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More "Defenceless" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... fears), when there were mutterings and growlings of another approaching storm. The messengers of Satan sent to baffle me gave me to understand that they had not abandoned their prey, but were sure of it yet. They poured the wrath of hell upon my defenceless head that afternoon. I have not, hitherto, attempted to offer much direct proof to the uninitiated that my experiences, in this connection, were other than hallucination. That which now occurred is, as it seems to me, in the nature of such ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... be made into the country by small predatory parties of French and Indians, who kept up a perpetual alarm, and murdered the defenceless, wherever found. In Pennsylvania, the inhabitants were driven as far as Carlisle; and in Maryland, Fredericktown, on the eastern side of the Blue Ridge, became a frontier. With the Virginia regiment, which did not yet amount to one thousand men, aided occasionally by militia, Colonel Washington ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 2 (of 5) • John Marshall
... landed on the coast, some miles south of the River Saint John, at the head of a large band of ruffian troops. Guided by a party of the treacherous Indians, he and his band made their way through the forests, and fell suddenly, sword in hand, on the almost defenceless colonists. Not a human being who could be overtaken was allowed to escape; men, women, and children were ruthlessly slaughtered by Menendez and his savage followers. When the work was done, he set up a stone, on which he caused to be engraved, ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... were so afraid of him that they used to say that they would rather see the devil than to see him; they were glad when he died. But while so much was said of Uncle Esau, which was also true of many other negro drivers, the overseers themselves were not guiltless of cruelty to the defenceless slaves. ...
— My Life In The South • Jacob Stroyer
... of those I have not seen—fires the memory of which will live in my heart for years and years! If we burn the vessels of the French, is it not because they have hounded on the Indians to burn our homesteads, ay, and with them our defenceless wives and children, mothers and sisters? Shall not deeds like these bring about a stern retaliation? Are we not here to take vengeance upon those who have been treacherous foes, and shamed the Christian ...
— French and English - A Story of the Struggle in America • Evelyn Everett-Green
... thoughts of that bitter past. At one staggering blow she had lost all that had made her young life worth living—her father's esteem and her lover's love. She was innocent, entirely innocent, of the terrible allegations against her, and yet she was so utterly defenceless! ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... Processionaires, of whom my aunt gave you the history. There is a cock here who is as great a tyrant in his own way as Buonaparte, and a poor Barbary cock who has no claws, has the misfortune to live in the same yard with him; he will not suffer this poor defenceless fellow to touch a morsel or grain of all the good things Margaret throws to them till he and ...
— The Life And Letters Of Maria Edgeworth, Vol. 1 • Maria Edgeworth
... only use of rhetoric is in self-accusation, and Polus was right in saying that to do wrong is worse than to suffer wrong, and Gorgias was right in saying that the rhetorician must be a just man. And you were wrong in taunting me with my defenceless condition, and in saying that I might be accused or put to death or boxed on the ears with impunity. For I may repeat once more, that to strike is worse than to be stricken—to do than to suffer. What I said then is now made fast in adamantine bonds. ...
— Gorgias • Plato
... answered from the Rose by a column of smoke, and the eighteen-pound ball crashed through the bottom of the defenceless Spaniard. ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... of bloodshed and adventure he seemed to delight. Like the free-lance in all ages, he seems to have squandered his booty as soon as it was acquired, and then to sea once more, to face the desperate hazard of an encounter with the knights, to raid defenceless villages, to lie perdu behind some convenient cape, dashing out from thence to plunder the argosy of the merchantman. Intolerable conditions of heat and cold he endured, he suffered from wounds, from fever, from hunger ...
— Sea-Wolves of the Mediterranean • E. Hamilton Currey
... broke in Diana haughtily. "Insult a defenceless girl with her poverty! It is a noble act, and one worthy of a ...
— The Champdoce Mystery • Emile Gaboriau
... to remain Amid this hollow, how ill judged! how vain! Our sea-breach'd vessel can no longer bear The floods that o'er her burst in dread career; 720 The labouring hull already seems half-fill'd With water through a hundred leaks distill'd; Thus drench'd by every wave, her riven deck, Stript and defenceless, floats a naked wreck; At every pitch the o'erwhelming billows bend Beneath their load the quivering bowsprit's end; A fearful warning! since the masts on high On that support with trembling hope ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... the kings their minstrel / —that may ye fairly know— Leave not all defenceless / there amid the foe. With them a thousand heroes / rode forth full dexterously, And soon had gained their purpose / with ...
— The Nibelungenlied - Translated into Rhymed English Verse in the Metre of the Original • trans. by George Henry Needler
... warm and unwavering as ever. Children left to the cruel mercy of slave-holders, could never be forgotten. Brothers and sisters could not refrain from weeping over the remembrance of their separation on the auction block: of having seen innocent children, feeble and defenceless women in the grasp of a merciless tyrant, pleading, groaning, and crying in vain for pity. Not to remember those thus bruised and mangled, it would seem alike unnatural, and impossible. Therefore it is a source of great satisfaction to be able, in relating these heroic escapes, to present the evidences ...
— The Underground Railroad • William Still
... sudden, paralysing conviction flashed upon her that the palace had been deserted by its guards and was in the hands of murderers. She seemed to hear them swarming everywhere, unopposed, yet lusting for blood, while she, a defenceless woman, ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the excellent soldiership of the Turkish horsemen. With sabres and short muskets, they dashed in and out of the crowd of retreating Greeks, who, having no bayonets and no weapons adapted for close fighting, were utterly defenceless. He himself, having landed with Dr. Gosse to watch the operations from the shore, was so hard pressed by these formidable antagonists that he was only rescued by his own bravery and the daring of Dr. Gosse, ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... order. It began, inevitably, with ice-water. Ice-water is the thing that waiters fill up intervals with. Instead of pausing between courses for the usual waiter's meditation, they make instinctively for the silver ice-water jug, and fill every defenceless glass. Ice-water is universal. It is taken before, during and after every meal, and there are ice-water tanks (and paper cups) on every railway carriage and every hotel. At first one loathes it, and it seems to create an unnatural ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... deadliest foe which can assail the soul. An appetite which has in all ages debased the weak, wrestled fiercely with the strong, and vanquished at times even the noble, is let loose upon an unwarned, unarmed, defenceless child. Oh, the utter, ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... a luckless Hour, Tries the dread Summits of Cesarean Pow'r, With unexpected Legions bursts away, And sees defenceless Realms receive his Sway; Short Sway! fair Austria spreads her mournful Charms, The Queen, the Beauty, sets the World in Arms; From Hill to Hill the Beacons rousing Blaze Spreads wide the Hope of Plunder and of Praise; The ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... her father's court. That taunt from the supercilious, curling lip of the royal princess, who had honoured him by consenting to become his wife, was a burning ray of persecution streaming on David's defenceless head. If his religion had been confined to the surface, while the pomp and circumstance of royalty occupied his heart, it would have died out then and there, as the tender sprouting corn, whose roots rest on a rock, dies out under ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... too, that his assurance in regard to sentimental ambitions had its attractions for her. They chaffed and sparred with each other and under the flippant duel there flashed now and then the encounters of a real one. Rose denied the possession of a heart, but Eddy's wary steel might strike one day to a defenceless tenderness. She liked him, among many others, very much. And she was, as she frequently declared, in love with his mother. Jack never took Rose seriously; she remained for him a pretty, trivial, malicious child; but to-day he was pleased by the ...
— A Fountain Sealed • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... Government, that they will resist the clamour to withdraw the Cruisers from the Western Coast of Africa, and that they will NOT WITHDRAW the British Cruisers. If a blow is to be struck, let it be struck at Cuba, or the Brazils, and not on the defenceless Africans, because they are defenceless. If a burglar prowls about, a whole neighbourhood is on the alert to protect itself against his depredations. If a band of pirates swarm in a sea or infest our coasts, a ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... was no longer there then, but half a dozen others in their war-paint stood between them and their firelocks. It seemed as if they were sensible that their very silence inspired more awe and apprehension in the bosoms of their defenceless enemies than could have done the most turbulent expression of their triumph. They had evidently entered by the back door, which was now quite open, and grouped around the body of Mr. Heywood, were apparently ...
— Hardscrabble - The Fall of Chicago: A Tale of Indian Warfare • John Richardson
... know what was happening, inside. Had they only waited, they would have seen all the soldier garrison march away, leaving the women and children and a few grandfathers—and the fort would have been seized without trouble except to the defenceless families. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... addressed himself at once to the task of stopping the bleeding. In this task it was his fate to be ridiculously impeded by the pretty maid. The girl, filling the garden with cries for help, flung herself upon his defenceless back and, twining her fingers in his hair, tugged at his head. Why she should choose to hinder him at this precise moment he could not in the least understand. He did not try. It was all like a very wicked ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... as I got into the township this very morning, what did I hear? Of course, you know. Well, now I have just the same feeling that to-night there's to be more dirty work by those thieving scoundrels, and it's here they're coming this time, here—and I'm to be left to their mercy, just one poor weak, defenceless woman and an old half-witted fool of a ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... far down he had risen with the rising tide. He had been feeding on crabs, when the tide, betraying him, had gone out, leaving him trapped in the rock-pool. He had slept, perhaps, and awakened to find a being, naked and defenceless, invading his pool. He was quite small, as octopods go, and young, yet he was large and powerful enough to have ...
— The Blue Lagoon - A Romance • H. de Vere Stacpoole
... not much o' the blood o' the Grants, either, that's in your veins, or ye would scorn to consort wi' such fire-raisin' cut-throats. It iss the fortune of war—whatever, and we can't affoord to leave our weemen an' bairns defenceless. So we accept your terms, if we are not hindered ...
— The Buffalo Runners - A Tale of the Red River Plains • R.M. Ballantyne
... and went down among them to the beach, a bitter rage at his heart, and in his head a just apprehension for his defenceless back. But no stones were cast. The children swarmed mockingly about his feet, and the air was wild with laughter and derision, but that was all. Yet he did not breathe freely until the canoe was well out upon the water, when he rose up and laid a futile curse upon ...
— Children of the Frost • Jack London
... that the Snake had been compelled to face him in the puny form of a wretched pugilist. Some one had said something about an axe. It would be but fair if he had an axe, seeing that hitherto the Snake had had him utterly defenceless while exercising its own immeasurable and supernatural powers, when torturing him to its heart's content for endless aeons. But—no—since it was here in human form and without weapons, he would use none, and would observe ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... sensations of a hero. When he could sufficiently control his feeling of elation, he looked down at the small person with an air of condescension and again lent himself to the garbled sort of language with which defenceless infants are inevitably persecuted. ...
— Baby Mine • Margaret Mayo
... verified. Shot after shot was launched from the heavy jingal, and at the short range the gunners found the door an easy mark, and pounded it again and again until it was utterly shattered, and the opening into their stronghold was left defenceless. Nor could the besieged make the gap good with any other barrier. Between the firing of the heavy balls a steady fusillade of musketry was poured into the doorway, and no one dared ...
— Jack Haydon's Quest • John Finnemore
... called on him at official headquarters that day, to inquire whether, as the said Oddris's wife and children were going to the Women's Laager, his place as a husband and father was not by their side? Being informed that able-bodied male beings were not included in the list of the defenceless, he had become importunate in the matter of at least a bomb-proof shelter to ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... Were their muskets loaded? Would they discharge them to show their host the European method?" The muskets were discharged, and immediately the banquet was announced. "Delay to reload the muskets was inexpedient. It would be time to recharge their weapons after the feast." And then, when seated and defenceless, there was an irruption of armed men, and Gilliam, with his followers, were seized and fettered. For a year they lay at Junaghur, where two of them died. In vain Gilliam contrived to send a letter to the Surat factory, asking that they might be claimed as British subjects. President Harris ...
— The Pirates of Malabar, and An Englishwoman in India Two Hundred Years Ago • John Biddulph
... good people, especially that delightful old man, the Judge. He looked startlingly like my dear father. I saw how they all honored and loved you. And then what you have done for me, and the way that you treated an utterly defenceless stranger, were equal to years of mere acquaintance. I feel that I know a great deal ...
— The Mystery of Mary • Grace Livingston Hill
... in love is pleasing, and between ourselves, I dare say that, however dazzling the flash of your charms, there are others as fair as you—if, I say, another beauty should bind him under new thralls, if in the state in which you are now, alone and defenceless at his mercy, he should go so far as to offer violence, on whom should the king wreak his vengeance for ...
— Psyche • Moliere
... did not know that the forces of civilization were equally sinister, equally overwhelming. All his belated brain knew, was that if he failed to answer the call of those in authority, he must take refuge in the forests. Which was sure death. It was sure death to wander defenceless, unarmed, in the twilight gloom of noon day, enveloped by dense overgrowth, avoiding venomous serpents and vile stinging insects by day, and crouching by night from man-eating tigers. It presented therefore, no pleasant ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... out of your senses," she exclaimed. "Guy, this man is a bully. All his life it has been his pleasure to persecute the weak and defenceless. The papers are yours. I do not know what they are, nor does he," she added, pointing to where my father still crouched before the table. "Don't let him frighten you into giving them up. He is trying to ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Peruvians—who might possibly have got wind of the expedition—should have no chance of escaping by lying hidden until the Chilians were past, and then making a sudden dash southward upon the comparatively defenceless ...
— Under the Chilian Flag - A Tale of War between Chili and Peru • Harry Collingwood
... discovered it, I imagine. I understand how you feel, but what can you do about it? You can't punish men like Waterman. You can't punish them for anything they do, whether it is monopolising a necessity of life and starving thousands of people to death, or whether it is an attack upon a defenceless woman. There are rich men in this city who make it their diversion to answer advertisements and decoy young girls. A stenographer in my office told me that she had had over twenty positions in one year, ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... credibly informed that this cruelty was often resorted to, to disabuse the mind of a deceived and injured wife who suspects unfair treatment. This attested fact, disgraceful as it is, can scarcely be wondered at in men who mercilessly subject defenceless women to the lash without a spark of human feeling, or compunction of conscience. It is little to the credit of United States senators that they have not at least made laws to protect women from the barbarous usage of flogging. One would imagine that men, who, perhaps, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell
... a rough, good-natured man, with nothing of the bully about him, but regarded with intense scorn and indignation any attempt on the part of the strong to tyrannize over the weak and defenceless. ...
— Grandmother Elsie • Martha Finley
... foot- chopping or knee-slicing; and that all the prisoners of that degree were told off to do productive work: although humiliatingly deformed, they were still available for the common purposes of native life, and their defenceless and forlorn plight would probably make it an easier matter to handle them in gangs than to handle sound males; and if they died off under the rough treatment of task-masters, they would have no families to mourn or avenge them in accordance with family duty; for a eunuch ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... World certain beings armed with these wondrous faculties, comparable only to the terrible power of certain gases in the physical world, beings who combine with other beings, penetrate them as active agents, and produce upon them witchcrafts, charms, against which these helpless slaves are wholly defenceless; they are, in fact, enchanted, brought under subjection, reduced to a condition of dreadful vassalage. Such mysterious beings overpower others with the sceptre and the glory of a superior nature,—acting upon them at times like the torpedo ...
— Seraphita • Honore de Balzac
... unpardonably bearish manner; and he could not apologise for his behaviour unless he confessed his jealousy of Austin, which, in all probability, would have subjected him to the mocking ridicule of Viviette—a thing which, above all others, he dreaded, and against which he knew himself to be defenceless. Viviette, too, found silence golden. She knew perfectly well why Dick had slammed the door. An explanation would have been absurd. It would have interfered with her relations with Austin, which were beginning ...
— Viviette • William J. Locke
... gentle courtesy was, unhappily, rare, and many a heroic legend is spoilt by the insolence of the hero to people of lower rank. Again, the legends often look lightly on the ill-treatment of maidens; yet the true hero is one who is never tempted to injure a defenceless woman. Similarly, a broken oath to a heathen or mere churl is excused as a trifling matter, but the ideal hero sweareth and breaketh not, though it be to ...
— Hero-Myths & Legends of the British Race • Maud Isabel Ebbutt
... thinking of the shop was evident, for Miss Sarah was now heard remarking, "You left us defenceless, Caroline, and we surrendered ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... sir, that of insulting the defenceless. You know I am doubly so—defenceless from age, defenceless in virtue of my sacred profession; but if I am defenceless against your insults, Sir Thomas Gourlay, I am not against your threats, which I despise and defy. The ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... occupied the town, they gave themselves over to all kinds of excesses, perpetrating atrocious cruelties on defenceless women and children, and pillaging convents ...
— With Spurs of Gold - Heroes of Chivalry and their Deeds • Frances Nimmo Greene
... or Knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, If deed of honour did thee ever please, Guard them, and him within protect from harms. He can requite thee, for he knows the charms That call fame on such gentle acts as these, And he can ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... worth all they were to pay for it, for I was personally familiar with the value of the properties of which the section was to be composed. When Mr. Rogers, as I have explained in my story, substituted, under circumstances that rendered me defenceless, an entirely new set of mines for those programmed for the first section—properties about which I knew only what he told me—from that time on my only guarantee against the jugglery and fraud I feared was to keep in the hands of Rogers and Rockefeller so large ...
