"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... used to be astounded by the inroads of the northern Indians coming down upon them from this mountain rampart through some defile known only to themselves. It is, indeed, a wondrous path. A demon, it might be fancied, or one of the Titans, was travelling up the valley, elbowing the heights carelessly aside as he passed, till at length ...
— The Great Stone Face - And Other Tales Of The White Mountains • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... try as he would, could not disguise from him that this was what he had done. Because of Ranny's wife, Respectability, the enduring soul of the Randalls and the Ransomes, could never lift up its head superbly any more. All infamies and all abominations that could defile a family were summed up for John Randall in the one word, adultery. It was worse than robbery or forgery or bankruptcy; it struck more home; it did more deadly havoc among the generations. It excited more interest; it caused more talk; and therefore it marked you more and was not so easily forgotten. ...
— The Combined Maze • May Sinclair
... A heavy column of Brown infantry was swinging in toward the myriad-legged, writhing gray caterpillar on the pass road and many field-batteries were trotting along a parallel road. Their plan developed suddenly when a swath of gun-fire was laid across the pass road at the mouth of the defile, as much as to say: "Here we make a gate of death!" At the same time the head of the Brown infantry column flashed its bayonets over the crest of a hill toward the point where the shells were bursting. These men minded not the desperate, scattered rifle-fire into their ranks. Before their ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer
... with her now. It is her prayer; and, oh, think, how weak is the vanity of this pride in a situation like yours. How idle the stern and stubborn spirit, when men can place you in bonds—when men can take away life and name—when men can hoot and hiss and defile your fettered and enfeebled person! It was for a season and a trial like this, Guy, that humility was given us. It was in order to such an example that ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... auction were so coarse and vile that it is impossible to defile these pages with an accurate and faithful description. Lincoln saw it all. He saw a beautiful mulatto girl exhibited like a race-horse, her "points" dwelt on, one by one, in order, as the auctioneer said, that "bidders might satisfy themselves whether ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... point of the security of her life and person, she is put on the same footing with the king. It is equally treason (by the statute 25 Edw. III.) to compass or imagine the death of our lady the king's companion, as of the king himself: and to violate, or defile, the queen consort, amounts to the same high crime; as well in the person committing the fact, as in the queen herself, if consenting. A law of Henry the eighth[z] made it treason also for any woman, who was not a virgin, to marry the king without informing ...
— Commentaries on the Laws of England - Book the First • William Blackstone
... defiled from the morning until three in the afternoon, but towards evening it notably diminished. At this sight all the population of the town of Narni mounted upon the walls, fearing they might be hostile troops, and saw them defile with ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... week after week, for month after month, they marched southward and westward across the Desert, and in the centre of their host, mounted upon camels, rode Tua and Asti veiled. Once the hillmen attacked them in a defile of some rugged mountains, but they beat them back, and once there was a great battle with other tribes of the wilderness, who, hearing that they had a goddess among them, sought to capture her for themselves. ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... over it, and you muse on soft eyes far away; while below at the threshold—No, phantoms! we see you not from our attic. Note, yonder, that precipitous fall,—how ragged and jagged the roof-scene descends in a gorge! He who would travel on foot through the pass of that defile, of which we see but the picturesque summits, stops his nose, averts his eyes, guards his pockets, and hurries along through the squalor of the grim London lazzaroni. But seen above, what a noble break in the sky-line! It would be sacrilege to exchange that fine gorge for a dead flat of ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... because of the worship of the Golden Calf; and then remembering that it was cast into desert for the sins of the cities of the plain, he said: how could I have thought else? As soon as this rain ceases we will go up the defile and at the end of it the lake will lie before us deep down under the Moab mountains. He remembered too that he would have to reach to the cenoby before the day was over, or else ...
— The Brook Kerith - A Syrian story • George Moore
... rare windows were illuminated, giving hints—dressing-tables, pictures, gas-globes—of intimate private lives. I don't know why such hints should always seem to me pathetic, saddening; but they do. And beneath them, through the dark defile of shutters, motor-omnibuses roared and swayed and curved, too big for the street, and dwarfing it. And automobiles threaded between them, and bicycles dared the spaces that were left. From afar off there came ...
— Books and Persons - Being Comments on a Past Epoch 1908-1911 • Arnold Bennett
... At its widest it is very narrow; and, a little ahead of us, a bramble has thrown a strong arm right across it, making a thorny arch, and forbidding passage. By a quick movement, Mr. Musgrave gets in advance of me, and, turning round, faces me at this defile. ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... of Bamian lie on the road leading from Kabul to Turkestan. The pass, at an elevation of 8,496 feet, is the only known defile over the Hindu Kush practicable for artillery. This valley was one of the chief centres of Buddhist worship, as gigantic idols, mutilated indeed by fanatical Mussulmans, conclusively prove. Bamian, with its ...
— Afghanistan and the Anglo-Russian Dispute • Theo. F. Rodenbough
... reserve. Where shall he turn? or whither fly? Despair Gives courage to the weak. Resolved to die, 530 He fears no more, but rushes on his foes, And deals his deaths around; beneath his feet These grovelling lie, those by his antlers gored Defile the ensanguined plain. Ah! see distressed He stands at bay against yon knotty trunk, That covers well his rear, his front presents An host of foes. Oh! shun, ye noble train, The rude encounter, and believe ...
— The Poetical Works of Addison; Gay's Fables; and Somerville's Chase • Joseph Addison, John Gay, William Sommerville
... fact, she declares, if Damayanti is her niece, she can easily be recognized, as she was born with a peculiar mole between her eyebrows. She, therefore, bids her handmaid wash off the ashes which defile her in token of grief, and thus discovers the birth-mole proving ...
— The Book of the Epic • Helene A. Guerber
... swollen feet pressed closely upon us, and begged for bread most piteously. He had pawned his shoes for food, which he had already consumed. The soup-house was surrounded by a cloud of these famine spectres, half naked, and standing or sitting in the mud, beneath a cold, drizzling rain. The narrow defile to the dispensary bar was choked with young and old of both sexes, struggling forward with their rusty tin and iron vessels for soup, some of them upon all fours, like famished beasts. There was a cheap bread ...
