and now it was plain that they were pressing forward to rush the position occupied by the boys. It was now obvious that the precaution of making the defensive position, as Muro had suggested, ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Adventures on Strange Islands • Roger Thompson Finlay
... encampment, our fires being commanded by a rocky bluff within 50 yards; but, notwithstanding, we had the river and small thickets of willows on the other side. Several times during the day the camp was insulted by the Indians; but, peace being our object, I kept simply on the defensive. Some of the Indians were on the bottoms, and others haranguing us from the bluffs; and they were scattered in every direction over the hills. Their language being probably a dialect of the Utah, with the aid of signs some of our people could comprehend them very well. They were ...
— The Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains, Oregon and California • Brevet Col. J.C. Fremont
... presided over the useful and ornamental arts, both those of men, such as agriculture and navigation, and those of women, spinning, weaving, and needle-work. She was also a warlike divinity; but a lover of defensive war only. She had no sympathy with Mars's savage love of violence and bloodshed. Athens was her chosen seat, her own city, awarded to her as the prize of a contest with Neptune, who also aspired to it. The tale ran that ...
— TITLE • AUTHOR
... somewhat cooled, as similar apprehensions on the part of that lone mariner used to be by the lapse of a long interval without any symptoms of the cannibals, he still observed a regular routine of defensive operations, and never encountered a bonnet without previous survey from his castle of retreat. In the meantime (during which he received no call from Mr Toots, who wrote to say he was out of town) his own ...
— Dombey and Son • Charles Dickens
... in a guarded tone for Doctor Valentine. A moment later George Valentine came into the drawing- room, and the two men exchanged a look strange to their twenty years of affectionate intercourse. Warren attempted mere cold dignity; he was on the defensive, and he knew it. George's look verged on contempt, thinly veiled by a polite interest in his ...
— The Heart of Rachael • Kathleen Norris
... as he moved forward lifted from The Rat's shoulders a load which he himself had not known lay there. Somehow he felt as if something new had happened to him, as if he were not mere "vermin," after all, as if he need not be on the defensive—even as if he need not feel so much in the dark, and like a thing there was no place in the world for. The mere straight and far-seeing look of this man's eyes seemed to make a place somewhere for what he looked at. And yet what ...
— The Lost Prince • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... fibers, which are found in animals on removing the skin. They constitute the red fleshy part of meat, and give form and symmetry to the body. In the limbs they surround and protect the bones, while in the trunk they spread out and constitute a defensive wall for the protection of the vital parts beneath. The muscles have been divided into three parts, of which the middle and fleshy portion, called the belly, is most conspicuous. The other two parts are the opposite ends, and are commonly called the origin and insertion ...
— Popular Education - For the use of Parents and Teachers, and for Young Persons of Both Sexes • Ira Mayhew
... said, "whatever is harsh, aggressive, cynical, mean, sneering, selfish in me has been externally acquired. You scrape even a spineless mollusc too long with a pin, and the irritation produces a defensive crust. I began boy-like by being so damned credulous and impulsive and affectionate and tender-hearted that even my kid sister laughed at me; and she was only three years older than I. Then followed that period of social loneliness, the longing for the companionship of boys and girls—girls ...
— The Firing Line • Robert W. Chambers
... and energies to the like effect in future; we, of our motion and initiative, do appoint him to be governor and procurator-general over the construction and fortification of the city walls, as well as every other sort of defensive operation and munition for the town of Florence, for one year certain, beginning with the present date; adding thereto full authority over all persons in respect to the said work of reparation or pertaining to it." From this preamble it appears ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... him—for Wilding's sake—than from Richard Westmacott. He had taken the bull by the horns in a most desperate fashion when he had determined to hoist Richard and Blake with their own petard, hoping that, after all, the harm would reach no further than the destruction of these two—a purely defensive measure. But now this girl threatened to wreck his scheme just as it was being safely steered to harbour. Suddenly he swung round, ...
— Mistress Wilding • Rafael Sabatini
... that a small nation—a nation of not more than fifteen millions, for example—can have no independent existence in Europe except as a member of a federation of States having similar habits, tendencies, and hopes, and united in an offensive and defensive alliance, or under guarantees given by a group of strong and trustworthy nations. The firm establishment of several such federations, or the giving of such guarantees by a group of powerful and faith-keeping ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... conflict. Heliobas was the taller and more powerful of the two, but Prince Ivan seemed imbued with the spirit of a hundred devils, and sprang at his opponent's throat with the silent breathless ferocity of a tiger. At first Heliobas appeared to be simply on the defensive, and his agile, skilful movements were all used to parry and ward off the other's grappling eagerness. But as I watched the struggle, myself speechless and powerless, I saw his face change. Instead of its calm and almost indifferent expression, there came a look which was completely ...
— A Romance of Two Worlds • Marie Corelli
... he cultivated very friendly relations with the Emperor Frederic II., who concluded a singular defensive alliance with him in 1229, to the indignation of the Pope. He was tolerant to Christians, and listened to the preaching of St. Francis of Assisi; he granted trading concessions to the Venetians and Pisans, who established a consulate at Alexandria. ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol XI. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... javelin than with spear, and the latter weapons were shorter and lighter than those of the Romans. Beric felt that the advantage should be the other way, for the small shields carried by the Britons were inferior as defensive weapons to those of the Romans, and to preserve the balance it was necessary therefore to have longer spears; the more so since the Britons were taller, and far more powerful men than their foes, and should therefore be able, with practice, to use ...
— Beric the Briton - A Story of the Roman Invasion • G. A. Henty
... Brandenburg, and several Bishops, to attack the Evangelical princes. The Electorate of Saxony, where John was just then engaged in completing the re-organisation of the Church, was to be partitioned among them, and Hesse was to be allotted to Duke George. John and Philip quickly formed an offensive and defensive alliance, and called out their troops. The whole scheme, as was shortly proved beyond dispute, was an invention, and the pretended treaty a forgery, of Pack, who had been paid a large sum for his revelations. Luther himself had no doubt of the genuineness ...
— Life of Luther • Julius Koestlin
... very moment just got under way for the first time, and was coming down the Yazoo to gather information of the Federal fleet. The Arkansas, which had been constructed and was now commanded by Captain Isaac N. Brown, formerly of the United States Navy, was, for defensive purposes, probably the most effective of all the gunboats ever set afloat by the Confederacy upon the western waters. Her deck was covered by a single casemate protected by three inches of railroad iron, ...
— History of the Nineteenth Army Corps • Richard Biddle Irwin
... husband, and stipulating conditions for the advantage of both kingdoms; particularly, that she should give sufficient surety to Elizabeth, and the heirs of her body, for the free enjoyment of the crown of England, that a perpetual league, offensive and defensive, should be made between their realms and subjects; that the Protestant religion should be established by law in Scotland; and that she should grant an amnesty to her rebels in ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part D. - From Elizabeth to James I. • David Hume
... shaft was sprung but the propeller was still turning. To a man, the various captains reported that their men had obeyed instructions to the letter. No acts of violence had as yet been committed by any of the American crews. The ex-sailors, though chafing at their inaction, had assumed the defensive throughout. ...
— El Diablo • Brayton Norton
... both trouble, that there's nothing to be got from me but a pretty stout arm considering my years, and this tool, which, mayhap from long acquaintance with, I can use pretty briskly. You shall not have it all your own way, I promise you, if you play at that game. With these words he stood upon the defensive. ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... which rent the air as the meaning of Wendot's words made itself understood. As for the brave lad himself, he had plucked the arrow from his neck, and now stood boldly on guard, resolved to husband his strength and keep on the defensive only, hoping thus to gain time until Griffeth and the armed ...
— The Lord of Dynevor • Evelyn Everett-Green
... colonies seemed at first, destined to become fatal to the settlement of the continent. But had it not been for Indian hostility, the colonies might never have grown together and merged, first into a close defensive alliance, and then into a great and united state. It was mainly the sentiment of the common preservation that brought about the intimate relations which gradually grew up between Puritan, ...
— The Nation in a Nutshell • George Makepeace Towle
... here till the last minute! And I thought I was being so nice to you. Well, I shall know better another time!" Sometime ... at the risk of annoying her, he made up his mind that he would find out where she had gone, and even dreamed of a defensive alliance with Forcheville, who might perhaps have been able to tell him. But anyhow, when he knew with whom she was spending the evening, it was very seldom that he could not discover, among all his innumerable acquaintance, some one who knew—if only indirectly—the man with whom ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... for scalps. Knowing that all the irruptions of savages into Kentucky were encouraged and set on foot from Kaskaskia, Vincennes and Detroit, he suddenly resolved upon the bold project of capturing these strongholds. This would put the British upon the defensive, relieve the frontiers of Kentucky, Virginia and Pennsylvania, and in the end add a vast territory to the domain of the republic. In the accomplishment of all these designs the soil of Kentucky was to be used ...
— The Land of the Miamis • Elmore Barce
... the Constitution to Congress. It is not believed that any attempt will be made to expel the United States from this property by force; but if in this I should prove to be mistaken, the officer in command of the forts has received orders to act strictly on the defensive. In such a contingency the responsibility for consequences would rightfully rest upon the heads of ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 4 (of 4) of Volume 5: James Buchanan • James D. Richardson
... though perhaps the place of that exhilarating commotion was more or less filled by the ever-present diversity of opinion, the excitement of a subdued but never-ended conflict in which one was always on the defensive, and the other covertly or openly attacking, or at least believed to be so doing, the distant and unseen object to which all their thoughts turned. Mrs. Dennistoun, indeed, was not always aggressive, ...
— The Marriage of Elinor • Margaret Oliphant
... mother the last hour," answered Moya, vaguely on the defensive. Since Paul's return there had been little of the old free intercourse in words between them, and without this outlet their mutual consciousness became acute. Often as they saw each other during the day, the keenest emotion attached ...
— The Desert and The Sown • Mary Hallock Foote
... danger, as at the time of the Persian invasions (492-479 B.C.), a number of the States would combine to form a defensive league; at other times they made war on one another. The federal principle, such as we know it in the United States in our state and national governments, never came into play. At different times Athens, Sparta, and Thebes aspired ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... asked Jack. "Remember, these men are ready for fight at any moment. They always expect it, and are prepared. They act in defiance of the government, and know that if caught they will be imprisoned, and they are always on the defensive." ...
— The Hilltop Boys on Lost Island • Cyril Burleigh
... that sight; houses little better than those of the poorest mountain village in the Southern Italy of today, black with smoke, black with dirt, blacker with patches made by shadowy windows that had no glass. A silent town, too, surly and defensive; now and then the call of the water-carrier disturbs the stillness, more rarely, the cry of a wandering peddler; and sometimes a distant sound of hoofs, a far clash of iron and steel, and the echoing yell of furious fighting men—'Orsini!' 'Colonna!'—the long-drawn syllables coming ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford
... there was then nothing ferocious in their conduct. Of bows and arrows not the least indication was perceived, either at these islands or at Coen River; and the spears were too heavy and clumsily made, to be dangerous as offensive weapons: in the defensive, they might have ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... The defensive works which he now built were called Fort Meigs. For the time there was no more talk of invading Canada. The service of the Kentucky and Ohio militia was expiring, and these seasoned regiments were melting away like snow. ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... thing was silent. With some caution she opened it, remembering Jupiter's last unexpected onset; when, looking round by the dim light, she perceived him seated opposite Aunt Peggy's big chest, evidently watching it. On hearing the door open, though, he got up and raised his back, on the defensive. ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... country, are distinguished into tribes, the descendants of different ancestors. Of these there are four principal, who are said to trace their origin to four brothers, and to have been united from time immemorial in a league offensive and defensive; though it may be presumed that the permanency of this bond of union is to be attributed rather to considerations of expediency resulting from their situation than to consanguinity or any ...
— The History of Sumatra - Containing An Account Of The Government, Laws, Customs And - Manners Of The Native Inhabitants • William Marsden
... at once determined on adopting a defensive system of warfare—the only one, indeed, that was practicable with his wretched resources and handful of men. Just at that time General Sarsfield was marching with a strong column to the scene of the insurrection; and at his approach the Castilian Carlists, under Merino and Cuevillas, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 58, Number 358, August 1845 • Various
... cherub cheeks had melted away under the glow of measles, and the hooping process had lengthened and narrowed her small person into a demure little thread-paper of six years old, omnivorous of books, a pet and pickle at school, and a romp at home—the sworn ally, offensive and defensive, of stout, rough-pated, unruly Bernard. Stella was the loveliest little bit of painted porcelain imaginable, quite capable of being his companion, and a perfect little fairy, for beauty, gracefulness, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... themselves upon him, and the struggle began anew. In their rage and impetuosity, however, they fought without method, and the Knight was able for a short interval, by skilful play, to sweep aside their points and to parry their blows. But it forced him to fight wholly on the defensive, and his age and wounds left no doubt as to the ultimate result. His arm grew tired, and the grip on his sword hilt weakened. . . His enemies pressed him closer and closer. . . A blow got past his guard and pierced his thigh. ...
— Beatrix of Clare • John Reed Scott
... Rome stood on seven hills on the south shore of the Tiber 5 River, which formed a part of the inner defensive works of the city. Only one bridge—a wooden affair—spanned the river. Across the Tiber was the Janiculum, a hill fortified as ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... for defensive purposes, i. e., to keep away evil, in the form of demons, disease, or misfortune, but they might, especially the talisman, also attract good. Their power was of a magical character, and was exercised in ...