— Frenzied Finance - Vol. 1: The Crime of Amalgamated • Thomas W. Lawson
... a Christian duty to forgive—that when a bad man smites one defenceless cheek, we are taught to offer the other to his upraised hand. But the Lord of Heaven and earth promises no forgiveness of transgression unless it is followed by repentance; and where God himself draws the strict line ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... Uncertain ever is the chance of arms, No prudent warrior doth despise his foe; Nor yet defenceless 'gainst severity Hath nature left the weak; she gives him craft And wily cunning: artful he delays, Evades, eludes, and finally escapes. Such arms are justified ...
— Iphigenia in Tauris • Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
... government and of the negro. But of this let nothing be said in this place. Waiving humanity, national honor, the claims of gratitude, the precious satisfaction arising from deeds of charity and justice to the weak and defenceless,—the appeal for impartial suffrage addresses itself with great pertinency to the darkest, coldest, and flintiest side of the human heart, and would wring righteousness from the unfeeling ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... men, claiming the service of their soldiers and civil guard and the respect of their nation—deliberately hash a daily meal of falsehood and serve up German victories and triumphs on land and sea as sauce to the starvation diet of their defenceless captives. ...
— Raemaekers' Cartoons - With Accompanying Notes by Well-known English Writers • Louis Raemaekers
... desired that no one should know of his being deceived; and were he a dupe the deceiver would know it, and her accomplice would know it, and the world would soon know of it: that world against whose tongue he stood defenceless. Within the shadow of his presence he compressed opinion, as a strong frost binds the springs of earth, but beyond it his shivering sensitiveness ran about in dread of a stripping in a wintry atmosphere. This was the ground of his hatred of the world: ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... which made all hypocrisy a shame and a sham. Also, deceiving her would have been like deceiving a child; hurting her was like hurting a child. (That was what enraged me when he hurt her, and I had to stand by, and listen.) She was so simple, and direct, and defenceless. So, you see, as soon as I realised what had happened, I told her. It wasn't a dramatic avowal, and it had no very immediately dramatic consequences. In fact, for a while its only effect was to bring me across the room from my habitual arm-chair, ...
— The Tale Of Mr. Peter Brown - Chelsea Justice - From "The New Decameron", Volume III. • V. Sackville West
... her seat upon a Sheep; which after carrying her a long time on her back and much against her inclination, remarked: "If you had done thus to a Dog with his sharp teeth, you would have suffered for it." To this the rascally {Crow replied}: "I despise the defenceless, and I yield to the powerful; I know whom to vex, and whom to flatter craftily; by these means I put off ...
— The Fables of Phdrus - Literally translated into English prose with notes • Phaedrus
... the knights that were with him fell upon the troop that guarded the queen, and dispersed them, and slew all who withstood them. And in the confusion Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris were slain, for they were unarmed and defenceless. And Sir Launcelot carried away the queen to his castle of ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... but then pathetically checks herself by saying, "No, I am dead." Lucretia naturally enough inquires into the cause of her disquietude, and but too soon discovers, by the broken hints of the victim, the source of her mental agitation. Terrified at their defenceless state, they then mutually conspire with Orsino against the Count; and Beatrice proposes to way-lay him (a plot, however, which fails) in a deep and dark ravine, ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... the Kaiser in the affair at Saberne was found industriously hacking at a cripple. In all these matters I would avoid sentiment. We must not lose our tempers at the mere cruelty of the thing; but pursue the strict psychological distinction. Others besides German soldiers have slain the defenceless, for loot or lust or private malice, like any other murderer. The point is that nowhere else but in Prussian Germany is any theory of honour mixed up with such things; any more than with poisoning or picking pockets. No French, English, Italian or American ...
— The Barbarism of Berlin • G. K. Chesterton
... reason for this assassination, in open day, of a defenceless prisoner! The penalty of death for disobedience to one of the prison regulations. Is this, then, a caprice, or an access of ill-temper, on the part of an officer who has no authority in this matter, since prisoners awaiting trial are only responsible to the representatives ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... been referred to, as also the refusal of Government to interfere in the slightest with the commercial frauds and impositions constantly practiced, with all their resulting great extortions, upon the defenceless masses. ...
— Great Fortunes from Railroads • Gustavus Myers
... a breath of cold air stirred his hair; and still she was speaking. He understood a little more now; she knew it all—his doings—what he had said last night—and there was not one word to say in answer. Her short lashing sentences fell on his defenceless soul, but all sense was dead, and he watched with a dazed impersonalness how each stroke went home, and yet he felt no ...
— The King's Achievement • Robert Hugh Benson
... people. The Pines is an isolated spot, and my resources are few. I fear I should have found life here somewhat monotonous before long, with no other society than that of my excellent sire. It is true, I might have made a target of the defenceless invalid; but I haven't a taste for ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... said, "I am now half assured, but unless you bind fast your sword, I dare not come in." Then Canneloro, who wished to become friends with the doe, bound his sword as a countryman does, when he carries it in the city for fear of the constables. As soon as the ogre saw Canneloro defenceless, he re-took his own form, and laying hold on him, flung him into a pit at the bottom of the cave, and covered it up with a stone—to keep ...
— Stories from Pentamerone • Giambattista Basile
... of contention, accepted the proffered escort of the gentleman before mentioned, and was followed out of the cars by the conductor and his blackguard assistants, all of them highly elated by the victory they had won over a defenceless old woman and a feeble ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... should have gone to him for advice and comfort. As it was, we were forced to await the issue without counsel. Polly Ann and I talked it over many times while Tom sat, morose and silent, in a corner. He was the pioneer pure and simple, afraid of no man, red or white, in open combat, but defenceless ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... were struggling together on the ground. Matthews, however, being much the stronger, was able to pin Sheridan down, and with a piece of the broken sword stabbed him repeatedly in the face. "Beg your life, and I will spare it," he demanded of the prostrate and defenceless man. "I will neither beg it, nor receive it from such a villain," was the ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... peculiar wave of self-denial, of a disquieting nature, passed through him. He looked at Oceaxe, and it struck him for the first time that he was being unnecessarily brutal to her. He had forgotten that she was a woman, and defenceless. ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay
... effectual in bringing his sons back to France, than Francois began to look out for new pretexts and means for war. Affairs were not unpromising. His mother's death in 1531 left him in possession of a huge fortune, which she had wrung from defenceless France; the powers which were jealous of Austria, the Turk, the English King, the members of the Smalkald league, all looked to Francois as their leader; Clement VII., though his misfortunes had thrown him into the Emperor's hands, was not unwilling to treat with France; and in 1533 ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... two political systems confront each other at Madrid, 169; both reduced to impotence by Madame des Ursins, 169; Gibraltar torn away for ever from Spain by a handful of British seamen, 187; defenceless state of the country, 187; necessary to have almost an army in each province, 199; the last remnant of the army surrenders without fighting, 199; the aim of the Great Alliance, 205; solves by her own efforts the great question which had kept Europe so long in arms, ...
— Political Women, Vol. 2 (of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... collecting nuts to carry home, but being tired, he laid down to repose himself in the sun, and unfortunately fell asleep, nor did he wake till he found himself in the grasp of the merciless black cat, who springing upon her defenceless prey, strangled him in an instant. There was no fond Downy near, nor affectionate Velvet, to receive his last sighs, nor give him aid. The evening came, but no Silket returned to the disconsolate ...
— Little Downy - The History of A Field-Mouse • Catharine Parr Traill
... dangers Lady Davenant protected him, and she took care that nobody hurt him in his defenceless state, before his shell was well formed and hardened. She was further of peculiar service in keeping all safe and smooth between the ward and guardian. All Beauclerc's romance the general would have called ...
— Helen • Maria Edgeworth
... well," said Gore bitterly, "to keep your wife out of the room while you were accusing me. I am old and defenceless," he said, with lips trembling, and again an immense self-pity rushing over him. "I can't answer; I can't reply ...
— The Arbiter - A Novel • Lady F. E. E. Bell
... arrival marks it very plainly. It was in the years 1408, and 1409, that this Conqueror ravaged India for the purpose of disseminating the Mahometan religion. Not only every one who made any resistance was destroyed, and such as fell into the enemies' hands, though quite defenceless, were made slaves; but in a short time those very slaves, to the number of one hundred thousand, were put to death. In consequence of the universal panic which took place, those, who could quit the country, might well be supposed to consult ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... rebuked by a deputation of Samian exiles, now living on the mainland, who met him at Ephesus. His was a strange method, they remarked with bitter irony, of helping the Ionians to recover their liberty—to butcher defenceless men, who had done him no harm, but looked to him for rescue from their bondage to Athens! If he continued to behave thus, he would make the name of Sparta detested throughout Ionia. Dull as he was, Alcidas could not but feel the justice of this reprimand, and he let the ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... their poetic fancies for liveries of mutilation which their slaves shall wear for life and carry to the grave, breaking living limbs as did the soldiery who mocked and slew the Saviour of the world, and set defenceless creatures up for targets! Shall we whimper over legends of the tortures practised on each other by the Pagan Indians, and smile upon the cruelties of Christian men! Shall we, so long as these things last, exult above the scattered remnants of that race, and triumph in ...
— American Notes for General Circulation • Charles Dickens
... himself. It went against his heart to beat a creature so defenceless; and, for the life of him, he knew no other way to rid himself of this unwelcome and, as he began ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... through the bushes, and bounding down the bank toward the actors in this nineteenth-century tournament, wherein an armed knight and a doughty squire were set against a weak, defenceless woman. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... may stab your good name with impunity in England, will you be so uncandid as to exclaim against Italy for the practice of common assassination? To what purpose is our property secured, if our moral character is left defenceless? People thus baited, grow desperate; and the despair of being able to preserve one's character, untainted by such vermin, produces a total neglect of fame; so that one of the chief incitements to the practice ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... ever been so harassed, so trampled upon, so plundered by that sordid and licentious class of infringers known in the parlance of the world, with no exaggeration of phrase, as 'pirates,' The spoliations of their incessant guerilla warfare upon his defenceless rights have unquestionably amounted to millions. In the very front rank of this predatory band stands one who sustains in this case the double and most convenient character of contestant and witness; and ...
— Famous Americans of Recent Times • James Parton
... the 'hermit crab.' He does not want, though, to leave that comfortable lodging he has secured for himself, as you think. He's an 'old soldier,' and knows when he's well off! He belongs to what is called the 'soft-tailed' family, and being defenceless astern he has to seek an artificial protection against his enemies, ...
— Bob Strong's Holidays - Adrift in the Channel • John Conroy Hutcheson
... anything but human vivisection? Once we admit that patients in hospitals have no rights superior to scientific demands, and there is hardly a limit to which such experimentation may not be carried on the poor, the ignorant, the feeble-minded and the defenceless. ...
— An Ethical Problem - Or, Sidelights upon Scientific Experimentation on Man and Animals • Albert Leffingwell
... knightliness which it received from Teutonic sources. How the fine sentiments and ennobling customs of the Teutonic nations, particularly with respect to the gallantry and generosity of the male toward the female sex, grew into beautiful combination with the rule of protecting the weak and defenceless everywhere, and how these elements were blended with the spirit of religious devotion which entered into the organization and practices of chivalry, forms one of the most fascinating features in the study of its development; and this gentler side, no less than its sterner aspects, is faithfully presented ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 5 • Various
... necessary to war, unless when assisted by the second. And by adopting as the rule of our conduct the law of benevolence, all motive arising from the second cause is taken away. There is not a nation in Europe that could be led on to war against a harmless, just, forgiving, and defenceless people." ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck
... you presume to offer me? The stage is the arena, where in gladiatorial combat I wage my battle with the beasts of Poverty and Want: there I receive the swelling acclamations of triumph, or the pelting hisses of defeat; there before the footlights where I toil for my bread, I am a legitimate defenceless target for artistic criticism; but outside the precincts of the theatre, I hold myself as sacred from the world as if I stood in stone upon an altar behind some convent's bars, and as a lonely, sorrow-stricken mother widowed of the father of my child, bereft of ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... to the stones, passionately sobbing in hysterical and defenceless despair. Anthony stood a moment, gazing at her in clumsy perplexity: then, coming close to her, put his hand on her shoulder, ...
— Victorian Short Stories • Various
... probable does the latter hypothesis become when we take into consideration the frequent tricks played by sportive denizens of the other world, against which the untrained person is usually absolutely defenceless. It must also be remembered that the regular inhabitant of the astral plane, whether he be human or elemental, is under ordinary circumstances conscious only of the objects of that plane, physical matter being to him as entirely ...
— The Astral Plane - Its Scenery, Inhabitants and Phenomena • C. W. Leadbeater
... I looked at the picture again, but my better nature asserted itself and I made no attempt to strike this defenceless woman. ...
— Get Next! • Hugh McHugh
... prodded, will enable you to put yourself into Mrs. Omicron's place when she mentions the subject of rings. "Titivating herself?" Good heavens, she is helping the very earth to revolve! And you smote the defenceless creature with a lethal word—because the butcher's ...
— The Plain Man and His Wife • Arnold Bennett
... idea of what my feelings were at the sight of those savages, whom I supposed had murdered my parents and brothers, sister, and friends, and left them in the swamp to be devoured by wild beasts! But what could I do? A poor little defenceless girl; without the power or means of escaping; without a home to go to, even if I could be liberated; without a knowledge of the direction or distance to my former place of residence; and without a living friend to whom to fly for protection, I felt a kind ...
— A Narrative of the Life of Mrs. Mary Jemison • James E. Seaver
... don't understand you. In spite of your Quaker principles you felt it right to thrash these villains. What is the difference between thrashing the wretches who would harm a weak and defenceless woman, and helping your country to thrash that German bully who is a menace to Europe? If it was your duty to do one, it is surely your duty to do the other? The same ...
— All for a Scrap of Paper - A Romance of the Present War • Joseph Hocking
... idea of a helper who is brought to the man to be helped, in order to render whatever aid and succour that man's weakness and circumstances may require. The verses before our text suggest what sort of aid and succour the disciples will need. They are to be as sheep in the midst of wolves. Their defenceless purity will need a Protector, a strong Shepherd. They stand alone amongst enemies. There must be some one beside them to fight for them, to shield and to encourage them, to be their Safety and their Peace. And that Paraclete, who is called to ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: St. John Chaps. XV to XXI • Alexander Maclaren
... service an inadequate force. The necessity for economising, as well as the fear of a standing army, had kept the army down to five regiments of infantry and one battalion of cavalry. This force was required constantly on the frontier and could not be spared to suppress domestic insurrection. In such a defenceless condition, the Union must turn to the ...
— The United States of America Part I • Ediwn Erle Sparks
... to have been his habit now and then, of getting over very rough and hilly roads. Any soldier, with a spark of manly spirit under his sword-belt, would have made a resolute stand at a place of so much importance, and held it to the death, rather than left the defenceless inhabitants exposed to the horrors of a border war. Col. Dunbar was not, by any means, the true soldier just hinted at; and consequently did no such thing. Seeing that the sick and wounded were but so many clogs to rapid and easy motion, he resolved ...
— The Farmer Boy, and How He Became Commander-In-Chief • Morrison Heady
... which uprose Whole nations; here, ten thousand of most might He called aloud, and soon Charoba saw His dark helm hover o'er the land of Nile, What should the virgin do? should royal knees Bend suppliant, or defenceless hands engage Men of gigantic force, gigantic arms? For 'twas reported that nor sword sufficed, Nor shield immense nor coat of massive mail, But that upon their towering heads they bore Each a huge stone, refulgent as the stars. This told she ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... After two days' prayer, St. Maurus saw the same, but Pompeian could not see this vision, by which was represented that the devil studies to withdraw men from prayer, in order that, being disarmed and defenceless, they may easily be made a prey. On the third day, St. Benedict finding the monk still absent from church in the time of prayer, struck him with a wand, and by that correction the sinner was freed from the temptation. Dom. German Millet[4] ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... on that occasion; it was now very good, as being modest, gracious, and ready. Yet the something never left it. It has been written of men who have undergone a cruel captivity, or who have passed through a terrible strait, or who in self-preservation have killed a defenceless fellow-creature, that the record thereof has never faded from their countenances until they died. Was there any such ...
— Our Mutual Friend • Charles Dickens
... the Flight of Chep, the Bird, and of the deed whereby Ku-ish, the Porcupine, cleansed his honour from the shame that had been put upon him. The murder was a brutal act, savagely done, and the ruthless manner in which the Porcupine killed the little defenceless child, who had done no evil to him or his, makes one's blood boil. None the less, when one remembers the heavy debt of vengeance, for long years of grinding cruelty and wicked wrong, which the Sakai owes to the Malay, ...
— In Court and Kampong - Being Tales and Sketches of Native Life in the Malay Peninsula • Hugh Clifford
... entreated of all mothers, still her boys had a very reverent remembrance of a most vehement chastisement she once bestowed on them, because she found them leagued with several graceless boys of the neighborhood, stoning a defenceless kitten. ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... perhaps it was an animal! Petrea held her panting breath. It crackled; it whispered;—there were people in the wood! However bold, or more properly speaking, rash, Petrea might be at certain moments, her heart now drew itself together, when she thought on her solitary, defenceless situation, and on the scenes of horror for which this wood was so fearfully renowned. Beyond this, she was now no longer in those years when one stands in life on a flying foot, careless and presumptuous: she had planted herself firmly in life; had her own quiet room; her peaceful ...