— A Journal of a Visit of Three Days to Skibbereen, and its Neighbourhood • Elihu Burritt
... procession and began to defile past him. "Smoking in the Court, half-a-crown," said one, in a dreadful voice. "Mr. BURROWES irregular in his attendance at Chapel, gated at eight," roared a second. "Mr. BURROWES persistently disorderly, sent down for the term," shouted a third; and then they all began to ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various
... the Puerta to the ridge of the great mountain. Here the eye looks down on two valleys, or rather narrow defiles, filled with thick vegetation. On the right is perceived the ravine which descends between the two peaks to the farm of Munoz; on the left we see the defile of Chacaito, with its waters flowing out near the farm of Gallegos. The roaring of the cascades is heard, while the water is unseen, being concealed by thick groves of erythrina, clusia, and the Indian fig-tree.* (* Ficus nymphaeifolia, Erythrina mitis. Two fine species of mimosa ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt
... their slopes, and the subjacent valleys, were covered with men and horses. As soon as the earth exhibited to the sun those moving masses, clothed with glittering arms, the signal was given, and instantly the multitude began to defile off in three columns, towards the three bridges. They were observed to take a winding direction, as they descended the narrow plain which separated them from the Niemen, to approach it, to reach the three passages, to compress and prolong their columns, in order to traverse them, ...
— History of the Expedition to Russia - Undertaken by the Emperor Napoleon in the Year 1812 • Count Philip de Segur
... just risen from a sleepless chair, instead of an oblivious couch. Israel's heart beat like a hammer; his face turned like a sheet. But bracing himself, pulling his hat lower down over his eyes, settling his head in the collar of his coat, he advanced along the defile of wildly staring faces. He advanced with a slow and stately step, looked neither to the right nor the left, but went solemnly forward on his now faintly illuminated way, sounding his cane on the floor as he passed. The faces in the doorways curdled his blood by their rooted ...
— Israel Potter • Herman Melville
... from the general persuasion that they fed on the dead bodies of their enemies; a report which was occasionally justified, and which the king of the Thafurs took care to encourage. This respectable monarch was frequently in the habit of stopping his followers, one by one, in a narrow defile, and of causing them to be searched carefully, lest the possession of the least sum of money should render them unworthy of the name of his subjects. If even two sous were found upon any one, he was instantly expelled the ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... perhaps, someone would see her while she was feeling so nice and new. Then, dropping the blind, she went back to the glass and began to pin her hair up. When this was done she stood for a long minute looking at her old brown skirt and blouse, hesitating to defile her new-found purity. At last she put them on and drew up the blind. The sunlight had passed off the pear-tree; its bloom was now white, and almost as still as snow. The little model put another sweet into her mouth, and producing from her pocket an ancient leather purse, counted ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle that shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra, and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war meant; but my cheeks burned, I knew not why; and I clasped the hand of that venerable man, till my mother, parting the hair from off my brow, kissed my throbbing temples, and bade ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... English miles, which they hoped to cover in about a week. In fact, it took them ten days, for the roads were very rough and the pack-beasts slow. Once, too, after they had entered the territory of Venice, they were set on in a defile by four thieves, and might have met their end had not Grey Dick's eyes been so sharp. As it was he saw them coming, and, having his bow at hand, for he did not like the look of the country or its inhabitants, leaped to earth and shot two of them with ...
— Red Eve • H. Rider Haggard
... Greece. This position, one of great natural strength, was held by a few thousand Greeks under the Spartan king, Leonidas. For two days Xerxes hurled his best soldiers against the defenders of Thermopylae, only to find that numbers did not count in that narrow defile. There is no telling how long the handful of Greeks might have kept back the Persian hordes, had not treachery come to the aid of the enemy. A traitor Greek revealed to Xerxes the existence of an ...
— EARLY EUROPEAN HISTORY • HUTTON WEBSTER
... up to the fence, and, with mingled shouts and oaths, were dismounting, to prepare to follow them. A few moments' scrambling brought them to the top of the ledge; the path then passed between a narrow defile, where only one could walk at a time, till suddenly they came to a rift or chasm more than a yard in breadth, and beyond which lay a pile of rocks, separate from the rest of the ledge, standing full thirty feet high, with its sides steep and perpendicular as those of a castle. Phineas ...
— Uncle Tom's Cabin • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... daughters of this land, Who lived in times of old in castles set Amidst rich groves and cool, pellucid streams, And woodlands broad and fair to roam at will; But these by moats and battlements enclosed Were made impassable that the eyes impure Of man might not upon their beauty gaze, And so defile their virgin purity. For all that here delighted woman's eyes Was freely lavished by their royal sires; And countless guards to watch all day were there, And maidens numberless to sport with them And while away their tedious hours ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna
... placed. Watching the roll, their forelocks they withdrew, And from their beds the reeling cannon threw; Then, from the windward battlements unbound, Rodmond's associates wheel'd the artillery round; Pointed with iron fangs, their bars beguile The ponderous arms across the steep defile: Then, hurl'd from sounding hinges o'er the side Thundering they plunge into the flashing tide. 530 The ship, thus eased, some little respite finds In this rude conflict of the seas and winds— Such ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... in pursuit of her from house to house during the autumn; and as she did not hint at the shadow his coming cast on her, his conscience was easy. Regarding their future, his political anxieties were a mountainous defile, curtaining the outlook. They met at Lockton, where he arrived after a recent consultation with his Chief, of whom, and the murmurs of the Cabinet, he spoke to ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... castles, affords a more cultivated picture; but in the steep and craggy mountains of the Danube, in its wild outlines and dilapidated castles, the imagination embraces a bolder range. At one time the river is confined within its narrowest limits, and proceeds through a defile of considerable altitude, with overhanging rocks menacing destruction. At another it offers an open, wild archipelago of islands. The mountains have disappeared, and a long plain bounds on each side of the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... serve the turn of gentleman, logician, or Christian, was—"If I do not touch this pitch, another will; there will be just as much harm done; AND ANOTHER INSTEAD OF ME WILL HAVE THE BENEFIT; therefore it cannot defile me.—Offences must come, therefore I will do them!" "Imagine our Lord in the brewing trade instead of the carpentering!" she would say. That better beer was provided by the good brewer would not go far for brewer or drinker, she said: it mattered little that, by drinking good beer, the drunkard ...
