"Defiant" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... of the season, say in July or August, the fiat goes forth that the drones must die; there is no further use for them. Then the poor creatures, how they are huddled and hustled about, trying to hide in corners and by-ways. There is no loud, defiant humming now, but abject fear seizes them. They cower like hunted criminals. I have seen a dozen or more of them wedge themselves into a small space between the glass and the comb, where the bees could not get hold of them or where they seemed to be overlooked in the general ...
— Birds and Bees, Sharp Eyes and, Other Papers • John Burroughs
... hear the low, defiant answer: "I give you my word of honour that I knew nothing, nothing, till you ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes
... forest, not as a stranger or a person of leisure, but with the predetermination to accomplish some useful work, he had learned to appreciate its beauties. The charms of nature and the living creatures around no longer inspired him with the defiant scorn which he had imbibed from his early solitary life and his priestly education; he now viewed them with pleasure and interest. In proportion, as his sympathies expanded and his mind became more virile, the exterior world presented a ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... going to speak?" in a defiant voice, "or do you wish to drive me crazy? What have you done with the girl who is ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... of old that rejoiced as it knelt in the vision Shown of the God new-born whose breath is the spirit of spring Hailed ever with love more strong and defiant of death's derision A joy more perfect than here we mourn for as May takes wing. Time gives it and takes it again and restores it: the glory, the wonder, The triumph of lustrous blossom that makes of ...
— A Channel Passage and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... meeting, which Paterno, who is a fluent speaker, attended and harangued his audience in eloquent phrases, but to no purpose. His position was now a somewhat critical one. Several of the chiefs assumed such a defiant attitude that but for the clement nature of Aguinaldo, Paterno might never have returned to tell the tale. They clamorously insisted on their resolution to fight. Then Paterno adroitly brought matters to a crisis ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... lazily. The sunlight, which came down in a thousand little zigzags through the wind-tossed trees, fell straight upon her rather pale, defiant little face, with its unexpressed evasive charm, and seemed to find a new depth of colour in the red-gold of her disordered hair. Her slim, perfect body was stretched almost at full length, one leg drawn a little up, her hands carelessly drooping towards the grass. The cigarette was ...
— The Zeppelin's Passenger • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... was notorious to the leading Whigs that his pet measure was the purchase of glebes for the Irish priesthood by the funds of the state, and the further endowment of Maynooth College on an enlarged scale. After various addresses, especially one in a very defiant strain by Sir Robert Peel, Lord John Russell briefly replied, and the motion was carried by a majority of three hundred and twenty-two ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... for you to endeavour to seek forgiveness for Gabrielle," declared her father in a firm, harsh voice, "Quite useless. She has even endeavoured to deny the statement you have made—tried to deny it when I actually heard with my own ears her defiant declaration that she was prepared to bear her shame and all its consequences! Let her do so, I say. She shall leave Glencardine to-morrow, and have no further ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... hustled and crowded him. Basket parties bumped him; sticky children tumbled, howling, under his feet, candying his clothes. Insolent youths strolling among the booths with hard-won canes under one arm and easily won girls on the other, blew defiant smoke from cheap cigars into his face. The publicity gentlemen with megaphones, each before his own stupendous attraction, roared like Niagara in his ears. Music of all kinds that could be tortured from brass, reed, hide or string, fought in the air to grain space for its vibrations against its ...
— The Trimmed Lamp • O. Henry
... puzzled, raised his head higher, and stared in the direction of the sound, stamped angrily, and uttered an angry, defiant ba-a-a-a-a! ...
— Jack at Sea - All Work and no Play made him a Dull Boy • George Manville Fenn
... thus, then suddenly changed his tone, and raising his right arm—it was long, thin, gaunt, and the wide-flowing sleeve of his white seamless robe, fell back showing the lean limb almost to the shoulder—he poured out a defiant speech against Apleon, adding "I have challenged! I wait for ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson
... unifying influences of its common song. Even the homeless Hebrew nation is kept together by its patriotic Psalms. The ethnic melodies would fill a volume with their story. The few presented in this chapter represent their range of quality and character—defiant as the Marseillaise, thrilling as "Scots' wha hae," joyful as "The Star-spangled Banner," breezy and bold as the "Ranz de Vaches," or sweet as the "Switzers' Song ...
— The Story of the Hymns and Tunes • Theron Brown and Hezekiah Butterworth
... her own Protestants at home, to give diplomatic support to many Protestants abroad, simply because it preserved the balance of power against the gigantic confederation of Spaniards and Austrians. It is complicated by the rise of a Calvinistic and commercial power in the Netherlands, logical, defiant, defending its own independence valiantly against Spain. But on the whole we shall be right if we see the first throes of the modern international problems in what is called the Thirty Years' War; whether we call it the revolt of half-heathens against the Holy Roman Empire, or whether ...
— A Short History of England • G. K. Chesterton
... a moment, and cast a glance round them all. Then he answered in a voice which seemed louder than usual because it was somewhat defiant. "I don't know," he said slowly; "and if you want the truth, I ...
— A Country Gentleman and his Family • Mrs. (Margaret) Oliphant
... sharp campaigning for all—a week in which at last the wily red chief Si Tanka was finally surrounded and, with all his people and ponies, herded on down through the Bad Lands to the breaks of Wounded Knee—fierce, truculent, defiant. For long months he had braved the "Great Father" himself, refusing to submit to any authority; but the sight of those long columns of silent, disciplined "horse soldiers," squadrons white and black, some of them riding along with wonderful ...