— The Home • Fredrika Bremer
... Retires, and leaves more dark the heaven's wide way. Lost mother, early doomed to guilt and shame, Whose friends of youth now sigh not o'er thy name, Heavy has sorrow fall'n upon thy head, Yet think—one hope remains when thou art dead; Thy houseless child, thy only little one, Shall not look round, defenceless and alone, 160 For one to guide her youth;—nor with dismay Each stranger's cold unfeeling look survey. She shall not now be left a prey to shame, Whilst slow disease preys on her faded frame; Nor, when the bloom of innocence is fled, Thus fainting bow her unprotected head. Oh, she ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... surface. To Damaris it appeared curiously forbidding. Seeing it thus she felt, indeed, to have taken Nature unawares, surprised her without disguise; so that for once she displayed her veritable face—a face not yet made up and camouflaged to conceal the fact of its in-dwelling terror from puny and defenceless man. ...
— Deadham Hard • Lucas Malet
... an age in which cruelty is abhorred, and in which pain, even when deserved, is inflicted reluctantly and from a sense of duty. Every class, doubtless, has gained largely by this great moral change; but the class which has gained most is the poorest, the most dependent, and the most defenceless." ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... over-running him, naturally bites him. This disturbs the Outlaw, who has been behaving beautifully, and she immediately reaches across for Maid. Simultaneously, with a fine display of firm conviction that it's all Milda's fault, Prince sinks his teeth into the back of Milda's defenceless neck. The whole thing has occurred in less than a second. Under the surprise and pain of the bite, Milda either jumps ahead to the imminent peril of harness and lead-bar, or smashes into the wall, stops short with the lead-bar ...
— The Human Drift • Jack London
... vengeance against the republic. And when did it occur?" he continued with rising fury. "Was it not shortly after the day in which that heartless villain, the Proveditore Marcello, captured the woivode's wife, and hung her, unoffending and defenceless, unshriven and unabsolved, upon a tree on ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXLII. Vol. LV. April, 1844 • Various
... cautiously on all fours after the gipsy woman. When they were about halfway in, a hand was laid on Dandie Dinmont's heel, and it was all the stout farmer could do to keep from crying out—which, in the defenceless position in which they were placed, might well have ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... I reluctantly shown the reader that the dark ages still cast their shadows over the city of Perth; — the dawn of a high state of civilization is still wanting there, where man continues defenceless from the ravages of noxious monsters peculiar to an ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... shard-born beetle has rung night's yawning peal, there shall be done—a deed of dreadful note." In Lady Macbeth's speech "Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done 't," there is murder and filial piety together; and in urging him to fulfil his vengeance against the defenceless king, her thoughts spare the blood neither of infants nor old age. The description of the Witches is full of the same contradictory principle; they "rejoice when good kings bleed," they are neither of the earth nor the air, but both; they "should be women, ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... expressive pantomime of the man plainly showed the identity of the human mind, however distinct the races or different the language—but his loud words were, of course, lost upon us. Overseer Burnett very incautiously stole up and sat unarmed and defenceless within five yards of him. All Burnett's endeavours to conciliate and inspire confidence had but little effect upon the savage, who merely lowered his tone a little, and then advancing a few steps, addressed himself no longer to me, but to him. I felt some apprehension for the safety of ...
— Three Expeditions into the Interior of Eastern Australia, Vol 1 (of 2) • Thomas Mitchell
... revenge; but I let it pass, because the draught would not half satisfy my fevered longing for deeper retribution. It was in the embrace of a deep slumber that I once saw Gomez Arias, and I hovered over his devoted head with the pleasure of the vulture that sees beneath him its defenceless prey." ...
— Gomez Arias - The Moors of the Alpujarras, A Spanish Historical Romance. • Joaquin Telesforo de Trueba y Cosio
... the city. The truth became at last apparent. This was not a defeat merely, it was a cataclysm. All hope was gone. The myriad dwellers in the city were left defenceless. No retreat, no flight was possible except to a few, for the pack-oxen and carts had almost all followed the forces to the war, and they had not returned. Nothing could be done but to bury all treasures, to arm the younger men, and to wait. Next day the place became ...
— A Forgotten Empire: Vijayanagar; A Contribution to the History of India • Robert Sewell
... state, covered only with a mucous membrane, and conceals itself in holes in the sand or under weeds; at this place a hard shelled crab always stands centinel, to prevent the sea insects from injuring the other in its defenceless state; and the fishermen from his appearance know where to find the soft ones, which they use for baits in catching ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... at the mouth of the valley whence we came, half looking to see it blocked by men, but it was not. There was nothing to stay us three armed men in this place, with but three against us, and they well-nigh defenceless. Morfed saw ...
— A Prince of Cornwall - A Story of Glastonbury and the West in the Days of Ina of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler
... side, where the heads of those in the boat had been cut off. Sometimes the pirates would wait until they knew the men of a village were away at their paddy farms, then they would fall suddenly upon the defenceless old men, women, and children, kill some, make slaves of the young ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... I was tempted to rattle out a volley of indignation at his amazing and unparalleled effrontery, and of calling him to account for his turpitude; but my better judgment withheld me, bidding me reserve my blows until they should fall unerringly and fatally upon his defenceless head. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various
... disaster to Sir Cloudesley Shovel to that of the Minnehaha in the present year. A small detachment of Royal Artillery and some engineers are stationed here. Beyond this, the islands are practically defenceless, except for the protection of their rough seas, fierce inter-channel currents, and the off-lying deadly ...
— The Cornwall Coast • Arthur L. Salmon
... that occurred. Adelheid and her female attendants were already lashed to the principal masts, and ropes were given to the others around her, as indispensable precautions; for the deck of the bark, now cleared of every particle of its freight, was as exposed and as defenceless against the power of the wind, as a naked heath. Such was the situation of the Winkelried, when the omens of the night changed ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... his Royall Sonne ... sent me a Commicon to governe here under him.... But the Parliament, after the defeat at Worcester, (by the instigation of some other intent) sent a small power to force my submission to them, which finding me defenceless, was quietly (God pardon me) effected. But this parliament continued not long after this, but another supream power outed them, whoe remained not long neither, nor his sonne after him.... And now my intelligence is not enough to tell me what incorporate, mixt, or individuall power there ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker
... of the darkest that have ever vexed the minds of men. It contains a material truth before which we remain defenceless; and, if we accept it as it stands, we can discover no remedy for the evil that threatens us. But material and tangible truths are never anything but a more or less salient angle of greater and deeper-lying truths. And, on the other hand, mankind appears to be such a necessary and indestructible ...
— The Wrack of the Storm • Maurice Maeterlinck
... dressed in sheepskins and warm materials, had sheepskin caps on their heads; there was he with his bare arms, in well-worn grey trousers, his shirt fastened together at the neck with a piece of wood. Sitting among them, defenceless as a centipede, without anyone belonging to him, puffing clouds of smoke, he inwardly blessed this adventure, in which everything had turned out so well. The Cossacks looked at the fire, and they too said: 'This is ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... been brought from Norway, and stone fleets had been sunk in the channel, but the insatiable quicksands had swallowed them as fast as they could be deposited, the tide rolled as freely as before, and the bold pirates sailed forth as gaily as ever to prey upon the defenceless trading vessels and herring-smacks of the States. For it was only upon non-combatants that Admiral Van der Waecken made war, and the fishermen especially, who mainly belonged to the Memnonite religion, with its doctrines of non-resistance—not a very comfortable ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Andres experienced that uneasy feeling to which the bravest men are subject when exposed to a danger against which they are defenceless. He mechanically extended his ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... authority so dear to men of fierce and brutal passions. Cabrera, moreover, was a dastardly wretch, whose limited mind was incapable of harbouring a single conception approaching to grandeur; whose heroic deeds were confined to cutting down defenceless men, and to forcing and disembowelling unhappy women; and yet I have seen this wretched fellow termed by French journals (Carlist of course) the young, the heroic general. Infamy on the cowardly assassin! The shabbiest corporal of Napoleon would have laughed at his generalship, and half a battalion ...
— The Bible in Spain • George Borrow
... days had passed without message or letter of any kind, Gray himself became anxious, both on his own account and the poor lady's, lest the stranger should have actually entertained the idea of deserting this defenceless and probably injured woman. He longed to have some communication with her, which might enable him to judge what enquiries could be made, or what else was most fitting to be done. But so imperfect was the poor young woman's ...
— The Surgeon's Daughter • Sir Walter Scott
... good to have you back, daddy," she replied. "Just think of our being alone, a pair of poor defenceless women, three whole months without a man about the house! If you ever dare do it again you're liable to find one in your place when ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... Hagen fiercely; "guard it yet so that not a single Hun may escape. I will hold parley with these brave warriors who have so foully slain defenceless men." ...
— Hero Tales and Legends of the Rhine • Lewis Spence
... I wait Thy love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, And smitten me to my knee; I am defenceless utterly. I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years— My mangled youth ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... France, than Francois began to look out for new pretexts and means for war. Affairs were not unpromising. His mother's death in 1531 left him in possession of a huge fortune, which she had wrung from defenceless France; the powers which were jealous of Austria, the Turk, the English King, the members of the Smalkald league, all looked to Francois as their leader; Clement VII., though his misfortunes had thrown him into the Emperor's hands, ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... through self-interest, cut their moral disquisitions to fit the predilections of their wealthy parishioners, many of whom were under national condemnation as "malefactors of great wealth." Animated by love for all creatures, the defenceless wild animal as well as the domestic pet, he was unsparing in his indictment of those big-game hunters who shamelessly described their feelings of savage exultation when some poor animal served as the target for ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... the coast of Canara, in lat. 17 deg. 46' N. in that part usually called the Pirates coast, which is occupied by a number of half independent Mahratta chieftains, who often plunder defenceless trading ships, by means of armed grabs full ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VI - Early English Voyages Of Discovery To America • Robert Kerr
... to strike Rob's defenceless hand, for Shaddy's keen knife-blade met it a couple of inches below the gaping jaws, cut clean through its scale-armed skin, and the head dropped among the lovely petals of the orchis, while the body, twisting and twining upon itself in a knot, went down through the bush and could ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... shouted Joe, pressing through the bushes, and bounding down the bank toward the actors in this nineteenth-century tournament, wherein an armed knight and a doughty squire were set against a weak, defenceless woman. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... firmness to resist temptation when presented in its most alluring form, was blended with that genuine kindness of manner, that deference towards the weak and defenceless, which renders its fortunate possessor not only esteemed, but beloved. Yet with so much that was admirable in mind and heart, of him it might be said, as it was of one of old, "One thing thou lackest." Strange, that the subject of the greatest importance ...
— Woman As She Should Be - or, Agnes Wiltshire • Mary E. Herbert
... Psalm I had learnt, and I did long to, because it was the one asking why the heathen so furiously rage together; but you see, little mother, though I longed to I couldn't have followed it up, and having fired it off I'd have sat there defenceless while he annihilated me. ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... relax their tenseness. She could see nothing; but she felt that something—somebody was there, watching her. Somebody—whom could it be? Sally knew how deserted the bar was, how easy it would be for a man to slip up the stairs without being seen. She was defenceless. If she had been well, she would have gone straight along the balcony, to discover the cause of her alarm; but she was ill, and she shrank back in her ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... Hic—that is, in the senate, in discussing matters of public importance, you allow yourselves to be guided only by your desire to gain money and popularity, being anxious not to offend any one who may be in your way. [290] Vacuam—namely, a defensoribus, 'defenceless,' 'helpless.' [291] Incendere, a free use of the infinitive for ad patriam incendendam. [292] A question expressive of wonder, in which the interrogative particles are commonly not used. See Zumpt, S 351, note. [293] Ironically: 'I am of opinion that you should have mercy, and ...
— De Bello Catilinario et Jugurthino • Caius Sallustii Crispi (Sallustius)
... messenger was tired, and went back to Sextus and told him what had passed. But Sextus understood what his father meant, and he began to accuse falsely all the chief men, and some of them he put to death and some he banished. So at last the city of Gabii was left defenceless, and Sextus delivered it up ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... he been called Devil's Own by his former comrades and playfellows. A defenceless girl—my daughter! By good St. Anthony, if he crosses my path again it shall be for ...
— In the Wars of the Roses - A Story for the Young • Evelyn Everett-Green
... terms: "Harald is dead: Christian was he in youth: He sends you spoils from many a city burnt, And craves interment in your chiefest church." Next day the masked procession wound in black Through streets defenceless. When the church was reached They laid their chief before the altar-lights: Anon to heaven rang out the priestly dirge, And incense-smoke upcurled. Forth from its cloud Sudden upleaped the dead man, club in hand, Spurning his coffin's gilded walls, and smote ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... grown rather white. The law was a great and terrible instrument, of which she knew nothing. It seemed to have swallowed up Aunt Margaret's money; it might very well have left her defenceless. Her stepmother seemed familiar with its powers, and able to evoke them at will; and though she did not trust her, there was something in her glib utterance that struck fear into the girl's heart. She did not answer, and Mrs. Rainham followed ...
— Back To Billabong • Mary Grant Bruce
... their robust companions in the practice of every cruelty. The very children, taught by example, and encouraged by the exhortation of their parents, dealt their feeble blows on the dead carcasses of the defenceless children of the English. ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... to excite alarm or anger against her. Remember it is she who will be the sufferer and not yourself. The woman, however guiltless, is sure to fall under suspicion and bear the whole penalty. And oh! what would become of her, defenceless, simple, ...
— Love and Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he did not know what the effect of the representations of Annie might be. The use of her money had not been secured to him for any lengthened period—Dowie, anxious to take all precautions for his little mistress, having consulted a friendly lawyer on the subject, lest she should be left defenceless in the hands of a man of whose moral qualities Dowie had no exalted opinion. The sale having turned out better than had been expected, the sum committed to Bruce was two hundred pounds, to lose which now would be hardly less than ruin. He thought it better, therefore, not doubting Annie to be the ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... and I was free, that I was armed and he defenceless, there was perhaps more humour than the prisoner saw in his picture of me upon my knees to him. Not that I saw it all at once myself. I was too busy wondering whether there could be anything in his clock-winding story after all. Certainly it was inconsistent ...
— Mr. Justice Raffles • E. W. Hornung
... women and children, with uncombed hair, peep out of the paper windows, while the men hurry down to the street and join the procession in large numbers, making fun at the expense of the poor wretches, and even insulting them; while the latter, hang helpless and defenceless from their crosses, their bodies livid with cold, pain and starvation. Occasions such as these, are regular orgies for the soldiers, and those who follow the mournful cortege. Not a wine-shop on the road-side is left unvisited, and continual ...
— Corea or Cho-sen • A (Arnold) Henry Savage-Landor
... but actually recognized this triple atrocity as a privilege inherent to certain persons of Turkish descent and Mahometan religion inhabiting the northern coast of Africa. England or France might have put them down by a word long before; but, as the corsairs chiefly ravaged the defenceless coasts of Sardinia, Sicily, and Naples, the two great powers had no particular interest in crushing them. And there was always some jealous calculation of advantage, some pitiful project of turning them to future account, which prevented ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, No. 38, December, 1860 • Various
... and the sighs of the starving; amid all but blank despair. The great triremes and quinqueremes rushed onward past the lagging transports, careless, in the mad race for safety, that they were leaving the greater number of their comrades defenceless in the rear of the flight; but from one little fishing-craft alone no base entreaties, no bitter execrations greeted the passing flash and roll of their mighty oars. One after another, day by day, they came rushing up out of the northern ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... now that the Snake had been compelled to face him in the puny form of a wretched pugilist. Some one had said something about an axe. It would be but fair if he had an axe, seeing that hitherto the Snake had had him utterly defenceless while exercising its own immeasurable and supernatural powers, when torturing him to its heart's content for endless aeons. But—no—since it was here in human form and without weapons, he would use none, and would observe the strictest fairness ...
— Snake and Sword - A Novel • Percival Christopher Wren
... river was impassable, and that the thousand men, with no one to oppose them, were making a long march somewhere. But the Romans and Lazi at early dawn unexpectedly fell upon them, and they found some still buried in slumber and others just roused from sleep and lying defenceless upon their beds. Not one of them, therefore, thought of resistance, and the majority were caught and killed, while some also were captured by the enemy, among whom happened to be one of the commanders; ...
— History of the Wars, Books I and II (of 8) - The Persian War • Procopius
... interest: those that are agreeable and useful we naturally choose, avoiding the opposites, and in this we are prudent. But there is another set of actions, having no reference to our own personal interest, which yet we qualify as good or bad. When an armed robber kills and spoils a defenceless man, we, though beholding the sight in safety, are at once stirred up to disinterested horror and indignation. This is no mere passing sentiment, but includes a two-fold judgment, pronounced then and ever after; that ...
— Moral Science; A Compendium of Ethics • Alexander Bain
... made upon me by all these ghost and devil stories passed away, I retained a strong repugnance to all darkness terror, and to all who take advantage of the defenceless fear of the ignorant ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... protection, with abundance of good things and worldly treasures, love and joy; therefore the races of 1950 men, children of baptism, sing his praise widely under the clouds. Pious and prudent, he freely obeyed the Lord in his land as long as he enjoyed the heritage: never need a defenceless human being ever become in any way a terrified and fearful man before the Lord, 1955 if he will always, until his departure from life, thank Him heedfully in speech and in heart, by word and deed, with ...