— What's Mine's Mine • George MacDonald
... defile, rendered almost impracticable for troops by rugged rocks and exuberant vegetation, he descended into a beautiful valley or plain, extending along the coast, and embraced by arms of the mountains which approached the sea. His advance into the country was watched by the keen eyes ...
— The Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus (Vol. II) • Washington Irving
... travellers found their physical difficulties hard to cope with. They made repeated attempts to find a passage through or over the chain, but were as often turned back by impassable barriers. Sometimes a defile seemed to open a practicable path, but it would terminate in some wild chaos of rocks and cliffs, which it was impossible to climb. The animals of these solitary regions were different from those they had been accustomed to. The black-tailed deer would bound up the ravines ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... promise of God revealed. Know thyself; for through thyself only thou canst know God. Through the glass, darkly; but except through the glass, in no wise. A tremulous crystal, waved as water, poured out upon the ground;—you may defile it, despise it, pollute it at your pleasure and at your peril; for on the peace of those weak waves must all the heaven you shall ever gain be first seen; and through such purity as you can win for those dark ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... the hunters, the circle steadily growing less, and the terrified beasts becoming more crowded together, until at length they were driven down some narrow defile, along whose course the lords and gentlemen had been posted, lying in wait for the coming of the deer, and ready to show their marksmanship by shooting such of the ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 4 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... matter of tactical prudence. At Nachod (June 27, 1866) the Prussian Advanced Guard hurriedly established a defensive position and kept at bay the whole Austrian Army, while the Prussian Army emerged in security from a defile and manoeuvred into battle array. The Pass of Thermopylae was occupied in B.C. 480 by 1,400 Greeks under Leonidas, King of Sparta, to withstand the Persian hosts of Xerxes, and although the Greek ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... Odin shook the bridle in his hand, and the Eight-footed, with a bound, leaped forth, rushed like a whirlwind down the mountain of Asgard, and then dashed into a narrow defile between rocks. ...
— Types of Children's Literature • Edited by Walter Barnes
... destroyed, and heavy rocks and trees strewed in the path to impede the march of the cavalry. As he drew near to Bilcas, once an important place, though now effaced from the map, he had a sharp encounter with the natives, in a mountain defile, which cost him the lives of two or three troopers. The loss was light; but any loss was felt by the Spaniards, so little accustomed, as they had been ...
— The History Of The Conquest Of Peru • William H. Prescott
... could sail away. There were islands of the sea—Stevenson's Samoa, Conrad's Malay Archipelago. If people proved disappointing, there were always the painted solitudes which human disillusions had not withered and could not defile. It was a ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... driven at the trot, there often passed a patrol from the Royalist stronghold of Pampeluna. But the Government troops never ventured up the valley which was like a mouse-hole with a Carlist cat waiting round the corner to cut them off. Neither did the Carlists hazard themselves through the narrow defile where the Wolf rushed down its straightened gate; for there were forty thousand men in Pampeluna, ...
— The Velvet Glove • Henry Seton Merriman
... to seize the Heidlemann grade. The Trust had ceased active work on its old right-of-way and moved to Kyak, to be sure, but it had not abandoned its original route, and in fact had maintained a small crew at the first defile outside of Cortez, known as Beaver Canon. Gordon reasoned shrewdly that a struggle between the agents of the Trust and the patriotic citizens of the town would afford him precisely the advertising he needed and give point ...
— The Iron Trail • Rex Beach
... lay through the mountainous districts of Savoy; but, with experienced guides to lead them, the dragoons were able to defile through secret passes unknown to any but the natives, and to arrive unsuspected ...
— Prince Eugene and His Times • L. Muhlbach
... "Bessie, there are many things to consider about your going. You know how I love to have you go for a ride on the water when I know you are in good company. I also love to have you attend places of interest to you, when I know there's nothing to defile your mind or lead you from the path of purity. But, Daughter, there are many things in the world that look beautiful to the eye but tend to lead the soul astray. Do you think Jesus would go to a circus? Do you think you could get any good should you go? ...
— The value of a praying mother • Isabel C. Byrum
... while they rode on through the defile that was more frequently a tunnel, since the succession of caves always had an outlet which Marian found. She had stopped now and dismounted, and they were leading their horses down a steep, scrambling place with the ...
— Cow-Country • B. M. Bower
... band of Indians belonging to the Blackfeet tribe encamped in a gloomy defile of the Rocky Mountains, not far from Mac's Fort. It was easy to see that they were a war-party, for, besides being armed to the teeth, their faces were hideously painted, and they had no ...
— The Thorogood Family • R.M. Ballantyne
... patriotic motives: if he happens to be English it is given from a feeling of courtesy; and the crowd having done its duty in either case, the famous "return," that has often furnished a subject for the painter, begins. And a wondrous sight it is. Up to six o'clock the innumerable carriages continue to defile upon the several routes that lead to the city, forming a procession of which the head touches the Place de la Concorde, whilst the extremity still reaches to the tribunes of Longchamps. And when evening comes on, and bets are settled, and heated brains seek to prolong ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... written the opening scene, that he was at any stage of his career incapable of it, so may we believe as well as hope that he is guiltless of any complicity in that detestable part of the play which attempts to defile the memory of the virgin saviour of her country. {33} In style it is not, I think, above the range of George Peele at his best: and to have written even the last of those scenes can add but little ...
