"Defy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... imagination is worth a good deal at times," he said. "There ought to be a ghost-walk about here; and next time you come over, we'll arrange one so perfectly that he shall defy detection. I'll walk a bit with you, if I am not ...
— A Little Girl of Long Ago • Amanda Millie Douglas
... I should be always taking all this trouble for him,—tiptoeing up and down the world with my little cover over my secret for him? To defy a Fool, I have said, speak your whole truth. Then God locks him out. To hide a secret, have enough of it. Hide it outdoors. Why should a man take anything less than a world to hide in? If a soul is really a soul, why should it not fall back for its reserve on its own ...
— The Lost Art of Reading • Gerald Stanley Lee
... comment, but every moment served to deepen my interest in this girl who could defy a will which had ruled a whole island for half ...
— The House of the Misty Star - A Romance of Youth and Hope and Love in Old Japan • Fannie Caldwell Macaulay
... defy it, Reverend Batson," I said, when he asked if anybody knew 'just cause'; and the people fluttered like a flock of geese, and parson ...
— The Torch and Other Tales • Eden Phillpotts
... stronger law than the law of gravitation—my own life and will. And so through the operation of this higher law—the law of vitality—I defy the law of gravitation, and lift my hand and hold it above its former resting-place, and move it at my will. The law of vitality has made me free from ...
— Days of Heaven Upon Earth • Rev. A. B. Simpson
... There was one joker in the scheme which the Southerners seem to have winked at: that which exempted the wool-growers of the Middle States and the West from the reductions. The author of the American System now hotly urged the men who a year ago would defy the "South, the Democratic party, and the Devil" to undo all their work. On March 1, three days before the close of the session, both the President's "Force Bill" and ...
— Expansion and Conflict • William E. Dodd
... lively they get bell'd off their legs and if they are sluggish you suffer from it yourself in complaints and if they are sparkling-eyed they get made love to, and if they are smart in their persons they try on your Lodgers' bonnets and if they are musical I defy you to keep them away from bands and organs, and allowing for any difference you like in their heads their heads will be always out of window just the same. And then what the gentlemen like in girls the ...
— Mrs. Lirriper's Lodgings • Charles Dickens
... the wood artificially before placing in position. There have been many ways adopted at times for meeting this requirement. It must be remembered, however, that there is no perfectly successful mode of artificially colouring wood so as to defy detection, but small portions such as are under consideration at the present moment may be treated so as to look tolerably well. Firstly, a well known, often tried, but very bad method is to steep a piece of white new wood in a solution of nitric acid ...
— The Repairing & Restoration of Violins - 'The Strad' Library, No. XII. • Horace Petherick
... feeling all over you, which is one of the enjoyments of Christmastide. Coleridge (says the late Mr. George Dawson)[88] "holds the first place amongst English poets in this objective teaching of the vague, the mystic, the dreamy, and the imaginative. I defy any man of imagination or sensibility to have 'The Ancient Mariner' read to him, by the flickering firelight on Christmas night, by a master mind possessed by the mystic spirit of the poem, and not find himself taken away from the good regions of 'ability to ...
— Christmas: Its Origin and Associations - Together with Its Historical Events and Festive Celebrations During Nineteen Centuries • William Francis Dawson
... room, leaving him stunned that she dared defy him, and half resolved to call her back and tell her the truth. But he didn't, and it was years before he ...
— The Cromptons • Mary J. Holmes
... initials, it will be seen, I pass over in contempt and silence. When once I have made up my mind, let me tell you, sir, there lives no pock-pudding who can change it. Your anger I defy. Your unmanly reference to a well-known statesman I puff from me, sir, like so much vapour. Weg is your name; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 23 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... epoch) at these violations of traditional methods, he then took up a position off Saigres where he could harry coastwise commerce, picked up the East Indiaman San Felipe with a cargo worth a million pounds in modern money, and even appeared off Lisbon to defy the Spanish Admiral Santa Cruz. Thus he "singed the King of Spain's beard," and set, in the words of a recent biographer, "what to this day may serve as the finest example of how a small, well-handled fleet, acting on a nicely timed offensive, may paralyze the ...
— A History of Sea Power • William Oliver Stevens and Allan Westcott
... humiliating fatigue duty. I think I had persisted in trying to scratch an itching back on parade. Military discipline, I need not tell you, Major, doesn't take into account the sensitiveness of a recruit's back. It flatly denies such a phenomenon. Now I think I can defy anything in God's quaint universe to make me itch. But that's by the way. I tore the letter up and never answered it. You do these things, sir, when the whole universe seems to be a stumbling-block and an offence. Phyllis was the stumbling-block and the rest of the cosmos ...
— The Red Planet • William J. Locke
... names again, or your uncle names, or doing anything but just behaving like a proper little Christian child, I shall have you whipped. I believe in not sparing the rod, and so the child is not spoiled. What, you'll defy me, miss!" ...
— A Little Mother to the Others • L. T. Meade
... of State Rights, the same question that Hayne and Webster debated in Eighteen Hundred Thirty, and Grover Cleveland and John P. Altgeld fought over in Eighteen Hundred Ninety-four. The Elector Frederick prepared for a legal battle, and would defy the "Federal Arm" by force if ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 7 - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Orators • Elbert Hubbard
... Rutherford! Suppose they were to elect to office some wild and reckless demagog... take, for instance, that ruffian you were telling us about... down there on the Bowery... [HAGEN starts, and listens] and he were to defy the law and the courts? He is preaching just that to the mob... striving to rouse the elemental wild beast in them! And some day they will pour out ...
— Prince Hagen • Upton Sinclair
... Dickinson favoured compromise; William H. Seward stood firmly for his anti-slavery convictions. The latter spoke on the 11th of March. He opposed the fugitive slave law because "we cannot be true Christians or real freemen if we impose on another a chain that we defy all human power to lay on ourselves;"[397] he declared for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, "and if I shall be asked what I did to embellish the capital of my country, I will point to her freemen and say—these are the monuments of my munificence;" ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... unlucky by our willing and doing; but even so, it is not lucky to defy or deny what the dead have once held to be ...
— An Orkney Maid • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... his way to Djissr Shogher, he found the castle without a garrison, and took possession of it, thereby declaring himself a rebel. Orders have in consequence been given to strike off his head. Although his strong fortress enables him to defy these orders, his dread of being surprised induces him to try every means in his power to obtain his pardon from the Porte, and he has even sent considerable sums of money to Constantinople. [Damascus. April 28, 1812.—In the latter end of March, Milly Ismayl went to Hamah on some private ...