— Genesis A - Translated from the Old English • Anonymous
... distinguished by a double row of small shells upon his forehead, appeared to exercise a good deal of authority. He ordered one of the natives to jump into the water, and bring us some cocoa-nuts. Fearing to approach strangers swimming and defenceless, he hesitated for a moment. The chief, evidently quite unaccustomed to resistance to his wishes, followed up his command by blows from his club, ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne
... country, the tomahawk and scalping-knife were put into the hands of our savage neighbors, by our enemies at war, and that a bounty was awarded for the depredations they committed on the lives of our defenceless fellow-citizens. Our feelings were shocked at the recital, and a prejudice was created, as well to these poor wandering savages, as to the nation that prompted them to the work, which neither time nor education has eradicated. ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... where the heads of those in the boat had been cut off. Sometimes the pirates would wait until they knew the men of a village were away at their paddy farms, then they would fall suddenly upon the defenceless old men, women, and children, kill some, make slaves of the young ones, and rob ...
— Sketches of Our Life at Sarawak • Harriette McDougall
... of the morning, rise! approach you here! Come—but molest not yon defenceless urn! Look on this spot—a nation's sepulchre! Abode of gods, whose shrines no longer burn. E'en gods must yield—religions take their turn: 'Twas Jove's—'tis Mahomet's; and other creeds Will rise with other years, till man shall learn Vainly his incense soars, ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... him to find his own living, so one day he was released, but unhappily Robert the Second was close by, and the moment he saw the invalid in his cage on the lawn with the door open, he rushed in and savagely fought the poor defenceless bird. Before we could interfere he drove our pet out of his cage, and terrible was the battle that went on; the beakless bird was driven far away, and I was quite unhappy about his fate, for he was now beyond my ...
— Wild Nature Won By Kindness • Elizabeth Brightwen
... the arbitrary reduction of her earnings that he resented, but the fact of her victimhood. Scandalous, infamous, that this rare and delicate creature should be defenceless ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... is," said Hinman, shaking hands with both of us, "I thought I'd drop in to find out if there was anything I could do. No reasonable person," he went on, turning to Swain, "believes you killed that defenceless old man; but those finger-prints ...
— The Gloved Hand • Burton E. Stevenson
... in this way: You know my history; Barbet is an usurer; he has the keen glance and the shrewd action of that breed of men. His money was always at my heels to help me over my worst needs. Strange to say, on the days I was most defenceless against ...
— The Brotherhood of Consolation • Honore de Balzac
... pay his army. It was Louvois that provided all the necessaries of war. It was a Conde, a Turenne, a Luxemburg, a Vendome, who fought his battles; and his first conquests, for which he was deified by the pen of adulation, were obtained almost without bloodshed, over weak, dispirited, divided, and defenceless nations. It was Colbert that improved the marine, instituted manufactures, encouraged commerce, undertook works of public utility, and patronized the arts and sciences. But Louis (you will say) had the merit ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... death, by my hopes of Heaven, I am innocent, Roderigo, I am innocent! Oh, how couldst thou be so deceived? He quitted the cottage, discomfited and enraged; again he sought me, and again and again; and when the door was closed upon him, he waylaid my steps. Lone and defenceless as we were, thy wife and child, with but one attendant I feared him not; but I trembled at thy return, for I knew that thou went a Spaniard, a Castilian, and that beneath thy calm and gentle seeming lurked pride, and jealousy, and revenge. Thy letter came, the only ...
— Calderon The Courtier - A Tale • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... to whom, no doubt, was confided the task to fight him alone; for his accomplices rushed to the beds where lay Misonne, Turquiette, and Nouquet. The latter, ill and defenceless, was delivered over to Herming's ferocity. The carpenter seized a hatchet, and, leaving his berth, hurried up to encounter Aupic. Turquiette and Jocki, the Norwegian, struggled fiercely. Gervique and Gradlin, suffering horribly, were not even conscious ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... thing. The only difference lies in the fact that thousands of defenceless women and little children are calling. Would you have the nation stand with its hands ...
— The Tin Soldier • Temple Bailey
... man deliberately committed murder, Al Hutchins did that morning in solitary at the Warden's bidding. He robbed me of the little space I stole. And, having robbed me of that, my body was defenceless, and, with his foot in my back while he drew the lacing light, he constricted me as no man had ever before succeeded in doing. So severe was this constriction of my frail frame upon my vital organs that I felt, there and then, immediately, that death ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... her place, would have done the same thing. The secret benefactor had given her no cause for suspicion. He remained unknown to her, and insisted on remaining unknown; but he had forewarned her of the machinations of others, and acted himself as the guardian of defenceless virtue. What more could ...
— A Hungarian Nabob • Maurus Jokai
... but also for the salvation of the schooner. But if these were the motives which spurred them on to the encounter, their adversaries were actuated by incentives of a still higher character. They fought for the life and liberty, not only of themselves, but also of the weak defenceless women, whose only trust under God was in them; and if the pirates rushed furiously to the onset, they were met with a cool, determined resolution, which was more than a balance for overpowering numbers. Captain Staunton ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... schemes of his relatives against me. Though I am the legitimate daughter of Joseph Mirouet, band-master of the 45th regiment of infantry, my father himself was my godfather's natural half-brother; and therefore these relatives may, though without reason, being a suit against a young girl who would be defenceless. You see, monsieur, that the smallness of my fortune is not my greatest misfortune. I have many things to make me humble. It is for your sake, and not for my own, that I lay before you these facts, which to loving and devoted hearts are sometimes of little weight. But I beg you to consider, monsieur, ...
— Ursula • Honore de Balzac
... those silvan monarchs by bringing them crashing to the earth. And then this feeling gave way to another; and as he watched the expert choppers swinging their bright axes in steady rhythm, and adding wound to wound in the gaping trunk so skilfully that the defenceless monster fell just where they wished, his heart thrilled with pride at man's easy victory over nature, and he longed to seize an axe himself and attack the forest on his ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... shuddered at the sound. The next moment he came in and saw me, and, starting, stood at gaze, his head thrust slightly forward, his shoulders bent, his hand still on the latch, amazement and frowning spite in turn distorting his lean face. He had looked to find a weak, defenceless woman, whom he could torture and rob at his will; he saw instead a strong man armed, whose righteous anger he must have been blind indeed ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... was said, God the Father held this earth in His right hand like a big bird's nest, and perhaps He had come to cherish love for all those who build and dwell there, for all earth's defenceless children. Perhaps He felt pity for those whom He had promised to destroy, just as the hermit felt pity for the ...
— Invisible Links • Selma Lagerlof
... subordinated to, forgotten almost in the supreme human passion speaking through her. Macias, in the height of his despair while he was still alone with her, had flung her his sword, declaring that he would go forth and seek his death an unarmed and defenceless man. Then, when he becomes conscious of the approach of his rival, the soldier's instinct revives in him; he calls for his sword; she refuses it, and he makes a threatening step ...
— Miss Bretherton • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... the Canadian National was of the same order. It began, inevitably, with ice-water. Ice-water is the thing that waiters fill up intervals with. Instead of pausing between courses for the usual waiter's meditation, they make instinctively for the silver ice-water jug, and fill every defenceless glass. Ice-water is universal. It is taken before, during and after every meal, and there are ice-water tanks (and paper cups) on every railway carriage and every hotel. At first one loathes it, and it seems to create ...
— Westward with the Prince of Wales • W. Douglas Newton
... to think, a second Indian had sprung through the open window. A feeling of helpless rage swept over him at being cornered, defenceless; and, expecting every instant to be despatched with no more consideration than if he had been a rat, he stood at bay, determined ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... hear an amphibian?" said the toad. He came from the centre of a grass-tuft, and spoke with solemn deliberation. "Not one of you is more persecuted than I. From time immemorial I have been the loadstone of credulity, and—I am altogether defenceless. I am never worth eating, for the shock of capture opens every pore on my skin, drenching me with what the poets class as venom. So I am usually thrown aside with a broken back. For centuries I was thought to have a jewel in my head. How many of my hapless ancestors were tortured ...
— "Wee Tim'rous Beasties" - Studies of Animal life and Character • Douglas English
... object of attack, is nowhere more apparent than in that form of warfare which has lately received the name of commerce-destroying, which the French call guerre de course. This operation of war, being directed against peaceful merchant vessels which are usually defenceless, calls for ships of small military force. Such ships, having little power to defend themselves, need a refuge or point of support near at hand; which will be found either in certain parts of the sea controlled by the fighting ships of their country, or ...
— The Influence of Sea Power Upon History, 1660-1783 • A. T. Mahan
... is just dead when the story opens. The son of Pamela's late mistress, a Mr. B.—it was Fielding who wickedly enlarged the name to Booby—becomes enamoured of her charms, and takes every mean advantage of her defenceless position; but, fortunately, Pamela is not more virtuous than astute, and after various agonies, which culminate in her thinking of drowning herself in a pond, she brings her admirer to terms, and is discovered to us at last as the rapturous though still humble Mrs. B. There are all sorts ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, v. 13 • Various
... exhibit to the eye of contemplation an humiliating picture of human nature, when its passions are not regulated by religion, or controlled by law. I fly with terror and abhorrence even from the altar of Liberty, when I see it stained with the blood of the aged, of the innocent, of the defenceless sex, of the ministers of religion, and of the faithful adherents of a fallen monarch. My heart sinks within me when I see it streaming with the blood of the monarch himself. Merciful God! strike speedily, ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... religious nature, must often have been severely tried by these throngs, but not even delicate health prevented her from exercising a large and beautiful hospitality to these spiritually lame, halt, and heart-sick who came to receive a healing touch. Though never ruffled, Emerson was not defenceless before boorish intruders. On one occasion a boisterous declaimer against "the conventionalities," who kept on his hat in the drawing-room after invitation to lay it aside, was told, "We will continue the conversation in the garden," ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 7 of 8 • Charles F. (Charles Francis) Horne
... entertained. He had been tramping through the country, sometimes pilfering, sometimes taking money as a footpad. He had, one day, met John Dormay and demanded his money. He was armed only with a heavy cudgel, and thought Dormay was defenceless. ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... kangeroo's track; and he told me of a certain method adopted by the natives of killing the kangeroo during wet weather,—which is, to pursue the track, following it up day after day, until they overtake the animal, which, on being so incessantly followed, becomes at length so defenceless, that one native can despatch it with a tomahawk. According to the barometer, it appeared that this river was not now much higher above the level of the sea, than the Bogan or the Balonne. Still it spread into many channels and isolated ponds; ...
— Journal of an Expedition into the Interior of Tropical Australia • Thomas Mitchell
... that I could shut my eyes to the fact that a terrible murder has been done! But I cannot, and you cannot. Someone did that deed. Someone who had a motive for his act treacherously murdered and brutally mangled that old, feeble, defenceless woman. I ask you to say it was not the prisoner. ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... to the excellent soldiership of the Turkish horsemen. With sabres and short muskets, they dashed in and out of the crowd of retreating Greeks, who, having no bayonets and no weapons adapted for close fighting, were utterly defenceless. He himself, having landed with Dr. Gosse to watch the operations from the shore, was so hard pressed by these formidable antagonists that he was only rescued by his own bravery and the daring ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... a bundle of rabbit nets. Patton, crawling on hands and knees, climbed over the low overgrown bank on which the hedge stood into the precincts of the wood itself. The state of the hedge, leaving the cover practically open and defenceless along its whole boundary, showed plainly enough that it belonged to the Mellor estate. But the field beyond ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... eyes constantly seeking mine. I should have been certain I was under no delusion, even if Publius Scipio—but what business has his name on my lips?—even if the Roman had not boasted to you of his attacks on a defenceless girl. And to think that you, you of all others, should have become his ally! But you would not, no indeed you would not, if you knew how I felt at the procession while I was looking down at the ground, and knew that his very look ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... plans. In case the chateau was attacked, he would also be able to make many friends for the Marquis and call quite a number of defenders to his aid. Then, too, he could not endure the thought of going so far from Arles while Dolores was there, alone and defenceless, and might need his protection ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... Mr. Pierpont began in the fall or winter of 1814, just when the war had assumed such proportions, that men's hearts were failing them for fear, and prodigies and portents were of daily occurrence. New England too—finding herself defenceless and left to the mercy of our foe—began to think, not of setting up for herself, not of withdrawing from the copartnership, without the consent of the whole sisterhood, but of coming together for conference and proposing to the general government, not to become neutral after the fashion of Kentucky, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 110, December, 1866 - A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics • Various
... Stein was a gallant and adventurous knight; he cared not how far he wandered, nor what danger lay in his path. He had travelled to all lands, and in all climates, defending ladies from insult, and the defenceless from oppression. His love of adventure led him through wood and wild, over mountains and across seas; but it was in the night that he loved best to ride forth, when the soft moon shone on the silvery lake and quiet forest; when the stars gazed calmly on the ...
— Ernest Bracebridge - School Days • William H. G. Kingston
... without another word, to fling the club into the river: it was not fear of harm, but fear of sin, that made him trust himself defenceless to a brother, a twin-brother, in the dark: he could not be so base, a murderer, a fratricide! Oh! most unhallowed thought! Save him from this crime, good God! Then, instantaneously reflecting, and believing he decided for the best, when he saw the ruffian glaring on him with exulting looks, as ...
— The Complete Prose Works of Martin Farquhar Tupper • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... to a foe inhuman, Oh, but our hearts rebel; Defenceless victims ye are, in claws of spite a prey. * * * * * Nor trouble we just Heaven that quick revenge be done On Satan's chamberlains highseated in Berlin; Their reek floats round the world on all lands neath the sun: Tho' in ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, November 3, 1920 • Various
... are some few who, formed in a softer mould, view with pity the sufferings of these defenceless creatures, there is scarce one who entertains the least idea that justice or gratitude can be due to their merits or their services. The social and friendly dog is hanged without remorse, if, by barking in defence of his master's person and property, he happens unknowingly to disturb his rest; ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... for dear ones who have fallen in a vain and hopeless struggle, it seems to me our duty is very plain. We must forgive their past treason, and welcome and encourage their returning loyalty. None but cowards will insult and taunt the defeated and defenceless. We must feed and clothe the destitute, instruct the ignorant, and, bearing patiently with the bitterness and prejudice which will doubtless for a time thwart our efforts and misinterpret our motives, aid them in rebuilding their states on the foundation of freedom. Our sole enemy was slavery, ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... all this? Are two defenceless American boys, your guests, to be openly insulted in your ...
— Eric - or, Under the Sea • Mrs. S. B. C. Samuels
... call upon her to leave your ports and harbors untouched only just till you can return from Canada, to defend them? The coast is to be left defenceless, while men of the interior are revelling in conquest and ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... association easily formed and yet more easily dispersed. With a Cistercian rule, perhaps they might have lasted longer. In the neighbourhood of women it is but a touch-and-go association that can be formed among defenceless men; the stronger electricity is sure to triumph; the dreams of boyhood, the schemes of youth, are abandoned after an interview of ten minutes, and the arts and sciences, and professional male jollity, deserted at once for two sweet eyes ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... not know that a trick, such as this, has deprived men of reason?" continued the master. "And you play it upon a young and defenceless boy! I am at a loss how to express my sense of your conduct. If any ill shall have happened to him through it, you will carry it on ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... generally the effect of the vengeance of a conqueror, and (as the missionaries say) "of a vitiated appetite." Victory over a hostile tribe is celebrated by a repast, in which some parts of the body of a prisoner are devoured. Sometimes a defenceless family is surprised in the night; or an enemy, who is met with by chance in the woods, is killed by a poisoned arrow. The body is cut to pieces, and carried as a trophy to the hut. It is civilization only, that has made man feel the unity ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America V2 • Alexander von Humboldt
... now come forth thus early, hoping so to anticipate the visit of his numerous clients, and take him at advantage, unprepared and defenceless. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert
... streams are seldom or never tainted, while standing waters easily grow corrupt, so a fluency of expression washes away the censures of the caviller, while the narrow limits of a discourse which is too concise is almost defenceless; for the arguments which I am enlarging upon are thus ...
— Cicero's Tusculan Disputations - Also, Treatises On The Nature Of The Gods, And On The Commonwealth • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... impoverished, wretched land called German-Austria, a country without army or money; helpless, starving, and wellnigh in despair. This country has been told of the peace terms at St. Germain. It has been told it must give up the Tyrol as to be handed over to Italy. And defenceless and helpless as it is, it sends up a cry of despair and frantic grief. One voice only is heard—such ...
— In the World War • Count Ottokar Czernin
... massacres.' [17] Personally, he shrinks from such a mission. His softer heart is not strong enough for these deeds. He relates [18] that he 'never could see without displeasure an innocent and defenceless beast pursued and killed, from which we have received no offence at all.' He is moved by the aspect of 'the hart when it is embossed and out of breath, and, finding its strength gone, has no other resource left but to yield itself up to us who pursue it, asking for mercy ...
— Shakspere And Montaigne • Jacob Feis
... weakened, prostrated, enervated, state government! You have a bill of rights to defend you against the state government—which is bereaved of all power, and yet you have none against Congress—though in full and exclusive possession of all power. You arm yourselves against the weak and defenceless, and expose yourselves naked to the armed and powerful. Is not this a conduct ...