— To The Front - A Sequel to Cadet Days • Charles King
... chancellorship, was not more remarkable perhaps than the success of similar endowments in other contemporaries. Leicester, although stately and imposing, had passed his summer solstice. A big bulky man, with a long red face, a bald head, a defiant somewhat sinister eye, a high nose, and a little torrent of foam-white curly beard, he was still magnificent in costume. Rustling in satin and feathers, with jewels in his ears, and his velvet toque stuck as airily as ever upon ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... words savagely, between clenched teeth. Yet his look was defiant still. He held himself as a man ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... in which the two youths were engaged was one not destined to end before time was up. I pointed to within half a minute of the fated hour—and it would take far longer than that for even so powerful a champion as Jim to wrest the ball from Charlie's defiant grasp. The timekeeper turned away from the rivals and held me up. On went my hand, and on went ...
— The Adventures of a Three-Guinea Watch • Talbot Baines Reed
... she had thrown one soft hand under his chin and one across his eyes, and with a brusquerie quite unnatural to her pulled him backwards, while a ripple of laughter so strange as to be shocking in her own ears burst from her lips, which cried aloud with a defiant gayety: ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... steamer gives one no idea of the winds and waves,—the real life of the ocean,—compared to what we get on a sailing-vessel. Every time we tried to round the point, great walls of waves advanced against us,—so powerful and defiant-looking, that I could only shut my eyes when they drew near. It did not seem as if I made a prayer, but as if I were myself a prayer, only a winged cry. I knew then what it must be to die. I felt that ...
— Life at Puget Sound: With Sketches of Travel in Washington Territory, British Columbia, Oregon and California • Caroline C. Leighton
... at the sneer, And Honor turns with frown defiant, And Freedom, leaning on her spear, Laughs louder than the laughing giant "An islet is a world," she said, "When glory with its dust has blended, And Britain keeps her noble dead Till earth and ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... one of the men raise a six-shooter to aim at the defiant figure that faced them. I gave a spring and with one blow laid the man on the floor. There was a flash of fire as he fell, and a deafening noise was in my ears. Men all about me were striking at me. I scarcely felt their blows as I warded them ...
— Blindfolded • Earle Ashley Walcott
... went down to White Orchards with Rosemary for the following week-end, and after she had smoothed her hair and given a scornful glance at the pale face in the mirror, with its shadowy eyes and defiant mouth, she slipped out to the lower terrace for a breath of the soft country air. Halfway down the flight of steps she stumbled and caught at the balustrade, and stood shaking for a moment, her face pressed against its rough surface. Once ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1920 • Various
... fourteen hours, therefore, on these days of durance Marcella was left almost wholly alone, nothing but a wild mass of black hair and a pair of roving, defiant eyes in a pale face showing above the bedclothes whenever the housemaid chose to visit her—a pitiable morsel, in truth, of rather forlorn humanity. For though she had her movements of fierce revolt, when she was within an ace of throwing the senna-tea in Martha's face, and rushing downstairs ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... room, and the girls glanced around quickly. They had been so absorbed in their new experience that for a time they had completely forgotten Amanda and Eliza. But now they turned just in time to see the two girls leaving the room. As she shut the door behind her Amanda gave it a defiant little slam. ...
— Billie Bradley at Three Towers Hall - or, Leading a Needed Rebellion • Janet D. Wheeler
... distance of the goats. A well-aimed pebble struck Billy on the curve of one horn and halted him, the band huddling vacant-eyed behind him. Vic aimed and threw another, and Billy, turning his whiskered face upward, stared with resentful head-tossings and a defiant blat or two before he swerved back into the Basin, his band and Vic ...
— Starr, of the Desert • B. M Bower
... disappointment and helplessness, and driven him off the south end of Squitty landless and powerless, he would go on as he had elected. When he got this far Jack would sometimes say to himself in a spirit of defiant recklessness that there were plenty of other women for whom ultimately he could care as much. But he knew also that he would not say that, nor even think it, whenever Betty Gower was within reach of his hand or sound ...
— Poor Man's Rock • Bertrand W. Sinclair
... accompaniment by the Innocent on a pair of bone castanets. But the crowning festivity of the evening was reached in a rude camp-meeting hymn, which the lovers, joining hands, sang with great earnestness and vociferation. I fear that a certain defiant tone and Covenanter's swing to its chorus, rather than any devotional quality, caused it speedily to infect the others, who at last joined in ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... from that outward bound, Defiant distance brought no sound, She wandered hopeless to the strand, And, hopeless, ...
— Daisy Dare, and Baby Power - Poems • Rosa Vertner Jeffrey
... to clothes, some ignorant of clothes and some defiant in their clothes but the Thoracic always has a keen sense of fitness in ...
— How to Analyze People on Sight - Through the Science of Human Analysis: The Five Human Types • Elsie Lincoln Benedict and Ralph Paine Benedict
... can breathe forth its fragrance, though in marshes full of venomous serpents and of as deadly malaria, but science will count its leaves, and copy with unerring pencil the softest tints that stain them with varied bloom and beauty. Science will detect every kind of rock in the structure of the most defiant crag. Not a bird can chant or build its nest in the most leafy shade, but science will find the nest, describe every change of color on the feathers of the little singer, and set to music every tone that ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, Issue 2, February, 1864 • Various
... 1 page 314.) The crow of the Cochin is notoriously and ludicrously different from that of the common cock. The disposition of the different breeds is widely different, varying from the savage and defiant temper of the Game-cock to the extremely peaceable temper of the Cochins. The latter, it has been asserted, "graze to a much greater extent than any other varieties." The Spanish fowls suffer more from frost ...