— Travels in Syria and the Holy Land • John Burckhardt
... the door through which the noble figure of the queen had just vanished. "I shall not forget nor forgive," muttered she. "I shall have my revenge on this impudent person who dares to threaten me and even to defy me, and who calls herself my sovereign. This Austrian, a sovereign of the princess royal of France! We will show her where are the limits of her power, and where are the limits of France! She shall ...
— Marie Antoinette And Her Son • Louise Muhlbach
... so clever you'll get on fast," Peter returned, trying to think how he could most richly defy ...
— The Tragic Muse • Henry James
... Elsewhere, Sir William Skeffington may have been a gallant soldier and a reasonable man; but the fatal atmosphere of Ireland seems at all times to have had a power of prostrating English intellect. The Protector Cromwell alone was cased in armour which could defy its enchantments. An active officer might have kept the field without difficulty. The Master of the Rolls, to prove that the country, even in mid-winter, was practicable without danger, rode to Waterford in November with only three hundred horse, through the heart of the disturbed ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude
... encouraged by the British-Indian Government because there is no longer any plausible means of preventing it; but Maharajah Bubru Singh was a pioneer, who dared greatly, and had his way even against the objections of a high commissioner. In addition he had had to defy the Brahman priests who, all unwilling, are the strong supports of alien overrule; for they are armed with the iron-fanged laws of caste that forbid crossing the sea, ...
— Guns of the Gods • Talbot Mundy
... far too great a man to allow himself to be checked by any such misfortune as this. He was far too astute to attempt to defy the teacher and carry on the forbidden game, but with great ability he adapted the principles of deer-hunting to a game even more exciting and profitable. He organized the game of "Injuns," some of the boys being set apart ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... shapes of mercy, charity, and love, to walk the world, and bless it. Of every tear that sorrowing mortals shed on such green graves some good is born, some gentler nature comes. In the Destroyer's steps there spring up bright creations to defy his power, and his dark path becomes a way of ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... sounds easy enough to you! But supposing I get the chicken, how am I to bring it into the house without being seen? Suppose I meet West in the hall, or Miss Turner on the stairs, or the housemaid in your bedroom? I defy you to hide a roast fowl about you, and I don't care for getting into ...
— Jack of Both Sides - The Story of a School War • Florence Coombe
... it is that we are compelled to leave it according to our habit when we are at fault, and much as the poet leaves it here. In the case of the man, we think we understand. In that of the dog, our difficulty appears to defy solution: it is no question of argument, assertions are idle, dogma has no place. On the one hand we have those principles that come to man's aid, but of which it would be unbecoming now to speak. The vast majority of Christian ...
— 'Murphy' - A Message to Dog Lovers • Major Gambier-Parry
... the rest, and tried to defy sickness for a time, but it would not do. The strong man was obliged to succumb to a stronger than he—not, however, until he had assisted as best as he could in hauling up ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... change had come over Beatrice. Humble and weeping, she knelt beside Violante, hiding her face, and imploring pardon. And Violante, striving to resist the terror for which she now saw such cause as no woman-heart can defy, still sought to soothe, and ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... her fast. Nothing else mattered—neither his work, nor his career, nor Christine. It was terrible how little they seemed now—a handful of dust—beside this mounting, imperative desire. He had been so invulnerable. In wanting nothing but what was in himself he had been able to defy exterior events. Now he was stripped of his defence. He could be hurt. He could be made desperately happy or unhappy by things which he had thought trivial and purposeless—the ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... case. The evidence exists, but in a double form; and we have to decide which is the authentic and genuine copy. But if the one is rejected, the other is established:" the difference between the two being exactly 1,250 years.—Men are free to reject the evidence, to be sure; but we defy them to explain it away. The chronological details of the Bible are as emphatically set down as anything can be; and,—(with the exception of a few particulars, chiefly in the Book of Kings, which are to the record what misprints ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... you are weak enough to wait for him here. Do you think his mother will consider his feelings, when he comes back to marry you? I tell you again I am not talking at random. I have thought it all out: I know how you can make your escape, and defy pursuit. You have plenty of money; you have Teresa to take care of you. Go! For your own ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins
... and Sutherland—the former as timid before the audience as he had been plucky before the Soudanese, but walking erect, nevertheless, as men do when conscious that they are in the right; the latter "as bold as brass"—as if to defy the world in arms to make him ever again drink another drop ...
— Blue Lights - Hot Work in the Soudan • R.M. Ballantyne
... sound resulted. Each delicate shade of color in the flower found a sympathetic wire which vibrated in response to it, and the harmony produced by all in chorus was the ineffably sweet song of Nature. As Nature expressed its dreams of beauty in flowers, which in their simplicity and radiance defy the hand of man to equal, so did the melody of these flowers far surpass anything that the ear of man had ever before heard. Did not the lilies of the field receive the tribute of Christ? What wonderfully effective yet ...
— Zarlah the Martian • R. Norman Grisewood
... led where Douglas stood, And with stern eye the pageant viewed - I mean that Douglas, sixth of yore, Who coronet of Angus bore, And, when his blood and heart were high, Did the third James in camp defy, And all his minions led to die On Lauder's dreary flat: Princes and favourites long grew tame, And trembled at the homely name Of Archibald Bell-the-Cat; The same who left the dusky vale Of Hermitage in Liddisdale, Its dungeons and its towers, Where Bothwell's turrets brave the air, And Bothwell ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott
... unbalanced, and need a guardian. That's me. You are helpless and cannot resist, so you're my prisoner. Dare to defy me, dare to oppose my wishes in any way, and I'll have you put in a straight-jacket and confined in a padded cell. ...
— Aunt Jane's Nieces at Millville • Edith Van Dyne
... boy: M stands for merry—oh' let us be merry; M stands for merry—right merry am I. (Bowing.) With a bow to the right, sir, and a bow to the left, sir, Come, now, and be merry, all sadness defy. ...