— Patrick Henry • Moses Coit Tyler
... inside. Had they only waited, they would have seen all the soldier garrison march away, leaving the women and children and a few grandfathers—and the fort would have been seized without trouble except to the defenceless families. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... Doctor Rochecliffe, let him know it instantly," said Alice; "he lift hand against the King, a fugitive and defenceless! He is incapable of it. My life on the issue, he becomes most ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... am glad you have not retreated into the desert and defenceless wilderness of scepticism, or of false and feeble philosophy. I should not have thought it worth my while to have followed you there; I should as soon think of arguing with the peasant who informs me that the basaltic columns ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... have been very susceptible to such a drug; her mind was always on the brink of innocent intoxication. Perhaps she was only half a woman, so that half a joy could make her heart reel and sing, and half a sorrow break it. She was defenceless against impressions, and too many impressions make the heart very tired. Therefore, I think, she was a predestined victim of magic, and it seems unlikely that the witch should have missed such ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... Bavarian, in a luckless Hour, Tries the dread Summits of Cesarean Pow'r, With unexpected Legions bursts away, And sees defenceless Realms receive his Sway; Short Sway! fair Austria spreads her mournful Charms, The Queen, the Beauty, sets the World in Arms; From Hill to Hill the Beacons rousing Blaze Spreads wide the Hope of Plunder ...
— The Vanity of Human Wishes (1749) and Two Rambler papers (1750) • Samuel Johnson
... general considers that no greater disgrace could befall the army, and, through it, our whole people, than the perpetration of the barbarous outrages on the innocent and defenceless, and the wanton destruction of private property, that have marked the course of the enemy in our own country. Such proceedings not only disgrace the perpetrators, and all connected with them, but are subversive of the discipline and efficiency of ...
— A Life of Gen. Robert E. Lee • John Esten Cooke
... "good time." The air is soothingly clean and sweet after the tumult and the reek of the town. Appalled, yet fascinated, I listen to the oft repeated tales of just how Jim McCarty sprang into the saloon and cleaned out the brawling mob. I feel very young, very defenceless, and very sleepy as ...
— A Son of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... was pliable and caressible and who would not violently pillory my dainty little sins. I would have him indulgent, oiling the hinges of confession, enticing forth with beguiling gestures the misdeeds that hung back. It is true there would be risk of seducing a confessor who perhaps would be defenceless—" ...
— La-bas • J. K. Huysmans
... where they fell on their knees and began to say a litany. I stood at the door looking at them. It was a pitiful sight. There were one or two old men and some women, and some little children and a young girl who was in hysterics. They seemed so helpless, so defenceless ...
— The Great War As I Saw It • Frederick George Scott
... that it is a Christian duty to forgive—that when a bad man smites one defenceless cheek, we are taught to offer the other to his upraised hand. But the Lord of Heaven and earth promises no forgiveness of transgression unless it is followed by repentance; and where God himself ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... third time the Earl swung the blade flashing, and then it fell, straight and true, upon the defenceless body, just below the left arm, biting deep through the armor plates. For an instant the blade stuck fast, and that instant was Myles's salvation. Under the agony of the blow he gave a muffled cry, and almost instinctively grasped ...
— Men of Iron • Ernie Howard Pyle
... was conscious of the sidelong glance out of Virgilia's narrow green eyes, and of Virgilia's sharp nose and vibrating nostrils and fine intent eyebrows; they were all at work upon her to subdue her to Virgilia's will. She felt very feeble, very defenceless, greatly embarrassed, thoroughly uncomfortable. She thought suddenly of Medora Joyce, with her long bottle-green cloak and her friendly face. Why were not more of the "nice" people powers in the social world? Why must the gates be kept by the selfish, the insincere, ...
— Under the Skylights • Henry Blake Fuller
... friendly and sincere dispositions, we can with truth affirm, both for our nation and government, that we have never omitted a reasonable occasion of manifesting them. For I will not consider as of that character, opportunities of sallying forth from our ports to way-lay, rob, and murder defenceless merchants and others, who have done us no injury, and who were coming to trade with us in the confidence of our peace and amity. The violation of all the laws of order and morality which bind mankind ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... had cut, thinks I, with my rings and London clothes, in the presence of the Honorable, with whom I had dealt in pride and anger! 'Twas a pretty figure I had cut, all my life—the whelp of a ruined, prostituted skipper: the issue of a murderous barratry! What protection had the defenceless child that had been I against these machinations? What protest the boy, growing in guarded ignorance? What appeal the man in love, confronted by his origin and shameful fostering? Enraged by this, what I thought of my uncle's misguided object and care I may not here set down, because ...
— The Cruise of the Shining Light • Norman Duncan
... from this that poor Mr. Burdovsky must be a simple-minded man, quite defenceless, and an easy tool in the hands of rogues. That is why I thought it my duty to try and help him as 'Pavlicheff's son'; in the first place by rescuing him from the influence of Tchebaroff, and secondly by making myself his friend. I have resolved to give him ten ...
— The Idiot • (AKA Feodor Dostoevsky) Fyodor Dostoyevsky
... on to the greensward, Marcolina was stretched on the grass, her hands clasped beneath her head, looking skyward while the shuttlecocks flew to and fro. Suddenly reaching upwards, she seized one of them in mid air, and laughed triumphantly. The girls flung themselves upon her as she lay defenceless. ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... of despair, seized the barrel of his weapon in both hands; but Gabriel was coming forward with his axe, a terrible foe, and his first stroke carried away the butt of the rifle. He was still hesitating, however, to kill a defenceless man, when two armed servants appeared at the end of the pathway. Gabriel did not see them coming; but at the moment when they would have seized him by the shoulders, Solomon uttered a cry and rushed to his ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - NISIDA—1825 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE
... horses had been turned aside, and five hundred men, as they bent over the defenceless mother and her brood, received a lesson in that broad humanity which is the essence ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... now become supreme. The faint familiar perfume that stole about his room filled him with a kind of frenzy. Was this the chivalric devotion of which he had so boasted? this the desire to protect a young and defenceless woman? He no longer dared question himself. He seemed to feel her warm breath against his cheeks. He threw up his arms with a gesture of despair. A sigh stirred the deathlike stillness. At last! She was there, just within his doorway; the pale glimmer of the veiled moon fell upon ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... of the helplessness of few or even of many ships against the heavy batteries of the present day, I did no more than look about me, occasionally exchanging shots with the enemy. As to burning defenceless towns and villages, I have always been thoroughly adverse to such things, so I never undertook it. Some people think war should be made as horrible as possible; in this I do not agree. I could easily have burnt the Emperor's palace at Yalta, but did ...
— Sketches From My Life - By The Late Admiral Hobart Pasha • Hobart Pasha
... under the idea that it will give them courage, and a spirit of hatred and revenge against their enemies. What can calm these ferocious feelings, and curb this savage fury of the passions in the torturous destruction of defenceless women and sucking infants? what, but the introduction and influence of Christianity, the best civilizer of the wandering natives of these dreary wilds, and the most probable means of fixing them in the pursuit of agriculture, ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... from his mind a long time, but that morning it had forced its way to him with an aspect that brooked no denial that this time it was not just changes that were coming in his world, but that all his world lay open and defenceless, conquered and surrendered, doomed so far as he could see, root and branch, scale and form ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... helpless Imogen; and never, never shall these eyes behold her more! Such, O thou servant of the Gods, has been my adversity. The powers of darkness have arrayed themselves against me. For me the storm has been brewed; all the arrows of heaven have been directed against my weak, defenceless head. For me the elements have mixed in tremendous confusion; portents and prodigies have been accumulated for my destruction. Oh, then, generous and hospitable Druid, what path is there, that is left for my deliverance? What chance remains for me, now that a host ...
— Imogen - A Pastoral Romance • William Godwin
... echoed Barbesieur, unable to suppress the gleam of satisfaction that WOULD shoot across his countenance. "Your valor then, which is equal to put opprobrium upon a defenceless man, will not bear you out to face him in a duel? What say these gentlemen here present, to such behavior on the part of a prince of the ducal ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... massacre in August, 1572, are inserted to corroborate the description of the similar situation of Paris, in August, 1792, though not from similar causes. The execrable massacre above-mentioned was committed by raging fanatics, cutting the throats of their defenceless fellow-creatures, merely for ...
— A Trip to Paris in July and August 1792 • Richard Twiss
... our assegais, but so fierce was his charge that they went through him as though he were nothing, and being but light, both of us were thrown backwards to the ground. I scrambled to my feet again, defenceless now, for the spear was broken in the Kaffir, and awaited the end. Looking back once more I saw that Marie had either failed to get through the window or abandoned the attempt. At any rate she was standing near the chest supporting herself by her right ...
— Marie - An Episode in The Life of the late Allan Quatermain • H. Rider Haggard
... "belike, then, I should be a prisoner too; for the guests of this house, if they be spies, were MY guests, and, as my father's daughter, I was their hostess; ay, man, and right glad to be the hostess of such gallant gentlemen,—gentlemen, I warrant, too fine to insult a defenceless girl; gentlemen spies that did not cock their boots on the table, or turn an honest ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... strict justice in the commerce of life, can be capable of no good action in any other kind; but he who lives below his income, lays up every moment of life armour against a base world, that will cover all his frailties while he is so fortified, and exaggerate them when he is naked and defenceless. ...
— Isaac Bickerstaff • Richard Steele
... And that hand of hers lingering in the air. And her kiss. What did it mean? Vehement alarm and irritation took possession of him. He got up and began to pace the Turkey carpet, between window and wall. She was going to give him up! He felt it for certain—and he defenceless. An old man wanting to look on beauty! It was ridiculous! Age closed his mouth, paralysed his power to fight. He had no right to what was warm and living, no right to anything but memories and sorrow. He could not plead with her; even an old man has his ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... essentially amiable. I knew a tragedian once who, after killing seventeen Indians, a road-agent, and a gross of cowboys between eight and ten P.M. every night for sixteen weeks, working six nights a week, was afraid of a mild little soft-shell crab that lay defenceless on a plate before him on the evening of the seventh night of the last week. Tragedians make agreeable companions, I can tell you; and if J. Brutus Davenport is a tragedian, I think Mrs. Pedagog would do well ...
— The Idiot • John Kendrick Bangs
... the odd trick, she had the honours. It warn't manly in me, that's a fact; but confound her, why the plague did she call me 'Mr,' and act formal, and give me the bag to hold, when she knew me of old, and minded the cherry-tree, and all that? Still she was a woman, and a defenceless one too, and I did'nt do the pretty. But if she was a woman, doctor, she had more clear grit than most men have. After a while she took her hand off her eyes and rubbed them, and she opened her mouth and yawned so, you could see down to ...
— Nature and Human Nature • Thomas Chandler Haliburton
... savage, hungry Tiger, with stealthy steps and a yellow, striped skin, came padding into a defenceless native village, to seek for prey. In the early morning he had slunk out of the Jungle, with soft, cushioned paws that showed no signs of the fierce nails they concealed. All through the long, hot day he had lain hidden ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... or Colonel, or Knight in arms, Whose chance on these defenceless doors may seize, If deed of honour did thee ever please, Guard them, and him within protect from harms. He can requite thee, for he knows the charms That call fame on such gentle acts as these, And he can spread thy name o'er lands and seas, Whatever clime the sun's bright circle warms. Lift ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... eight square little rooms, which were of a similar form with those at Tambillos, but built chiefly of mud, which the present inhabitants cannot, either here or, according to Ulloa, in Peru, imitate in durability. They were situated in the most conspicuous and defenceless position, at the bottom of the flat broad valley. There was no water nearer than three or four leagues, and that only in very small quantity, and bad: the soil was absolutely sterile; I looked in vain even for a lichen adhering ...
— A Naturalist's Voyage Round the World - The Voyage Of The Beagle • Charles Darwin
... again, a mere torment-racked mass, deprived of the help of his pretence, defenceless and helpless because his sin had found him out in the person of a slim, dark-faced man, who looked at him with ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... following, a party made an excursion into that district called the Crab Orchard, and one of them, being advanced some distance before the others, boldly entered the house of a poor defenceless family, in which was only a Negro man, a woman and her children, terrified with the apprehensions of immediate death. The savage, perceiving their defenceless situation, without offering violence to the family attempted to captivate the Negro, who, happily proved ...
— The Adventures of Colonel Daniel Boone • John Filson
... has reached his last extremity, he has reached his last resources at the same time. Woe to the defenceless beings who surround him! Work, wages, bread, fire, courage, good will, all fail him simultaneously. The light of day seems extinguished without, the moral light within; in these shadows man ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... also thinking of the shop was evident, for Miss Sarah was now heard remarking, "You left us defenceless, Caroline, and we surrendered soon ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... the second, had one of our party been wounded, the consequent delay would have rendered our return to the boats certainly a work of great difficulty, perhaps wholly impossible; for no considerations of expediency would in my mind have justified the abandonment of a defenceless comrade, wounded in the common cause, either to the natural dangers and privations of the country, or the barbarous revenge of its inhabitants. They continued in force, upon the opposite bank, for some time, and then gradually withdrew. I may remark that the condition and appearance of the two who ...
— Discoveries in Australia, Volume 2 • John Lort Stokes
... villagers of St. Alwyth would be like enough to raise the cry of magician, and to take that opportunity of ridding themselves of one they vaguely fear, and many months ago I made some preparations to meet such a storm and to show them that a magician is not altogether defenceless, and that the compounds in his power are well-nigh as dangerous as they believe, only not in the ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... that their local position enabled them to reap a rich harvest by plundering vessels in passing this great highway of nations, commenced their piratical career. The small coasting vessels of the gulf, from their defenceless state, were the first object of their pursuit, and these soon fell an easy prey; until, emboldened by success, they directed their views to more arduous enterprises, and having tasted the sweets of plunder in the increase of their wealth, had determined ...
— The Pirates Own Book • Charles Ellms
... cries followed, showing that the buckshot had taken effect, and from the nature of the cries we at once perceived that our assailants were white men. I purposely reserved my second barrel, for my comrades, having also fired, were swiftly reloading, and, therefore, defenceless. ...
— The Big Otter • R.M. Ballantyne
... creeping cautiously on all fours after the gipsy woman. When they were about halfway in, a hand was laid on Dandie Dinmont's heel, and it was all the stout farmer could do to keep from crying out—which, in the defenceless position in which they were placed, might well have cost them all ...
— Red Cap Tales - Stolen from the Treasure Chest of the Wizard of the North • Samuel Rutherford Crockett
... i.e., the survival of the fittest; the preying of the stronger on the weaker—of the tiger on the feebler beasts of the jungle; the eagle on the smaller birds of the air; the wolf on the sheep; the shark on the poor, defenceless fish, and so on; neither could He be the Creator that deals in diseases—foul and filthy diseases, common, not only to all divisions of the human species, but to quadrupeds, birds, fish, and even ...
— Werwolves • Elliott O'Donnell
... commanders he expressed remorse at the work.' Well, if the creatures they destroyed were horses, dogs, or cats, we should expect a man of ordinary human feelings to be shocked at the wholesale butchery. But the beings slaughtered were men and women and children—Christians found unarmed and defenceless in their dwellings. Let the English imagine such a war carried on in Kent or Yorkshire, by Irish invaders, killing in the name of the Pope. The Irish Annalists say that Pelham and Ormond killed the blind and the aged, women and children, sick and idiots, ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... are such pleasant people. The Pines is an isolated spot, and my resources are few. I fear I should have found life here somewhat monotonous before long, with no other society than that of my excellent sire. It is true, I might have made a target of the defenceless invalid; but I haven't a taste ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... took upon himself the odious responsibility of rescinding the British guarantee, and of supporting Ferdinand, powerless but through him, in his refusal to hold himself bound by a convention made by his own viceroy!—thus delivering over the defenceless city to its own implacable sovereign. Then came a political persecution unknown in the annals of mankind; till, hebetes lasso lictore secures, even Naples could bear no more! The noblest blood and the most distinguished talent were ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXII. - June, 1843.,Vol. LIII. • Various
... besides Richard Talbot and his son who felt the pathos of this appeal? One defenceless woman against an array of the legal force of the whole kingdom. It may be feared that the feelings of most were as if they had at last secured some wild, noxious, and incomprehensible animal ...
— Unknown to History - A Story of the Captivity of Mary of Scotland • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Alas! I shall forget nothing, not the anxious way in which you watched over me as a mother watches over her child, nor, and above all else, the noble confidence of our life as brother and sister, the delicacy of your conduct—winning charms, against which we women are defenceless. My lord, it is out of my power ...
— A Woman of Thirty • Honore de Balzac
... the worst anxiety was over, and our mother recovered her composure. It was perhaps advisable for her, a defenceless widow, to leave the city, which might on the morrow be given over to the unbridled will of insurgents or of soldiers intoxicated with victory. So she determined to make all preparations for going with us ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... John Butler, and Joseph Brant, with a party of Loyalists and Mohawks, made a similar inroad on Cherry Valley, south of Springfield in the state of New York. On this occasion Brant's Indians got beyond control, and more than fifty defenceless old men, women, and children were slaughtered in ...
— The United Empire Loyalists - A Chronicle of the Great Migration - Volume 13 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • W. Stewart Wallace
... continued, passed the victim of their morning's sport, riding on the water, the waves curling over his huge carcass as on some rounded rock, and already surrounded by the sharks, who were preying on his defenceless body. ...
— The Pilot • J. Fenimore Cooper
... privilege, sir, that of insulting the defenceless. You know I am doubly so—defenceless from age, defenceless in virtue of my sacred profession; but if I am defenceless against your insults, Sir Thomas Gourlay, I am not against your threats, which I despise ...
— The Black Baronet; or, The Chronicles Of Ballytrain - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... who does not dread this event, and who would not prefer almost any neighbours to the French: and it seems perfect infatuation in the Administration of this country that they chuse the present moment for leaving that frontier almost defenceless by the reduction of its ...