— Three Thousand Years of Mental Healing • George Barton Cutten
... beside the Adriatic and in Ra[vs]ka were not only separated from early days by their religion; they had quite different neighbours to deal with. In 887 the Croats imposed their will on the Venetians, against whom they had been for some time waging war—and not merely a defensive war—the Venetians having attacked the country in order to despoil it of timber and of people, whom they liked to sell in the markets of the Levant. In 887, however, after the defeat and death of their doge, Pietro Candiano, ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... Antonovitch Kovroff, the "captain of the Golden Band." Their recognition was mutual, and, after a more or less faithful recital of the events of the intervening years, they had entered into an offensive and defensive alliance. ...
— The Most Interesting Stories of All Nations • Julian Hawthorne
... James River, to transfer the army to the south side, and besiege Lee in Richmond, or follow him south if he should retreat. After the battle of the Wilderness, it was evident that the enemy deemed it of the first importance to run no risks with the army he then had. He acted purely on the defensive, behind breastworks, or feebly on the offensive immediately in front of them, and where, in case of repulse, he could easily retire behind them. Without a greater sacrifice of life than I was willing ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... were as nearly as possible the very words of my father; for they made an impression on me that I could hardly account for: and as he had recently been explaining to the children the nature of a hauberk, as a coat of defensive armor, and remarking on its pliancy and being often worn out of sight, the metaphor fixed itself ...
— Jacques Bonneval • Anne Manning
... children of both sexes practice from the time that they are able to throw a rush; their first essay. It forms their constant recreation. They afterwards heave at each other with pointed twigs. He who acts on the defensive holds a piece of new soft bark in the left hand, to represent a shield, in which he receives the darts of the assailant, the points sticking in it. Now commences his turn. He extracts the twigs and darts them back at the first thrower, who catches them similarly. In warding off the spear they never ...
— A Complete Account of the Settlement at Port Jackson • Watkin Tench
... the wonder framed; an olive spread Full in the court its ever verdant head. Vast as some mighty column's bulk, on high The huge trunk rose, and heaved into the sky; Around the tree I raised a nuptial bower, And roof'd defensive of the storm and shower; The spacious valve, with art inwrought conjoins; And the fair dome with polished marble shines. I lopp'd the branchy head: aloft in twain Sever'd the bole, and smoothed the shining grain; Then posts, capacious of the frame, I raise, And ...
— The Odyssey of Homer • Homer, translated by Alexander Pope
... Cawnpore eighty-three officers of various regiments, sixty men of the Eighty-fourth Regiment, and seventy of the Thirty-second, fifteen of the First Madras Fusiliers, and a few invalid gunners; the whole defensive force consisting of about two hundred and forty men, and six guns. There were under their charge a large number of ladies and children, the wives and families of the officers and civilians at the station, sixty-four women ...
— In Times of Peril • G. A. Henty
... no iron weapons, but fight with stones and wooden daggers; they go naked except for a defensive armour of goat-skins, which they wear in front and behind. Houses they have none, not even the poorest huts, but live in mountain caves, without faith, without God. Some indeed worship the sun and moon, and others planets, reverence ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... the meanest of his subjects, who never took their hats off when they came into his presence; and as singular for a Government to be without one priest in it, and for a people to be without arms, either offensive or defensive; for a body of citizens to be absolutely undistinguished but by the public employments, and for neighbours not to entertain the least jealousy one ...
— Letters on England • Voltaire
... of the Earl's agents were revealed to him, he felt more and more convinced that there was a deep laid scheme to destroy the government, and to constitute a virtual and absolute sovereignty for Leicester. It was not wonderful that the States were standing vigorously on the defensive. ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... fifth, seventh, and latter part of the fourth, Sections. It is difficult, writing as Cotton Mather often did, and had great skill in doing, in what Calef calls "the ambidexter" style, to ascertain his ideas. After the reaction had taken effect in the public mind, and he was put upon the defensive, he had much to say about some difference between him and the Judges. It clearly had nothing to do with the "admission" of spectral evidence; for that was the point on which the opinion of the Ministers was asked, and on which he voluntarily proffered remarks in ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... colouring, and somewhat in features, but the taxi driver was a powerful, well-fleshed man who glared at the world aggressively, being really on the defensive against his own heart. His nephew, of the same height, was thin, well-dressed, quiet and indifferent in his manner. And yet ...
— England, My England • D.H. Lawrence
... into his premises, hailed them in a loud voice, promising that if they did not cease their hammering, and surrender, he would put them every one to death. So far from attending to his suggestion the thumps increased in rapidity and violence, and he had scarcely time to put himself in a defensive position when the door burst open and out rushed his assailants—a multitude of round figures of all sizes, without heads, legs, or arms! His first thought was that the supernatural existences of New South Wales had now for the first ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... follows him on foot, and the ardour of the chase does not prevent him from being constantly on guard. This is because the snake, finding himself nearly overtaken, suddenly turns round, ready to use his defensive weapons. The bird stops, and turns in one of his wings to protect the lower parts of his body. A real duel then begins. The snake throws himself on his enemy, who at each stroke parries with the end of his wing; ...
— The Industries of Animals • Frederic Houssay
... false as it was, turned the scale in favour of Corcyra, and a defensive alliance was concluded, pledging the Athenians and Corcyraeans to aid each other against any attack on the territory or allies of either state. For the Athenians wished to avoid breaking the Thirty Years' Truce, and therefore refrained from entering into any agreement ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... at Waterloo. It is true, the Emperor sent Marshal Grouchy the next day at noon, with thirty-two thousand men to look after the enemy, but then it was quite too late. In those fifteen hours they had time to re-form, to communicate with the English, and to act on the defensive. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... fiction? What if he had left her for good? It would not be unlikehim, after all. Under his wonderful gentleness he was always evasive and inscrutable. He might have said to himself that he would forestall her action, and place himself at once on the defensive. It might be that she had seen him go out of the gate forthe ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... that honesty is always the best policy. I repeat it; therefore, let those engagements be observed in their genuine sense; but in my opinion it is unnecessary, and would be unwise, to extend them. Taking care always to keep ourselves, by suitable establishments, in a respectable defensive posture, we may safely trust to temporary alliances for extraordinary emergencies." In a previous part of the same letter Washington makes the following admirable and just remark: "The nation which indulges towards ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... Government contracts. If it be admitted, however, that we have not sufficient data to make this suggestion more than probable, we can at any rate be certain of the effect produced by the mere numbers of an invading army or a defensive garrison. The Jewish traders of Salonica enjoyed a time of unexampled prosperity in 1912 and 1913, owing to the mere presence of the Turkish, the Greek and the Bulgarian armies, to whom they sold out at their own prices.[49] They are now repeating ...
— The World in Chains - Some Aspects of War and Trade • John Mavrogordato
... saw blacks for the first time since leaving Carpentaria Downs. They "rounded them up," and had a parley, without hostility on either side, each being on the defensive, and observing the other. They bore no distinctive character, or apparent difference to the Rockhampton tribes, and were armed with reed speers and wommerahs. For the first time also they met with the ripe fruit of the Palinaria, the "Nonda" of Leichhardt. The ...
— The Overland Expedition of The Messrs. Jardine • Frank Jardine and Alexander Jardine
... opportunity, for Mr. Pye Hilary is in love, in despair, and in waiting: he expects his mistress's abigail; in negociating with whom, he conceives Tarradiddle will be a valuable assistant. Mrs. Tattle arrives. Preliminaries having been duly settled, articles offensive and defensive are entered into, to carry out a plan by which the lover shall gain an interview with the mistress; and the treaty is ratified by a liberal donation, which the Captain makes to the maid out of his friend's purse. The servant is satisfied, and goes off in the utmost ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... full as thoroughly as it informs his theory of language. He not only employs it wherever it might be useful: he goes out of his way to find it, he shovels it in on any and every occasion, he bemerds his readers and himself with a gusto that assuredly is not a common characteristic of defensive operations. In him, indeed, the humour of Old France—the broad, rank, unsavoury esprit gaulois—found its heroic expression; he made use of it because he must; and we can no more eliminate it from his work than we can remove the quality of imagination from Shakespeare's or those of ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... an attack. A force of cavalry crossed the brook, indeed, and rode slowly along our front, evidently taking stock of our position and numbers. With this we did not attempt to interfere, as our decision was to stand strictly on the defensive, and not to waste a single man. The men breakfasted and stood to their arms, and the hours wore on. About midday, when the men were eating their dinner, for we thought they would fight better on full stomachs, ...
— Allan Quatermain • by H. Rider Haggard
... strike. The Tsar's government was inspired by analogous motives. Before the war was terminated I repaired to London on behalf of Russia, in order to propose to the Japanese government, in addition to the treaty of peace which was about to be discussed at Portsmouth, an offensive and defensive alliance, and to ask that Prince Ito be sent as first plenipotentiary, invested with full powers to conclude ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... the frontier, where it met the opposing force headed by Brandatimor himself, who was full of fury, determined to avenge the insult to his Ambassador and to possess himself of the Princess Sabella. All the army of Farda-Kinbras could do, being so heavily outnumbered, was to act upon the defensive, and before long Mannikin won the esteem of the officers for his ability, and of the soldiers for his courage, and care for their welfare, and in all the skirmishes which he conducted he had the good fortune to vanquish ...
— The Green Fairy Book • Various
... French ingenuity mentioned in the text is noticed by some authorities of the period; the siege of Leith was also distinguished by the protracted obstinacy of the besieged, in which was displayed all that the age possessed of defensive war, so that Brantome records that those who witnessed this siege, had, from that very circumstance, a degree of consequence yielded to their persons and opinions. He tells a story of Strozzi himself, from which it appears that ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott
... serves not only for defensive purposes, but is also very useful, and, indeed, absolutely necessary, as rendering possible the division of labour. (33) If men did not render mutual assistance to each other, no one would have either the skill or the time to provide for his own sustenance and preservation: for all men ...
— A Theologico-Political Treatise [Part I] • Benedict de Spinoza
... he never killed or seriously wounded such an opponent. If his antagonist had an unusually perfect guard and a notably dangerous attack, was handsome, moved gracefully, displayed courage and fought with impeccable fairness Palus felt a liking for him, showed it by the way in which he stood on the defensive and mitigated the deadliness of his attacks, played him longer than usual to demonstrate to all the spectators the qualities he discerned in him, and, when he was convinced that the onlookers felt as he felt, disabled his admired match with some effective ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... Brooklyn, on the outskirts of the great park, while the fledglings grew, and the nest was full when the last of our little pile had gone to make it snug. Rent was getting higher all the time, and the deeper I burrowed in the slum, the more my thoughts turned, by a sort of defensive instinct, to the country. My wife laughed, and said I should have thought of that while we yet had some money to buy or build with, but I borrowed no trouble on that score. I was never a good business man, as I have said before, and yet—no! I will take that back. It is going back on ...
— The Making of an American • Jacob A. Riis
... place soon after the 10th of June. A frigate brought the orders to set all ships and cannon in defensive condition; an East Indian ship had reported the proximity of many American privateers. One of these had even been captured. The Hessian officers thereupon set all cannon in order and arranged for the distribution of the men in the case of an attack. The commodore ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... strategic idea embodied in the purpose of the fortress was purely defensive; in the event of war with Russia only the line of the San and Dniester was intended to be held at all costs, while the whole northeastern portion of Galicia was to be abandoned. With the fortress ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... maiden aunt, always on the defensive, never without the idea that someone is waging war against her. Yet she has to be treated civilly, and humored. Has she not that which some people term "filthy lucre," but never really think so? Have these old ladies ever had any youth? Have they ever danced ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... gods of their fathers. [14] The Lombards, and their confederates, were united by their common attachment to a chief, who excelled in all the virtues and vices of a savage hero; and the vigilance of Alboin provided an ample magazine of offensive and defensive arms for the use of the expedition. The portable wealth of the Lombards attended the march: their lands they cheerfully relinquished to the Avars, on the solemn promise, which was made and accepted without a smile, that if they failed in the conquest of Italy, ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... argument against the sedition law was, that the offences which it punished were sufficiently provided for already by the common law as it stood. But the traverser is not content with acting merely on the defensive. It appears that he is a persecuted innocent man; upon an illegal warrant, without proper evidence, attacked, robbed, put in jail; all for having a few harmless publications about him. Why does not this persecuted man ...
— The Trial of Reuben Crandall, M.D. Charged with Publishing and Circulating Seditious and Incendiary Papers, &c. in the District of Columbia, with the Intent of Exciting Servile Insurrection. • Unknown
... wounded men in an engine-house for them; she would do everything but her duty,—the gallant Ancient Pistol of a commonwealth. She "resumed her sovereignty," whatever that meant; her Convention passed an ordinance of secession, concluded a league offensive and defensive with the rebel Confederacy, appointed Jefferson Davis commander-in-chief of her land-forces and somebody else of the fleet she meant to steal at Norfolk, and then coolly referred the whole matter back to the ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 44, June, 1861 • Various
... at least equal to her in power and consideration; nor can we forbear observing, that the second article of our treaty of alliance with his Most Christian Majesty declares, 'That the essential and direct end of the present defensive alliance is, to maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty, and independence, absolute and unlimited, of the said United States, as well in matters of ...
— The Diplomatic Correspondence of the American Revolution, Vol. VIII • Various
... her heartily, but without offering his hand. He brushed past her half-defensive figure with scant ceremony, and entered the kitchen. "Hello, Pennold. Thought I might find you home this ...
— The Crevice • William John Burns and Isabel Ostrander
... her mobile lips were curled slightly upward, with just a suggestion of scorn. Unhappiness is no great promoter of the courtesies of life, and if she was conscious of wrong-doing, she was far from being on the defensive. ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... ADMIRAL TOMBSTONE. Defensive? aye, aye—if we can defend our bellies from hunger, and prevent a mutiny and civil war among the small guts there this winter, we shall make a glorious campaign of it, indeed—it will read well in ...