— Christmas Entertainments • Alice Maude Kellogg
... deliberately destroyed Atlanta, and all the railroads which the enemy had used to carry on war against us, occupied his State capital, and then captured his commercial capital, which had been so strongly fortified from the sea as to defy approach from that quarter. Almost at the moment of our victorious entry into Savannah came the welcome and expected news that our comrades in Tennessee had also fulfilled nobly and well their part, had decoyed General Hood to Nashville and then ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... heaven is from hell between the conduct of the Divine Master who "went about healing all that were oppressed," and the man who prostitutes the healing art to the service of libertines, in making it healthier, if possible, for them to defy the commandments of that same Divine Master. Such doctors are the offscouring of ...
— Heathen Slaves and Christian Rulers • Elizabeth Wheeler Andrew and Katharine Caroline Bushnell
... consciousness that in case of danger I could not be of the slightest help, I was ashamed to let her risk the danger alone. The old lady was simply magnificent when, with her head thrown back, she seemed to defy the black and copper-colored banks of clouds, and shook at them her Loreto bell. I did not regret having gone with her, if only to see a symbolic picture. At a moment when everything trembles before the approaching horror, ...
— Without Dogma • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... effects that an AEolian harp produced upon his lively and impassioned imagination: "On one of those gloomy days that sadden the end of the year, listen, while reading Ossian, to the fantastic harmony of an AEolian harp swinging at the top of a tree deprived of verdure, and I defy you not to experience a profound feeling of sadness and of abandon, and a vague and ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... Brady: By the time you get this letter I will be far away. You are duped. Do as you please with my innocent wife and daughter. You can prove nothing against them. An outsider did the smuggling. That lets us out. I defy you. Do your ...
— The Bradys and the Girl Smuggler - or, Working for the Custom House • Francis W. Doughty
... Siegfried said, "I grieve for thee. I will tell thee a remedy if thou keep it from her. I will so contrive it that this night she will defy thee no longer." The word was welcome to Gunther after ...
— The Fall of the Niebelungs • Unknown
... the town's greatness. There was only one man at work—a dry man, grizzled, and far advanced in years, but tall and upright, who, becoming aware of me looking on, straightened his back, pushed up his spectacles against his brown- paper cap, and appeared inclined to defy me. To ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... deferred her visit until another day, and returned home, but she feared he'd follow her there. Here was a man of whom she was heartily afraid, and as she dared not defy him, she obediently walked across the gully bridge, and hurried ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... He did not stoop to raise her, nor, at the moment, did he say a word to comfort her. "And you think that I stole it and put it there?" she said. She did not quail before his eyes, but seemed, though kneeling before him, to look up at him as though she would defy him. When first she had sunk upon the ground, she had been weak, and wanted pardon though she was ignorant of all offence; but his hardness, as he stood with his eyes fixed upon her, had hardened her, and all her intellect, though not her heart, was in revolt against ...
— Nina Balatka • Anthony Trollope
... this moment proposed a scheme which will be very much for my pleasure if equally convenient to the other party; it is that when you return on Monday, I should take your place at Goodnestone for a few days. Harriot cannot be insincere, let her try for it ever so much, and therefore I defy her to accept this self-invitation of mine, unless it be really what perfectly suits her. As there is no time for an answer, I shall go in the carriage on Monday, and can return with you, if my going to Goodnestone ...
— Jane Austen, Her Life and Letters - A Family Record • William Austen-Leigh and Richard Arthur Austen-Leigh
... rudeness of which she had been guilty towards him and others during the preceding days. She grew restive occasionally, but on the whole she bore it well. Her arrogance was not of the small-minded sort; and the best chance with her was to defy her. ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... Johnny was prepared upon all occasions to prove his right to his sobriquet, and Dan Murphy well knew he would not stop until he had driven Scotty to extreme measures, so here he mercifully interfered in his friend's behalf. He had no mind to defy a trustee, so, being of a diplomatic turn, determined to divert the tide of wrath by the simple expedient of producing a counter-irritant. He slipped out quietly from the line of culprits, and snatching ...
— The Silver Maple • Marian Keith
... one of his chief friends called Flatterer, "nuncle pays you not a whit less respect than is due to you, but an it please you, he has bestowed upon her ladyship scarce the half her mead of praise. I defy any man," quoth he, "to show a lovelier woman in all the Street of Pride, or a nobler than you in all the Street of Pleasure, or a kinder than you, good mine uncle, in all the Street of Lucre." "Ah, that is your good opinion," ...
— The Visions of the Sleeping Bard • Ellis Wynne
... "are my principal characteristics. Hence I despatch at once whatever I have to do, the most disagreeable always first, and I gulp down the devil without looking at him. When all has returned to its proper state, then I defy any one to surpass me in good humour." Her heartiness and tolerance are the causes, she thinks, why every one likes her. "I am fond of people, and that every one feels directly—young and old. I pass without pretension through the world, and that gratifies men. I never ...
— The Bed-Book of Happiness • Harold Begbie
... customers?-No doubt of it, and that for the purposes which are explained by the gentlemen whose evidence I agree with. I condemn the system altogether, apart from the men who carry it on. I don't care who the men are; I defy men to be any better than what I find around me, but the system would make them what they are on ...
— Second Shetland Truck System Report • William Guthrie
... I haven't read much about those old knights of yours, Maitland; but so far as I can make out from what you tell us they were always coming across damsels, fair, distressed, and otherwise fetching. Now, I haven't seen a damsel since I left England. How the deuce can I be chivalrous? I defy anyone, even that Lancelot blighter of yours, to go into raptures about the old hag you turned out of the camp yesterday for selling rotten dates ...
— Our Casualty And Other Stories - 1918 • James Owen Hannay, AKA George A. Birmingham
... no use in deploring. There is nobody else to take the reins, so you may defy misfortunes. The question now is, what are ...
— Endymion • Benjamin Disraeli
... Of e'er-renewing earth may first enfold New matter to its bosom, and the sky New nations arch beneath its canopy, Ere this misshapen thing, the world, be rolled And sphered to perfect freedom, ere the old Incrusted statutes that our God defy Be crushed in its rotation, and those die That lived defiance through them. Then man's gold No more shall manhood buy, or men be sold For pottage messes. We may not be nigh To see the glory, but if true and bold Our hands may ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... dark Soignies, holds us now, Where the tall beeches' glossy bough For many a league around, With birch and darksome oak between, Spreads deep and far a pathless screen, Of tangled forest ground. Stems planted close by stems defy The adventurous foot—the curious eye For access seeks in vain; And the brown tapestry of leaves, Strewed on the blighted ground, receives Nor sun, nor air, nor rain. No opening glade dawns on our way, No streamlet, glancing to the ray, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... You mock me," cried Max. "I tell you, Yolanda, there is in all the world no woman for me save—save one upon whom I may not think." Yolanda's face grew radiant, though tears moistened her eyes. "Even though it were possible for me to defy my parents, to turn my face against my country, my people, and the sacred traditions of my house, by asking her to share my life, there could be only wretchedness ahead for her, and therefore unhappiness for me. The dove and the eagle may not mate. Consider the ...