— The Variation of Animals and Plants under Domestication - Volume I • Charles Darwin
... ain't got no cause neether," came the voice from the darkness, defiant almost to truculence. "I only ad but the two talents—lovin and fightin; and they can't say I've id eether o them up in a napkin. They can't chuck that ...
— The Gentleman - A Romance of the Sea • Alfred Ollivant
... drive home, and Hemstead noted, with pain, that her face had a hard, defiant look. It occurred to him that he had not seen any who appeared to ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... honor would wound as deeply as the sights which make his daily watch a torment? Or that a blow would be as hard to bear as the knowledge that his own act has placed you where you are and made him what he is? Silent contempt is the law now, so let this insult pass, unclench your hand and turn that defiant face to me, while I console you for submission with ...
— Pauline's Passion and Punishment • Louisa May Alcott
... it as much as if she were bigger. She will get over it, darling. Very little girls do not remember things long." Oh, how coarse and crass and stupid it sounded—how course and crass and stupid to say it to this small defiant scrap of what seemed the ...
— The Head of the House of Coombe • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... underneath. But slowly—very slowly, yet surely—rises the long chain of islands by a double process; the submarine crust of the earth is cooling, and the rocks are folded up as it shrivels, while the molten material within, pressed out through the crevices, overflows and helps to build up the sea-defiant wall. A man's life would be too short to count even the centuries consumed in this operation. The coast of Peru has risen eighty feet since it felt the tread of Pizarro: supposing the Andes to have risen at ...
— The Andes and the Amazon - Across the Continent of South America • James Orton
... expressive of Ruby, confirmed him in self-rebuke. She was certainly changed. The rather weary and wistful woman who had stayed alone in the garden when he went to the dahabeeyah had given place to a woman more resolute, brilliant, animated—a woman who could hold her own, who could be daring, almost defiant, and a woman who could pain him in return, perhaps, for the pain he had inflicted on her. The dinner was quite good. Their Nubian cook had been trained in a big hotel, and Mrs. Armine had nothing to apologize for. Baroudi politely ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... America), 'and its fiat is law upon the subjects to which it confines its interposition.' No such gigantic imperial claim had ever been put forward by any European state; and it constituted an almost defiant challenge to the imperialist powers of Europe. It may safely be said that this dictum did not represent the settled judgment of the American people. But it did appear, in the last years of the century, as if the great republic were ...
— The Expansion of Europe - The Culmination of Modern History • Ramsay Muir
... arraigned President Johnson at the bar of the Senate for high crimes and misdemeanors in office. It had shackled his appointing power by the Tenure of Office Act; it had forced its plan of reconstruction over his veto; and now it led him, dogged and defiant, to a political trial. Within a few years the character of the House changed. A new generation interested in the issues of prosperity, rather than those of the war, entered public life. The House grew ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... word was spoken for a moment. The two men, leaning toward each other, gazed straight into one another's eyes. Blake's powerful, handsome face was blazing and defiant. The fatherly kindness had disappeared from the other, and it was keen ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... moved. She stood there white and defiant and panting, her glittering eyes riveted to his face. With a sullen oath he opened the door and walked out, ...
— The Unseen Bridgegroom - or, Wedded For a Week • May Agnes Fleming
... do this, we must, like Him, meet the conflict, not with a defiant, but with a submissive spirit. He had to say, "Not My will, but Thine be done"; but in saying it, He gained the very thing He surrendered. So the submission of Gethsemane is not a blind and dead submission of a heart ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... make a good preparation for the rest of the day, and Gwen marched into the Fifth Form room that morning in no conciliatory frame of mind. She was quite prepared to be ill received, so she thought she would meet possible coldness by showing a defiant attitude. It was an extremely foolish move, for it brought about the very state of affairs she anticipated. Several of the nicer girls in the Form had half repented their wrath of yesterday, and were ready not only to treat her kindly, but to influence the others in her favour. When they saw her ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... tongue for the highest, most exotic forms of literature. They would give to it, moreover, the discipline which the translation of foreign classics could not fail to afford. It was thus a renewal of the missionary spirit of Ivar Aasen. And behind it all was the defiant feeling that Norwegians should have Shakespeare in Norwegian, not in Danish or ...
— An Essay Toward a History of Shakespeare in Norway • Martin Brown Ruud
... acknowledged emissary of the Government, but by ill luck his arrival coincided with the receipt of the despatch. The effect of this document was prodigious. Molteno considered that he had been personally insulted. The Legislative Assembly was defiant, and greeted the recital of Carnarvon's words with ironical laughter. A Ministerial Minute, signed by Molteno and his colleagues, protested against the Colonial Secretary's intrusion, and especially ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul
... that," she said and, with a defiant toss of her head, quitted the room and closed the ...
— The Promise - A Tale of the Great Northwest • James B. Hendryx
... delighted at finding that, in the excitement caused by his news, the first lieutenant had forgotten to take any notice of his being there without orders, and he returned a defiant nod to the threat conveyed by Fothergill shaking his fist at him. As they neared the junks the fire of those on board redoubled, and was aided by that of many villagers gathered on the bank of the creek. Suddenly from a bank of rushes four cannons were ...
— Tales of Daring and Danger • George Alfred Henty
... at Scindia's court was ordered to leave it, unless that prince retired from his position on the Nizam's frontier. Scindia, when summoned, sent a defiant reply and, as it was now evident that war was impending, General Wellesley was invested with full powers; and Lord Lake, who commanded the army of Hindustan, was ordered to advance to attack the formidable force of French infantry, under Perron, and take possession of Delhi, ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... shall sin its power maintain, And in my soul defiant live! 'Tis not enough that Thou forgive, The cross must rise, ...