— The Fall of British Tyranny - American Liberty Triumphant • John Leacock
... resting upon the banks of the river. At intervals along the whole line of the army were field-pieces and Maxims, and the gunboats were within reach to aid in shelling the enemy. The British soldiers then built a square sand rampart called a zarilea, and their Egyptian allies dug defensive trenches. ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 12 (of 12) • S. Rappoport
... there for a long time, mulling the thing over. The Staff was laying tremendous stress on the enemy's strange cloud formation, even to the extent of disclosing the secret of the new defensive device. The Easterners, too, had something novel, something that would cut off absolutely the transmission of ether waves. Nothing either side had yet produced would do that. What was happening behind that screen? Would they break through ...
— Astounding Stories, May, 1931 • Various
... that. He would not love me because he chose to do so, but because he could not help doing so. At least, that is my idea of love. He would love me as I was, with all my faults and follies, and I should love him the same way. I should be as proud of his personality as I would be defensive of my own. I should not ask him to be like me; I should only ask him to be truly himself and to let me be truly myself. If our personalities diverged, perhaps they would go around the circle and meet on the ...
— The Precipice • Elia Wilkinson Peattie
... course since the conditions that produced the setting up of the defensive machinery were unhappy, I'd say that happiness will play a large part in the situation. That happiness and a normal occupation will do a great deal to maintain the status quo. Of course I would advise no return to the unhappy environment, and no shocks. ...
— The Breaking Point • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... is sensible. Naturally he wants to live. He knows we'll shoot him if he tries to trick us, and he knows we'll do it if we're attacked! We'll of course leave men at all defensive stations. If there is a weakness here, if the ranch is vulnerable—we should learn what it is. It'll cost us nothing. We can't lose, and we might be saving everything. Of course we won't let him ...
— The Bluff of the Hawk • Anthony Gilmore
... doesn't speak to you in work hours?" asked Mary, with a mischievous glance that would have surprised her mill mates had they seen it. Already the leaven of kindness was working in her neglected life, and for the moment she forgot to be upon the defensive against ...
— Reels and Spindles - A Story of Mill Life • Evelyn Raymond
... suggestion. Cut the second, 'The Fiend in Discourse,' represents him, not reasoning, railing rather, shaking his spear at the pilgrim, his shoulder advanced, his tail writhing in the air, his foot ready for a spring, while Christian stands back a little, timidly defensive. The third illustrates these magnificent words: 'Then Apollyon straddled quite over the whole breadth of the way, and said, I am void of fear in this matter: prepare thyself to die; for I swear by my infernal den that thou ...
— Lay Morals • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Germans had superiority in the air. They had concentrated on aircraft the effort which we had expended on perfecting the tank. The one can be used effectively in wet weather, but the other cannot. The German had another defensive surprise for us. Owing to the nature of the ground the deep dugout was practically an impossibility. In the place, therefore, of this the German devised the concrete blockhouse or 'pill-box' as it was called. For miles behind their ...
— Q.6.a and Other places - Recollections of 1916, 1917 and 1918 • Francis Buckley
... Altogether, their defensive force consisted now, therefore, of the lieutenant, captain, and three other officers—for Sprott would fight, and Jack Harper was quite as good with a revolver as any of his seniors—and fifteen men, counting in Snowball, ...
— The Penang Pirate - and, The Lost Pinnace • John Conroy Hutcheson
... playing chess and checkers, and usually acted cautiously upon the defensive until the game had reached a stage where aggressive movements were clearly justified. He was also somewhat fond of ten-pins, and occasionally indulged in a game. Whatever may have been his tastes in his younger days, at this period ...
— The Every-day Life of Abraham Lincoln • Francis Fisher Browne
... his opinion. This produced an argument, and Mr. Randolph now played off on him the same arts which he himself had so often practiced on his country customers; drawing him out by questions, endeavoring to puzzle him by subtleties, assailing him with declamation, and watching continually the defensive operations of his mind. After a considerable discussion, he said, 'You defend your opinions well, sir; but now to the law and to the testimony.' Hereupon he carried him to his office, and, opening the authorities, ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... that," she said, on the defensive. "And you're not to tell. It's the last day of ...
— Boy Woodburn - A Story of the Sussex Downs • Alfred Ollivant
... between Russia and Japan for the control of Eastern Asia or between Germany and France for the control of the iron and coal deposits of Western Europe. In such cases the wars are justified to the home populations as necessary defensive measures. ...
— The Next Step - A Plan for Economic World Federation • Scott Nearing
... gun, the one to conquer the forces of wild nature, the other to battle against savage man and beast—these were the twin weapons that the pioneer always kept beside him, whether on the march or during a halt. In defensive warfare the axe was scarcely less potent than the gun, for with its keen edge the great logs were hewed which formed the block-house, and the tall saplings shaped, which were driven into the earth to make the stockade. We know too that woman could ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... await the return of my father & my uncle, who would revenge upon the English the insult which they had made me, without their tarnishing the glory that they had merited in chastising the English & the savages, their friends, of their perfidy. We were nevertheless always upon the defensive, & we apprehended being surprised at the place where we were as much on the part of the English, as of those of the savages, their friends; that is why we resolved of coming to establish ourselves in the place ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... many years. The chronic form is characterized by periods of slow or rapid advance when conditions arise in the body favorable for the growth of the bacilli, and periods when the disease is checked and quiescent, the defensive forces of the body having gained the upper hand. Often the intervention of some other disease so weakens the defences of the body that the bacilli again find their opportunity. Thus typhoid fever, scarlet fever and other diseases may be followed by a rapidly fatal advance of the tuberculosis, ...
— Disease and Its Causes • William Thomas Councilman
... the days grew shorter and there was an end to the pretty tea-parties on the lawn. But our young woman had long indoor conversations with her fellow visitor, and in spite of the rain the two ladies often sallied forth for a walk, equipped with the defensive apparatus which the English climate and the English genius have between them brought to such perfection. Madame Merle liked almost everything, including the English rain. "There's always a little of it and never too much at once," she said; "and it never wets you and ...
— The Portrait of a Lady - Volume 1 (of 2) • Henry James
... of it before, but I will think of it now," said Warner. "In any event, we are quite sure that the President has a great task before him. We hear that the South will soon have a quarter of a million troops in the field. Her position on the defensive is perhaps worth as many more men to her. Hence let x equal her troops, let y equal her defensive, and we have x plus y, which is equal to half a million men, the number we must have before we can meet the South ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he saw them to be middle-aged and young—a mother and daughter evidently. The elder with a quick, defensive movement walked to the doorway and stood there, blocking it. He heard the younger exclaim, "A tramp!" and then she came forward, squeezing in beside her mother. Hostility and apprehension were on both ...
— Treasure and Trouble Therewith - A Tale of California • Geraldine Bonner
... wasted blow, and with a dexterous twist laid him flat on his back, with a sounding thump upon the deck. And as the infuriated scamp rose—which he did with a bound that placed him on his feet and in defensive posture; as though the deck had been a spring-board—Kirkwood leaped back, seized a capstan-bar, and ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... at the spitting business, and well up in the trade, can do a smart thing or two in the defensive line—as when confronted by a dog, for instance. If the feline can only keep up a vigorous and well directed spitting, the canine is almost sure to retreat, with his tail between his legs, (if it is not ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 15, July 9, 1870 • Various
... need only a set of notes to reveal their approximate faithfulness to things that actually happened. But there is an emphasis upon revolt and disillusion and confusion in these latest novels that is new. They are no longer on the defensive, no longer stories of boys struggling to adapt themselves to a difficult world (men of forty- odd still write such stories); their authors are on the offensive, and with a reckless desire to accomplish their objectives, ...
— Definitions • Henry Seidel Canby
... her mother's, and her curly hair, he preserved a frozen indifference. For Camors had other anxieties, of which Madame de Tecle knew nothing. The manner of Madame Campvallon toward him had assumed a more marked character of aggressive raillery. A defensive attitude is never agreeable to a man, and Camors felt it more disagreeable than most men—being so ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... He suggested that she should remove her mackintosh. She consented. He had no idea that the effect of the removal of the mackintosh would be so startling as it was. She stood intimately revealed in her frock. The mackintosh was formal and defensive; the ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... forts north of the city. The point of Namur, as we shall see in a moment, was twofold. First, its fortifications, so long as they held out, commanded the crossings both of the Sambre and of the Meuse within the angle of which the French defensive lay; secondly, its fortified zone formed the support whereupon the whole French right reposed. It was this unexpected collapse of the Belgian defence of Namur which, coupled with the unexpected magnitude of the forces Germany had been able ...
— A General Sketch of the European War - The First Phase • Hilaire Belloc
... fortune or a competence, inspires its possessor with anti-revolutionary sentiments; consequently, he is for the moment an obstruction; "You are rich," says Cambon, making use of a personification, "you cherish an opinion, which compels us to be on the defensive; pay then, so as to indemnify us and be thankful for our indulgence which, precautionary and until peace is declared, keeps you under bolt and bar."[41122] Rich, anti-revolutionary, and vicious," according to Robespierre,[41123] "these three traits depend ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... furious strokes from without resounded upon the door. Robin, Marian, and the baron threw by their pilgrim's attire, and stood in arms on the defensive. They were provided with swords, and the cottager gave them bucklers and helmets, for all Robin's haunts were furnished with secret armouries. But they kept their swords sheathed, and the baron wielded a ponderous spear, which he pointed towards the door ...
— Maid Marian • Thomas Love Peacock
... financial genius was constantly being rewarded by many new phases of materiality chiefly by an offensive and defensive alliance he was now able to engineer between himself and the house of Haeckelheimer, Gotloeb & Co. Seeing the iron manner in which he had managed to wrest victory out of defeat after the first seriously contested election, these gentlemen had experienced a change of heart and announced that they ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... adversaries of the forest. It was Ralph who became incautious. His fury could not long be held in check, and his cunning at the start of the fight soon gave place to a wild and slashing onslaught, while Nick fought on the defensive, reading in his brother's eyes the warning ...
— In the Brooding Wild • Ridgwell Cullum
... falling-back: "It was totally unexpected to me: I thought it was part of the plan to attack him as quickly as possible. We had surprised them, and were strong enough to attack them." "After Friday I was apprehensive we should not have the success we had expected." "I think it was a mistake to fight a defensive battle after surprising the enemy." "I think we should have attacked the enemy immediately." "I must give my opinion, since you ask me; for I have an opinion, as a military man, from the general facts I know, and that I suppose I am obliged to ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... all of the most quaint and curious forms, but yet of the most elaborate and beautiful workmanship. There were swords, and daggers, and bows and arrows, and spurs, and shields, and coats of mail, and every other species of weapons, offensive and defensive, that the warriors of the middle ages were accustomed to use. Rollo was most interested in the bows and arrows. They were of great size, and were made in a style of workmanship, and ornamented with mountings and decorations, which Rollo had ...
— Rollo on the Rhine • Jacob Abbott
... architecture should persist through such long series of compulsory removals, but while the builders were held together by the necessity for defense against their wilder neighbors or against each other, this strong defensive motive would perpetuate the laborious type of construction. Such conditions would contribute to the rapid development of ...
— A Study of Pueblo Architecture: Tusayan and Cibola • Victor Mindeleff and Cosmos Mindeleff
... his religion upon the people of the Netherlands, or to utterly exterminate them. Upon the other were a scanty people, fishermen, sailors, and agriculturalists, broken up into communities with but little bond of sympathy, and no communication, standing only on the defensive, and relying solely upon the justice of their cause, their own stout hearts, their noble prince, and their one ally, the ocean. Cruelty, persecution, and massacre had converted this race of peace loving workers into heroes capable ...
— By Pike and Dyke: A Tale of the Rise of the Dutch Republic • G.A. Henty
... to denounce the existing system of government. Working in close co-operation with the Amsterdam Chamber of the West India Company, he played a skilful game, and succeeded in delaying and in part averting hostile action on the part of the States General. The piece which follows is his chief defensive recital of the acts of the administration, and ...
— Narrative of New Netherland • J. F. Jameson, Editor
... of his machine, and presented his stooping back in a defensive manner against anyone who might come out. He wasn't a footman, anyhow. He'd rung that bell all right, and now he must see to ...
— The Wife of Sir Isaac Harman • H. G. (Herbert George) Wells
... time, indeed, since the beginning of the Protectorate, had there been such activity in that foreign and diplomatic department of the Protector's service to which Milton belonged. Cromwell's alliance offensive and defensive with France against Spain (March 23, 1656-7), leading immediately to the transport of an English auxiliary army under General Reynolds to co-operate with the French in Flanders (ante pp. 140-141), would in itself have caused an increase of such activity; but, in addition ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... before she found her vicious legs again. And a mile beyond them, at the foot of a long hill, was Rattlesnake Creek. Dick knew that here was the crucial test of his ability to perform his enterprise, set his teeth grimly, put his knees well into her flanks, and changed his defensive tactics to brisk aggression. Bullied and maddened, Jovita began the descent of the hill. Here the artful Richard pretended to hold her in with ostentatious objurgation and well-feigned cries of alarm. It is unnecessary to add that Jovita instantly ran away. Nor need I state ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... perfect in her somewhat different style. She might be called impressive and imposing in her grand-costume, which she wore for this visit. It was a black silk dress, with a crape shawl, a firmly defensive bonnet, and an alpaca umbrella with a stern-looking and decided knob presiding as its handle. The dried-leaf rustle of her silk dress was suggestive of the ripe autumn of life, bringing with it those golden fruits of wisdom and experience ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... belongeth vengeance and recompense." Personally I blame the press for loss of life to both the Indian and the white men, for having schooled the white man erroneously. Travelers crossing the plains were always on the defensive, and ever ready to commence war on any Indian who came within the radius of their firearms. When I was a boy I read in my reader: "Lo, the cowardly Indian." The picture above this sentence was that of an Indian in war ...