— Yolanda: Maid of Burgundy • Charles Major
... pocket; and when alone at night, she drew it out and looked at its precious contents. There were all sorts of poison in it. By some odd freak, Athalie had bought it in one of her Italian journeys, and while it was in her possession she thought she could defy the world. She imagined herself able to destroy her own life at any moment, and this idea made her feel as a despot to her parents and her lover. If they do not do all she wishes, the box is there; she need only choose ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... of the Creator it should offer to them. Were everything to happen in the ordinary train of events, the future would be subject to the rules of arithmetic, like the chances of gaming. But extraordinary events and wonderful runs of luck defy the calculations of mankind and throw ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... failure, and while he was still chafing at the conduct of his treacherous subordinates, he wrote to Mr. Hunt, the most faithful of all his agents: "Were I on the spot, and, had the management of affairs, I would defy them all; but as it is, every thing depends on you and your friends about you. Our enterprise is grand, and deserves success, and I hope in God it will meet it. If my object was merely gain of money, I should say, think whether it is best to save what we can, and abandon the place; but the very ...
— Great Fortunes, and How They Were Made • James D. McCabe, Jr.
... fashion; or perhaps, to be more exact, it is evident that the majority of those legendary miracles could not withstand the rigorous scrutiny of our day. Those which emerge triumphant from the test and defy our less credulous and more penetrating vision are all the more worthy of holding our attention. They are not the last survivals of the riddle, for this continues to exist in its entirety and grows greater in proportion as we throw light upon it; but we can ...
— The Unknown Guest • Maurice Maeterlinck
... himself. Pelham had fully believed, in his self-willed obstinacy, that he could look Mr. Lowington full in the face, and impudently defy him. He found that he was mistaken. The experience of Shuffles in the hands of the boatswain and carpenter would intrude itself upon him, and he quailed when the principal opened the door and gazed ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... affected theatrical modes of speech. "Don't admire yourself any longer, but tie up your sandals and come on. Be sure you rush down the instant I cry, 'Demon, I defy thee!' Don't break your neck, or pick your way like a cat in wet weather, but come with effect, for I want that ...
— Work: A Story of Experience • Louisa May Alcott
... confinement which he probably considered as implying distrust of his ability to endure pain with the fortitude of a warrior, the lad turned quietly and proudly to his captor, and, with an eye in which scorn and haughtiness were alike glowing, seemed to defy the fulness ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Church of forty years ago, if there is any man living who asserts that I have not under-drawn her, rather than otherwise, he is less intimate with truth than I could wish. On this subject I challenge and defy inquiry. I grant you she is much changed for the better now; but yet there is much to be done in her still. It is true Irishmen at present get Mitres, a fact which was unknown forty years ago. We have now more Evangelicism, and consequently more sleekness and hypocrisy, more external ...
— Valentine M'Clutchy, The Irish Agent - The Works of William Carleton, Volume Two • William Carleton
... there forever," he was thinking, "close to the heart that beat for her alone," as she continued: "If the slightest harm had befallen you, because of me, I should have died of grief. But, oh! how imprudent you were, to defy that handsome, wicked duke, who has the assurance and the pride of Lucifer himself, for the sake of a poor, insignificant girl like me. You were not reasonable, de Sigognac! Now that you are a comedian, like the rest of us, you must learn to put up with certain impertinences ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... [Page 59] matters not how faithful has been the effort to translate these poems, they will not be found easy of comprehension. The local allusions, the point of view, the atmosphere that were in the mind of the savage are not in our minds to-day, and will not again be in any mind on earth; they defy our best efforts at reproduction. To conjure up the ghostly semblance of these dead impalpable things and make them live again is a problem that must be solved by each one with such aid from the divining rod of the imagination as the reader can ...
— Unwritten Literature of Hawaii - The Sacred Songs of the Hula • Nathaniel Bright Emerson
... element and propitiously wafting tide. Without Clothes, without bit or saddle, what hadst thou been; what had thy fleet quadruped been?—Nature is good, but she is not the best: here truly was the victory of Art over Nature. A thunderbolt indeed might have pierced thee; all short of this thou couldst defy. ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle
... chair? I defy the foreign usurper! a rueful chair should it be for her: but hush, John Graham! Hold your ...
— Villette • Charlotte Bronte
... harangued. Oh shame, shame, shame! Argives in form alone, Beautiful but dishonorable race! 935 While yet divine Achilles ranged the field, No Trojan stepp'd from yon Dardanian gates Abroad; all trembled at his stormy spear; But now they venture forth, now at your ships Defy you, from their city far remote. 940 She ceased, and all caught courage from the sound. But Athenaean Pallas eager sought The son of Tydeus; at his chariot side She found the Chief cooling his fiery wound Received from Pandarus; for him the sweat 945 Beneath the broad band of his oval shield ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Before brave sailors dared to creep Beyond the gloom these monsters cast, And venture on the unknown deep, At last resolving to defy ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... Master Mayor," said the divine, "I were strangely ignorant of my own commission and its immunities, if I were to value opposing myself to Satan, or any Independent in his likeness, all of whom, in the name of Him I serve, I do defy, spit at, and trample under my feet; and because Master Mayor is something tedious, I will briefly inform your honour that we saw little of the Enemy that night, save what Master Bletson said in the first feeling ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... position held by those Southern leaders who have been bold enough to proclaim against the education of the Negro. They are consistent in their public speech with Southern sentiment and desires. Those public men of the South who have not been daring or heedless enough to defy the ideals of twentieth-century civilization and of modern humanitarianism and philanthropy, find themselves in the embarrassing situation of preaching one thing and praying for another. They are in the position of the fashionable woman who is compelled by the laws of polite ...
— The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man • James Weldon Johnson
... which was habitual with him when he was spoken to with flattering suavity. He grinned, stretched out the corners of his mouth, and pressed down his brows, so as to defy any divination of his feelings ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... treating sexual phenomena which Continental writers enjoy as a matter of course. The British public is admittedly wrong on this important point—hypocritical, illogical and absurd. But what would you? You cannot defy it; you literally cannot. If you tried, you would not even get as far as print, to say nothing of library counters. You can only get round it by ingenuity and guile. You can only go a very little further than is quite ...