— A Study of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... out to be correct: a hundred Reformers led by Esprit Seguier had encamped in the plain of Fondmorte, and about eleven o'clock in the morning one of their sentinels in the defile gave the alarm by firing off his gun and running back to the camp, shouting, "To arms!" But Captain Poul, with his usual impetuosity, did not give the insurgents time to form, but threw himself upon them to the beat of the drum, not in the least deterred ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... wind precipitately down a steep and narrow defile, through which a rapid torrent was heard foaming and tumbling over its rugged bed. Following the course of the stream to a considerable distance, a rude bridge was discerned, sufficiently indicating a path to some house or village in that direction. The ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... post, and gird him with fire and sword. From land to land, from hill to hill, from Hereford to Caerleon, from Caerleon to Milford, from Milford to Snowdon, through Snowdon to yonder fort, built, they say, by the fiends or the giants,—through defile and through forest, over rock, through morass, we have pressed on his heels. Battle and foray alike have drawn the blood from his heart; and thou wilt have seen the drops yet red on the way, where the stone tells that Harold ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... the sheep were folded, and we were all seated beneath the myrtle which shaded our cottage, my grandsire, an old man, was telling of Marathon and Leuctra; and how, in ancient times, a little band of Spartans, in a defile of the mountains, had withstood a whole army. I did not then know what war was; but my cheeks burned, I know not why, and I clasped the knees of that venerable man, until my mother, parting the hair from off my forehead, kissed my throbbing temples, and ...
— The Evolution of Expression Vol. I • Charles Wesley Emerson
... up shoulder-high, looking ahead, grew instantly stock-still, a shiver tingling along her spine. The narrow defile through which she had passed had led out of the ring of peaks and now abruptly debouched into nothingness. As she had turned with the twisting passageway, expecting to see another wall of rock before her, she saw instead ...
— The Bells of San Juan • Jackson Gregory
... the flesh, with their infection vile Pollute the thoughts impure, thy spirit stain; Not Po, not Ganges, not seven-mouthed Nile, Not the wide seas, can wash thee clean again, Only to purge all faults which thee defile His blood hath power who for thy sins was slain: His help therefore invoke, to him bewray Thy secret faults, mourn, weep, complain ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... gentleman who made the complaints informed me first of his own high standing as a lawyer, a citizen and a Christian. He was a deacon in the church which had been defiled by the occupation of Union troops, and by a Union chaplain filling the pulpit. He did not use the word "defile," but he expressed the idea very clearly. He asked that the church be restored to the former congregation. I told him that no order had been issued prohibiting the congregation attending the church. He said of course the congregation could not hear a Northern clergyman who differed so radically with ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... cumbrous trappings of fleshy pride! We will promote an universal Christian education—we will teach charity by examples, and live unto all men by a personal abstinence from the bickerings and malice of civil life. We will not defile the sacred lawn with the mud of turnpike acts—we will no longer sweat in the House of Lords, but labour only in the House of ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 18, 1841 • Various
... isle, lone ocean isle! Thou keep'st a jewel rare; Let rugged rock, and dark defile, Above the slumbering stranger smile And ...
— Lives of the Three Mrs. Judsons • Arabella W. Stuart
... interspace[obs3]; separation &c. 44; break, gap, opening; hole &c. 260; chasm, hiatus, caesura; interruption, interregnum; interstice, lacuna, cleft, mesh, crevice, chink, rime, creek, cranny, crack, chap, slit, fissure, scissure[obs3], rift, flaw, breach, rent, gash, cut, leak, dike, ha-ha. gorge, defile, ravine, canon, crevasse, abyss, abysm; gulf; inlet, frith[obs3], strait, gully; pass; furrow &c. 259; abra[obs3]; barranca[obs3], barranco[obs3]; clove [U.S.], gulch [U.S.], notch [U.S.]; yawning gulf; hiatus maxime[Lat], hiatus valde deflendus[Lat]; parenthesis &c. (interjacence) 228[obs3]; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... night, let us steal away the vessel of Soma juice. That will disturb the rite. Or, at that sacrifice, let the snakes, by hundreds and thousands, bite the people, and spread terror around. Or, let the serpents defile the pure food with their food-defiling urine and dung.' Others said, 'Let us become the king's Ritwiks, and obstruct his sacrifice by saying at the outset, 'Give us the sacrificial fee.' He (the king), being placed in our power, will do whatever ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa - Translated into English Prose - Adi Parva (First Parva, or First Book) • Kisari Mohan Ganguli (Translator)
... Ladysmith. At daybreak they were to operate on the enemy's right flank—the parallel with Majuba is grimly obvious—in conjunction with an attack from Ladysmith on his centre and right. They started. At half-past ten they passed through a kind of defile, the Boers a thousand feet above them following every movement by ear, if not by eye. By some means—either by rocks rolled down on them or other hostile agency, or by sheer bad luck—the small-arm ammunition mules were stampeded. They dashed back on to the battery mules; there was alarm, ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... we entered the famous pass of Dunghye. The road bears the appearance of a deep sandy ravine; the banks are rocky and woody, and in many places quite overhung by the forest-trees. We had accomplished about half the defile, when I was suddenly and rudely awakened from a dozing sleep by the shock of my palankeen coming to the ground, and by the most discordant shouts and screams. I jumped out to ascertain the cause of the uproar, ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, Vol. 19, - Issue 549 (Supplementary issue) • Various
... still evening, and are gathered into heaps, with many a towering top shining in fleecy whiteness. The great Olympian chain forms a line which is exactly opposite to Salonica; and even the chasm between Olympus and Ossa, constituting the defile of Tempe, is here visible. Directing the eye towards that chain, there is comprehended in one view the whole of Pieria and Bottiaea; and with the vivid impressions which remain after leaving the country, memory easily recalled into one mental picture the whole of Greece. Every reader may ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... smooth, sloping, piled with white sand, gleaming now in the sun, and the little frothy waves that ran up it and lapped at his feet, like puppies nibbling, were just the friendliest frothy little waves in the world. But there were the remains of the fire left by the ruffians to defile it, and broken bottles and broken food were scattered about. The litter hurt his eyes so much that he gathered up every fragment, one by one, and threw them into the sea. When the last vestige of the foul invasion was cleared away he felt that he had his ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler
... concealed himself in a defile in the mountain through which Gessler would have to pass on his way to Kussnacht. There he lay in wait for his persecutor ...