— The Second William Penn - A true account of incidents that happened along the - old Santa Fe Trail • William H. Ryus
... internal trouble in the American contingent, and that one of the officers is hated. Whether this is really so or not, I do not know; we never know anything certain now. But although the American has but little discipline, as a sharpshooter on the defensive he is quite unrivalled by reason of his superior intelligence and the interest he takes in devoting himself to the matter in hand. You only have to see these mutinous marines at work for five minutes as snipers ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... soon after the 10th of June. A frigate brought the orders to set all ships and cannon in defensive condition; an East Indian ship had reported the proximity of many American privateers. One of these had even been captured. The Hessian officers thereupon set all cannon in order and arranged for the distribution of the men in the case of an attack. ...
— The Voyage of The First Hessian Army from Portsmouth to New York, 1776 • Albert Pfister
... justification the later masters of the old school were only dimly conscious. They builded better than they knew. When any teacher of the transition period was called upon to explain his manner of imparting the correct vocal action he was at once put on the defensive. No champion of the imitative faculty could be found. This lack of understanding of the basis of the empirical method, on the part of its most intelligent and successful exponents, was the first cause of the weakness of this method ...
— The Psychology of Singing - A Rational Method of Voice Culture Based on a Scientific Analysis of All Systems, Ancient and Modern • David C. Taylor
... his own dominions. The king of Sardinia augmented his forces to six-and-thirty thousand; and the Austrian army, under the prince of Lichtenstein, amounted to a much greater number; so that the enemy were reduced to the necessity of acting on the defensive, and retired towards the Mantuan. In February, baron Leutrum, the Piedmontese general, invested and took the strong fortress of Aste. He afterwards relieved the citadel of Alexandria, which the Spaniards ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... traced back in a similar way, though it must be admitted that the racial survivals are usually less convincing than those from the infancy of the individual. The nasal expression in disgust was originally a defensive movement against bad odors; and the set lips of determination went primarily with the set glottis and rigid chest that are useful in lifting heavy weights or in other severe muscular efforts. Such movements, directly useful in certain simple situations, become ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... founded in 1291 as a defensive alliance among three cantons. In succeeding years, other localities joined the original three. The Swiss Confederation secured its independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1499. Switzerland's sovreignty and neutrality have long been ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... dreaded not so much because she was actually of much importance, but because she might be. That empire was Russia. The last thing in the world Bismarck desired was precisely that approximation between France and Russia which ended in the strange phenomenon of an offensive and defensive alliance between a western republic and a ...
— Armageddon—And After • W. L. Courtney
... was told, but he realised they had been speaking of him and felt on the defensive. However, he sat down as near to Caesar as he could. They talked of all manner of people and things of which he knew nothing, traditional jokes cropped up, and Aymer's propensity for teasing asserted itself in a prominent manner. Renata never failed to respond ...
— Christopher Hibbault, Roadmaker • Marguerite Bryant
... deliberately stilled his rage and objectively considered what he should do about it. With the obvious source of the androids logically deduced, there was only his own defensive procedures to be considered. And they had to be considered carefully. As he saw himself, he stood alone, against a group of bumbling idiots, with the future of the nation at stake. What ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... all defensive armour, is far the most prominent. They were often painted with devices, such as Hamlet's shield, Hildiger's Swedish shield. Dr. Vigfusson has shown the importance of these painted shields in the ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... the horse, they kept from fighting a long time; for the soothsayers, by the sacrifices, foretold the victory both to Greeks and Persians, if they stood upon the defensive part only, but if they became aggressors, the contrary. At length Mardonious, when he had but a few days' provision, and the Greek forces were increasing continually, impatient of delay, determined to lie still no longer, but passing ...
— The Boys' and Girls' Plutarch - Being Parts of The "Lives" of Plutarch • Plutarch
... the reason Roye was not considered in need of a serious defensive effort by Earth's strategists—the vast distances between it and any troubled area, and so the utter improbability that a Geest ship might come close enough to discover that here was another world as well suited for its race as for human beings. And then a final factor: the instrument attached ...
— Watch the Sky • James H. Schmitz
... aeroplane until he had it about where he thought Jack would want it. The latter pressed the releasing lever and the bomb descended. It was the most powerful of the lot, and when it struck and exploded it not only demolished the defensive battery, making a hole in the place where it had stood, but it tore down part of the prison fence, and made such destruction generally ...
— Air Service Boys in the Big Battle • Charles Amory Beach
... which lash its exposed and sea-girt site. Three other ancient towers, including the barbican already mentioned, strengthened the position; and others, with ramparts, curtains, and bastions, were added to the works in succeeding times, till the whole circuit of the rocky plateau bristles with defensive works. Within these the town is closely packed in narrow streets;—but of ...
— Rambles in the Islands of Corsica and Sardinia - with Notices of their History, Antiquities, and Present Condition. • Thomas Forester
... reverenced the sublime mind of Mr. Falkland; I reverenced it still. My offence had merely been a mistaken thirst of knowledge. Such however it was, as to admit neither of forgiveness nor remission. This epoch was the crisis of my fate, dividing what may be called the offensive part from the defensive, which has been the sole business of my remaining years. Alas! my offence was short, not aggravated by any sinister intention: but the reprisals I was to suffer are long, and can terminate only with ...
— Caleb Williams - Things As They Are • William Godwin
... or near the base of the mountain the party found the other apostles, and with them a multitude of people, including some scribes or rabbis.[797] There was evidence of disputation and disturbance amongst the crowd; and plainly the apostles were on the defensive. At the unexpected approach of Jesus many of the people ran to meet Him with respectful salutations. Of the contentious scribes He asked: "What question ye with them?" thus assuming the burden of the dispute, whatever it might be, and so ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... to my query as to "the meaning of the term Pisan, used in old records for some part of defensive armour," but he seems to have forgotten that I expressly stated that term had no relation to "the fabrics of Pisa;" at least such is my belief. With regard to the inventory of the arms and armour ...
— Notes and Queries 1850.02.23 • Various
... 16s. for a plate of 8 little wretched mutton chops; we resented the imposition, although the sudden appearance of 4 or 5 officers of the imperial guard almost rendered it doubtful whether we ought to act too warmly on the defensive, as they seemed to patronise our hostess; however, we refused to pay ...
— Before and after Waterloo - Letters from Edward Stanley, sometime Bishop of Norwich (1802;1814;1814) • Edward Stanley
... expand their wings, and, like a vessel, make all sail. Of mammalia, the jaguar, or South American tiger, is the most formidable. It frequents the wooded and reedy banks of the great rivers. There are four species of armadilloes, notable for their smooth, hard, defensive covering. Of reptiles there are many kinds. One snake, a trigonocephalus, has in some respects the structure of a viper with the habits of a rattlesnake. The expression of this snake's face is hideous and fierce. I do not think I ever saw anything more ugly, excepting, ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Volume 19 - Travel and Adventure • Various
... conclusion would, I believe, be desperately hasty, a sort of pouring out of the child with the bath. Logically it is possible to believe in superhuman beings without identifying them with the absolute at all. The treaty of offensive and defensive alliance which certain groups of the Christian clergy have recently made with our transcendentalist philosophers seems to me to be based on a well-meaning but baleful mistake. Neither the Jehovah of the old testament nor the heavenly father ...
— A Pluralistic Universe - Hibbert Lectures at Manchester College on the - Present Situation in Philosophy • William James
... all its meager earnings to a small invalid brother or drunken father. But the Sawyer orphans were neither pensive nor appealing. There was a defiant belligerency about them that stifled the avenues of pity and put one on the defensive. They were wild and gay, and uproarious, too, and with the exception of Tim, the eldest, they were strong and robust. He certainly looked as though he had been starved, body and soul; but his other unorphan-like qualities were ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... "I asked for bread," he replied, stung to the defensive. "They always gave me bread and sometimes meat, and they let me sleep in the barns where the straw was, and once a woman took me into her house and offered me money, but I would not take it. I—I think I'd like to send her a present, if ...
— The Battle Ground • Ellen Glasgow
... a revolt had become a Revolution, and once more the Marquis de Lafayette was in charge of the municipal troops, which assembled at St. Cloud and other defensive points. ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... circular form of the earthwork enclosing Stonehenge, as well as the straight and parallel banks of the Avenue, are specially worthy of notice. They belong to a class of earthwork quite unlike the usual planning of cattle enclosures, and defensive works, and exhibit a precision in setting out which is only associated with the sepulchral and religious earthworks of prehistoric times ...
— Stonehenge - Today and Yesterday • Frank Stevens
... Sledd, of local railroad management and stock-investment fame; and Norrie Simms, president of the Douglas Trust Company, who, however, was little more than a fiscal agent. The general feeling was that Cowperwood's defensive tactics—which consisted in having the city council refuse to act—could ...
— The Titan • Theodore Dreiser
... of utmost importance. Break up your opponent's rhythm, never allow him to get grooved, frequently do the unexpected, so that he loses confidence in his anticipation and, subsequently, goes on the defensive. ...
— Squash Tennis • Richard C. Squires
... have not engaged in real hostilities with the Miwok or Maidu for well over a century and Paiute hostilities appear to have taken the form of occasional defensive skirmishes; thus the details of war magic are vague. However, Washo tradition repeatedly mentions a month-long period during which doctors gathered and made medicine against the enemy before launching a campaign. Usually this took place at Woodfords, which was the site of a ...
— Washo Religion • James F. Downs
... writing of romance (unless it had been cast in the severely allegorical form of The Pilgrim's Progress), and if we are to account for that ebullition, we shall be driven—like Darwin with his confounding peacock—to take refuge in some theory of exuberance. The later works have been so defensive and, in one sense, didactic that one is apt to forget that many of the earlier books, and all the short stories, must have originated in ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... century, the traces of incipient degeneracy can already be noted amid much brilliant performance. From that time completeness of military achievement became in men's minds less of an object than accurate observance of rule, and in practice the defensive consideration of avoiding disaster began to preponderate over offensive effort for ...
— Types of Naval Officers - Drawn from the History of the British Navy • A. T. Mahan
... content to stand on their own strength, They try to hire the enginry of Heaven. I am no theologian, but I laugh That men can be so grossly logicless, When war, defensive or aggressive either, Is in its essence pagan, and opposed To the whole ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... Waterloo. It is true, the Emperor sent Marshal Grouchy the next day at noon, with thirty-two thousand men to look after the enemy, but then it was quite too late. In those fifteen hours they had time to re-form, to communicate with the English, and to act on the defensive. ...
— Waterloo - A sequel to The Conscript of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... the support of his presence. On the 21st Frederick won the decisive battle of Burkersdorf, and a few weeks later was master of Silesia. In western Germany, where the war more immediately concerned England, Prince Ferdinand showed consummate skill in forcing the French to act on the defensive. On June 24 the allies defeated them at Wilhelmsthal. The victory was decided by Granby, who, after a fierce engagement, destroyed the pick of the French army under Stainville. A series of successes followed; Gottingen was evacuated, the ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... Allies made ready to crush Napoleon. He was now on the defensive with enemies hemming him in on every side, and although he fought a brilliant campaign it was hopeless. On April 11, 1814, Napoleon was compelled to resign the crown, and obliged to go into exile; and the island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea was chosen as the ...
— A Treasury of Heroes and Heroines - A Record of High Endeavour and Strange Adventure from 500 B.C. to 1920 A.D. • Clayton Edwards
... that I might now commence the attack, but my master's lessons all came clear and vivid before me, and knowing that, as the weaker, it was my duty to act on the defensive, I waited, while we watched each other cautiously, my adversary evidently ...
— Burr Junior • G. Manville Fenn
... Apuleius in memory of his son's friend, his elder daughter's fiance. During the preparation of these two little books, our relations became more intimate, and our friendship continued unbroken until in the month of February, 1872, a remark in one of my defensive articles caused him to take up his pen against me. My remark was to the effect that there were men of the same opinions as myself even among the priests of the established church. Caspar Paludan- ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Protestantism. {392} Practically nothing was defined save what had already been taken up in the Augsburg Confession or in the writings of Calvin, of Zwingli and of the Anabaptists. Inevitably, a spirit so purely defensive could not be animated by a primarily philosophical interest. The guiding star was not a system but a policy, and this policy was nothing more nor less than that of re-establishing tradition. The practice of the ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... that there was something tense and nervous in his alertness, something wary and defensive in his readiness, and his own ...
— The Fortieth Door • Mary Hastings Bradley
... warriors continually changing their point of attack. By three o'clock, although the majority of the savages had departed down the river, enough remained to keep up a galling fire, and hold Reno strictly on the defensive. These reds skulked in ravines, or lined the banks of the river, their long-range rifles rendering the lighter carbines of the cavalrymen almost valueless. A few crouched along the edge of higher eminences, their shots crashing ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... army acts now wholly on the defensive, strongly fortified in their trenches: and the young French King sendeth overtures for a treaty of peace, by the Duke of MANTUA; which, because it is a matter of State that concerneth us here at home, I shall speak no ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... the ground with the war chief, should he come and attempt to drive us. We therefore directed the express to say to the war chief "if he wished to fight us he might come on." We were determined never to be driven, and equally so, not to make the first attack, our object being to act only on the defensive. This we ...