— The Author's Craft • Arnold Bennett
... Parthenia repulses the advances of her too venturesome admirer, and in this direction, to our minds, the best efforts of the lady tend. All we can do at present is to chronicle Miss Anderson's complete success, the recalls being so numerous as to defy particularization." ...
— Mary Anderson • J. M. Farrar
... let that be an argument to enforce a belief of what I am now going to write. It has employed my invention for some time, to find out a method of destroying another without exposing my own life: that I have accomplished, and defy the law. Now, for the application of it. I am desperate, and must be provided for. You have it in your power: it is my business to make it your inclination to serve me, which you must determine to comply with, by procuring me a genteel support ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... police, and the arrival of the Ninety-ninth Regiment from Tasmania on December 10th dealt a final blow to the hopes of the insurgents. Even before this event, all the respectable classes in the community had rallied round the Governor, and he felt himself in a position to defy further outbreaks. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... in the saddle. "Looks kinda like Nature made the desert an' grinned at life, much as to say, 'I defy you to live there,' don't it? Sure there's warfare, but I reckon there's always war between different forms of life. If there wasn't, the world would be rank with all sorts of things crowdin' each other. The war would have to come then after all. Me, I like it. I like the way life came back with ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... souls evermore are like fountains, And liquid and lucent and strong, High over the tops of the mountains Gush up the sweet billows of song. No drouth-time of waters can dry them. Whoever has bathed in that sea, All dangers, all deaths, they defy them, And are gladder than gods are, ...
— Poems of Cheer • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... what would hardly have been a discovery to most people, that officials can be dilatory and evasive; and certain discoveries about the treatment of convicts in New South Wales convinced him that they could even defy the laws and the Constitution when they were beyond inspection. He published (1803) a Plea for the Constitution, showing the enormities committed in the colony, 'in breach of Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Bill of Rights.' Romilly in vain told him that the ...
— The English Utilitarians, Volume I. • Leslie Stephen
... say they will try me," he said, "they must try me. If they say they will punish me, they must punish me. But if they say that in peace and mercy they will spare me expulsion, I disdain and cast away their mercy, and I ask if they will come to such a trial and expel me. I defy them. I have constituents to go to, and they will have something to say if this House expels me, nor will it be long before the gentlemen will see me here again." The fight went on for nearly a fortnight, ...
— Hero Tales From American History • Henry Cabot Lodge, and Theodore Roosevelt
... it came upon me, this spirit of sport, this desire to excel, this hatred of the fox. Accursed animal, should he then defy us? Vile ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... away with the monopoly near the mouth of the river, which has hitherto been held by the chiefs of the lower countries. Steam boats will penetrate up the river even as far as Lever, at the time of year in which the Landers came down, and will defy the efforts of these monopolists to arrest their progress. The steam engine, the greatest invention of the human mind, will be a fit means of conveying civilization amongst the uninformed Africans, who, incapable of comprehending such a thing, will view its arrival amongst them with astonishment ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... the first unfortunate to defy the Almighty. In the other 'twas hatred for the Church that honors the image of Christ crucified as one honors the portrait of a mother. The blasphemy in the second case reached God as effectively as in the first, and the outrage contained ...
— Explanation of Catholic Morals - A Concise, Reasoned, and Popular Exposition of Catholic Morals • John H. Stapleton
... extinguish the flames," and a proposition of a Massachusetts member to build thirty frigates was voted down. And yet, so unprepared for maritime war, the Americans went boldly out on the ocean with a few public vessels and active privateers to defy the royal navy of England. The United States had twenty war vessels, exclusive of one hundred and twenty gun-boats. Great Britain ...
— Harper's Young People, August 10, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... met with unparalleled success. We have appeared before the crowned heads of Europe, and the woolly heads of Charleston and Savannah,—the verdict of praise is unanimous. Purchasing our oil and varnish at wholesale prices, we defy competition. While we have given orders to our artists to furnish the most brilliant colors and gorgeous imagination that the market affords, there is nothing here (except, perhaps, myself) to ...
— Punchinello, Vol. II., No. 35, November 26, 1870 • Various
... herself, the "anointed cherub,"[14136] could look for no greater favour than, like Ulysses in the cave of Polyphemus, to be devoured last. Luliya, or Elulaeus, the king of Tyre at the time,[14137] endeavoured to escape this calamity by gathering to himself a strength which would enable him to defy attack. He contrived to establish his dominion over almost the whole of Southern Phoenicia—over Sidon, Accho, Ecdippa, Sarepta, Hosah, Bitsette, Mahalliba, &c.[14138]—and at the same time over the distant Cyprus,[14139] where the Cittaeans, or ...
— History of Phoenicia • George Rawlinson
... It is not possible to have any uniform arrangement of the sound-post in all instruments; as we have remarked before in reference to the bass-bar, the variations in the thickness, outline, model, &c., of the Violin are so frequent as to defy identity of treatment; uniformity has been sought ...
— The Violin - Its Famous Makers and Their Imitators • George Hart
... brightens, and begins to look as it ought to look, on the entrance of youth, grace, health, and comeliness! You do not want them for yourself, perhaps not even for your son, but you look on smiling; and when you recall their images—again, it is with a smile. I defy you to see or think of them and not smile with an infinite and intimate, but quite impersonal, pleasure. Well, either I know nothing of women, or that was the case with Bethiah McRankine. She had been to church with a cockade behind her, on the one hand; ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 20 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... France by dispersing these bodies of emigres, or that France would declare war against him, and by this declaration draw on herself the hostilities of all her enemies at the same time. France thus would defy them all. ...
— History of the Girondists, Volume I - Personal Memoirs of the Patriots of the French Revolution • Alphonse de Lamartine
... impious dominions are subdued, and no part of mankind is now left in our subjection, but on the other hand, they all boldly defy us; ...
— The Forbidden Gospels and Epistles, Complete • Archbishop Wake
... from the ruins we have described; the many watch-towers, which were also used as fortresses or citadels in which to find protection, testifying to the need of increased watchfulness. The cave-houses and cliff-fortresses, cunningly hidden away to escape detection, or so placed as to defy the assault of their enemies, show to what desperate straits they were driven; and imagination only can picture the despair that must have filled their hearts when the hour of final defeat came, and they must have realized that even these shifts would ...