— Hymns from the Morningland - Being Translations, Centos and Suggestions from the Service - Books of the Holy Eastern Church • Various
... and their leader, the famous Black Hawk, was captured. 2. THE FLORIDA WAR (1835) with the Seminoles grew out of an attempt to remove them, in accordance with a treaty, to lands west of the Mississippi. Osceola, the chief of the Seminoles, was so defiant, that General Thompson, the government agent, put him in irons. Dissembling his wrath, Osceola consented to the treaty. But no sooner was he released than, burning with indignation, he plotted a general ...
— A Brief History of the United States • Barnes & Co.
... him and the reformers. Friar Peyto, preaching before the king, had the assurance to say to him: "Many lying prophets have deceived you, but I, as a true Micah, warn you that the dogs will lick your blood as they did Ahab's." While the courage of this friar is unquestioned, his defiant attitude illustrates the position occupied by the monks toward those who favored separation from Rome. The whole country was at white heat. The friends of Rome looked upon Henry as an incarnate fiend, a servant of the devil and an enemy ...
— A Short History of Monks and Monasteries • Alfred Wesley Wishart
... delicately, like Agag; wild, notwithstanding the work, the ease, the neatness, the finish; notwithstanding the assertion of manliness which, in asserting, somewhat misses that mark; a wilder poet than the rough, than the sensual, than the defiant, than the accuser, than the denouncer. Wild flowers are his—great poet—wild winds, wild ...
— Hearts of Controversy • Alice Meynell
... She had learnt to love and trust Aunt Phyllis; but to be once more with Aunt Lily and Mysie was the greatest peace and bliss she could conceive. And she was a very different being from the angular defiant girl of those days which seemed so ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge
... great of ancient days, Who wrote for all the years that yet shall be. Sleep with Herodotus, whose name and praise Have reached the isles of earth's remotest sea. Sleep, while, defiant of the slow delays Of Time, thy glorious writings speak for thee And in the answering heart of millions raise The generous zeal for Right and Liberty. And should the days o'ertake us, when, at last, ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... here she felt less satisfied, though scarcely conscious why, for, as she looked, there came a defiant sort of flash, changing suddenly to something warmer than anger, stronger than pride, making her shrink a little and say, hastily, "I don't find the Charlie I left, but the Prince is ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... with a defiant air, intended to show him that he was in her black books. He stood a moment looking after her, compunction and sad affection ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... to sleep I heard a coyote cry, and the loons answered, and out of the cold, clear night the splendid voices of the cranes rang triumphantly. The heavens were made as brass by their superb, defiant notes. ...
— The Trail of the Goldseekers - A Record of Travel in Prose and Verse • Hamlin Garland
... parallel, already exemplified from his own words, between the happy life of the well-to-do and the miseries of the poor. Burns, too proud and honest not to work, continued through all reverses to sing of poverty with a light, defiant note. Beranger waited till he was himself beyond the reach of want, before writing the OLD VAGABOND or JACQUES. Samuel Johnson, although he was very sorry to be poor, "was a great arguer for the advantages of ...
— Familiar Studies of Men & Books • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Hilda and her widowed mother, was temporarily without a servant. Hilda hated domestic work, and because she hated it she often did it passionately and thoroughly. That afternoon, as she emerged from the kitchen, her dark, defiant face was full of grim satisfaction in the fact that she had left a kitchen polished and irreproachable, a kitchen without the slightest indication that it ever had been or ever would be used for preparing human nature's daily ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... which, being interpreted, means "pigs' feet," slightly salted, boiled, cold, wholly abominable. Here also is the three-card trick, demonstrated by a man with the incongruous accent of Whitechapel and a defiant eye, that even through the glaze of the second stage of drunkenness held the audience and yet was 'ware of the disposition of the nine of hearts. Here is the drinking booth, and here sundry itinerant vendors of old clothes, and—of all improbable ...
— All on the Irish Shore - Irish Sketches • E. Somerville and Martin Ross
... and armed with long staves. With these last, they treated a female figure in blue to, as it seemed, sadly rough usage. And the context informed Julius, in jingling verse, how that poor Hagar, the forester's daughter, inconveniently defiant of custom and of common sense, had stoutly refused to be cast forth into the social wilderness, along with her small Ishmael and a few pounds sterling as price of her honour and content, until she had stood face to face with Sarah, ...
— The History of Sir Richard Calmady - A Romance • Lucas Malet
... With a defiant sniff that covered a spirit cringing in consternation, Sally turned her back and threw herself angrily into a chair. But the sound that she had expected of the door closing did not come, and after ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... up with her at the edge of the swamp, where she was backing quickly away from a coiled water-moccasin. He tossed a stick at the snake, and it slithered into the shallow water. Then he caught her arms, and she whirled to face him with defiant eyes. ...
— Collectivum • Mike Lewis
... together since they were children, they had always belonged to each other; he should have realised as much, and not have insulted her by believing for a moment that she could be false to her trust. Peggy's little head tilted back to a defiant angle, and her lips closed in determined line. Very well, then; if Rob were not angry, she was! If he chose to take things for granted, he could do as he pleased. Let him go on being magnanimous and complacent. Two could ...