— Autobiography of Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak, or Black Hawk • Black Hawk
... essayed reading the telegram with an effect of being in the air, such was his defensive agility. "He's coming, I guess," he said. "I don't think anything very bad has happened. I don't think it's an accident or anything, but the writing is awful. I should think that telegraph man would be ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... the town of Wakefield, which, until the recent great growth of Leeds, was the head-quarters of the Yorkshire clothing-trade. It was here that in the Wars of the Roses the battle of Wakefield was fought on the closing day of the year 1460. The Duke of York wished to remain at Wakefield on the defensive against Queen Margaret's Lancastrian army of twenty thousand men, for his forces were barely one-fourth that number. The Earl of Salisbury, however, prevailed on him to advance to meet the queen, and he probably had no idea of ...
— England, Picturesque and Descriptive - A Reminiscence of Foreign Travel • Joel Cook
... Government; but Lord Buckingham's official despatch, dated the 23rd of March, not only shows that statement to be erroneous, but establishes the fact that Lord Buckingham peremptorily refused to entertain the negotiation until he should have received a positive assurance that a certain defensive and hostile agreement, into which those gentlemen had entered, was to be considered as abandoned. This agreement, or association, was called the Round Robin (although not really a round robin, being merely a declaration, followed in the usual way by the signatures ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... was resumed at a meeting on the following day; but Lincoln decided that the time was inopportune. While he thought that more evil than good would be derived from the wholesale arming of Negroes, yet he was not unwilling that the commanders arm, purely for defensive purposes, those slaves who came within the Union lines. But the President had reached a decision on the correlated policy of emancipation with which it appears that his cabinet was not in accord. They were surprised when he read to them the first draft of ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... an altitude of from two thousand to three thousand metres, the other, thirty-five hundred to five thousand metres. J. B. and I were on high patrol. Owing to our inexperience, it was to be a purely defensive one between our observation balloons and the lines. We had still many questions to ask, but having been so persistently inquisitive for three days running, we thought it best to wait for Talbott, who was leading our patrol, ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... various buildings, which went to make up one of these vast establishments, may be gathered from that of St Bernard's own abbey of Clairvaux, which is here given. It will be observed that the abbey precincts are surrounded by a strong wall, furnished at intervals with watch-towers and other defensive works. The wall is nearly encircled by a stream of water, artificially diverted from the small rivulets which flow through the precincts, furnishing the establishment with an abundant supply in every part, for the litigation of the gardens and orchards, the sanitary ...
— Project Gutenberg Encyclopedia
... must be admitted, the efficiency under the boss's whip will go further. For defensive war, or war for high moral aims, it is desirable that the individual soldier should think for himself, respond to the high appeal. Thus for such warfare the efficiency of voluntary effort and cooperation is superior. An autocracy would better rule its soldiers by a military caste; there can be ...
— The Soul of Democracy - The Philosophy Of The World War In Relation To Human Liberty • Edward Howard Griggs
... of men. He taught them agriculture, while Isis invented laws. He built temples to the Gods, and established their worship. Both were the patrons of artists and their useful inventions; and introduced the use of iron for defensive weapons and implements of agriculture, and of gold to adorn the temples of the Gods. He went forth with an army to conquer men to civilization, teaching the people whom he overcame to plant the vine and ...
— Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry • Albert Pike
... artillery is overwhelmingly stronger than the defending artillery, defensive infantry in an entrenched position cannot be ousted from its position unless the attackers outnumber their opponents by six or seven to one, and are prepared to lose heavily. The murderous zone of a thousand yards lying between the armies cannot be crossed save at fearful sacrifice, and the bayonet ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... that their crafty foe had no equal in ambuscades and surprises; and that, while a defeat might ruin the French, it would only exasperate an enemy whose resources in men were incomparably greater. Therefore, when the dogs sounded the alarm, he kept his followers close, and stood patiently on the defensive. They chafed under this Fabian policy, and at length imputed it to cowardice. Their murmurings grew louder, till they reached the ear of Maisonneuve. The religion which animated him had not destroyed the soldierly pride which takes ...
— The Jesuits in North America in the Seventeenth Century • Francis Parkman
... was not going to get it. The law had Ross sewed up tight this time. Why didn't they get about the business of shipping him off? Why had he had that afternoon session with the skull thumper? Ross had been on the defensive then, and he had not liked it. He had given to the other's questions all the attention his shrewd mind could muster, but a faint, very faint, apprehension still clung to ...
— The Time Traders • Andre Norton
... which names were distinguished the scattered and heartless adherents of Charles), the nobility and gentry, in arms, hurried to oppose the march of the English army, which now advanced towards their borders. At the head of their defensive forces they placed Alexander Lesley, who, with many of his best officers, had been trained to war under the great Gustavus Adolphus. They soon assembled an army of 26,000 men, whose camp, upon Dunse-law, is thus described by ...
— Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border, Vol. II (of 3) • Walter Scott
... leaving my guide to take charge of the horses until my return in the evening. About an hour's walk from the camp I met an Indian, who on perceiving me instantly strung his bow, placed on his left arm a sleeve of raccoon skin and stood on the defensive. Being quite sure that conduct was prompted by fear and not by hostile intentions, the poor fellow having probably never seen such a being as myself before, I laid my gun at my feet on the ground and waved my hand for him to come to me, which he did slowly and with great caution. I then ...
— The Mountains of California • John Muir
... Brussels has informed the German Commander that the French Government has declared to the Belgian Government the impossibility of giving them any offensive assistance whatever, as they themselves are forced to adopt the defensive." ...
— A Journal From Our Legation in Belgium • Hugh Gibson
... walls; you "reentered" it at every possible angle; you did everything apparently but pass through it. You thought yourself well out of it, and were stopped by a bastion. Its circumvallations haunted you until you came to the next station. It had pressed even the current of the river into its defensive service. There were secrets of its foundations and mines that only the highest military despots knew and kept to themselves. ...
— Stories in Light and Shadow • Bret Harte
... George felt a quick gust of pleasure and romance sweep across him. It was as though senses that had been for long on the defensive, tired, or teased merely by the world, gave way in a moment to joy and poetry. He looked from the face beside him to the pictured scene in which they stood—the soft air filled his lungs—what ailed him?—he only knew that after many weeks he was, ...
— Sir George Tressady, Vol. I • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the secretary came to me and ordered me to provide passports, duly visaed, for The Saleve party—seven in all, myself included. I told him that I would appeal direct to the delegates themselves, with whom I had already done some defensive propaganda on my own. He told me it was nothing to do with the delegates; it was the delegates' ladies. Fool that I was, I had never thought ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, December 15, 1920 • Various
... humanity in war than in peace. Non-resistance to evil implies resistance to good, and to take the offensive, leaving the defensive out of the question, is perhaps the divinest thing in humanity. War is the school of fraternity and the bond of love; it is war that has brought peoples into touch with one another, by mutual aggression and ...
— Tragic Sense Of Life • Miguel de Unamuno
... Pernambuco and Rio Grande unite in a fraternal league, offensive and defensive, to assemble all their forces against any aggression of the Portuguese Government, or that of the Government of Rio de Janeiro, to reduce these provinces ...
— Narrative of Services in the Liberation of Chili, Peru and Brazil, - from Spanish and Portuguese Domination, Volume 2 • Thomas Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald
... newly-acquired privileges to vote away the independence of the country. The view was not unnatural under the circumstances, and this measure, had it not been a violation of pledges, might have found defenders among impartial persons; but unfortunately it proved to be not so much a stringently defensive measure which time and circumstances might induce them to modify, as the first step in a policy of absolute and perpetual exclusion. It was the first deliberate violation of the spirit of the settlement, and, although there is ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... to argue a desperate combat; both were tall, strong, and courageous, both had defensive armour, and the fatal and desperate poniard was their only offensive weapon. They paused facing each other, and examined eagerly into their respective means of defence before hazarding a blow, which, if it missed, its attaint would ...
— Waverley Volume XII • Sir Walter Scott
... configuration of the territory of Greece, its forms of relief, "so like, in many respects, to Switzerland," could not fail to exert a powerful influence on the character and destiny of its people. Its inclosing mountains materially increased their defensive power, and, at the same time, inspired them with the love of liberty. Those mountains, as we have seen, so unique in their distribution, were natural barriers against the invasion of foreign nations, and they ...
— Christianity and Greek Philosophy • Benjamin Franklin Cocker
... the average infantryman's defensive weapons tells us that to be able to march, maneuver, and fight efficiently in this armor implies that the Athenian soldier is a well-trained athlete. The whole panoply weighs many pounds.[*] The prime parts in the armor are the helmet, the cuirass, the greaves, and the ...
— A Day In Old Athens • William Stearns Davis
... and wept aloud. At a late hour this evening a trusted agent left here for the Tribune office. He is said to have held a long conference with Mr. GREELEY, the particulars of which have not transpired. It is supposed by many to portend an alliance, offensive and defensive, between the King of Central and the Philosopher ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 25, September 17, 1870 • Various
... and that perhaps to show us that the war that the church makes with Antichrist is rather defensive than offensive. Shields and targets are weapons defensive, weapons provided for self-preservation, not to hurt others with. A Christian also, if he can but defend his soul in the sincere profession of the ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... most fashionable and eminent German theologians have enthusiastically endorsed the official view of Germany as the hierophant of Peace and Concord reluctantly forced into a defensive war by the perfidy of England. As worshippers in the new Temple of Teutonic Truth they may be imagined to ...
— Punch or the London Charivari, Vol. 147, September 23, 1914 • Various
... "ministers;" after whom followed the Taranteen embassy, consisting of about a dozen noble looking Indians of various ages, from thirty to seventy; and the whole was closed by two or three hundred men, completely armed with both the offensive and defensive arms of the period. The steeple-crowned hats, the slashed sleeves, the red stockings, russet boots, and rosettes on the shoes, made a combination which, if it would be quaint and grotesque in our eyes, was striking to those ...
— The Knight of the Golden Melice - A Historical Romance • John Turvill Adams
... starkly incredible power bit at and clung to equally capable defensive screens of pure force. As these inconceivable forces met, the glare of their neutralization filled all nearby space. And ships and skeletons alike were disappearing in chunks, blobs, gouts, streamers and sparkles of rended, ...
— Masters of Space • Edward Elmer Smith
... "strength." This is positive equipment for active service. The defensive is changed to the offensive, and in the "strength" of the Lord we advance against the foe. We "ride abroad, redressing human wrongs." We "tread upon the lion and the adder, the young lion and the dragon we trample under foot." ...
— My Daily Meditation for the Circling Year • John Henry Jowett
... moon, answered her lord after a moment's reflection, saying, 'Listen, O monarch of the monkeys! That foremost of bowmen, endued with great might, Rama the son of Dasaratha, whose spouse hath been ravished, hath made an alliance offensive and defensive with Sugriva! And his brother the intelligent Lakshmana also of mighty arms, the unvanquished son of Sumitra, standeth beside him for the success of Sugriva's object. And Mainda and Dwivida, and Hanuman the son of Pavana, and Jamvuman, the ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... Roughsedge thought her pale, and was even sure that she had lost flesh. This time it was hardly possible to put these symptoms down to Marsham's account. He chafed under the thought that he should be no longer there in case a league, offensive and defensive, had in the end to be made with Mrs. Colwood for the handling of cousins. It was quite clear that Miss Fanny was a vulgar little minx, and that Beechcote would have no peace till it was rid of her. Meanwhile, the indefinable change which had come over his mother's face, during ...
— The Testing of Diana Mallory • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... simplicity itself. The writer does not put us on the defensive by trying to argue with us. We are to be the judge and he compliments us by the inference that we "don't need to be told" but can judge for ourselves as to whether it is worth keeping. The price is ...
— Business Correspondence • Anonymous
... and hungry, and gave all its meager earnings to a small invalid brother or drunken father. But the Sawyer orphans were neither pensive nor appealing. There was a defiant belligerency about them that stifled the avenues of pity and put one on the defensive. They were wild and gay, and uproarious, too, and with the exception of Tim, the eldest, they were strong and robust. He certainly looked as though he had been starved, body and soul; but his other unorphan-like qualities were so obtrusive ...
— Treasure Valley • Marian Keith
... be a sort of fort," his father went on. "There is one place there just right for defensive operations and we'll put up a shack there and mount guard until the danger is over. Once the sheep men see that we mean business they may throw up their hands and go ...
— The Boy Ranchers at Spur Creek - or Fighting the Sheep Herders • Willard F. Baker
... quarrel between France and the Empire. He imprisoned Imperialist cardinals in St. Angelo; he persecuted the Colonnas on account of their Imperialist tendencies, levelled their fortresses, and seized their lands. The Cardinal of Lorraine hastened to Rome to conclude an alliance offensive and defensive on behalf of France; and the queen, distracted between her religion and her duty as a wife, saw Philip on the point of being drawn into parricidal hostility {p.237} with his and her spiritual father. Nay, she herself might be involved in the same calamity; for so bitter was the English humour ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... articles placed in view, Janardana recollected Yudhishthira's word and addressed Sini's grandson Satyaki, seated near, saying, "Let my car be made ready and let my conch and discus along with my mace, and quivers and darts and all kinds of weapons, offensive and defensive, be placed on it, for Duryodhana and Karna and Suvala's son are all of wicked souls, and foes, however contemptible, should never be disregarded by even a powerful person." Understanding the wishes of Kesava, ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... if the aliens could repair the globe if it were damaged, and he was sure that much which they had brought back from the eastern continent was irreplaceable. The bombs had not been intended for such a use. They were defensive, anti-personal weapons to be employed as he had done against the lizard in the arena. But placed properly—Without thinking his hands went to the sealed pocket in ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... Roman Empire develop any such eccentricities as are imagined in this superficial theory. What seem to our eye the "eccentricities" and "convulsions" of the Ceratopsia and Deinocerata are much more likely to be defensive developments against a growing peril, but they were as futile against the new carnivores as were the assegais of the Zulus against the European. On the other hand, the eccentricities of many of the later Trilobites—the LATEST Trilobites, it may be ...