— The Prehistoric World - Vanished Races • E. A. Allen
... not encourage, the mistress and her friends to speak slightingly of the dauphiness in his presence. But, as Marie Antoinette felt firmer in her own position, she could afford to disregard the malice of these caballers more than she had felt that she could do at first, and even to defy them. On one occasion that the Count de Provence was imprudent enough to discuss some of his schemes with the door open while she was in the next room, she told him frankly that she had heard all that he said, and reproached him for his duplicity; and the dauphin coming in at the moment, ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... spoil it for you, sir." Herbert related Mrs. Crickledon's tale of Mr. Tinman, adding, "He's an utter donkey. I should defy him. What I should do would be to let him know to-morrow morning that you don't intend to see him again. Blow for, blow, is the thing he requires. He'll be cringing to you ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... fierce conflict with the elements. Sometimes its upward growth seems checked for years, but all the while it has been expending its energy in pushing a root across a large rock to gain a firmer anchorage. Then it shoots proudly aloft again, prepared to defy the hurricane. The gales which sport so rudely with its wide branches find more than their match, and only serve still further to toughen every minutest ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... dying. A sight of Philip Schuyler's face sent him sliding into the next ode—Justum et tenacem . . . non voltus instantis tyranni. . . . John a Cleeve would have started had the future opened for an instant and revealed the face of the tyrant Philip Schuyler was soon to defy: and Schuyler would have ...
— Fort Amity • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... formalities of an introduction, but at once opened with: 'Well, who are you? What's your name? Where do you live? What's your business—salvation, sinners, eh?'—all at a single breath, and with a rapidity that would defy the pencil of the most skilful stenographer. There was an air of imperiousness, too, in his tone of voice, that seemed to say, 'Come, talk quickly now, and then go about your business; I have no time to waste.' The inquiries, in the main, having been answered, Allen closed the door ...
— The Secrets Of The Great City • Edward Winslow Martin
... cock! It was the verra best you cud do, or ye wadna hae come within sicht o' me. I mayna be muckle at thrashin' attoarneys, or cuttin' up deid corpuses, but I defy ye to come up to me ...
— Alec Forbes of Howglen • George MacDonald
... given me an almost foolish amount of satisfaction. The subject interested me, I knew, beyond its real value; but I had lately got to think that I had made myself a complete fool by publishing in a semi-popular form. Now I shall confidently defy the world. I have heard that Bentham and Oliver approve of it; but I have heard the opinion of no one else whose opinion is worth a farthing...No doubt my volume contains much error: how curiously difficult it is to be accurate, though I try my utmost. Your notes have interested me beyond measure. ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume II • Francis Darwin
... Deak had hoped would be the case, were given an enormously advantageous position. Humiliated by her expulsion from a confederation which she had been accustomed to dominate, Austria, after the Peace of Prague (August 20, 1866), was no longer in a position to defy the wishes of her disaffected sister state. On the contrary, the necessity of the consolidation of her resources was ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... is recalled from France Russia has declared war against that wretched kingdom. But it may defy all outward enemies to prove in any degree destructive in comparison with its lawless and barbarous inmates. We shall soon have no authentic accounts from Paris, as no English are expected to remain after the ambassador, and no French will dare to write, in such times of pillage, what may carry ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... that for fear of him had not ventured for five years to disturb the peace of the Border, began to show signs of restlessness. The Political Officer's strong personality and the reputation of divinity that he enjoyed had kept them in check. But now that he was gone they thought that they could defy with impunity the young sahib who ...
— The Jungle Girl • Gordon Casserly
... expiring, Ireland on the point of being ceded to France, the colonies of being torn to pieces, the succession of the crown at the mercy of our great rival, and the kingdom itself on the very point of becoming tributary to that haughty power. All this for want of 300,000l.; for I defy the reader to point out any other revenue, or any other precise and defined scheme of politics, which he ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. I. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... then went on with the pleading, and so sturdily that Chief Justice Rolle was non-plussed, and had to confess as much to Cromwell. It was only by delay, and then by some private management of Cony, that a decision was avoided which would have enabled the whole population legally to defy every taxing ordinance of the Protectorate. Similarly the Ordinance of August 1654 for regulating the Court of Chancery, and even the Ordinance of Treason under which the late insurgents had been tried, had brought the Protectorate ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... anything of the kind; and I defy you to prove the faintest thing." But Jerrold's fingers were twitching, and his eyes ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... a note of this: If you question Jesus in the effort to trip Him, you throw yourself down; but if you question Jesus in order to know and do His will, you may confidently stand upon your feet and defy anything that threatens your peace, your happiness, ...
— "Say Fellows—" - Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues • Wade C. Smith
... isles they reached. On this spot Villegagnon told the eager crowd who surrounded him that he had determined to form the first settlement of the new colony. Here, at the entrance of the harbour, and surrounded by water, they might defy the attacks of enemies from without, or the Portuguese or natives who might venture to dispute their possession of the country. From this they might extend to others on either side, and then form a settlement on the shore, thus advancing till they had brought under subjection ...
— Villegagnon - A Tale of the Huguenot Persecution • W.H.G. Kingston
... eyes of the law; but there are times when one is tempted to defy the mandates of a wise legislature. For instance, I have told you more than once before that I have enemies, and everything points to the fact that you are the tool and accomplice of some of them. I have about me one or two faithful people, who would do anything I ask. If I shoot you now the ...
— The Mystery of the Four Fingers • Fred M. White
... politeness, drunk or sober: that strong intellect of his seems to defy the power of wine, as his heart is proof against moral feeling. You did not prolong your stay in Beaumanoir, I fancy?" remarked the Governor, dinting the point of his cane ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... and death, on love, on wealth and poverty, on the prizes of life, and the ways whereby we come at them; on the characters of men, and the influences, occult and open, which affect their fortunes; and on those mysterious and demoniacal powers which defy our science, and which yet interweave their malice and their gift in our brightest hours. Who ever read the volume of the Sonnets, without finding that the poet had there revealed, under masks that are no masks to the intelligent, the lore of friendship and of love; the confusion of sentiments ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... his lips twitching with the pain he was trying to defy; "I have not been able to laugh at the futility of pain. Ah!" It was almost a scream that issued from between his stretched ...