— The Life of Napoleon I (Volumes, 1 and 2) • John Holland Rose
... nimble hand she had unbuttoned and rolled up the sleeve of her blouse. She stuck her pretty blue-veined arm before his eyes. "Look here, sir, it was you, wasn't it? It was your powerful jaw inflicted this bite upon the arm of a defenceless young leopardess—" ...
— The Research Magnificent • H. G. Wells
... of caterpillars, which are especially defenceless, and which as a rule feed on leaves. The smallest and youngest are green, like the leaves on which they live. When they become larger, they are characterised by longitudinal lines, which break up the surface and thus render them less conspicuous. ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... to be, and who in truth were, fully apprised of the defenceless and feeble condition of the party on board, were at work without the smallest apprehension of receiving any injury from that quarter. Their great object was to get possession of the ship, before the returning water should again drive them from the rocks. In order to effect this, they had ...
— Homeward Bound - or, The Chase • James Fenimore Cooper
... moment's pause the new champion aimed a fierce blow at Sigmund, which the old hero parried with his sword. The shock shattered the matchless blade, and although the strange assailant vanished as he had come, Sigmund was left defenceless and was soon wounded unto death ...
— Myths of the Norsemen - From the Eddas and Sagas • H. A. Guerber
... their loved sanctuaries burnt with fire, and "all their pleasant things laid waste," they would retire with their wives and little ones up to this rocky citadel, which the God of nature seemed to have reared as a shelter for His defenceless people. ...
— The Cities of Refuge: or, The Name of Jesus - A Sunday book for the young • John Ross Macduff
... besides, she bore about her no small quantity of gold and other treasure. When they had taken all they could lay their wicked hands on, the men fell to dividing among themselves their ill-gotten booty, glorying as they did so in their crime, and laughing brutally at the expense of their two defenceless victims. ...
— Parkhurst Boys - And Other Stories of School Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... on its snout, that was about a cubit long; by the means of which that animal dares encounter with an elephant, that is sometimes killed with its point thrust into its belly, which is its most tender and defenceless part. ...
— Gargantua and Pantagruel, Complete. • Francois Rabelais
... inevitable; and it would certainly have proved so, had not Harry, with a courage and presence of mind above his years, suddenly seized a prong which one of the fugitives had dropped, and at the very moment when the bull was stooping to gore his defenceless friend, advanced and wounded him in the flank. The bull in an instant turned short, and with redoubled rage made at his new assailant; and it is probable that, notwithstanding his intrepidity, Harry would have paid the price of his assistance ...
— The History of Sandford and Merton • Thomas Day
... the festival I felt his eyes constantly seeking mine. I should have been certain I was under no delusion, even if Publius Scipio—but what business has his name on my lips?—even if the Roman had not boasted to you of his attacks on a defenceless girl. And to think that you, you of all others, should have become his ally! But you would not, no indeed you would not, if you knew how I felt at the procession while I was looking down at the ground, and ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... motives which spurred them on to the encounter, their adversaries were actuated by incentives of a still higher character. They fought for the life and liberty, not only of themselves, but also of the weak defenceless women, whose only trust under God was in them; and if the pirates rushed furiously to the onset, they were met with a cool, determined resolution, which was more than a balance for overpowering numbers. Captain Staunton looked eagerly among the crowd of ...
— The Pirate Island - A Story of the South Pacific • Harry Collingwood
... that criminal attitude towards life which she was endeavouring to adopt. But she could not resist the attraction of being treated with affection by a woman who had just shewn herself so implacable towards the defenceless dead; she sprang on to the knees of her friend and held out a chaste brow to be kissed; precisely as a daughter would have done to her mother, feeling with exquisite joy that they would thus, between them, inflict the last ...
— Swann's Way - (vol. 1 of Remembrance of Things Past) • Marcel Proust
... asked the young lady by his side. "I should have expected better of you, Mr Rogers." It was the first time Jack had heard Stella utter an expression which showed her character. "While there are wrongs to be righted, and the defenceless to be protected, I trust that no one engaged in the noble profession of arms will think of ...
— The Three Lieutenants • W.H.G. Kingston
... opponent, asleep within a dense mass of thorns and grass in the heart of an extensive jungle. The elephant awoke before they could distinctly see its form, owing to the extreme thickness of the covert, but the fight commenced. There was a considerable difference between the attack upon defenceless villagers, who fled before it in hopeless panic, and a stand-up fight with two experienced European shikaris armed with the best rifles; the terror of the district quickly showed its appreciation of discretion, and, badly wounded, it retreated ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... It went against his heart to beat a creature so defenceless; and, for the life of him, he knew no other way to rid himself of this unwelcome and, as he began to think, perhaps ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 8 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... off at him was the Psalm I had learnt, and I did long to, because it was the one asking why the heathen so furiously rage together; but you see, little mother, though I longed to I couldn't have followed it up, and having fired it off I'd have sat there defenceless while he ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... there is a great deal more. The cure is incomplete till the full tide of health follows convalescence. When God saves, He does not only bar up the iron gate through which the hosts of evil rush out upon the defenceless soul, but He flings wide the golden gate through which the glad troops of blessings and of graces flock around the delivered spirit, and enrich it with all joys and with all beauties. So the positive ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: Romans Corinthians (To II Corinthians, Chap. V) • Alexander Maclaren
... known? Of what grief have I not tasted? And why? Simply because I have ever kept the truth in view, because ever I have preserved inviolate an unsullied conscience, because ever I have stretched out a helping hand to the defenceless widow and the hapless orphan!" After which outpouring Chichikov pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... what he judged to be her unspeakable indiscretion, the thought rushed in on her straight from him, the naked, terrible thought, that there should be anything they had to hide, they had to be alone for. She saw at the same time how defenceless he was before it; he couldn't keep it back; he couldn't put it away from him. It was always with him, a danger watching ...
— The Flaw in the Crystal • May Sinclair
... destruction of these petty but dangerous enemies, the owls, he says, "earn an unquestionable title to be regarded as among the most active of the friends of man; a title which only one or two among them occasionally forfeit by their aggressions on the defenceless poultry." Roger or Dolly beholds him in the act of murdering a duckling, and, like other light-headed, giddy, unthinking creatures, they forget all the service he has done the farm, the parish, and the state; he is shot in the act, and nailed, wide-extended ...
— Recreations of Christopher North, Volume 2 • John Wilson
... Countess caused all her subjects to assemble, and shewed them that her Earldom was left defenceless, and that it could not be protected but with horse and arms, and military skill. "Therefore," said she, "this is what I offer for your choice: either let one of you take me, or give your consent for me to take a husband from elsewhere, to ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 1 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... I would do. Instead of running away, I would boldly walk up to them, and by signs make them understand that I am no scout, but a friend in need of nothing but kindness and friendship. I never yet heard of the Indian that would tomahawk the defenceless stranger that sought his camp openly ...
— Lost in the Backwoods • Catharine Parr Traill
... majesty. Deign to listen to me, sire; I am never destined to see you again. I am fifty-three years of age, and have much experience. They abuse your conscience with respect to the decree against the priests, and are pushing you on to civil war. You are without strength, defenceless, and you will sink under it, whilst History, though full of commiseration for you, will accuse you of the ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... She had a terrible fear of London streets, at night, as well she might, and the open country beyond was even worse to her excited imagination. And Cherry was so pretty, so simple, so credulous, and withal so utterly defenceless should there be any sort of attack made upon her. Keziah's hands shook as she lighted the lantern; and as minutes were fast slipping away and still there was no sign of the truant, she was rather relieved than terrified ...
— The Lost Treasure of Trevlyn - A Story of the Days of the Gunpowder Plot • Evelyn Everett-Green
... The bath will soon be heated, which were said to have given the signal for the burning of Cremona. In these scenes the whole tragedy of the Empire rises before us. The armies of the Danube and Rhine left the frontiers defenceless while they met in the shock of battle on Italian soil, still soaking with Roman blood and littered with unburied Roman corpses; behind them the whole armed strength of the Empire—immensa belli moles—was gathering out of Gaul, Spain, Syria, and Hungary; and before ...
— Latin Literature • J. W. Mackail
... reach us. It reached Villiersdorp eventually, and we fell back from Frankfort towards Bethlehem—the new headquarters. It was with heavy hearts that we said good-bye to our kind friends in Frankfort, for well we knew by this time what the passage of a British column meant for the defenceless non-combatants—houses broken down and burnt, children and greybeards torn from their families, and all the other useless and unnecessary cruelties that have broken so many lives, converted so many joyous homesteads into tombstones ...
— With Steyn and De Wet • Philip Pienaar
... before the sun had set on the 'great fury.' Those Spaniards, and Italians, and Walloons, were now thirsting for more gold, for more blood; and as the capital of England was even more wealthy and far more defenceless than the commercial metropolis of the Netherlands had been, so it was resolved that the London 'fury' should be more thorough and more productive than the 'fury' of Antwerp, at the memory—of which the world still shuddered. And these professional soldiers ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... Rebel regiment (Cummings's 33rd Virginia) advances to seize the crippled and defenceless guns, it is checked, and driven back, by the 1st Michigan Regiment of Willcox's Brigade, which has pushed forward in the woods at ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan
... Matthews, however, being much the stronger, was able to pin Sheridan down, and with a piece of the broken sword stabbed him repeatedly in the face. "Beg your life, and I will spare it," he demanded of the prostrate and defenceless man. "I will neither beg it, nor receive it from such a villain," ...
— Love Romances of the Aristocracy • Thornton Hall
... thinking that when all the rest had turned their backs upon him, it would be pleasant to have this little creature adoring him and nestling against him. The absence of presumptuous self-conceit in Tito made him feel all the more defenceless under prospective obloquy: he needed soft looks and caresses too much ever to ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... your good name with impunity in England, will you be so uncandid as to exclaim against Italy for the practice of common assassination? To what purpose is our property secured, if our moral character is left defenceless? People thus baited, grow desperate; and the despair of being able to preserve one's character, untainted by such vermin, produces a total neglect of fame; so that one of the chief incitements to the practice of virtue is ...
— The Expedition of Humphry Clinker • Tobias Smollett
... are in great force," went on Hazon, as calmly as though he were merely announcing the proximity of one more well-nigh defenceless and slave-supplying village. "We shall have to fight, and that hard, but not here. We must fight them in ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... peculiarity of which is, to aim at combining the highest standard of the warlike qualities with the cultivation of a totally different class of virtues—those of gentleness, generosity, and self-abnegation, towards the non-military and defenceless classes generally, and a special submission and worship directed towards women; who were distinguished from the other defenceless classes by the high rewards which they had it in their power voluntarily to bestow on those who endeavoured to earn their favour, ...
— The Subjection of Women • John Stuart Mill
... days, has the German soldier been subjected to the temptation to treat the inhabitants of foreign countries with violence and brutality. But everywhere he has obeyed the law, and shown that even in war he knows how to distinguish between the enemy to be crushed and defenceless women and children. The officials and clergy of conquered territory have frequently borne express testimony to this fact.—PASTOR M. HENNIG, ...
— Gems (?) of German Thought • Various
... Captain Caldwell men did not know what was happening, inside. Had they only waited, they would have seen all the soldier garrison march away, leaving the women and children and a few grandfathers—and the fort would have been seized without trouble except to the defenceless families. ...
— Boys' Book of Frontier Fighters • Edwin L. Sabin
... ill-understood, the want of wood for fuel, for tools, for repairs, the uncertain distribution of the available water, all these troubles are discussed in villages and in local Conferences. The Arms Act oppresses them, by leaving them defenceless against wild beasts and wild men. The union of Judicial and Executive functions makes justice often inaccessible, and always costly both in money and in time. The village officials naturally care more to please the Tahsildar ...
— The Case For India • Annie Besant
... that the queen was led forth to her death. Then Sir Launcelot and the knights that were with him fell upon the troop that guarded the queen, and dispersed them, and slew all who withstood them. And in the confusion Sir Gareth and Sir Gaheris were slain, for they were unarmed and defenceless. And Sir Launcelot carried away the queen to his ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... sallies of vice. From that awful period, almost every expectation is forlorn: the heart is left unguarded: its great protector is no more: the vices therefore, which so long encompassed it in vain, obtain an easy victory: in crouds they pour into the defenceless avenues, and take possession of the soul: there is nothing now too vile for them to meditate, too impious to perform. Such was the situation of the despotick sovereigns of Africa. They had once ventured to pass the bounds of virtue, and they soon ...
— An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African • Thomas Clarkson
... helpless sensibility to the slightest breath of ridicule. Pip thinks himself better than every one else, and yet anybody can snub him; that is the everlasting male, and perhaps the everlasting gentleman. Dickens has described perfectly this quivering and defenceless dignity. Dickens has described perfectly how ill-armed it is against the coarse humour of real humanity—the real humanity which Dickens loved, but which idealists and philanthropists do not love, the humanity of cabmen and costermongers and men singing in ...
— Appreciations and Criticisms of the Works of Charles Dickens • G. K. Chesterton
... spirit to that man is PROFESSOR HOLLOWAY! Have I sinned in oil? CABBURN pursues me. Have I a dark remembrance associated with any gentlemanly garments, bespoke or ready made? MOSES and SON are on my track. Did I ever aim a blow at a defenceless fellow-creature's head? That head eternally being measured for a wig, or that worse head which was bald before it used the balsam, and hirsute afterwards - enforcing the benevolent moral, 'Better to be bald as a Dutch cheese than come to this,' - undoes me. Have I no sore places in my mind ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... excited. He was tenacious of everything he conceived to touch his country's honor, and long service in the Mediterranean had made him familiar with the outrages on its defenceless coasts practised by these barbarians, under the pretence of war with the weaker states. Even in the remote and impoverished north of Sardinia, the shepherds near the beaches watched their flocks with arms beside them, day and ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... Indians. There were so many settlements around it that no foe could approach without due warning and without encountering serious opposition. On the sixth of October Daniel Boone, with his brother Squire, left the fort alone for what would seem to be an exceedingly imprudent excursion, so defenceless, to the Blue Licks. They reached the Licks in safety. While there they were discovered by a party of Indians, and were fired upon from ambush. Squire Boone was instantly killed and scalped. Daniel, heart-stricken by the loss of his beloved brother, ...
— Daniel Boone - The Pioneer of Kentucky • John S. C. Abbott
... band of unsuspecting men, quietly awaiting the arrival of their rescuer, who was equally unconscious of the trap laid for them all. It seemed so horrible, this net, as it were drawn in a circle, at dead of night, on a lonely beach, round a few defenceless men, defenceless because they were tricked and unsuspecting; of these one was the husband she idolised, another the brother she loved. She vaguely wondered who the others were, who were also calmly waiting for the Scarlet Pimpernel, while ...
— The Scarlet Pimpernel • Baroness Orczy
... taken in conjunction with her share in it, seemed to have given him a claim on her consideration. He had cast aside the armour of self-conceit at which she could have thrown a dart without remorse, and the man seeming so defenceless, she had a desire to deal gently ...
— A Comedy of Masks - A Novel • Ernest Dowson and Arthur Moore
... met and challenged by the writer's ship, already accounted for no less than three German submarines which had opened the attack from close range, thinking her defenceless. ...
— Submarine Warfare of To-day • Charles W. Domville-Fife
... many other successful missions, it is impossible to give the dates of their foundation with accuracy, nor is this to be wondered at, when we consider the perilous condition of Canada during her life, whether we remember the bloody atrocities of the savages on the often defenceless colonists, or the fiercely contested wars between the French and English that demoralized the whole state of society north of the St. Lawrence, or the tremendously destructive fires that swept away whole cities in whirlwinds of flame, or the pestilences that filled so many ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... fellow Canadians had already won their right to stand as comrades in arms with the most famous fighting battalions of the British army. Others, again, there were in whose heart burned a deep passion to get into grips with those hellish fiends whose cruelties, practised upon defenceless women and children in that very district where they were camped, and upon wounded Canadians, had stirred Canada from Vancouver to Halifax with ...
— The Sky Pilot in No Man's Land • Ralph Connor
... themselves ample indemnity in larger salaries, and they opened fire on corporations in general and railroads in particular, with a broadside of statutes. Against this fire the property of millions of small holders in the corporations has been almost defenceless. Some of these statutes are so drawn that the plain business man does not know whether he is a criminal or not; if he could afford to consult the best of lawyers it would not help him much. The only safe course to pursue is to agree with the adversary quickly; to plead guilty ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... of the shop was evident, for Miss Sarah was now heard remarking, "You left us defenceless, Caroline, and we surrendered ...
— The Pleasant Street Partnership - A Neighborhood Story • Mary F. Leonard
... various practices to withdraw the affections of the people from it, the evident tendency of their arts and those of their agents to countenance and invigorate opposition, their disregard of solemn treaties and the laws of nations, their war upon our defenceless commerce, their treatment of our minister of peace, and their demands amounting to tribute, could not fail to excite in me corresponding sentiments with those which my countrymen have so generally expressed in their addresses to you. Believe me, sir, no one can more cordially approve ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... three years since I'd seen them, but I'd thought of them so often that I fancied they could never take me unawares again. Now, with their red sneer on me, I knew that I had never really believed they would come back, and that I was as defenceless as ever against them ... As before, it was the insane irrelevance of their coming that made it so horrible. What the deuce were they after, to leap out at me at such a time? I had lived more or less carelessly in the years since I'd seen them, ...