— The Story of Evolution • Joseph McCabe
... "bait" for outsiders to attract them into the church, it has, in the long run usually been ineffectual. Too often the motive has been so thinly veiled and the program of the social hour has been given such a religious atmosphere that outsiders very naturally take a defensive attitude, and although they may enjoy the occasion they are perfectly aware ...
— The Farmer and His Community • Dwight Sanderson
... the defensive, 'your mother comes to me at dinner time, an' she says: 'I s'pose 'taint likely you'll see my Dick, Jacker.' I said,' No, Missus Haddon, 'taint, s'elp me.' Then she says, 'Well, if he should come to see you, will you give him this?' So I took ...
— The Gold-Stealers - A Story of Waddy • Edward Dyson
... sonorous voice of Torquil thundered out, "Far eil air son Eachin!" (Another for Hector!) and the two brethren who flanked their chief on each side thrust forward upon Henry, and, striking both at once, compelled him to keep the defensive. ...
— The Fair Maid of Perth • Sir Walter Scott
... and gum (c. G. cum gummi), of saffron and vinegar, defensive plaster, plaster of Paracelsus, blistering plaster, diapalma plaster, compound laudanum plaster, melilot plaster. The term "emplastrum Paracelsi", so the librarian of the Surgeon-General's Office informs me, is not given as such in the older medical dictionaries, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... reaching her; and the glow of the conflagration was concealed by intervening hills. Frau von Rosen did not sleep well; she was seriously uneasy as to the results of her delightful evening, and saw herself condemned to quite a lengthy sojourn in her deserts and a long defensive correspondence, ere she could venture to return to Gondremark. On the other hand, she examined, by way of pastime, the deeds she had received from Otto; and even here saw cause for disappointment. In these troublous days she had no taste for landed property, and she was convinced, besides, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 7 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Confederation was founded in 1291 as a defensive alliance among three cantons. In succeeding years, other localities joined the original three. The Swiss Confederation secured its independence from the Holy Roman Empire in 1499. Switzerland's sovreignty and ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... farewell to his comrades, he stepped in front of them and blew out his brains. Guyon, Amiet and Hyvert assumed a defensive position, their double-barrelled pistols levelled upon their armed opponents. They did not fire; but the latter, considering this demonstration as a sign of open hostility, fired upon them. Guyon fell dead upon Lepretre's body, which had not moved. Amiet's ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... states from the alliance with Sparta. It follows that it was he who made the first assessment of tribute from the various allied states, two years after the battle of Salamis, in the archonship of Timosthenes; and it was he who took the oath of offensive and defensive alliance with the Ionians, on which occasion they cast the masses of ...
— The Athenian Constitution • Aristotle
... general again. Mr. Tyler was acting on the defensive now. If he could only sustain the contest, he felt convinced that he could ...
— Young Glory and the Spanish Cruiser - A Brave Fight Against Odds • Walter Fenton Mott
... captain or officer would do anything for him, and he never forgot it. Every Kanaka has one particular friend, whom he considers himself bound to do everything for, and with whom he has a sort of contract,—an alliance offensive and defensive,—and for whom he will often make the greatest sacrifices. This friend they call aikane; and for such did Hope adopt me. I do not believe I could have wanted anything which he had, that he would not have given me. In return for this, I was always his friend among the Americans, and ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... visitor peered in a wary and defensive manner through the shrubbery, but did not speak. Inwardly he was thinking how exactly like Mr. Devine was to the eighty-one other younger novelists to whom he had been introduced at various hamlets ...
— The Clicking of Cuthbert • P. G. Wodehouse
... adapted to guide those who merely wanted to be informed of the character and subject of a work in order to read it: the present is more useful to those whose object is less to read the work than to dispute upon its merits, and go into company clad in the whole defensive and ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... his impartiality and even his satisfaction with a little punishment of the students, if they were aggressive. "But," said he, "don't begin the fight and put yourselves in the wrong. If my boys come over, thrash them well, but let them strike the first blow." Having put them in the strongest defensive attitude, believing that they had the doctor with them, he went round to the students and applied the same inducements to the defensive, leaving them under the persuasion that he entirely approved their ...
— The Autobiography of a Journalist, Volume I • Stillman, William James
... really been beaten was not believed by anybody. Everybody was inspired by the conviction that the Weissenburg disaster was nothing but an incident. A comparatively small defensive force had been attacked by an overwhelmingly large force of Prussians, and was compelled to retreat for the moment; but the fight had been only a trifling prologue to the great battle to come, or else was part of a deep-laid plan which would secure ...
— Dr. Dumany's Wife • Mr Jkai
... caution she opened it, remembering Jupiter's last unexpected onset; when, looking round by the dim light, she perceived him seated opposite Aunt Peggy's big chest, evidently watching it. On hearing the door open, though, he got up and raised his back, on the defensive. ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman
... could think of no plan. Any alarm would place the count on the defensive, and the jewel at once beyond reach. Besides, he wished to keep the whole matter quiet, and gain his object without his or any other name coming before the public. Therefore he would not venture to apply to the police, though doubtless they ...
— David Elginbrod • George MacDonald
... shrunken hands. "The people along the shore were much harried by Moslem pirates. Landing from their galleys, the depredators burned habitations, slew the men, and carried off such women as they thought would fetch a price. They even assaulted castles. At last we were driven to the employment of a defensive guard cooperative on land and water. I was a captain. Our fights with the rovers were frequent and fierce. Neither side ...
— The Prince of India - Or - Why Constantinople Fell - Volume 2 • Lew. Wallace
... Daniel commanded this vessel, which was armed with a dozen pieces of medium-sized ordnance, a defensive precaution necessary at that period. France was at that time at war with England, and the Spanish pirates would often cross to the windward of the Antilles, in spite of ...
— A Romance of the West Indies • Eugene Sue
... corporation, club, Dorcas society, base-ball league, church, and grocery store, the superficial observer sees what appears to be harmony and even brotherly unity; it is only the result of preliminary pushing matches by which the equilibrium of offensive and defensive qualities has been ascertained. And much that passes for domestic harmony is nothing but a prudent acquiescence in an arrangement based on relative ...
— The Faith Doctor - A Story of New York • Edward Eggleston
... possibly fear of him, he went to take me by the shoulders. I knocked his hands away promptly and quickly stepped back, on the defensive ... all my reverence for him swallowed up in indignation, rising at ...
— Tramping on Life - An Autobiographical Narrative • Harry Kemp
... Whitneys were attacked, his presence would add to the defensive strength, but such an attack would not be made if he was not there. Desperate and defiant as the rustlers had been, it would be an injustice to represent them as ...
— Cowmen and Rustlers • Edward S. Ellis
... Louis of Bourbon, who was closely connected with the House of Burgundy, were defeated by the duke in 1467, but he treated them with clemency; and immediately after this event, in February, 1468, he concluded with Edward IV. of England an alliance, offensive and defensive, against France. ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... subjects which were not popular at the University. He had left without taking a degree, in consequence, as it was believed, of some such notions, and had now been called to the bar with a fixed resolve to open the oyster with such weapons, offensive and defensive, as nature had given to him. But here, as at Oxford, he would not labour on the same terms with other men, or make himself subject to the same conventional rules; and therefore it seemed only too probable that he might win no prize. He had ideas of his own that men should pursue their ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... deployment by those who remained) and sent to the right flank and rear, confronting the new line of the Federals. Artillery galloped into position, and soon Fields' division, with the Texans in the lead, joined the right flank and formed a defensive line to the rear towards the river. A narrow creek only divided the opposing forces, but the Federals seemed satisfied with their success now and did not advance. A heavy artillery fire was, however, kept up from the new ...
— Lee's Last Campaign • John C. Gorman
... there arrives a direct message from heaven. It comes by way of the nursery, and is a child's cry. The heart of Alice Grey stops beating for several seconds. Then it says, 'My Molly!' The nurse appears, starts, and is at once on the defensive. ...
— Alice Sit-By-The-Fire • J. M. Barrie
... Pike and the main body of the troops on shore moved forward to the assault, using their bayonets only. The British regulars and Canadian militia, outnumbered three to one (including the American sailors) and with no very good defensive works, of course had to give way, having lost heavily, especially from the fire of the vessels. An explosion immediately afterward killed or wounded 250 of the victors, including General Pike. The Americans ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... seriously. "Mr. Councillor," he replied, "as to our defensive measures, we have passed the point of diminishing returns. We have more knowledge now than we are capable of employing against the plague. Had we not neglected the physical sciences as we have for the last two centuries, we might have developed adequate measures ...
— Greylorn • John Keith Laumer
... India generally is full of hope (or at least was so till the monetary policy was announced), and that its taxational resources are by no means exhausted. It should also be considered that as the Government has not only spent large sums in recent years in defensive works and public buildings, and at the same time paid off debt to the amount of twenty-three millions, it would be perfectly justified in borrowing, if it were necessary, in order to ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... when they found that no document was forthcoming, immediately gave out that they intended to take on themselves the duties of joint heiresses, and an alliance, offensive and defensive, was sworn between them. At this time Mr. Brown employed a lawyer, and the heiresses, together with Jones, employed another. There could be no possible doubt as to Mr. Brown being the owner of the property, however infatuated on such a subject Jones and his wife may have been. No lawyer ...
— The Struggles of Brown, Jones, and Robinson - By One of the Firm • Anthony Trollope
... out the marvellously accurate maps, and began, as he had done so often before, to follow the various phases of his favourite battle, the three days' fight on the Lisaine. That was the only great defensive battle of the campaign, clearer and easier to follow than any other in its simple tactics, almost suggesting the typical example of a textbook, and yet what a living reality! Almost at the same moment when the German Empire was being proclaimed ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... Essex took place. A careful reading of his words at that time, however, leaves the impression that he was not nearly so certain about the possibilities of witchcraft as he had been when he wrote his book. His position was clearly defensive. It must be remembered that James in 1613 had a point to be gained and would not have allowed a possible doubt as to witchcraft to interfere with his wish for the divorce. See ...
— A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 • Wallace Notestein
... in the severely allegorical form of The Pilgrim's Progress), and if we are to account for that ebullition, we shall be driven—like Darwin with his confounding peacock—to take refuge in some theory of exuberance. The later works have been so defensive and, in one sense, didactic that one is apt to forget that many of the earlier books, and all the short stories, must have originated in ...
— H. G. Wells • J. D. Beresford
... for a moment allow the failure of Christianity. The Churches had, he said, been so successful in compelling the world to recognise the evil of aggressive warfare that even the Germans were eager to describe their action as purely defensive. "The Pagan glory of war for its own sake was gone." And when we acknowledge the comparative failure of religion in Germany, and restrict our attention to the sphere of our own clergy, we find that they have created an entirely new ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... together against the Moslem, were saturated with such an infusion of suspicion and hostility as to render nugatory any programme of Balkan confederation. An alliance had indeed been concluded between Greece and Bulgaria in May, 1912, but it was a defensive, not an offensive alliance. It provided that in case Turkey attacked either of these states, the other should come to its assistance with all its forces, and that whether the object of the attack were the territorial integrity ...
— The Balkan Wars: 1912-1913 - Third Edition • Jacob Gould Schurman
... had gathered his wits, he occupied himself in the only possible way—by preparing a story of his own for the wire. But for the first time in his experience he found himself upon the defensive and opposing a force against which no bland persuasiveness, no personal magnetism could prevail. In the scattered nature of his support lay his greatest weakness, for it made the task of self-justification extremely difficult. Perhaps it was well for his peace of mind that ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... of Boston was girdled by rapidly increasing earthworks. These were wholly defensive, to resist assault from the British garrison, and not, at first, as cover for a regular siege approach against the Island Post. They soon became a direct agency to force the garrison to look to the sea alone ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 1, Issue 5, May, 1884 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... language. Their tribes, coming from beyond the Sahara, wandered across the frightful solitudes which bound the Nile Valley on the west. The Egyptians had constantly to keep a sharp look out for them, and to take precautions against their incursions; having for a long time acted only on the defensive, they at length took the offensive, and decided, not without religious misgivings, to pursue them to their retreats. As the inhabitants of Mendes and of Busiris had relegated the abode of their departed to the recesses of the impenetrable marshes of ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... that the only object of these preparations was the protection of the circle, and the maintenance of peace. But the negociations with Holland, England, and even France, the extraordinary exertions of the circle, and the raising of so formidable an army, seemed to have something more in view than defensive operations, and to contemplate nothing less than the complete restoration of the Elector Palatine, and the humiliation of ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... the Persian empire and the unity of plan represented by Xerxes and his generals, the Greeks had little to offer. They possessed the two advantages of the defensive, knowledge of the terrain and interior lines,[1] but their resources were small and their spirit divided. Greece in those days was, as was later said of Italy, "merely a geographical expression." The various cities were mutually jealous and hostile, ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... attacking artillery is overwhelmingly stronger than the defending artillery, defensive infantry in an entrenched position cannot be ousted from its position unless the attackers outnumber their opponents by six or seven to one, and are prepared to lose heavily. The murderous zone of a ...
— The World's Greatest Books—Volume 14—Philosophy and Economics • Various
... slippery here, and with a kind of seriousness due partly to the darkness and partly to the pictures. They were indeed, in this light, rather formidable, those old Caradocs black, armoured creatures, some of them, who seemed to eye with a sort of burning, grim, defensive greed the small white figure of their descendant passing along between them. But little Ann, who knew they were only pictures, maintained her course steadily, and every now and then, as she passed one who seemed to her rather ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... from telling him that I didn't care a hang whether the widow was a fraud or not. If the two women who had settled themselves on the Barton estate were imposters, they were extraordinarily daring and clever. My attitude toward them was wholly defensive. If women of their quality were perpetrating a fraud, I was for giving them every chance, and I had no intention of allowing Torrence to spoil the unfolding of ...