— More About Peggy • Mrs G. de Horne Vaizey
... brown, are borne along. The tide has stolen across the beaches below the cottages and carried away the garbage cast there. It has passed where a little while before the cattle strayed, and passing has been stained. Here is no breaking of clear green waves against black defiant rocks, no tumultuous pitched battle between the ocean, inspired by the supreme passion of the tide, and the sullen resistance of unyielding cliffs. Instead a dubious sea wanders in and out amid scenes which the experience ...
— Priscilla's Spies 1912 • George A. Birmingham
... loved her husband, and had left him for another man, whom she married after the disgrace and sorrow she caused had killed her boy's father. Harry never spoke of this, but, perhaps unconsciously to himself, it had changed the feeling he might have had toward women into something defiant and cynical; and the attraction they possessed for him was in danger of becoming debased, since he admired them, old and young, with too scanty a respect, and believed too little in the worth of any emotion they awoke ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 22. October, 1878. • Various
... staring at them with unwavering, defiant eyes. Cicely could hear her sharply drawn breath as she waited ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... rose sprang to Tilly's cheeks as she glanced across at Peggy, and bowed to her with a swift little smile. Then, "How pretty Peggy Smith looks!" and "What a lovely gown she has on!" she said, turning a brave and half-defiant ...
— A Flock of Girls and Boys • Nora Perry
... hutch. "O-oh, en't that a dear little thing!" they exclaimed, again and again. Sunday was especially delightful to them because their father was at home then; and I liked to hear him playing with them. One particularly happy hour they had, in which he feigned to be angry and they to be defiant. They jumped about just out of his reach, jeering at him. "Old Father Smither!" they cried, as often as their peals of laughter would let them cry anything at all. But it struck me as very strange that their sing-song derision was not ...
— Change in the Village • (AKA George Bourne) George Sturt
... the squatters and trespassers who were occupying land to which they had no lawful right. Many of these men were reckless; some had already been entangled in the courts because of their false land claims. Hence their attitude toward the existing Government was ugly and defiant. Yet they were now assured that they might remain on their lands forever ...
— The Story of the Pony Express • Glenn D. Bradley
... more natural than that you, the culprit, should have made me the scapegoat for the second time," was her defiant reply. ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... reading the Globe. The pinkish sheet was spread flat before him. He propped his face in his hand, so that the skin of his cheek was wrinkled in deep folds. Terribly severe he looked, set, and defiant. (What people go through in half an hour! But nothing could save him. These events are features of our landscape. A foreigner coming to London could scarcely miss seeing St. Paul's.) He judged life. These pinkish and greenish newspapers are thin sheets of gelatine pressed nightly over the ...
— Jacob's Room • Virginia Woolf
... their horses, which stood at the door of Pie-a-Pot's tent. And when the time was up the sergeant, throwing the lines to the constable, sprang off his horse, leaped past the surly Chief, entered the tepee and kicked out the centre pole, thus bringing the wigwam down nearly on the head of the defiant Indian. Without waiting, the sergeant moved to the next tent and repeated the operation with great precision, and then said to the chief and his men, "Now move and move quick." The chief was very angry, but ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... never cross or moody—only melancholy. His melancholy was as simple as it was profound. It was touching, too, rather than defiant. You never thought that he was wantonly sad and ...
— [19th Century Actor] Autobiographies • George Iles
... as living:[2] while in the prologue they are dead. But more serious is the fact that the Job of the prologue seems to differ fundamentally from the Job of the speeches. The former is patient, submissive, resigned; the latter is impatient, bitter, and even defiant. Further, the epilogue represents Jehovah as commending Job and condemning the friends without qualification, whereas it may be urged that, in the course of the speeches, the friends were not always wrong, nor was Job always right, and that it is impossible that his merciless criticisms of the ...
— Introduction to the Old Testament • John Edgar McFadyen
... the inexhaustible riches which the Heimatkunst brought to light, the defiant rejection of the literature of the great cities has been rightly recognized as no mere theoretical programme. The novel of urban life, such as flourished in Berlin, Vienna, and Munich at the close of the last century, is today antiquated and has lost its savor. And it is significant ...
— The German Classics of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries - Masterpieces of German Literature Vol. 19 • Various
... to get new clothing, to reload our wagons, again pushed on to Raleigh and beyond, until we met our enemy suing for peace, instead of war, and offering to submit to the injured laws of his and our country. As long as that enemy was defiant, nor mountains nor rivers, nor swamps, nor hunger, nor cold, had checked us; but when he, who had fought us hard and persistently, offered submission, your general thought it wrong to pursue him farther, and negotiations followed, which ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... defiant petulance.] I can only tell you that it is happiness I must have! I am young! I want to live, ...
— John Gabriel Borkman • Henrik Ibsen
... sang nervously, with defiant recklessness as though half intoxicated, and she chose sad, mournful songs which dealt with wasted hopes, the past, old age, as though in mockery of another's grief. "'And old age comes nearer and nearer' . . ." she sang. And what was old ...
— The Party and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... had,' said Bertha, more piqued than obliged by this reserve, 'he would have known it was in earnest and not childish nonsense. You saw that it was earnest, Phoebe?' and her defiant voice betrayed a semi-distrust. ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... a few defiant and random shots in the direction of the howling, and then, after collecting the ponies that had not stampeded, rode slowly back ...
— Gold • Stewart White
... Notwithstanding his defiant expression, Henri had sufficient prudence to induce him to bend his head and shoulders, and in a few minutes they reached the shelter of the willows unseen by the savages. At least so thought Henri, Joe was not quite sure about it, and Dick hoped ...