— Eclectic School Readings: Stories from Life • Orison Swett Marden
... these rivers are deeply furrowed and the fall is rapid; irrigation is consequently difficult and navigation impossible. The course of the Iskr is remarkable: rising in the Rilska Planina, the river descends into the basin of Samakov, passing thence through a serpentine defile into the plateau of Sofia, where in ancient times it formed a lake; it now forces its way through the Balkans by the picturesque gorge of Iskretz. Somewhat similarly the Deli, or "Wild," Kamchik breaks the central chain of the Balkans near their eastern ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 4 - "Bulgaria" to "Calgary" • Various
... filling our ears with the wrong voice we should close them to the true one. I should think there was a great chance of being led to stop short at the material beauty, or worse, to link human passions with the glories of nature, and so distort, defile, profane them.' ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... image upon him, and for the price of his redemption, which he thinks is visibly marked upon his forehead, accounts himself both a fit person to do the noblest and godliest deeds, and much better worth than to deject and defile, with such a debasement and pollution as sin is, himself so highly ransomed, and ennobled to a new friendship ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... narrow lanes, over hills or level ground, or how you should encamp and post your pickets, or advance into battle or retreat before the foe, or march past a hostile city, or attack a fortress or retire from it, or cross a river or pass through a defile, or guard against a charge of cavalry or an attack from lancers or archers, or what you should do if the enemy comes into sight when you are marching in column and how you are to take up position against him, or how deploy into ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... after your counsel, I left utterly all my Learning: I should hereby, first wound and defile mine own soul; and also I should herethrough give occasion to many men and women of full sore hurting. Yea, Sir, it is likely to me, if I consented to your will, I should herein by mine evil example in it, as far as in me were, slay many folk ghostly, ...
— Fifteenth Century Prose and Verse • Various
... not? You consider such a woman as yourself ordinary? The men of my country enshrine beauty and worship it. They place it apart as a precious gift from God which nothing shall defile. They do not discuss such things with their women. Now this sordid affair is ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... from which the voices came, the speakers were hidden by still another turn in the defile. A few more steps brought eye as well as ear back to the living world with the sight of a girl seated on a bowlder. He could see nothing of her face except the cheek, which was brown, and the tip of a chin, which he ...
— Over the Pass • Frederick Palmer
... situation was not ripe, when the insurrection was not decidedly admitted, when the masses disowned the movement, all was over with the combatants, the city was changed into a desert around the revolt, souls grew chilled, refuges were nailed up, and the street turned into a defile to help the army ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... urging him to withdraw a little distance into the hills to where the bed of the road ran through a defile between two hills. The soldiers would no doubt advance directly up the line of what had been the railroad, covering the workmen and engineers who would be coming on behind them. If they were allowed to go on up into the defile ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher
... the sake of other men's goods. Thou seemest to me to be a wanderer, even as I am, and the gods it is that are like to give us gain. Only provoke me not overmuch to buffeting, lest thou anger me, and old though I be I defile thy breast and lips with blood. Thereby should I have the greater quiet to-morrow, for methinks that thou shalt never again come to the hall of Odysseus, son ...
— DONE INTO ENGLISH PROSE • S. H. BUTCHER, M.A.
... men of common understanding, and they were not able to parry the sophistry of Curtius. I have ceased, therefore, to give them. Hamilton is really a colossus to the anti-republican party. Without numbers, he is an host within himself. They have got themselves into a defile, where they might be finished; but too much security on the republican part will give time to his talents and indefatigableness to extricate them. We have had only middling performances to oppose to him. In truth when he comes forward, there is nobody but yourself who can meet ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... hammer him into it, if he be of a better kind, as you would a piece of bronze. But you cannot hammer a girl into anything. She grows as a flower does,—she will wither without sun; she will decay in her sheath, as the narcissus will, if you do not give her air enough; she may fall, and defile her head in dust, if you leave her without help at some moments of her life; but you cannot fetter her; she must take her own fair form and way, if she take any, and in mind as in body, ...
— Harvard Classics Volume 28 - Essays English and American • Various
... him with such a god-like mixture of fire, of tenderness, of flattery, of tact; she did so serpentinely approach and coil round the soldier and his mental cavity, that all the males in creation should have been permitted to defile past (like the beasts going into the ark), and view this sweet picture a moment, and infer how women would be wooed, and then go and ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... Epiphany, we frequently find the journey of the Wise Men painted round the walls. They are seen mounted on horseback, or on camels, with a long train of attendants, here ascending a mountain, there crossing a river; here winding through a defile, there emerging from a forest; while the miraculous star shines above, pointing out the way. Sometimes we have the approach of the Wise Men on one side of the chapel, and their return to their own country on the other. On their homeward ...
— Legends of the Madonna • Mrs. Jameson
... whole of the vast amphitheatre was filled with a dense crowd, in its gayest holiday attire—a marvelous and magnificent sight from its mere numbers; and early the next morning the heads of the procession began to defile under the arch at the entrance of the plain—La Fayette, at the head of the National Guard, leading the way. It was a curious proof of the king's weakness, and of the tenacity with which he clung to his policy of conciliation, that, in spite ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... on the high racks eight feet up to be safe from them; even empty tins are carried off, boots, hats, soap, etc., are esteemed most toothsome morsels, and what they can neither eat, carry off, nor destroy, they defile with ...