— Lady Larkspur • Meredith Nicholson
... so much, these defensive operations and apparatus against inundations, fires, epidemics, and contagions, these 500,000 kilometers of district and department roads, these dikes, quays, bridges, public gardens, and promenades, this paving, drainage, sweeping and lighting, these aqueducts and ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 5 (of 6) - The Modern Regime, Volume 1 (of 2)(Napoleon I.) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... peopled, the very wants of that population would, as in every other country, keep down the growth of forests. In the military periods of Roman and other invasions, large timber was required for offensive and defensive operations; and in our generation, when the population there is exceedingly diminished, the ignorance, the bad government, and the wastefulness of uncivilisation, produce the same result of destroying or hindering the increase ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... Tolosa to Massilia were taken from the weak escort by a band of robbers, and totally disappeared: the consul himself and his staff were, it was alleged, the instigators of this onset (648). Meanwhile they confined themselves to the strictest defensive as regarded the chief enemy, and guarded the Roman province with three strong armies, till it should please the ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... found itself matched against such powerful organizations of employers as the Manufacturers' Association, the National Erectors' Association, and the Metal Trades Association. In fact, in nearly every important industry the employers have organized for defensive and offensive purposes. These organizations match committee with committee, lobby with lobby, add espionage to open warfare, and issue effective literature in behalf of ...
— The Armies of Labor - Volume 40 in The Chronicles Of America Series • Samuel P. Orth
... men have hung upon Religion are no more a part of Religion than the ivy that grows upon the stone wall of a fortress is a part of the nation's defensive strength. These things that men have piled about Religion belong to it no more than a pile of trash dumped at the foot of a cliff belongs to the everlasting hills. But these traditions and customs of men, with their ever multiplying ...
— Their Yesterdays • Harold Bell Wright
... Subaltern could easily see what was happening on the right. It seemed to him that some unit delayed too long, for the rest of the line showed signs of envelopment. Eventually, however, the retirement to the village was effected quietly, and without loss. He led his Platoon to a second defensive position about a mile behind the village, but already shells were beginning to drop around, ...
— "Contemptible" • "Casualty"
... observations regarding social and economic conditions in Mexico, and suggests that it would be very advantageous to compel many youths who are growing up in vagabondage to learn trades, "especially the mestizos, mulattoes, and free negroes." Weapons, ammunition, and defensive armor must be sent from Spain for this expedition. Urdaneta requests that hemp-seed be sent, in order that ropes may be made in New Spain. He tells of a plant pita [agave], growing in this country which can ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume II, 1521-1569 • Emma Helen Blair
... courier came to me from him with a report of the difficulties that had retarded his progress, and of the presence of a Spanish force near Las Marias, variously estimated at from 1,200 to 2,500. This force, the colonel said, had taken up a defensive position; and ...
— From Yauco to Las Marias • Karl Stephen Herrman
... extent of our own frontier? Why, the whole coast of the United Kingdom; and we might as well say that it would be necessary for the security of this country that we should line our whole coast with defensive works because we may be attacked at any point of that great and extensive frontier. I maintain, therefore, that there is nothing that has passed—nothing that is now passing—between the Government of the United States and our Government which justifies any man in saying that the relations ...
— Canada and the States • Edward William Watkin
... indignity. He soon escaped, however, and rallied his broken forces, shrewdly baffling his foes, who sought to recapture him by a treacherous invitation to a feast. In the end they attacked Temujin in his own country, where, standing on the defensive, he defeated them with great loss. This victory brought the young chief wide renown, and so many allies gathered under his banner that he became a power in the steppes. "Temujin alone is generous and worthy of ruling a great people," was the decision ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 12 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... From very tender years the child has been brought up in an atmosphere of displeasure and mistrust. His spontaneous activities have been repressed as evil. His every act has been looked upon with suspicion. He has been ever on the defensive, like a prisoner in the dock. He has been ever on the alert for a sentence of doom. He has been cuffed, kicked, caned, flogged, shut up in the dark, fed on bread and water, sent hungry to bed, subjected to ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... the following day; but Lincoln decided that the time was inopportune. While he thought that more evil than good would be derived from the wholesale arming of Negroes, yet he was not unwilling that the commanders arm, purely for defensive purposes, those slaves who came within the Union lines. But the President had reached a decision on the correlated policy of emancipation with which it appears that his cabinet was not in accord. They were surprised ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 7, 1922 • Various
... who, after hearing your presentation, begins to find fault with it and with you, or tries to evade your proposal, you may be sure that you have carried him along a considerable distance toward the accomplishment of your purpose. He objects or evades because he is on the defensive. "You have him going." He is wary, and so takes measures for self-protection. The moment your prospect begins to raise objections in your way, he indicates that he is not entirely comfortable in his own mind about escaping from ...
— Certain Success • Norval A. Hawkins
... although, happily, no rupture has as yet taken place with the natives, yet, there is no security against their treachery, and it is very certain that a slight cause might involve an expedition in inextricable difficulty, and oblige the leader to throw himself on the defensive, when far away from other resources than those with which he should have provided himself, and that, perhaps, when navigating a close and intricate river, with all the dangers and perplexities attendant on such a situation. It ...
— Two Expeditions into the Interior of Southern Australia, Complete • Charles Sturt
... centre camp is at Schlettau, which also is strong, though not to such a degree. This line extends from Meissen southward about 10 miles, commanding the Reich-ward Passes of the Metal Mountains, and is defensive of Leipzig, Torgau and the Towns thereabouts. [Tempelhof, iv. 16 et seq.] Katzenhauser is but a mile or two from Krogis—that unfortunate Village where Finck got his Maxen Order: "ER WEISS,—You know I can't stand having difficulties raised; ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... my father," Constance interrupted hotly, suddenly thrown upon the defensive, she knew not why. "He's been ill a great deal. I've been alarmed about him. I ...
— Heart's Desire • Emerson Hough
... voice that morning, clear and strong above the awful din, for nature made him to command in moments of peril. In a flash we were marshalled, one force to guard the corral, one to seize and hold either bank and one to charge on the advance of the Indians down the draw. We were on the defensive, as our captain had planned we should be, and every man of us realized bitterly now how much he had done for us, in spite of our distrust of ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter
... moment Nicolas also released his hold and flopped over on his face. Apparently he had given up all hope of overcoming Ivan and was now acting purely upon the defensive. Ivan acted too late to prevent his opponent from turning over, but now he seized him by both shoulders, and planting his feet firmly upon the ground, by a mighty effort, jerked Nicolas ...
— The Boy Allies in the Balkan Campaign - The Struggle to Save a Nation • Clair W. Hayes
... against the United States, Running Bear rallied his young men, and they fled the reservation and the ways and protection of the white men, and took to the mountains, where they lived by raiding the ranches in the neighborhood, and maintaining a sort of defensive partnership with ...
— Ted Strong in Montana - With Lariat and Spur • Edward C. Taylor
... least, has cherished the dream that sometime all European territory with Italian-speaking inhabitants would be united under Italian government. When the World War began Italy was supposed to be an ally of Germany and Austria. She had agreed to fight with them in case they were attacked—in a defensive war. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood
... old buildings of Morocco are defensive and religious—and under the latter term the beautiful collegiate houses (the medersas) of Fez and Sale may fairly be included, since the educational system of Islam is essentially and fundamentally theological. Of old secular buildings, palaces or private ...
— In Morocco • Edith Wharton
... was because they did not know that I had fallen off, of course," said Rumple hastily, for there was so much reproach for the rest of the family in her tone that he was instantly on the defensive ...
— The Adventurous Seven - Their Hazardous Undertaking • Bessie Marchant
... vacuity yawns in my face; arrogant vanity grins at me." Surely, mere words can go no further—we must expect to hear of tomahawk and bowie-knife next. Scholars who object to the use of such weapons, whether for offensive or defensive purposes, can do nothing but what I have done for years—remain silent, select what is good in Professor Whitney's writings, and ...
— Chips from a German Workshop - Volume IV - Essays chiefly on the Science of Language • Max Muller
... course aggression is more costly than defence. But one trouble with us is that we rarely fight a defensive battle. Lee's strategy is defensive, but his tactics are just the reverse. The way to win this war, allow me to say, is to fight behind trees and rocks and hedges and earthworks: never to risk a man in the open except where absolutely necessary, and when absolute victory is ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... the intentions of our enemies and all their strength is being concentrated for a simultaneous attack. The victory which was withheld from them on all the theatres of war is to be accomplished by an elaborate attack against the defensive walls of our best blood. The masses of iron supplied them by half the world are poured on our gallant troops day and night with the object of weakening their will and then the mass attacks of white, yellow, brown ...
— Germany, The Next Republic? • Carl W. Ackerman
... measures as might give a check to the ambitious views of those who are endeavouring to render themselves formidable, and put a stop to the farther progress of such dangerous designs. For these ends I have entered into a defensive alliance with the French king, and the king of Prussia, to which several other powers, and particularly the Dutch, have been invited to accede, and I have not the least reason to doubt of their concurrence. This treaty ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... destroyed the stores, and retreated to his head quarters at Frederica. So great was the force of the enemy, that he plainly perceived that nothing remained for him to achieve, with his handful of men, and therefore resolved to use his utmost vigilance, and to act only on the defensive. On all sides he sent out scouting parties to watch the motions of the Spaniards, while the main body were employed in working at the fortifications, making them as strong as circumstances would admit. Day and ...
— An Historical Account Of The Rise And Progress Of The Colonies Of South Carolina And Georgia, Volume 2 • Alexander Hewatt
... they paid back the slaughter, and put Modred and his army to flight. For by long practice in war they had learned an excellent way of ordering their forces; which was so managed that while their foot were employed either in an assault or upon the defensive, the horse would come in at full speed obliquely, break through the enemy's ranks, and so force them to flee. Nevertheless, this perjured usurper got his forces together again, and the night following entered ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol. 2 • Charles Dudley Warner
... why you have no doubt that you love Timmy, but the question of whether you love your son confuses you and throws you on the defensive. You react strongly, evade answering, take refuge in exclamations and unfinished sentences. A species of stuttering. Can it be that you find it difficult to think of Timmy as your son? Do you doubt that he is your son? Here, sit ...
— The Short Life • Francis Donovan
... herself with jewels. The sight of this world has revealed a great truth to us at last, nor could we avoid it: a Difference which becomes evident between human beings, a Difference far deeper than that of nations and with defensive trenches more impregnable; the clean-cut and truly unpardonable division that there is in a country's inhabitants between those who gain and those who grieve, those who are required to sacrifice all, all, to give their ...
— Under Fire - The Story of a Squad • Henri Barbusse
... imperialists during the whole winter, surrendered on capitulation. Lord Paget, the English ambassador at Vienna, was sent to Constantinople with powers to mediate a peace; but the terms offered by the emperor were rejected at the Porte: the Turkish army lay upon the defensive, and the season was ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... before, the Secretary of War, in view of the formidable armaments of England, had made requisition of the several States for ninety-three thousand five hundred men for general defensive purposes, under a law of Congress enacted the previous April. The quota of Kentucky was fifty-five hundred infantry; of Tennessee, twenty-five hundred infantry; of Mississippi territory, five hundred ...
— The Battle of New Orleans • Zachary F. Smith
... presume to make a proposal to you. Let the two powers that wish not the marriage with an Austrian archduchess conclude together a league offensive and defensive. The power France accedes to this with joy. It promises to further and support the second power in all her plans, to lend her efficient aid, that the Princess Ludovicka Hollandine may wed the Electoral ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... of the arena, and then the bull, his tongue torn out, rolled on his back, and another was driven in before the victor could wreak his unsated vengeance among the spectators. The bear, dragging the dead bull, rushed at the living, who, unmartial at first, stiffened to the defensive as he saw a bulk of wiry fur set with eyes of fire, almost upon him. He sprang aside, lowered his horn and caught the bear in the chest. But the victor was a compact mass of battle and momentum. His onslaught flung the bear over backward, and quickly disengaging himself he made ...
— Rezanov • Gertrude Atherton
... any words so favorable to Harry's cause. The squire was on the defensive for his own side ...
— The Squire of Sandal-Side - A Pastoral Romance • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... least-trusted counsellor to drink first from the jewelled cup, and would watch the man afterward for at least ten minutes before daring to slake his thirst; but Jaimihr had the moral advantage of an aspirant; Howrah, on the defensive, wilted under the nibbling necessity for wakefulness, ...
— Rung Ho! • Talbot Mundy
... (of which he had become one of the Secretaries) in which their joint views concerning the truth of continuity or evolution in the inorganic world were defended against the attacks of the militant catastrophists. Darwin, however, did not act on the defensive alone, but brought forward a number of papers strongly supporting his new ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... interfere in the affairs of Yedjow, on condition that he made over to her the provinces of Dahonte and Dalanta, which he had shortly before occupied. He agreed, and peace was made between the two parties; it was even reported that an offensive and defensive alliance had been concluded between them; but this could hardly have been the case, as soon afterwards, when Mastiate was hard pressed by Menilek, her new ally did not ...
— A Narrative of Captivity in Abyssinia - With Some Account of the Late Emperor Theodore, - His Country and People • Henry Blanc
... believed that the paths of fiction would lead to her son's spiritual as well as his material ruin, and Mark had sense enough to recognise the reality of this belief of hers, and drop the levity he had assumed for defensive purposes. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... Badger thereupon expounded the situation with solemn relish. By a defensive gallery, it appeared that he meant a lateral tunnel running parallel with the trench-line, in such a manner as to intercept any tunnel pushed out ...