— The Dog Crusoe and His Master - A Story of Adventure in the Western Prairies • Robert Michael Ballantyne
... they did not speak. Maud, excited and overwrought by her experience with the letter and her interview with Jed, was still struggling for self-control, and Ruth, knowing that the other must by this time have received that letter and learned her brother's secret, was inclined to be coldly defiant. She was the first to break the silence. She said "Good afternoon" and passed on. But Maud, after another instant of hesitation, ...
— Shavings • Joseph C. Lincoln
... plant!" he ordered, then gazed with lowering brows and defiant eyes at The Grande Dame as she rested swanlike and serene at her moorings. His anger against Mildred's father destroyed for the time all thought of his disappointment at her own lack of understanding and her cool acceptance of his failure. He saw only that ...
— The Silver Horde • Rex Beach
... tanks will advance, destroying machine guns, completing the destruction of the wire, and holding prisoners immobile. Then the infantry will follow to gather in the sheaves. Multitudinously produced and—I write it with a defiant eye on Colonel Newcome—properly handled, these land ironclads are going to do very great things in shortening the war, in pursuit, in breaking up the retreating enemy. Given the air ascendancy, and I am utterly unable to imagine any way of conclusively stopping or even ...
— War and the Future • H. G. Wells
... twisted round a huge back comb; her faded calico dress came far above her ankles; her brawny arms were folded one over the other; and there was in her appearance something altogether disagreeable and defiant. Mrs. Hamilton introduced her as Ruth, her new cook, saying she hoped she would know enough to keep her place better than her predecessor ...
— Homestead on the Hillside • Mary Jane Holmes
... did appear on deck, she walked alone up and down the promenade, with a sort of half-defiant look in her eyes as she passed Kenyon and Edith Longworth, and ...
— A Woman Intervenes • Robert Barr
... expense, and Annie would walk loftily away from the group of young gossips. Perhaps some memory of Gretel's assailants crossed her mind as she skated rapidly toward Amsterdam, for her eyes sparkled ominously and she more than once gave her pretty head a defiant toss. When that mood passed, such a bright, rosy, affectionate look illuminated her face that more than one weary working man turned to gaze after her and to wish that he had a glad, contented lass like that ...
— Hans Brinker - or The Silver Skates • Mary Mapes Dodge
... she had spent a brief vacation in the alley. Now that he was dead, her less successful sister came home, and with her a delegation of girls from Chinatown. In their tawdry finery they walked in, sallow and bold, with Mott Street and the accursed pipe written all over them, defiant of public opinion, yet afraid to enter except in a body. The alley considered them from behind closed blinds, while the children stood by silently to see them pass. When one of them offered one of the "kids" a penny, he ...
— The Battle with the Slum • Jacob A. Riis
... the climax! I found it hard to preserve my self-control, when I looked round, and saw women who were nurses, as I was, and only one shade lighter in complexion, eyeing me with a defiant look, as if my presence were a contamination. However, I said nothing. I quietly took the child in my arms, went to our room, and refused to go to the table again. Mr. Bruce ordered meals to be sent to the room for little Mary and I. This answered for a few days; ...
— Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl - Written by Herself • Harriet Jacobs (AKA Linda Brent)
... however, witnessed in medicine the trend, manifest then in so many fields of thought, away from an uncritical acceptance of the authority of the past. It also saw a defiant denial of ancient authority among those more radically inclined, such as the disciples of the sixteenth-century alchemist and physician, Paracelsus. Although some of his practices and teachings were based on the supernatural, Paracelsus stressed observation ...
— Medicine in Virginia, 1607-1699 • Thomas P. Hughes
... interest. The maid raised her head and watched the stolid faces of the chiefs in the inner circle. Not an expression changed from beginning to end of the speech. Beyond, she could see other, younger faces, some eager, some bitter, some defiant, some smiling, and all showing the flush of excitement,—but these grim old chiefs had long schooled their faces to hide their thoughts. They held their blankets close, and puffed deliberately at their pipes with hardly a movement of ...
— The Road to Frontenac • Samuel Merwin
... pale and languid face which greeted him, the face of a woman weary and even now in tears. Hastily she sought to conceal these evidences of her distress. It was the first time he had seen her weeping. Hitherto her courage had kept her cold and defiant, else hot and full of reproofs. This spectacle gave him concern. His face took on a ...
— The Purchase Price • Emerson Hough
... industrial cities hundreds of thousands of workmen left their work to march through the streets and hold mass meetings, and so formidable was the movement that the government was cowed and dared not attempt to suppress it by force. There was a defiant note of revolution in this great uprising of the workers. They demanded an eight-hour day and the right to organize unions and make collective bargains. In addition to these demands, they protested against the Balkan War and ...
— Bolshevism - The Enemy of Political and Industrial Democracy • John Spargo
... appears to have lived in the tenth century. The other two are legendary figures to whom anthologies of popular gnomic verses are ascribed and some of those attributed to Kapilar are probably ancient. In all this poetry there rings out a note of almost defiant monotheism, iconoclasm and antisacerdotalism. It may be partly explained by the fact that in the south Brahmanism was preceded, or at least from early times accompanied, by Buddhism and Jainism. These creeds did not make a ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... brother and sister seemed beyond all question; but, as I have said, they did not know what it meant, for it might have signified a number of things. It is a practice with many Indians to use such means as a taunt to their enemies, but they generally utter shouts and defiant cries, and nothing of the kind was ...
— The Story of Red Feather - A Tale of the American Frontier • Edward S. (Edward Sylvester) Ellis
... going on among them—on a better authority than rumor. He then introduced his agrarian law, the rough draft of which had been already discussed, and had been supported by Cicero in the preceding year. Had he meant to be defiant, like the Gracchi, he might have offered it at once to the people. Instead of doing so, he laid it before the Senate, inviting them to amend his suggestions, and promising any reasonable concessions if they would co-operate. No ...