— The Arctic Prairies • Ernest Thompson Seton
... position, Conde could, in his turn, recognise his illustrious disciple. No great manoeuvres were then practicable, and as time did not permit of an attempt to turn Turenne, it was necessary to crush him out of hand, if that were possible, before he could effect a junction with Hocquincourt. The defile was the key of the position; and both sides fought therein with equal fierceness. Turenne defended himself sword in hand, and upon the six squadrons which Conde hurled against him he opened a battery, as they passed, with terrible execution, showing a courage equal to that of his ...
— Political Women (Vol. 1 of 2) • Sutherland Menzies
... Pilate's palace, a person could see across the court as far as the forum, at the entrance of which a few columns and stone seats were placed. It was at these seats that the Jewish priests stopped, in order not to defile themselves by entering the tribunal of Pilate, a line traced on the pavement of the court indicating the precise boundary beyond which they could not pass without incurring defilement. There was a large parapet near the western entrance, ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... rain-clouds, which will certainly close over the clear sky, and bring on rain before midnight: but there is no power in them to pollute the sky beyond and above them: they do not darken the air, nor defile it, nor in any way mingle with it; their edges are burnished by the sun like the edges of golden shields, and their advancing march is as deliberate and majestic as the fading of the twilight itself into a darkness full ...
— The Storm-Cloud of the Nineteenth Century - Two Lectures delivered at the London Institution February - 4th and 11th, 1884 • John Ruskin
... novel sight, as a huge lion, which might have made one of them its victim, fixed its teeth and claws in the neck and shoulders of the rhinoceros; and as the furious frightened beast tore on down the defile, dragging the lion with it, the latter seemed to give a spring, and fixed its hind quarters firmly upon the tough ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... five hundred yards distant on either side, rising in tamer colours from the green fields about the brook. It is possible from the terrace to see the whole valley, and the road which passes through it lengthwise. Catherine's eyes were on the northern extremity of the defile, where the highway from Cahors descends from the uplands. She had been sitting with her face turned ...
— The House of the Wolf - A Romance • Stanley Weyman
... our idea of morality centre on forbidden acts is to defile the imagination and to introduce into our judgments of our fellow-men a secret element of gusto. If a thing is wrong for us, we should not dwell upon the thought of it; or we shall soon dwell ...
— The Pocket R.L.S. - Being Favourite Passages from the Works of Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... become. The saying of Burke (so unworthy of a great man), that vice loses half its evil by losing all its grossness, is practically acted upon, and voluptuous and seductive figures, recommended only by a soft effeminacy, swarm our shop-windows and defile our drawing-rooms. It is impossible to over-state the extent to which they minister to, and increase the foul sins of, a corrupt and luxurious age. A school of artists who attempt to bring back the popular taste to the severe draperies and pure forms of early art are at least deserving of ...
— The Germ - Thoughts towards Nature in Poetry, Literature and Art • Various
... that he had watched where Dunlavey and his men had driven the cattle, and that he would find them concealed in a narrow defile between two hills about a mile on the other side of the Rabbit-Ear. He and Hollis had announced their intention to accompany the troop to the scene, but had been ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... the Poets of that Realme amated; Yet these my least were, but that you extort These numbers from me, when I should report In home-spunne prose, in good plaine honest words The newes our wofull England vs affords. The Muses here sit sad, and mute the while A sort of swine vnseasonably defile 20 Those sacred springs, which from the by-clift hill Dropt their pure Nectar into euery quill; In this with State, I hope I doe not deale, This onely tends the Muses common-weale. What canst thou hope, or looke for ...
— Minor Poems of Michael Drayton • Michael Drayton
... were very frequent, the squabbling of the former and the hooting of the monkeys constantly grating on the ear. There were innumerable pigeons and a few Floricans (a kind of bustard—considered the best eating game—bird in India). From the defile we emerged on an open flat, halting at Sulkun, a scattered village (alt. 684 feet), peopled by a bold-looking race (Coles)* [The Coles, like the Danghas of the Rajmahal and Behar hills, and the natives ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... in the river, and there breaks on view a wall of water hurtling down in shimmering floods at the Chaudiere Falls. The high cliff to the left and countercurrent from the falls swirl the canoes over on the right side to the sandy flats where the lumber piles to-day defile the river. Here boats are once more hauled up for portage—a long portage, nine miles, all the way to the modern town of Aylmer, where the river becomes wide as a lake, Lake Du Chene of the oak forests. Here camp for the ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... beginning," said Sergeant Pinto, shading his eyes with his hands, "or I know nothing of war. Those beggarly Prussians and Russians want to take us on the flank with their whole force, as we defile on Leipzig, so as to cut us in two. It is well thought of on their part. We are always teaching them ...
— The Conscript - A Story of the French war of 1813 • Emile Erckmann
... Heaven!" said Issachar lifting up his eyes, "how long will you suffer that this murderous and accursed race should defile the ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... mountain-range of Guadarrama, which had to be crossed by the pass of Somosierra. This defile was found to be strongly guarded; there were not only infantry stationed on the heights, but artillery also, sixteen guns being below the turn of the pass in a most advantageous position. In the ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... swamp, now draws its various arch; And seems, as on it moves, meandering slow, A radiant segment of a living bow. Five days the Spaniards, trooping in array, 150 O'er plains and headlands, held their eastern way. On the sixth early dawn, with shuddering awe And horror, in the last defile they saw Ten pendent heads, from which the gore still run, All gashed, and grim, and blackening in the sun. These were the gallant troop that passed before, The Indians' vast encampment to explore, Led by Del Oro, now with many a wound Pierced, and a headless trunk upon the ground. ...
— The Poetical Works of William Lisle Bowles, Vol. 1 • William Lisle Bowles
... road was to be taken—were led as usual by Hamed's kirangozi. We had barely gone a mile before I perceived that we had left the Simbo road, had taken the direction of Kiti, and, by a cunning detour, were now fast approaching the defile of the mountain ridge before us, which admitted access to the higher plateau of Kiwyeh. Instantly halting my caravan, I summoned the veteran who had travelled by Kiti, and asked him whether we were not going towards Kiwyeh. ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley
... military barrier, the Balcan is a fabulous mountain. Such seems to be the view of Major Keppell, who looked on it towards the east with the eye of a soldier, and certainly in the Sophia Pass, which I followed, there is no narrow defile, and no ascent sufficiently difficult to stop, or delay for long time, ...