— Tales Of Men And Ghosts • Edith Wharton
... is this ruin accomplished? Unseen in the heights above, the Tyrolese peasantry hurl down rocks, roots, and trunks of pine trees, as well as sending a "deadly hail" from their rifles along the "whole line" of the defenceless army below. ...
— Ontario Teachers' Manuals: Literature • Ontario Ministry of Education
... contemplated her face as its pale responsiveness modulated through a crowd of expressions that showed only too clearly to what a pitch she was strung. If ever Winterborne's heart fretted his bosom it was at this sight of a perfectly defenceless creature conditioned by such circumstances. He forgot his own agony in the satisfaction of having at least found her a shelter. He took his plate and cup from her hands, saying, "Now I'll push the shutter to, and you will find an iron pin on the inside, which you must fix into ...
— The Woodlanders • Thomas Hardy
... brought into English fiction, and we know of no other Friend in latter-day fiction to equal him. Defoe in his inimitable manner has defined surely and deftly the peculiar characteristics of the sect in this portrait. On three separate occasions we find William saving unfortunate natives or defenceless prisoners from the cruel and wicked barbarity of the sailors. At page 183, for example, the reader will find a most penetrating analysis of the dense stupidity which so often accompanies man's love of bloodshed. The sketch of the second ...
— The Life, Adventures & Piracies of the Famous Captain Singleton • Daniel Defoe
... these sufferings you will observe that our Lord is called a lamb in the text; that is, He was as defenceless, and as innocent, as a lamb is. Since then Scripture compares Him to this inoffensive and unprotected animal, we may without presumption or irreverence take the image as a means of conveying to our minds those feelings which our ...
— Parochial and Plain Sermons, Vol. VII (of 8) • John Henry Newman
... severally slain Virata's two steeds and his charioteer, as also those soldiers that protected his rear, took him captive alive, when deprived of his car. Then afflicting him sorely, like a lustful man afflicting a defenceless damsel, Susarman placed Virata on his own car, and speedily rushed out of the field. And when the powerful Virata, deprived of his car, was taken captive, the Matsyas, harrassed solely by the Trigartas, began to flee ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... chateau was attacked, he would also be able to make many friends for the Marquis and call quite a number of defenders to his aid. Then, too, he could not endure the thought of going so far from Arles while Dolores was there, alone and defenceless, and might need his protection at ...
— Which? - or, Between Two Women • Ernest Daudet
... faults, and with those faults which naturally produce contempt. He is a thief and a glutton, a coward and a boaster, always ready to cheat the weak, and prey upon the poor; to terrify the timorous, and insult the defenceless. At once obsequious and malignant, he satirizes in their absence those whom he lives by flattering. He is familiar with the prince only as an agent of vice, but of this familiarity he is so proud, as not only to be supercilious and haughty with ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... light or aid, unwarned and unprepared, the deadliest foe which can assail the soul. An appetite which has in all ages debased the weak, wrestled fiercely with the strong, and vanquished at times even the noble, is let loose upon an unwarned, unarmed, defenceless child. Oh, the utter, ...
— Youth and Sex • Mary Scharlieb and F. Arthur Sibly
... has become of her? My soul is racked with anxiety on her account, and I curse the folly and imprudence that led me to re-enter this devoted land. My child—my poor child—can I forgive myself for perilling your defenceless innocence in ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 366, April, 1846 • Various
... saying, "No, I am dead." Lucretia naturally enough inquires into the cause of her disquietude, and but too soon discovers, by the broken hints of the victim, the source of her mental agitation. Terrified at their defenceless state, they then mutually conspire with Orsino against the Count; and Beatrice proposes to way-lay him (a plot, however, which fails) in a deep and dark ravine, as he journeys ...
— Early Reviews of English Poets • John Louis Haney
... abusive accents in the rapid elaborate cadences of the domiciled East Indian tongue, Hari Babu would glance at Gobind Babu with a careful smile, for the manager-sahib who dispensed so much galli* was now receiving the same, and defenceless. ...
— The Path of a Star • Mrs. Everard Cotes (AKA Sara Jeannette Duncan)
... disaster and approaching peril. Disunion and discontent, an almost insupportable weight of taxation, and the disputes of which it was the fruitful source, formed the subjects of internal ill. Abroad was to be seen navigation harassed and trammelled by the pirates of Dunkirk; and the almost defenceless frontiers of the republic exposed to the irruptions of the enemy. The king of Denmark, who endeavored to make head against the imperialist and Spanish forces, was beaten by Tilly, and made to tremble for the safety of his own States. England did nothing toward the common cause ...
— Holland - The History of the Netherlands • Thomas Colley Grattan
... as the stable-door closed behind him the soft look would vanish; and as he opened the door of his own quarters an evil expression would overspread his face, as if he were ready at once to fall upon his defenceless wife. ...
— 'Jena' or 'Sedan'? • Franz Beyerlein
... did not realize the extent of their economic power in respect of England, as the inexperienced, newly-appointed Democratic Government had no statistics to which to refer, and from a military point of view were defenceless for want of an army or fleet. So England was able, slowly and cautiously, but surely, to cut off the Central Powers from the American market. In view of this state of things the important thing was to pass all shipments off as neutral. ...
— My Three Years in America • Johann Heinrich Andreas Hermann Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff
... time to think, a second Indian had sprung through the open window. A feeling of helpless rage swept over him at being cornered, defenceless; and, expecting every instant to be despatched with no more consideration than if he had been a rat, he stood at bay, determined not to ...
— The Mountain Divide • Frank H. Spearman
... as the position was very difficult. The boy was not to be trusted, and if I went with him I should be leaving these two alone and, in Anscombe's state, almost defenceless. Still it seemed as though I must. Just then I looked up, and there at the garden gate saw Anscombe's driver, Footsack, the man whom I had despatched to Pretoria to fetch his oxen. I noted that ...
— Finished • H. Rider Haggard
... at first received with doubt, were afterwards carried out to the utmost extent by the more violent of the insurgent party. Murder and assault, frequently perpetrated upon unoffending and defenceless persons, became so common, that the ordinary course of the law was suspended, and its execution devolved upon the military. Scotland was indeed in a complete state of terrorism. Gangs of armed fanatics, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 385. November, 1847. • Various
... quiet in the house: soft breathing of the sleepers, soft murmuring of the spring wind outside, a wintry moon very clear and full in the skies, a little town all hushed and quiet, everything lying defenceless, unconscious, in the safe keeping ...
— A Little Pilgrim • Mrs. Oliphant
... artillery and cannot use it,' said Lord Montacute. 'Why, the most favoured part of the globe at this moment is entirely defenceless; there is not a soldier worth firing at in Asia except the Sepoys. The Persian, Assyrian, and Babylonian monarchies might be gained in a morning with faith and ...
— Tancred - Or, The New Crusade • Benjamin Disraeli
... down again, a mere torment-racked mass, deprived of the help of his pretence, defenceless and helpless because his sin had found him out in the person of a slim, dark-faced man, who looked at him with burning ...
— The Pointing Man - A Burmese Mystery • Marjorie Douie
... armed and waiting, Hurled the pine-cones down upon him, Struck him on his brawny shoulders, On his crown defenceless struck him. "Death to Kwasind!" was the sudden War-cry of the ...
— The Song Of Hiawatha • Henry W. Longfellow
... his last extremity, he has reached his last resources at the same time. Woe to the defenceless beings who surround him! Work, wages, bread, fire, courage, good will, all fail him simultaneously. The light of day seems extinguished without, the moral light within; in these shadows man encounters the feebleness of the woman and the child, and bends ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... departed General as he looked at his photograph. It was intolerable, he had thought then, that a man should have those large, full eyes, that straight, manly look and bearing, who had gone to his grave having deliberately planned that his dead hand should so deeply wound a defenceless woman, and that woman his sweet, young wife. Murray's mind was so full now of relief at the idea that Sir David had done his best at the last, that in his relief he almost forgot that, in a woman's mind the main fact might still be ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... state of happy unconsciousness, after having vainly wished, for the hundredth time, that he was safe on shore, scampering over the village green with his twelve brothers and sisters, and not tempting the angry main in an open boat, with the windows of heaven discharging waters enough upon his defenceless head to drown him—without speaking of the big waves that every moment burst into the boat, giving him a salt ...
— Flora Lyndsay - or, Passages in an Eventful Life • Susan Moodie
... supreme. The faint familiar perfume that stole about his room filled him with a kind of frenzy. Was this the chivalric devotion of which he had so boasted? this the desire to protect a young and defenceless woman? He no longer dared question himself. He seemed to feel her warm breath against his cheeks. He threw up his arms with a gesture of despair. A sigh stirred the deathlike stillness. At last! She was there, just within his doorway; the pale glimmer of the veiled moon fell ...
— Shapes that Haunt the Dusk • Various
... of the inn. Habit guides us all at times, even kings are the slaves of it (though in their presence it takes the prouder name of precedent); and here were two wanderers without any plans at all; they were therefore defenceless in the grip of habit and, seeing an inn they knew, they loitered up to it. Mine host came again to the door. He cheerfully asked Rodriguez how he had fared on his journey, but Rodriguez would say nothing. He asked for lodging for himself and Morano and stabling for the horses: ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... testified to the excellent soldiership of the Turkish horsemen. With sabres and short muskets, they dashed in and out of the crowd of retreating Greeks, who, having no bayonets and no weapons adapted for close fighting, were utterly defenceless. He himself, having landed with Dr. Gosse to watch the operations from the shore, was so hard pressed by these formidable antagonists that he was only rescued by his own bravery and the daring of Dr. Gosse, who retained possession of the boat which was waiting for him on the shore until ...
— The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald, Vol. II • Thomas Lord Cochrane
... brains in your heads, you might find out where it was that you were most open to attack; what it was in your character that most needed strengthening, what it was wherein the devil caught you most quickly, and might so build yourselves up in the most defenceless points. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... Captain Muspratt called promptly to his bugler. The first yell had told him what was happening; that the men of the Forty-sixth, sent round for the feint attack, had found the rear wall defenceless and were escalading, in ignorance of the ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... permit the troops at Minorca to join our allies. The governor felt himself compelled to refuse his assent. Doubtless, he acted wisely, for responsibility is not transferable. The fact is introduced in proof of the defenceless state of Minorca, and its constant liability to attack. If the Austrian army had stood in the same relation to eight or nine thousand British soldiers at Malta, a single regiment would have precluded ...
— Confessions of an Inquiring Spirit etc. • by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... pressing through the bushes, and bounding down the bank toward the actors in this nineteenth-century tournament, wherein an armed knight and a doughty squire were set against a weak, defenceless woman. ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. III, No IV, April 1863 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... knew nothing about it at the time—undoubtedly was partly responsible for the harsh treatment extended to us. Unable to smash the "contemptible little army," which was certainly proving capable of looking after itself, vengeance was visited upon our defenceless heads. ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney
... his people here, incensed By meditating on primeval wrongs, He blew his battle-horn, at which uprose Whole nations; here, ten thousand of most might He called aloud, and soon Charoba saw His dark helm hover o'er the land of Nile, What should the virgin do? should royal knees Bend suppliant, or defenceless hands engage Men of gigantic force, gigantic arms? For 'twas reported that nor sword sufficed, Nor shield immense nor coat of massive mail, But that upon their towering heads they bore Each a huge stone, refulgent as the stars. This told ...
— Gebir • Walter Savage Landor
... a defenceless woman to ridicule and remark,' returned his wife. 'That is quite in the way of the ...
— The Battle of Life • Charles Dickens
... the woman and the child had been forsaken and suspected by one and all. Driven forth from their wretched lodging, they were without food and wandered hither and thither dependent on chance alms. Never had greater want and misery fallen on defenceless creatures. ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... remembrance is strangely contrasted with the opposing one in dreams and fevers in this respect, that in the two last it is always the cruel sorrows of childhood which return; the dream this mock-sun of childhood—and the fever, its distorting glass—both draw forth from dark corners the fears of defenceless childhood, which press and cut with iron fangs into the prostrate soul. The fair scenes of dreams mostly play on an after-stage, whereas the frightful ones choose for theirs the cradle and the nursery. Moreover, in fever, the ice-hands of the fear of ghosts, the striking one of the teachers ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 430 - Volume 17, New Series, March 27, 1852 • Various
... Vanderpoel, was here upon the spot, and, as far as she could understand, was being implored to take no steps, to do nothing. The atmosphere in which she had spent her life, the world she had been born into, had not made for fearfulness that one would be at any time defenceless against circumstances and be obliged to submit to outrage. To be a Vanderpoel was, it was true, to be a shining mark for envy as for admiration, but the fact removed obstacles as a rule, and to ...
— The Shuttle • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... what lives of harmlessness, of innocence, of virtue, they are going to destroy. You find your range, you fix your elevation, you touch a button: you hear your gun go off. And over there, among the unarmed—the weak, the defenceless, the infirm—it has done—what? Singled out for destruction what life or lives; ten, twenty, a hundred?—you do not know. So with nations, when once they have gone to war; their imprecision becomes—horrible; though the cause of ...
— Angels & Ministers • Laurence Housman
... would deal justly with the people. And because the land had become overrun with forest during the days of misrule, he cut roads through the thickets, that no longer wild beasts and men, fiercer than the beasts, should lurk in their gloom, to the harm of the weak and defenceless. Thus it came to pass that soon the peasant ploughed his fields in safety, and where had been wastes, men dwelt again in ...
— Heroes Every Child Should Know • Hamilton Wright Mabie
... touched at the island now, for it had a bad name, and those which did call were well armed and able to beat off an attack. Then one day, two years before the opening of this story, a trading schooner called off the village, and Martin, now more a savage native than a white man, was tempted by her defenceless condition, and by the money which the captain carried for trading purposes, to capture her, with the aid of the wild, savage people among whom he had cast his lot. Of what use the money would be to him he knew not. He was an outcast from civilisation, he was quickly forgetting ...
— "Martin Of Nitendi"; and The River Of Dreams - 1901 • Louis Becke
... possibly defend. You have much on your conscience—far, far more than I should care to have on mine. How wicked to give all that money to Mrs. Jones. Don't you see you are tempting people who know she is defenceless to steal it from her? Perhaps even murder her? I saved her from that—you did not reckon with me, you see. Take my advice—leave Symford, and go back to where you came from"—Priscilla started—"and get something to do that will keep you fully occupied. If you don't, you'll be laying up ...
— The Princess Priscilla's Fortnight • Elizabeth von Arnim
... sunk into his grave without bequeathing a heritage of love; on whose sod no refreshing dew of sorrowing affection descended. Lonely as his relics in the sepulchre, his spirit wandered in the dreaded region of probation; alone he was left defenceless, prayerless, friendless to settle his awful score with unmitigated justice. It is this feeling, unrivalled for poetic beauty, that gives color and tone to the second division of Dante's poem. The five or six cantos, at the opening, have all the milk of human nature that entered into ...
— Purgatory • Mary Anne Madden Sadlier
... gentle people. I think if the many instances of the murder of ships' and boats' crews could be thoroughly sifted to the bottom, it would be found that most of them were acts of reprisal and revenge for brutal atrocities committed on the defenceless natives, who have been kidnapped, plundered, and murdered by unscrupulous traders and adventurers. Unfortunately, the good suffer for the bad, and such lives as those of Captain Goodenough and Bishop Patteson are sacrificed through the unpardonable ...
— A Voyage in the 'Sunbeam' • Annie Allnut Brassey
... And caring not, now all things bright were dead, That a volcano rolled its burning tide In fiery rivers far athwart the land, I turned my feet to aimless wanderings. The equatorial sun poured scorching beams, On my defenceless head. The burning winds Seemed drying up the blood within my veins. The straggling flowers that had outlived the storm Won but a feeble, half-contemptuous smile; And if a bird attempted a brief song, I closed my ears lest it should burst ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... we are affected with the public calamities as they reach our private affairs; nor is there any circumstance attending them which is felt more acutely than the loss of money. Accordingly, when the spoils were torn down from vanquished Carthage, when you beheld her left unarmed and defenceless amid so many armed nations of Africa, none heaved a sigh. Now, because a tribute is to be levied from private property you lament with one accord, as though at the funeral of the State. How much do I dread lest you should soon be made sensible that you have shed tears ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 2 • Various
... Waarenlexikon—a work of great accuracy and value (Leipzig, 1870), article Haifisch.] the pike, the trout family, and other ravenous fish, as well as of the fishing birds, the seal, and the otter, by man, would naturally have occasioned a great increase in the weaker and more defenceless fish on which they feed, had he not been as hostile to them also ...
— The Earth as Modified by Human Action • George P. Marsh
... whether the forbearance, fortitude, and magnanimity displayed in her latter years, do not redound more highly to her praise than all that preceded. Elizabeth wished for some plausible pretext to take away the life of the unhappy Mary, whom, though so defenceless, she regarded as a dangerous rival. The Duke of Norfolk made offers of marriage to Mary, to which she consented, in case she should be liberated. His scheme also was to favor the Catholic cause, and on ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 5 of 8 • Various
... all that these words mean, one is face to face with the almost unthinkable fact that the case of the woman in England is unjust beyond description, and for this reason, that, as Newman says, "Men, who alone make the laws, make them with but little account of woman." At home with her children she is defenceless. She has no power over them, and her husband is not bound to "maintain" her, notwithstanding the sentence, which English law has made absolutely meaningless, of his marriage vow to her: "With all my worldly ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... indicating the utmost coolness, deliberation, and audacity, deeply agitated and aroused the whole community; ingenuity was baffled in attempting even to conjecture a motive for the deed; and all the citizens were led to fear that the same fate might await them in the defenceless and helpless hours of slumber. For several days, persons passing through the streets might hear the continual sound of the hammer, while carpenters and smiths were fixing bolts to doors and fastenings to windows. Many, for defence, furnished themselves with cutlasses, fire-arms, and watch-dogs. ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... himsilf!" exclaimed Finn. "Be aisy now Barry darlint, and don't harm a defenceless man." And he dropped his ...