— Caesar: A Sketch • James Anthony Froude
... arm dropped, and as the crowd swept on and left him standing, Mr. Tomlin looked down to behold the Angel, and holding fast to her, the badly frightened but defiant personage of Joey. ...
— The Angel of the Tenement • George Madden Martin
... sat staring, staring straight ahead, comprehending none of these things which lay before him as in a panorama. Instead, his memory was conjuring up a pair of subtle, blue-gray eyes, now pleading, now coquettish, now frankly defiant; two slim, white, wonderful hands; the echo of a pleasant, throaty laugh; a splendid, elusive, radiant-haired phantom. Truly, a woman of mystery! Who was this Isabel Thorne who, for months past, had been the storm-center ...
— Elusive Isabel • Jacques Futrelle
... was plainly angered at this brusque introduction. He left the chair which he had begun to push forward, let it stand in the middle of the studio, and went and sat down on his engraving-stool in the corner, with a somewhat haughty look, and a defiant smile lurking behind his beard. He rested his elbow on the table and began ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... where he spent his evenings and his money. Ha, I see the Countess Cheer. There is a citadel of virtue! It has been stormed and taken so many times that I wonder it is not in ruins, and yet here it is defiant, with banners flying. ...
— The O'Ruddy - A Romance • Stephen Crane
... the heavenly omens, and address himself like a man and hero to the great dumb-struggling heart of England, and speak out for it, and act out for it, the God's-justice it is writhing to get uttered and perishing for want of—yes, he too will see awaken round him, in passionate, burning, all-defiant loyalty, the heart of England, and such a 'support' as no Division-List or Parliamentary Majority was ever yet known to yield a man! Here as there, now as then, he who can and dare trust the heavenly Immensities, all earthly Localities are subject to him. We will pray for ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... the grace of her appearance. Her face was very pale, and somewhat hard; but no one on looking at it could say that it was the countenance of a woman overcome either by sorrow or by crime. She was perfect mistress of herself, and as she looked round the court, not with defiant gaze, but with eyes half raised, and a look of modest but yet conscious intelligence, those around her hardly dared to think that ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope
... side of the river, in a parallel to the line of Burnside on the north side of the river, and Jackson quietly, but quickly follows. They are at Fredericksburg, and our army looms up, calm, but stern; still, but defiant and menacing. I heartily wish that Burnside may be successful, and that I may prove to have been a false prophet. But the great Fatum, FATE, seems to declare against Burnside, and Fate generally takes sides with bold ...
— Diary from November 12, 1862, to October 18, 1863 • Adam Gurowski
... to his ear the sound of two words: "I will!" in reply to his own defiant query. Surely those words uttered by a man conscious of power and of strength could never have been spoken by the dilapidated old scarecrow who earned a precarious living by writing letters for ...
— The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... world and the patience to bide his time. A few generations earlier he might have made a right-hand man to Cromwell and held a place in the heart of Hampden. On the very threshold of his manhood, when receiving his degree of Master of Arts at Harvard, he asserted his defiant democracy in a dissertation on the right of the people of a commonwealth to combine against injustice on the part of the head of the State. The badly dressed man with the grave firm face of a Pilgrim Father was as ready and as resolute to oppose King George as ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume III (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... fraction of a second his eyes, bright and defiant, met Braceway's. The detective, reading the elation ...
— The Winning Clue • James Hay, Jr.
... talked with her yesterday she was perfectly docile and apparently contented. I cannot imagine her driven to such a deed of desperation. I asked her: 'Why did you do it, Anna?' She answered, 'I don't know: I—I don't know!' Her reply was not defiant or ...
— Adventures In Friendship • David Grayson
... may easily have been either an interpolation to sustain the claim of the miraculous birth of Jesus, or it may have been simply the defiant fling of the vanquished to the victor, because phallic worship was in the ascendant. It is, however, recorded, that not an instance can be cited in which the honor of initiation into the Eleusirian mysteries was conferred upon a bad man; nor ...
— Sex=The Unknown Quantity - The Spiritual Function of Sex • Ali Nomad
... not," he said, weakly defiant. "I really care very much for the girl. You see, I knew her three years ago. You needn't oppose me, Bess; I ...
— The Desired Woman • Will N. Harben
... but Paul made no reply. The old man struck a lucifer match and lit the gas. The boy stood blinking in the light, his face stained with tears, his eyelids red and a little swollen. To the father's eye he looked sullen and defiant Of course he was neither, but he was entirely hopeless of being understood, and therefore helpless ...
— Despair's Last Journey • David Christie Murray
... dry now, and defiant, pulled back with all the strength of her slender arm. "Oh, fath-er!" she plead. "Oh, please, I ...
— The Poor Little Rich Girl • Eleanor Gates
... in the hearts of God's children to the power of the Holy Ghost is inbred sin—that dark, defiant, evil something within that struggles for the mastery of the soul, and will not submit to be meek and lowly, and patient and forbearing and holy, as was Jesus; and when the Holy Spirit comes, His first work is to sweep away that something, that carnal principle, ...