— Eothen • A. W. Kinglake
... we must seek a youth or a maiden of clean life, and under age, to receive messages and admonitions.' We conversed with many more words, but it is not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would degrade and defile the thoughts she uttered, and which my mind received that day. I broke the ring, and she passed, but to return once more next day. At even-song, a long discourse with that ancient transgressor, Mr B. Great horror ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various
... German gunners made for cover, the firing into the gully stopped, and the arrested column poured up the steep defile ...
— One of Ours • Willa Cather
... quaking jargon. The magistrates, godly men, had sent the sergeants commanding them to stop his mouth. Moreover, they had sent their wives as well, and even the sergeants were less bitter against him than the women. For they declared that if the Quaker dared to defile the noble market cross of Carlisle city by preaching there, they themselves would pluck off the hair from his head, while the sergeants should clap him into gaol. Nevertheless the Quaker would not be stopped. Preach he did, standing forth boldly on the ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... commands, any inequality of numbers. Eliduc praised their zeal; but observed, that this intemperate valour was more fitted for the lists of a tournament than for useful service; and requested that they, who knew the country, would shew him some defile in which he could hope to attack the enemy on equal terms. They pointed out a hollow way in the neighbouring forest, by which the invaders usually passed and returned; and Eliduc, while hastening there, described the measures he meant to pursue, and exhorted them to follow him ...
— The Lay of Marie • Matilda Betham
... No wrong it may be with the serfs of hell To cast upon a woman for a curse Shame: to defile the spirit and shrine of love, Put out the sunlike eyes of maidenhood And leave the soul dismantled. Has not he So sinned?—Hast thou wrought no such work as this? The king has ...
— Rosamund, Queen of the Lombards • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... left-hand boundary, though still precipitous, may be surmounted by active light-armed troops. On emerging from the orchards we came upon a grass meadow extending to the fort of Badjgh[a]r, which is again situate at the mouth of a defile leading to M[a]ther, the route we eventually pursued. The fort is capable of containing about two hundred men; when first taken possession of it was literally choked with filth and abominations of all kinds, but the industry of the little garrison had ...
— A Peep into Toorkisthhan • Rollo Burslem
... address itself to an unprepared spectator: the confused stones, which by themselves would be almost without any claim upon his thoughts, become exponents of the fury of the river by which he has journeyed all day long; the defile beyond, not in itself narrow or terrible, is regarded nevertheless with awe, because it is imagined to resemble the gorge that has just been traversed above; and, although no very elevated mountains immediately ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... was to move south from Darksville by the Valley pike. Meanwhile, Wilson was to strike up the Berryville pike, carry the Berryville crossing of the Opequon, charge through the gorge or canyon on the road west of the stream, and occupy the open ground at the head of this defile. Wilson's attack was to be supported by the Sixth and Nineteenth corps, which were ordered to the Berryville crossing, and as the cavalry gained the open ground beyond the gorge, the two infantry corps, under command of General Wright, were expected to press on after and occupy ...
— The Memoirs of General P. H. Sheridan, Complete • General Philip Henry Sheridan
... "Men defile us and kill us while loving us, We hang to the earth by a thread; This thread is our root, that is to say, our life, But we raise on ...
— The Black Tulip • Alexandre Dumas (Pere)
... shared? Now, like hereditary foes, Malignant fury they disclose, As in some frenzied dream of fear These friends cold-bloodedly draw near Mutual destruction to contrive. Cannot they amicably smile Ere crimson stains their hands defile, Depart in peace and friendly live? But fashionable hatred's flame Trembles ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... of a cloudless day, beneath them a tumultuous sea of pines surged, heaved, rode in giant crests, stretched and lost itself in the ghostly, snow-peaked horizon. The thronging woods choked every defile, swept every crest, filled every valley with its dark-green tilting spears, and left only Table Mountain sunlit and bare. Here and there were profound olive depths, over which the gray hawk hung lazily, ...
— The Twins of Table Mountain and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... without believing that human creatures had done nobly in times past, and might do more nobly in time to come. The finest childlike faces have this consecrating power, and make us shudder anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of the world, lest they should enter here and defile. ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... occasion for such shining had arisen. To those who were allowed to love her no woman was more lovable. There was innate in her an appreciation of her own position as a woman, and with it a principle of self-denial as a human being, which it was beyond the power of any Mrs. Roby to destroy or even to defile by ...
— The Prime Minister • Anthony Trollope
... who has a wife and sisters, or children at home, say 'Go on' to such disgusting ribaldry as this? Do you dare, sir, to call yourself a gentleman, and to say that you hold the King's commission, and to sit down amongst Christians and men of honour, and defile the ears of young boys with ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... inflicting upon it the doom of a thief." "Lord," said he, "rather than see thee touch this reptile, I would purchase its freedom." "By my confession to Heaven, neither will I sell it nor set it free." "It is true, lord, that it is worth nothing to buy; but rather than see thee defile thyself by touching such a reptile as this, I will give thee three pounds to let it go." "I will not, by Heaven," said he, "take any price for it. As it ought, so shall it be hanged." And ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... with the most determined spirit. The Silesians and Lusatians marched to help them, and the Protestant league of Germany sent them timely supplies. The troops of Ferdinand found opponents in every pass and in every defile, and in their endeavor to force their way through the fastnesses of the mountains, were frequently driven back with great loss. At length the troops of Ferdinand, defeated at every point, were compelled to retreat in shame back ...