— From the Housetops • George Barr McCutcheon
... Neoplatonism, has had so enduring a fascination for the human spirit. It was not, however, for philosophy, science, or theology that the Romans went to Alexandria. It was for literary models which should less hopelessly defy imitation than those of old Greece, and for general views of life which should approve themselves to their growing enlightenment. These they found in the half-Greek, half-cosmopolitan culture which had there taken ...
— A History of Roman Literature - From the Earliest Period to the Death of Marcus Aurelius • Charles Thomas Cruttwell
... own bill—I'll bet a fiver, too, that you drafted it. Anyway, I'm rising forty—though I'd defy 'em to tell it by my teeth. And since they passed me for a lady—oh, Elphinstone, it was a lark! And I never thought I had the wind for it. You remember Kipling—you are always ...
— True Tilda • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... he arose, and walked with Hutton to the prompter's entrance, where, giving his pipe to his friend, said: "Larry, will you keep the pipe going until I come off?" Booth entered on the scene; then came the big moment in the play when the nobles and the weak King had assembled to defy the power of the Cardinal; and Richelieu launches (as Booth always did with thrilling effect) the terrifying curse of Rome—a superb bit of oratorical eloquence. At the conclusion, the house shouted its wild and demonstrative approval, and when the curtain dropped on this ...
— Defenders of Democracy • The Militia of Mercy
... and finally returned to the original channels of the rivers and creeks. Then the Great Spirit made a race of people of the size that we are to-day; people whom he could handle and who would not defy him. ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... "Then you defy me. For that I have told you that I will not have. Now shall we see who is master. You mind yon kitchen knave of last night? There can be none in all England mightier or more goodly than he is to look on, and him shall you wed. So will my oath be well kept. Then if your precious Witan will have ...
— Havelok The Dane - A Legend of Old Grimsby and Lincoln • Charles Whistler
... shouted. "Think not to shield him so, for I'll have thee flayed alive before thou shalt defy me thus!" ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor
... father, suddenly, "you will hold the yeoman's Staff one day; be like it of an oaken English heart, and you will defy wind and weather as it has done, and as your forbears have done. Come, we must ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... from us forever. And what shall we have in lieu of it? The South flushed with triumph and tempted to excess; the North, betrayed as they believe, brooding on wrong and burning for revenge. One side will provoke, the other resent. The one will taunt, the other defy; one aggresses, the other retaliates. Already a few in the North defy all constitutional restraints, resist the execution of the Fugitive Slave law, and even menace the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. ...
— The Papers And Writings Of Abraham Lincoln, Complete - Constitutional Edition • Abraham Lincoln
... reached a place near trees and water, which would supply us with the only necessaries we required; so we built a rough shelter with boughs, for the wind was piercingly cold. We were able to defy it, however, with the help of a large fire, which we kept blazing in front of ...
— In the Rocky Mountains - A Tale of Adventure • W. H. G. Kingston
... conversation with Eckermann from which the first quotation is made, Goethe seems to defy the investigator who would endeavor to define his indebtedness to Sterne, its nature and its measure. The occasion was an attempt on the part of certain writers to determine the authorship of certain distichs printed in both Schiller's and Goethe's works. ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... an insect-eating bird. But it may be that the leaves of some plant of a particular hue, or the juices of the plant, are distasteful to the insect. Flies don't like the leaves of the blue-gum, and I guess mosquitoes have their likes and dislikes. Find the plant they dislike, and we may defy them." ...
— In Search of the Okapi - A Story of Adventure in Central Africa • Ernest Glanville
... of a text brought for proof of the Trinity, which in an ancient manuscript was differently read; he thereupon immediately took the hint, and by a sudden deduction of a long sorites, most logically concluded; "Why, if it be as you say, I may safely whore and drink on, and defy the parson." From which, and many the like instances easy to be produced, I think nothing can be more manifest, than that the quarrel is not against any particular points of hard digestion in the Christian system, but against religion in ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. III.: Swift's Writings on Religion and the Church, Vol. I. • Jonathan Swift
... person. But if we are to call it superstition, and if this were no devil in the form of a roaring lion, but a mere great seal or sea-lion, it is a more innocent superstition to impersonate so real a power, and it requires a bolder heart to rise up against it and defy it in its living terror, than to sublimate it away into a philosophical principle, and to forget to battle with it in speculating on its origin and nature. But to follow the brave Sir Humfrey, whose ...
— Froude's Essays in Literature and History - With Introduction by Hilaire Belloc • James Froude
... directions are carefully followed, your glass will never be affected by time or any variations in the weather; it will defy hail, rain, frost, and dust, and can be washed the same as ordinary stained glass, to which, in some respects, ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... guard; your persistence in requiring an open avowal from the Countess, is less the work of love than a persevering vanity. I defy you to find a mistake in the true motives behind your insistence. Nature has given woman a wonderful instinct; it enables her to discern without mistake whatever grows out of a passion in one who is a stranger to her. Always indulgent toward the effects produced by a love we have inspired, we will ...
— Life, Letters, and Epicurean Philosophy of Ninon de L'Enclos, - the Celebrated Beauty of the Seventeenth Century • Robinson [and] Overton, ed. and translation.
... "I defy any man to be original when he hasn't a cent, and his stomach contains nothing but air. Give me money, give me food—then, perhaps, ...
— The Sorcery Club • Elliott O'Donnell
... I have now broke off all intercourse with him, and never think of going near him ... I don't feel at all obliged to him about the editorship, for he is a stockholder and director in the Bewick Company; ... and I defy them to get another to do for a thousand dollars what I do for ...
— A Study Of Hawthorne • George Parsons Lathrop
... of those present to have a truckling character, and consequently met with no favor. The meeting, accordingly, found immediate relief for its feelings in the usual American way, by passing a series of resolutions. The vigor of these was out of all proportion to the sense. The disposition to defy Cooper shot, in some instances, indeed, beyond its proper mark, and extended even to the rules of grammar. After reciting in a preamble the facts as they understood them, the citizens present went on to express their determination and ...
— James Fenimore Cooper - American Men of Letters • Thomas R. Lounsbury
... as she walked. What was really surging in her was that feeling of ownership with regard to David which had played so large a part in their childhood, even when she had teased and plagued him most. She might worry and defy him; but no sooner did another woman appropriate him, threaten to terminate for good that hold of his sister upon him which had been so lately renewed, than she was flooded with jealous rage. David had escaped her—he was hers no longer—he was Elise Delaunay's! Nothing ...