— When the Holy Ghost is Come • Col. S. L. Brengle
... something moved in the garret: a board creaked, a struck chair or table scraped along the uneven floor, and Mrs. Muir appeared round a corner of the piled furniture. Barrie stiffened herself, standing up straight and tall and defiant, ready for battle, holding the portrait as if it were a shield. But she was not prepared to see Mrs. Muir start back, stumbling against something which fell with a sharp crash, nor to hear her give vent to a squeal of terror. It was anger the ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... of the day with all his accustomed regularity and precision, but with a sort of defiant and I-am-going-to-stick-to-it air about him which in itself incited the other boys to covert thrusts and innuendoes tending to throw distrust upon his version of the story and to make known their thorough sympathy with Percy, not only for his loss, but also for the aspersions ...
— Bessie Bradford's Prize • Joanna H. Mathews
... of great service to us in our dealings with rascally station-keepers; but this station-keeper was not one of the ordinary type. He was a Cossack, of herculean proportions, with a bullet-shaped head, short-cropped bristly hair, shaggy eyebrows, an enormous pendent moustache, a defiant air, and a peculiar expression of countenance which plainly indicated "an ugly customer." Though it was still early in the day, he had evidently already imbibed a considerable quantity of alcohol, and his whole demeanour showed clearly enough ...
— Russia • Donald Mackenzie Wallace
... not, because we are less passive to destiny, we are rebellious against Deity; because we are boldly self-reliant, we are, therefore, irreligiously defiant. The freer a people is, the nearer it is to God. The more subjective it is, through acquired self-rule, the more will it harmonize with the high objectivity of absolute truth and justice. For having thrown off the capricious secondary rule of man, we shall not be the less, but the ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... the most desperate—Boucher himself—drew back, faltered away, scowled, and finally went off, muttering curses on the master, who stood in his unchanging attitude, looking after their retreat with defiant eyes. The moment that retreat had changed into a flight (as it was sure from its very character to do), he darted up the steps to Margaret. She tried ...
— North and South • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... vicious muzzle to bite at him. Lake gave a jerk on the bridle that almost brought the mustang to his knees. He reared then, snorted, and came down to plant his forefeet wide apart, and watched his master with defiant eyes. This mustang was the finest horse Shefford had ever seen. He appeared quite large for his species, was almost red in color, had a racy and powerful build, and a fine thoroughbred head with dark, fiery eyes. He did not look mean, but ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... had by chance fallen in with the party told off to attack the fort of Douaumont, and so found himself amidst its captors. For a moment, then, the two regarded one another, Max flaming with anger, defiant, on the point of abruptly ordering this hulking individual to mind his own business. And then that sense of discretion which had helped him in the past came to his assistance, and he forced a smile—an unwilling smile—while his ...
— With Joffre at Verdun - A Story of the Western Front • F. S. Brereton
... enjoyed the abundant sympathy of the Pierce Administration; but as the presidential election of 1856 was at hand, the success of the Democratic party could not at the moment be endangered by so open and defiant an act of partisanship. It was still essential to placate the wounded anti-slavery sensibilities of the Northern States, and to this end John W. Geary, of Pennsylvania, was nominated by the President and unanimously confirmed ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... Lesbia had both written to Lady Maulevrier, Lesbia writing somewhat coldly, very briefly, and in a half defiant tone, to the effect that she had accepted Mr. Smithson's offer, and that she hoped her grandmother would be pleased with a match which everybody supposed to be extremely advantageous. She was going to Grasmere ...
— Phantom Fortune, A Novel • M. E. Braddon
... politicians there will be great consternation when the call comes to step to the captain's office and settle. When we see unjust rulers in their pride of power fastening chains upon the bondmen, oppressing the poor, and playing their pranks of defiant tyranny before high heaven, then also come these words to mind, like a blast from the last trumpet, Step to the captain's office ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... themselves to be independent; as Tacitus says, "Securi adversus homines, securi adversus Deos." This individuality, which had only itself for an end, must necessarily be destroyed, and was saved only by Christianity, which overcame and enlightened its daemonic and defiant spirit. We cannot speak here of a system of Education. Respect for personality, the free acknowledgment of the claims of woman, the loyalty to the leader chosen by themselves, loyalty to their friends (the idea of fellowship),—these features should all be well-noted, ...
— Pedagogics as a System • Karl Rosenkranz
... full-throated scream of terror from the menaced house, and there in the doorway, clad in a bed gown, but erect and defiant, was the person of long-bedridden Grandma Dodwell herself. She brandished her lace cap at Starling Tucker and threatened to have him in jail if there was any law left in the land. Excited citizens gathered to the scene, for the picket fence had not succumbed without protest, and the crash had ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... States who speak and think thus, though they may be the most loyal, are perhaps not politically the most wise. And I am inclined to think that that defiant claim of every star, that resolve to possess every stripe upon the banner, had become somewhat less general when I was leaving the country than I had found it to be at the time of my arrival there. While things were ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... instant to be a defiant note in the Procurator Fiscal's voice that made Ned glance at him sharply. But he saw nothing in his face but the same set ...
— Simon • J. Storer Clouston
... and then while impatiently waiting for the new pine splinters to catch, he would tell Fleda how much he liked it, or how beautiful he thought it, and whisper inquiries and critical questions; till the fire reached the fat vein, and leaped up in defiant emulation of gas-lights unknown, and then he would fall to again with renewed gusto. And Fleda hunted out in her portfolio what bits to give him first, and bade him, as she gave them, remember this and understand that, which was necessary to be borne in mind in the ...
— Queechy, Volume I • Elizabeth Wetherell
... those cold, slightly defiant, almost defensive china blue orbs, there came a warmth, a tenderness, a friendly recognition... oh, it was very charming and very touching—and quite mortifying. It was the look of a mother to her son, ...
— The Good Soldier • Ford Madox Ford |