— Kilgorman - A Story of Ireland in 1798 • Talbot Baines Reed
... greensward, Marcolina was stretched on the grass, her hands clasped beneath her head, looking skyward while the shuttlecocks flew to and fro. Suddenly reaching upwards, she seized one of them in mid air, and laughed triumphantly. The girls flung themselves upon her as she lay defenceless. ...
— Casanova's Homecoming • Arthur Schnitzler
... force of infantry and artillery, he sailed for Burlington Heights, to destroy a quantity of British stores at that place, which was the principal depot of Vincent's army. A body of Glengury Fencibles had been sent from York to protect the depot, thus leaving the capital defenceless. Chauncey therefore sailed for York, and Scott, landing without opposition on the 23rd of July, burned the barracks, and such public buildings as had previously escaped, broke open the jail, and plundered both private and public stores. ...
— Neville Trueman the Pioneer Preacher • William Henry Withrow
... shield drew out, and it consequently fell from his grasp: while stooping to take it up, the other struck him on the head with a club, which staggered him, and followed his blow while he was in that defenceless situation. ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 2 • David Collins
... now satiated with such military glory as could flow from the capture of defenceless cities belonging to neutrals, agreed to hold conferences at Xanten. To this town, in the Duchy of Cleve, and midway between the rival camps, came Sir Henry Wotton and Sir Dudley Carleton, ambassadors of Great Britain; de Refuge and de Russy, the special and the resident ambassador of ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... castle. The knight could not refrain from shuddering; but he thought himself bound by his rash vow and by that accursed heathenish golden boar. We, his retainers, were commanded to assemble in the castle-yard, armed with sharp spears, which were to be hurled at the defenceless strangers at the first signal made to us. For the first, and I trust the last time in my life, I said 'No' to the commands of my lord; and that I said in a loud voice, and with the heartiest determination. The Almighty, ...
— Sintram and His Companions • Friedrich de la Motte Fouque
... escaped my notice. The nearest approach to the ethical view was the suggestion of the Boston Herald that in putting on the full armor of national defence the effect might be to stimulate the haughty and warlike impulses of our people, and thus increase the danger of war, while a defenceless seacoast would tend to inspire prudence and moderation in our ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, May 1887 - Volume 1, Number 4 • Various
... that moment the fortune of the battle turned against the Volsungs, and they fell fast around their king. But Sigmund stood as in a trance, and the war rage faded from his face. All-Father Odin had come to claim the sword he had given all those many years ago, and had left him defenceless against the foe who ...
— Told by the Northmen: - Stories from the Eddas and Sagas • E. M. [Ethel Mary] Wilmot-Buxton
... major, "belike, then, I should be a prisoner too; for the guests of this house, if they be spies, were MY guests, and, as my father's daughter, I was their hostess; ay, man, and right glad to be the hostess of such gallant gentlemen,—gentlemen, I warrant, too fine to insult a defenceless girl; gentlemen spies that did not cock their boots on the table, or turn an honest ...
— Thankful Blossom • Bret Harte
... between the army and the nation. That also has been demonstrable on many occasions during recent years. I recall the case of Lieutenant von Bruesewitz, of Carlsruhe. This young officer ran his sword through the back of a defenceless civilian by whom he fancied himself insulted in a restaurant, the man dying within a few hours of the deed. His murderer attempted no other exculpation, or indeed explanation, than by saying that according to the army code of honor he was forced to avenge on the ...
— A Little Garrison - A Realistic Novel of German Army Life of To-day • Fritz von der Kyrburg
... couldn't be expected to see the justice of such an arrangement, and it is difficult for us to explain why it should be so. This is a very strong argument for selling cheap, for we should avoid any course which we should not be able to easily prove just, when dealing with such a defenceless people. Of course there would be a grand howl among the so-called philanthropists at the mention of any plan on my part of selling at any rate above cost, witness the sensation produced by my letter to the Evening Post; but I don't care much for that, and ought ...
— Letters from Port Royal - Written at the Time of the Civil War (1862-1868) • Various
... land. Scarcely any Cape in the world is sighted by so many vessels and touched at by so few as Acheen Head. Lord Reay warned us most strongly against approaching it too closely in our comparatively defenceless condition, on account of the piratical ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... been kind to me fully up to my deserts. I was, for some time past, fast getting into the pining, distrustful snarl of the misanthrope. I saw myself alone, unlit for the struggle of life, shrinking at every rising cloud in the chance-directed atmosphere of fortune, while all defenceless I looked about in vain for a cover. It never occurred to me, at least never with the force it deserved, that this world is a busy scene, and man, a creature destined for a progressive struggle; and that, however I might possess a warm heart and inoffensive ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... with a little of their blood, no doubt under the idea that it will give them courage, and a spirit of hatred and revenge against their enemies. What can calm these ferocious feelings, and curb this savage fury of the passions in the torturous destruction of defenceless women and sucking infants? what, but the introduction and influence of Christianity, the best civilizer of the wandering natives of these dreary wilds, and the most probable means of fixing them in the pursuit of agriculture, and of those social advantages and privileges ...
— The Substance of a Journal During a Residence at the Red River Colony, British North America • John West
... herald to that city proffering terms: "Harald is dead: Christian was he in youth: He sends you spoils from many a city burnt, And craves interment in your chiefest church." Next day the masked procession wound in black Through streets defenceless. When the church was reached They laid their chief before the altar-lights: Anon to heaven rang out the priestly dirge, And incense-smoke upcurled. Forth from its cloud Sudden upleaped the dead man, club in hand, ...
— Legends of the Saxon Saints • Aubrey de Vere
... make these territories his own, it was an odd method of winning the affections and developing the wealth of the subjects he hoped to acquire. Nothing was really accomplished except devastation in France. Even this useless warfare exhausted English energies, and left the Borders defenceless against one of the largest armies ever collected in Scotland. Wolsey and Henry were only saved, from what might have been a most serious invasion, by Dacre's dexterity and Albany's cowardice. Dacre, the warden ...
— Henry VIII. • A. F. Pollard
... within him, and who loses his head on the edge of the precipice over which she is going to fall, is as contemptible as any man who breaks open a lock, or as any rascal on the lookout for a house left defenceless and unprotected or for some easy and dishonest stroke of business, or as that thief whose various exploits you ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... danger increased with each step, in the event of their missing, the chance of their shooting wild decreased, the idea being to reach the brain through the eye. Cortlandt's part had also its risks, for, being entirely defenceless with his shot-gun against the large creature, whose attention it was his duty to attract, he staked all on the marksmanship of his friends. Not considering this, however, he stood his ground, having the thumb-piece on his Winchester magazine shoved up and ready to make a noisy diversion ...
— A Journey in Other Worlds - A Romance of the Future • John Jacob Astor
... proof of my calamity more incontestable than this. My uncle and my sisters had been murdered; the dwelling had been pillaged, and this had been a part of the plunder. Defenceless and asleep, they were assailed by these inexorable enemies, and I, who ought to have been their protector and champion, was removed to an immeasurable distance, and was disabled, by some accursed chance, from affording them the ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... river, bristling with weapons, and crowded with men in armor. The sentries on the bluff challenged, and received no answer. One of them fired at the advancing boats, and still there was no response. Laudonniere was almost defenceless. He had given his heavier cannon to Hawkins, and only two field-pieces were left. They were levelled at the foremost boats, and the word to fire was about to be given, when a voice from among the strangers called out that they were ...
— Pioneers Of France In The New World • Francis Parkman, Jr.
... strike Rob's defenceless hand, for Shaddy's keen knife-blade met it a couple of inches below the gaping jaws, cut clean through its scale-armed skin, and the head dropped among the lovely petals of the orchis, while the body, twisting and twining upon itself in a knot, ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... it is a Christian duty to forgive—that when a bad man smites one defenceless cheek, we are taught to offer the other to his upraised hand. But the Lord of Heaven and earth promises no forgiveness of transgression unless it is followed by repentance; and where God himself draws the strict ...
— The Old Homestead • Ann S. Stephens
... inmates. Among the roots of the spreading oaks, the otters found, also, such tit-bits as the larvae of moths and beetles. A starved pigeon fallen from the pine-boughs; an occasional moorhen weak and almost defenceless; a wild duck that Lutra had captured by darting from beneath a root while the indiscreet bird was feeding, head downwards, at the river's brink—these were among the varied items of the hungry otters' food. ...
— Creatures of the Night - A Book of Wild Life in Western Britain • Alfred W. Rees
... inner spirit though not the external profession of her father's court. That taunt from the supercilious, curling lip of the royal princess, who had honoured him by consenting to become his wife, was a burning ray of persecution streaming on David's defenceless head. If his religion had been confined to the surface, while the pomp and circumstance of royalty occupied his heart, it would have died out then and there, as the tender sprouting corn, whose roots rest on a rock, dies out under the scorching sun of Galilee. But David's faith was ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... as a tavern-threshold to every blockhead in the parish,—or that any Pharisee who kept carefully to windward of his virtues, out of the way of infection, has thereby earned the right to mismoralize his failings after he is dumbly defenceless. The moral compasses that are too short for the aberration may be, must be, unequal to the orbit. We would not deny that Burns was a chamberer and a drunkard because he was a great poet; but we would not admit that whiskey ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 6, Issue 35, September, 1860 • Various
... phenomena which pass before their eyes; and that its second object is to inform them of the fundamental laws which have been found by experience to govern the course of things, so that they may not be turned out into the world naked, defenceless, and a prey to ...
— Discourses - Biological and Geological Essays • Thomas H. Huxley
... coming from a great distance and mentioned that a party of Indians had killed several of their tribe in the summer preceding their visit. Upon comparing the dates of this murder with that of the last massacre which the Copper Indians have perpetrated on these harmless and defenceless people they appear to differ two years; but the lapse of time is so inaccurately recorded that this difference in their accounts is not sufficient to destroy their identity; besides, the Chipewyans, the only ...
— The Journey to the Polar Sea • John Franklin
... cherish and protect them against the slings and arrows of outrageous criticism. But, on the other hand, I think she ought to remember that while I achieved some of them with my eyes open, the rest were thrust upon me when I was defenceless, and when I find some difficulty in adapting myself to circumstances, as is frequently the case, she should be more lenient to my incapacity. The fact that I am a lawyer makes it necessary for me to toe ...
— The Whole Family - A Novel by Twelve Authors • William Dean Howells, Mary E. Wilkins Freeman, Mary Heaton Vorse, Mary Stewart Cutting, Elizabeth Jo
... sense of justice does revolt from this most cavalier and careless exhibition of me to a whole people, as a traveller under false pretences, and a disappointed intriguer. The better the acquaintance with America, the more defenceless and more inexcusable such conduct is. For, I solemnly declare (and appeal to any man but the writer of this paper, who has travelled in that country, for confirmation of my statement) that the source from which he drew ...
— The Letters of Charles Dickens - Vol. 3 (of 3), 1836-1870 • Charles Dickens
... what can you do about it? You can't punish men like Waterman. You can't punish them for anything they do, whether it is monopolising a necessity of life and starving thousands of people to death, or whether it is an attack upon a defenceless woman. There are rich men in this city who make it their diversion to answer advertisements and decoy young girls. A stenographer in my office told me that she had had over twenty positions in one year, and that she had left every one ...
— The Moneychangers • Upton Sinclair
... creed, are now children of the one common soil. The Orangeman looked upon himself as part of a foreign garrison, holding the "Papishes" in subjection. He was armed with deadly weapons; consequently, the defenceless Catholic was almost entirely at his mercy, and the Orangeman was but too often backed up in his lawlessness by the law and ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... other testaceous animals, annually changes its shell; it is then in a soft state, covered only with a mucous membrane, and conceals itself in holes in the sand or under weeds; at this place a hard shelled crab always stands centinel, to prevent the sea insects from injuring the other in its defenceless state; and the fishermen from his appearance know where to find the soft ones, which they use for baits in ...
— Zoonomia, Vol. I - Or, the Laws of Organic Life • Erasmus Darwin
... The parson in his gloomy pulpit, surrounded by a framework of dusty carved angels, took on an awful appearance of menacing Authority as he raised his voice to make himself heard above the clatter. Sitting there in the dark, I felt very small, and solitary, and defenceless, alone in a great, big, black world. The church was as cold as a tomb; some of the candles guttered and went out; the parson in his black robe spoke of death and judgment; I thought I heard a child's voice screaming, and could ...
— Elizabeth and her German Garden • "Elizabeth", AKA Marie Annette Beauchamp
... Pines is an isolated spot, and my resources are few. I fear I should have found life here somewhat monotonous before long, with no other society than that of my excellent sire. It is true, I might have made a target of the defenceless invalid; but I haven't a taste for ...
— Marjorie Daw • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... in their poverty and humility they were better off than he was, and that because fortune had been, as they considered, kind to them, they were bound to treat him in a way that should not remind him of his dependent and defenceless condition. It was impossible to imagine greater satisfaction than that which he enjoyed in the contemplation of his own actual situation as compared with that which he had impressed upon the minds of these two friends of his who had ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli
... and that, being destitute of immortality, the whole period of their enjoyment is limited to the short date of their life on earth? It is the mark of a debased mind to seek amusement from the writhings of defenceless creatures, to sport even with the agonies of a fly. Parents and guardians of youth should particularly guard against the encouragement of a principle of cruelty, by allowing this practice. Children should not be suffered to indulge in such abuses, but should rather ...
— Female Scripture Biographies, Vol. I • Francis Augustus Cox
... ignored him. Did it not rather mean, then, that Jewdwine would not trust her there; that, knowing her nature and how defenceless it lay before the impulses of its own kindness, he feared for her any personal communication with his friend? It did not occur to Rickman that what Jewdwine dreaded more than anything for Lucia was the ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... ways of the world require that she should be careful in his interests, and that she should live with him in what amity is possible to them. But as for love,—all that we mean by love when we speak of it and write of it,—a blow given by the defender to the defenceless crushes it all! A woman may forgive deceit, treachery, desertion,—even the preference given to a rival. She may forgive them and forget them; but I do not think that a woman can forget a blow. And as for forgiveness,—it is not the blow that she cannot forgive, ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope
... Christians that we should wish to be like you?" So fearful had been the barbarities practiced upon them that the very name of Christian inspired them with horror and to call them Christians never failed to excite them and to make them grind their teeth with rage. A defenceless, subject people who were so intelligent as to understand thoroughly the hypocrisy of their conquerors and who were possessed of the courage to express their contempt boldly were, in those times, inviting greater cruelties, even possible extermination. Taylor, ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 2, 1917 • Various
... and Northern Asia are dotted tell us at that time of the year the tale of what mutual aid means for the birds; what force, energy, and protection it confers to every living being, however feeble and defenceless it otherwise might be. Take, for instance, one of the numberless lakes of the Russian and Siberian Steppes. Its shores are peopled with myriads of aquatic birds, belonging to at least a score of different species, all living in perfect peace—all ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... Defenceless, he sprang back to the edge; there was nothing for it now but to run until he could meet his men. Well he knew they would be tearing up the mountain to the rescue. Could he hold out till then? Behind him with shout and yells came the Apaches, arrow and bullet ...
— Starlight Ranch - and Other Stories of Army Life on the Frontier • Charles King
... disposition and strong in person, but that you are possessed of a considerable degree of energy and determination, I am most desirous of imposing upon your good-nature a trust of which you cannot for a moment suspect the magnitude. Tell me, are you willing to assist a poor, defenceless female in her ...
— The Ruby of Kishmoor • Howard Pyle
... love's uplifted stroke! My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me, And smitten me to my knee; I am defenceless utterly. I slept, methinks, and woke, And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep. In the rash lustihead of my young powers, I shook the pillaring hours And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears, I stand ...
— The Hound of Heaven • Francis Thompson
... juice. Was he not smiting hip and thigh? He longed, I am sure, to be in the thick of the actual fighting, but age debarred him, and he was not of that more sensitive type which shrinks from smiting the defenceless if it cannot smite anything stronger. I remember saying to ...
— Tatterdemalion • John Galsworthy
... will prove the only solution of the Jewish problem, is the central thought of Smolenskin's journalistic efforts. Jews are disliked, he maintains, not because of their religious persuasion, nor for their reputed wealth, but because they are weak and defenceless. What they need is strength and courage, but these they will never regain save in a land of their own. Twelve years before the tornado of persecution broke out in Russia he had predicted it, and even ...
— The Haskalah Movement in Russia • Jacob S. Raisin
... air Spent all its force; my falchin then I seiz'd, Advancing to attack my ireful foe, When furiously the savage sprung upon me, And tore me to the ground; my treach'rous blade Above my hand snap'd short, and left me quite Defenceless to his rage; Arsaces then, Hearing the din, flew like some pitying pow'r, And quickly freed me from the Monster's paws, Drenching his bright lance in his ...
— The Prince of Parthia - A Tragedy • Thomas Godfrey
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