— The History of David Grieve • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mind has ever been my greatest delight and the artificial fashions and tyrannical laws of society I despise and defy, and shall to my dying day. My mind ...
— Shakspere, Personal Recollections • John A. Joyce
... say that I have been enchanted with just cause, provided my lady the Princess Micomicona grants me permission to do so, I give him the lie, challenge him and defy him ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... not seem to have heeded the Baron's pause, but she arranged, with an absent air, the folds of her mauve gown, while Dorsenne replied: "It is a fine and specious argument.... Its only fault is that it has no foundation. For I defy you to imagine yourself what you would have been in the epoch of which you speak. We say frequently, 'If I had lived a hundred years ago.' We forget that a hundred years ago we should not have been the same; ...
— Cosmopolis, Complete • Paul Bourget
... think I know a good deal of the foreign press, and I will give Lord Dalkeith this challenge—defy him to produce Italian newspapers, that have any circulation or influence in Italy, in favour of the policy of the present Government. I defy him to produce a newspaper in the Greek tongue, representing the Greek people, either in free Greece or beyond it, that is in favour ...
— Selected Speeches on British Foreign Policy 1738-1914 • Edgar Jones
... Uranoscopus, whose eyes are on the crown of its head; the Italians call him pesce-prete, or priest-fish. Also, a sail of very light duck, over which un-nameable sails have been set, which defy classification. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... insist that Miss Calhoun shall be punished for aiding in the escape of this spy and traitor. He is gone, and it was she who led him through the castle to the outer world. She cannot deny this, gentlemen. I defy her to say she did not accompany Baldos through the secret passage ...
— Beverly of Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... between the two inlets of the sea, which, when the tides run high, nearly cut them off from the mainland. Opposite the village on the other side of the little inland sea, is a second cluster of piled-up rocks thrust forth, like the fist of a giant, to defy the onslaught of Neptune, and on a plateau near the summit, is the skeleton of a house, built for a summer residence by a Russian Prince, who had a fancy for solitude and sea air, but abandoned for some reason before the interior was completed. ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... It was Gray's turn to blaze. "That's exactly what I'm doing. I defy you to get your money out. I defy you to interfere with me in the slightest or to wring a particle of mercy out of me. I knew this would come, sooner or later, and I planned accordingly. What d'you think I am, eh? ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... Father, I am going to take this situation by the horns of its dilemma. I intend to marry Archie. No one in the county can afford to snub Braelands. He is popular and likely to be more so; he is rich and influential, and I also am rich. Together we may lead public opinion—or defy it. My name has been injured by my friendship with him. Archie Braelands must give me ...
— A Knight of the Nets • Amelia E. Barr
... "the fear of the genie makes you speak thus. For my part, I regard him so little that I will break in pieces his talisman, with the spell that is written about it. Let him come; and how brave or powerful he be, I will defy him." On saying this I gave the talisman a kick with my foot, ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments • Anonymous
... proved that the soil was extremely fertile, and they were too staunch to give up so fair a place. They also had a strong fort overlooking the river, and, with Clark among them, they were ready to defy any Indian force ...
— The Border Watch - A Story of the Great Chief's Last Stand • Joseph A. Altsheler
... receive a bribe, but it must be given in such a way that he can satisfy his conscience with ingenious words. The envelope has coins in it, but then he opens it behind his back and the coins fall out upon the floor. He has only picked them up when he found them there, and can defy the world to accuse him of having received any coins in the envelope. That was the sort of conscience which he had, and whose verdicts he never seems seriously to have questioned. He vows he will drink no wine till Christmas, but is delighted to find that hippocras, ...
— Among Famous Books • John Kelman
... numerous scenes of life I have since gone through are more than would fill a small volume. Pray, sir," added he, "let it satisfy you that I am thoroughly honest, and should be glad to serve you at any rate; and although I cannot possibly get a good character from anybody at present, yet I defy the whole world to give me an ill one, either in public ...
— The Fortunate Mistress (Parts 1 and 2) • Daniel Defoe
... the horse or the buffalo. Indeed, these treeless wastes between the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific are even more desolate and barren than the naked, upper prairies on the Atlantic side; they present vast desert tracts that must ever defy cultivation, and interpose dreary and thirsty wilds between the habitations of man, in traversing which the wanderer will often ...
— Trail Tales • James David Gillilan
... later the canoe was threading its tortuous way among a tangled mass of mangrove roots toward the solid bank of the river, landing upon which, we drew our light craft bodily up out of the water, concealing her beneath a broad overhanging mass of foliage which hid her so effectually that I would defy anybody but ourselves to find her. Then, taking a bow and quiver of arrows, together with a brace of spears, out of the canoe, and signing to me to do the same, Ama led the way through the dense growth bordering the river bank, ...
— A Middy of the Slave Squadron - A West African Story • Harry Collingwood
... most powerful man in Rosscullen. The member for Rosscullen would shake in his shoes if Father Dempsey looked crooked at him. [Father Dempsey smiles, by no means averse to this acknowledgment of his authority]. Look at yourself! you would defy the established Archbishop of Canterbury ten times a day; but catch you daring to say a word that would shock a Nonconformist! not you. The Conservative party today is the only one that's not priestridden—excuse ...
— John Bull's Other Island • George Bernard Shaw
... certain about it. The first is that Nestorius, as a heretic, taught something quite opposite to the teaching of Arius, the heretic who came before him, and something quite useless to James Turnbull, the heretic who comes after. I defy you to go back to the Free-thinkers of the past and find any habitation for yourself at all. I defy you to read Godwin or Shelley or the deists of the eighteenth century of the nature-worshipping humanists of the Renaissance, without discovering that you differ from them ...
— The Ball and The Cross • G.K. Chesterton
... he said in a low whisper, which even the office lad could not hear. "He knows too much. He is too smart. And I must act promptly. If I can get him out of the way for two weeks, and before he has a chance to hear from his father, the property will be mine, and I can defy them all. That's what I'll do. I'll get him out of ...
— The Boy from the Ranch - Or Roy Bradner's City Experiences • Frank V. Webster
... the western entrance. I think the patriarch of them all went over in the great gale of 1815; I know I used to shake the youngest of them with my hands, stout as it is now, with a trunk that would defy the bully of Crotona, or the strong man whose liaison with the ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist) |