— All In It K(1) Carries On - A Continuation of the First Hundred Thousand • John Hay Beith (AKA: Ian Hay)
... legion was six thousand, in practice about four thousand. The usual order of battle was to draw up each legion in three lines (acies triplex), the first consisting of four cohorts, the second and third of three each. The defensive armor of the legionary soldier was a helmet of metal or leather, a shield (four feet by two and a half), greaves, and corselets of various material. The outer garment was a woollen blanket, fastened to the shoulders by a buckle. Higher officers wore ...
— History of Rome from the Earliest times down to 476 AD • Robert F. Pennell
... thicket who watches for a stag, to take the life of the noble Count of Crevecoeur, had in it nothing ennobling. It was very true that the King's measures seemed on this occasion merely cautionary and defensive; but how did the youth know but he might be soon commanded on some offensive operation of the same kind? This would be an unpleasant crisis, since it was plain, from the character of his master, that there would be destruction in refusing, while his honour told him that there would be ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... And if ever valiant knight possessed a devout mind, it is Heinz Schorlin. Whoever goes into battle without relying upon God and his saints,' he said, 'will find his courage lack wings, and his armour the surest defensive 'weapon.'" ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... wounded were few. For there were no withering volleys of musketry, no field-pieces playing upon the disorganised cavalry from a distance; it was a sheer combat of mounted men armed with the sword, against whose edge and point defensive armour was worn; and in consequence many of the wounds were insignificant, more injuries being received by men being ...
— Crown and Sceptre - A West Country Story • George Manville Fenn
... captivity, nearly all species of wild birds, either in captivity or out of it, fear the touch of man, and shrink from him. The birds of the lawn, the orchard and the farm are always suspicious, always on the defensive. But of course there are exceptions. A naturalist like J. Alden Loring can by patient effort win the confidence of a chickadee, or a phoebe bird, and bring it literally to his finger. These exceptions, however, are rare, but they show conclusively that wild birds ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... of the best, bravest, the most devoted men slaughtered; hundreds and hundreds of millions squandered; the army again in the entrenchments of Washington; everywhere the defensive and losses; the enemy on the Potomac, perhaps to invade the free States; but McClellan is in command, his headquarters as brilliant and as numerous as a year ago; the mean flunkeys at their post; only the country's life-blood pours ...
— Diary from March 4, 1861, to November 12, 1862 • Adam Gurowski
... at Roselawn a couple of days before he had a chance to do more than observe Elise Durwent as one of the party. She had been his partner at tennis and bridge, and a dozen times he had exchanged light talk with her, but there was always about her the defensive shield of impersonal cordiality. When he spoke to her it was almost in a drawl, but no matter to what a lackadaisical level he reduced his voice, her replies were always punctuated by a retort that had in it the sense of sting, as Alfio in Cavalleria Rusticana accompanies ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... furious contest. Head to head, antlers to antlers, the tame deer and the wild fought with great fury. Each of the tame animals, every one of them large and formidable, was closely engaged in contest with a wild adversary, standing chiefly on the defensive, not in any feigned battle or mimicry of war but in a hard-fought combat. We now made our appearance in the open ground on horseback, advancing towards the scene of conflict. The deer on the skirts of the wood, seeing ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... be more true. The spirit of aggressiveness was absolutely foreign to the Polish temperament, to which the preservation of its institutions and its liberties was much more precious than any ideas of conquest. Polish wars were defensive, and they were mostly fought within Poland's own borders. And that those territories were often invaded was but a misfortune arising from its geographical position. Territorial expansion was never the master-thought of Polish statesmen. The consolidation ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... These are the massacre of Cawnpore and the relief of Lucknow. Cawnpore, which was in the heart of the disaffected area, contained about a thousand Europeans, of whom two-thirds were women and children. The defensive post into which they had thrown themselves at the beginning of the outbreak was speedily surrounded by an overwhelming number of the mutineers, led on by the infamous Nana Sahib. The few defenders held out bravely for a time, but at last ...
— Queen Victoria • Anonymous
... the art of war has said, 'I do not dare to be the host (to commence the war); I prefer to be the guest (to act on the defensive). I do not dare to advance an inch; I prefer to retire a foot.' This is called marshalling the ranks where there are no ranks; baring the arms (to fight) where there are no arms to bare; grasping the weapon where there is no weapon to grasp; advancing ...
— Tao Teh King • Lao-Tze
... practical difference to one whether one accept the universe in the drab discolored way of stoic resignation to necessity, or with the passionate happiness of Christian saints. The difference is as great as that between passivity and activity, as that between the defensive and the aggressive mood. Gradual as are the steps by which an individual may grow from one state into the other, many as are the intermediate stages which different individuals represent, yet when you place the typical extremes beside each other for ...
— The Varieties of Religious Experience • William James
... "Well, you'll have pretty nations if people no longer fight," he answered, and then trying to show a practical spirit, he added: "Never has the art of war cost more money than since war itself has become an impossibility. The present-day defensive peace is purely and simply ruining every country in Europe. One may be spared defeat, but utter bankruptcy is certainly at the end of it all. And in any case the profession of arms is done for. All faith in it is dying out, and it will soon be forsaken, just ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... French were able to send fleets unhindered wherever they wished; and when Spain entered as an ally, in 1779, their combined navies swept the Channel, driving the humiliated British fleet into port. England was called upon to make defensive war at home, at Gibraltar, in the West Indies, and finally in India, at a time when the full strength of the country was already occupied with ...
— The Wars Between England and America • T. C. Smith
... insult which they had made me, without their tarnishing the glory that they had merited in chastising the English & the savages, their friends, of their perfidy. We were nevertheless always upon the defensive, & we apprehended being surprised at the place where we were as much on the part of the English, as of those of the savages, their friends; that is why we resolved of coming to establish ourselves in the place where we are at present, & which is, as you see, difficult enough of access ...
— Voyages of Peter Esprit Radisson • Peter Esprit Radisson
... Link Merwell sprang back and stood on the defensive. Dave was not wearing any coat or vest, and he merely threw his hat to his friend. Then, as quick as lightning, he sprang forward, knocked aside Merwell's guard, and planted a telling blow ...
— Dave Porter at Star Ranch - Or, The Cowboy's Secret • Edward Stratemeyer
... had enunciated, and faithfully following which the Democracy had, during its early history, so completely controlled the country, the modern leaders, intent only on present success, had based all their political hopes on an intimate alliance, offensive and defensive, with that institution which Jefferson so eloquently denounced, and the existence of which awakened his most lively fears for the future of his country. And what has been the result of this ill-omened alliance? Precisely what might sooner or later have been expected. Precisely what might have been ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... sound came, louder than before, and we all sprang back and stood on the defensive. For myself, having forgotten my club, and not having taken the precaution to cut another, I buttoned my jacket, doubled my fists, and threw myself into a boxing attitude. I must say, however, that I felt somewhat uneasy; and my companions afterwards confessed ...
— The Coral Island - A Tale Of The Pacific Ocean • R. M. Ballantyne
... knew, had a village in the neighbourhood. There was no lack of tough creepers which were serviceable for binding the logs together, and a great number of cactus-like plants were cut down to form a defensive lining ...
— Round the World in Seven Days • Herbert Strang
... him swing from the saddle and shelter himself behind his horse. Hall and his companion were standing off warily, a good pistol shot from Reid, distrustful of this sudden change in his tactics, apparently believing he had come to the place he had selected to make his defensive stand. A little while they stood waiting for him to fire, then separated, the stranger circling to come behind Mackenzie, Hall moving a little nearer to Reid, who kept his horse before him with ...
— The Flockmaster of Poison Creek • George W. Ogden
... shots had appeared to proceed from the sentries, but these were shortly succeeded by heavy file-firing from the whole force at the camp. An attack had evidently been made, and a regular fight was going on: it was therefore to be expected that my small force would soon have to act on the defensive. Spare ammunition was quickly in readiness, and ...
— Ismailia • Samuel W. Baker
... lower animals and savage tribes, those who are physically strong survive and gain advantage over those who are physically weak; while in the civilized world the same result is obtained, not by displaying physical force, but by art, diplomacy, policy, strategy and skill. Various kinds of defensive and offensive weapons have been invented to conquer those who are less skillful in using them, although they may be physically stronger. The simple expression of animal nature which we notice in savages and lower animals, by the natural ...
— Reincarnation • Swami Abhedananda
... awaited the onslaught of the two marauders. The swords clashed, and at the second pass one of them fell back, run through the body. The other, shouting for aid, stood on the defensive. Fergus heard the rush of heavy steps coming down the staircase and, just as three other men rushed into the room, he almost clove his opponent's head in two, with a tremendous blow ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... valley and the stone-clad hill, and he was perplext as to his affair. But whilst he was still journeying he came upon the river Al-Kawa'ib and he drew in sight of the castle of Al-Hayfa, which stood amiddlemost that mighty stream with its height and bulk and defensive strength. Hereupon quoth Yusuf to himself, "By Allah, none founded this puissant fortalice in such power and prepotency and forcefulness save for a mighty matter and a cause of much consequence. Would Heaven I wot to ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... foe was quickly brought to the Spanish leader, who at once left his place of assembly for the cave of Covadonga, a natural fortress in Eastern Asturia, some five miles from Caggas de Onis, which he had selected as a place strikingly adapted to a defensive stand. Here rise three mountain-peaks to a height of nearly four thousand feet, enclosing a small circular valley, across which rushes the swift Diva, a stream issuing from Mount Orandi. At the base of Mount Auseva, the western peak, rises a detached rock, ...
— Historical Tales - The Romance of Reality - Volume VII • Charles Morris
... of contest between nations, therefore largely military 1 Permanence of the teachings of history 2 Unsettled condition of modern naval opinion 2 Contrasts between historical classes of war-ships 2 Essential distinction between weather and lee gage 5 Analogous to other offensive and defensive positions 6 Consequent effect upon naval policy 6 Lessons of history apply especially to strategy 7 Less obviously to ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... this yard scarcely deserves the name of an arsenal, being the smallest of all which America possesses, the numerous guns and the piles of cannon-balls show that she is not unprepared for aggressive or defensive war. ...
— The Englishwoman in America • Isabella Lucy Bird
... New Constitution of the Petition and Advice retained in the form of a Continued Protectorate: Supplements to the Petition and Advice: Bills assented to by the Protector, June 9: Votes for the Spanish War.—Treaty Offensive and Defensive with France against Spain: Dispatch of English Auxiliary Army, under Reynolds, for Service in Flanders: Blake's Action in Santa Cruz Bay.—"Killing no Murder": Additional and Explanatory Petition and Advice: Abstract of the Articles of the New Constitution as arranged by the two Documents: Cromwell's ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... there was not a man in the ship who would not have risked his life to have saved that of the child. The effect of this impolitic and cruel order was decisive. The marines, with the sergeant at their head, and little Willy placed in security in the centre, their bayonets directed on the defensive, towards the captain and officers, retreated to the mutineers, whom they joined with three cheers, as the child was lifted over the barricade of hammocks, and ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... that when one combatant had parried off the blows, &c. of the other, he did not use the advantage which seemed to me to accrue. As for instance, after he had parried off a dart, he still stood on the defensive, and suffered his antagonist to take up another, when I thought there was time to run him ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 14 • Robert Kerr
... which he took on this expedition—he did not sack these forts, but attempted only to enter the river. This he did, going up about six leagues, where he made a settlement in a place where he could erect a fort, whence he could direct offensive and defensive warfare against the enemy. This news came yesterday; and with all possible despatch I am sending reenforcements, boats, ammunition, and the provisions necessary. I considered it so needful to employ the ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1803, Volume V., 1582-1583 • Various
... of le Marais and le Bocage for a long period confined themselves to defensive warfare, for which nature seems to have formed their country. The situation of le Marais enabled the brave royalists to receive succours from the English, and to facilitate and protect the debarkation ...
— A Visit to the Monastery of La Trappe in 1817 • W.D. Fellowes
... and Aztecs, they were a race of builders, skillful masons and stone-cutters, erecting large edifices, pyramids, temples, and defensive works, with solid walls of stone laid in a firm mortar.[15-2] The sites of these cities were generally the summits of almost inaccessible crags, or on some narrow plain, protected on all sides by the steep and deep ravines—barrancas, ...
— The Annals of the Cakchiquels • Daniel G. Brinton
... strength and fury. Silvertip dodged the vicious swings Joe aimed at him; he parried many blows, any one of which would have crushed his skull. Nimble as a cat, he avoided every rush, while his dark eyes watched for an opening. He fought wholly on the defensive, craftily reserving his strength until his opponent ...
— The Spirit of the Border - A Romance of the Early Settlers in the Ohio Valley • Zane Grey
... an unpreoccupied, unrefracting, 'medium' to the Apostolic assertion, that corruption in this passage is a descriptive synonyme of the material sensuous organism common to saint and sinner,—standing in precisely the same relation to the man that the testaceous offensive and defensive armour does to the crab and tortoise. These slightly combined and easily decomponible stuffs are as incapable of subsisting under the altered conditions of the earth as an hydatid in the blaze of a tropical sun. ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... afternoon on to Mansura Ridge in support. On the evening of 22nd April the Battalion moved forward to construct and occupy trenches at El Mendur, which was on the right, or refused, flank of the line, and there the details again joined us. There we had a good defensive position, but the trenches still had to be dug and, as luck would have it, this digging, which ought to have been nothing to our men fit as they were, in ordinary weather, was turned into a very high trial indeed by a khamsin. This red-hot and parching wind, ...
— The Fife and Forfar Yeomanry - and 14th (F. & F. Yeo.) Battn. R.H. 1914-1919 • D. D. Ogilvie
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