— The Empire of Austria; Its Rise and Present Power • John S. C. Abbott
... about it," he had other distinctions. He had—and has—uranomania, that is to say, a flight of fancy in which the patient believes himself associated with God. He had also defilirium tremens, which manifested itself in those man[oe]uvres that are war's image and in which the troops defile. Yet, when it came to the real thing, it may be that this paradomaniac lacked the stomach. Apart from the Kruger incident, and one or two other indecencies, his observance of international etiquette was relatively correct. The lackeys of history might therefore ...
— The Paliser case • Edgar Saltus
... whole character of the way was changed; no longer was I crossing a great plain, but winding among the hills, while Arno, noisier than before, fled past me in an ever narrower bed among the rocks and buttresses of what soon became little more than a defile between the hills. Though the road was deep in dust, there was shadow under the cypresses beside the way, there was a whisper of wind among the reeds beside the river, and the song of the cicale grew fainter and the hills were touched with light; ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... entered a narrow defile in the mountain, where horses and men were crowded close together. One of the men having a rifle with the hammer underneath the barrel attempted to mount his horse without stopping and accidentally ...
— In the Early Days along the Overland Trail in Nebraska Territory, in 1852 • Gilbert L. Cole
... the voice of joy prevail, And echo wide from hill to vale; Ye warlike clans, arise and hail Your laurell'd chiefs returning. O'er every mountain, every isle, Let peace in all her lustre smile, And discord ne'er her day defile With sullen ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... answer, and they walked on through the gloom of the defile. Presently their path became rough and broken, blocked with large stones and heavily shadowed by cedars projecting from the rocks above and draped with vines. He held out his hands and she took them, and he helped her across the rough ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... of the Chateau du Diable, and it is the most considerable of all the rock-fortresses in the valleys of the Cele and the Lot which are attributed to the English companies. It possesses towers and embattlements, and it was evidently intended to defend the defile from any force advancing from the wider valley. Here, doubtless, many a desperate struggle occurred before the companies were dispersed and English influence was finally overcome in these wilds of the Quercy. At a little distance from it, ...
— Wanderings by southern waters, eastern Aquitaine • Edward Harrison Barker
... be done? The road presently reached the end of the valley and entered a narrow pine-clad defile, strewn with rocks and boulders, over which the torrent plunged and eddied with a deafening roar. In front the white gleam of waterfalls broke the sombre ranks of climbing trunks. The snow line lay less than half a mile away on either hand; and crowning all—at the end of the pass, as it seemed to ...
— Under the Red Robe • Stanley Weyman
... chairs to distribute the view, a tense moment of silence as the chorus came down a rocky defile and then—a white pencil of flame shot out from the royal box and a sharp crash of ...
— The Secret House • Edgar Wallace
... calves in silk hose drawn up to the limit, and eulogised glowingly my other hidden treasures in priceless lace which, he said, he could conjure up. He urged me (stating that he felt it his mission in life to urge me) to defile the marriage bed, to commit adultery at the earliest ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... branches of the line of aspens, the sinuous, deepset gorge, in which the Aubette wound its tortuous way, at the extremity of which the village lay embanked against an almost upright wall of thicket and pointed rocks. On the west this narrow defile was closed by a mill, standing like a sentinel on guard, in its uniform of solid gray; on each side of the river a verdant line of meadow led the eye gradually toward the clump of ancient and lofty ash-trees, behind which rose the Buxieres domicile. This magnificent grove of ...
— A Woodland Queen, Complete • Andre Theuriet
... Nile already bristled with citadels, where the monarchs lived and kept watch over the lands subject to their authority: other fortresses were established wherever any commanding site—such as a narrow part of the river, or the mouth of a defile leading into the desert—presented itself. All were constructed on the same plan, varied only by the sizes of the areas enclosed, and the different thickness of the outer walls. The outline of their ground-plan formed a parallelogram, whose enclosure ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... time and often. I could have put up with his drunkenness and neglect of his business, if he had not broke one of the sacred commandments. Besides, if it had been out of doors I had not mattered it so much; but with my own servant, in my own house, under my own roof, to defile my own chaste bed, which to be sure he hath, with his beastly stinking whores. Yes, you villain, you have defiled my own bed, you have; and then you have charged me with bullocking you into owning the truth. It is very likely, an't please your worship, ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... became convinced that the King of Poland was but trifling with him, and in the last week of September started to take the command of the centre, which was facing the entrance to the defile, at Pirna. Marshal Keith had been sent, a week after Fergus was wounded, to assume the command of the western column, hitherto commanded by Prince Ferdinand ...
— With Frederick the Great - A Story of the Seven Years' War • G. A. Henty
... point and that the ground descends steeply to the valley on the spectator's left, where there is a mud-bottomed stream, the Lasne; the slope ascends no less abruptly on the other side towards Plancenoit. It is across this defile alone that the Prussian army can proceed thither- a route of unusual difficulty for artillery; where, moreover, the enemy is suspected of having placed a strong outpost during the night to intercept such ...
— The Dynasts - An Epic-Drama Of The War With Napoleon, In Three Parts, - Nineteen Acts, And One Hundred And Thirty Scenes • Thomas Hardy
... attracting world beyond; and, looking there, Neptune was found. So, when individual men are so strong that nations or armies cannot break down their wills; so brave, that lions have no terrors; so holy, that temptation cannot lure nor sin defile them; so grand in thought, that men cannot follow; so pure in walk, that God walks with them—let us infer an attracting world, high and pure and strong as heaven. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews is a roll-call of heroes of whom this world ...
— Recreations in Astronomy - With Directions for Practical Experiments and Telescopic Work • Henry Warren
... Almamen effected his mysterious escape from the tent of the Inquisition, that the train accompanying the litter which bore Leila, and which was composed of some chosen soldiers of Isabel's own body-guard, after traversing the camp, winding along that part of the mountainous defile which was in the possession of the Spaniards, and ascending a high and steep acclivity, halted before the gates of a strongly fortified castle renowned in the chronicles of that memorable war. The hoarse challenge of the sentry, the grating of jealous bars, the clanks ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... Latin will serve his turn. In front of all is a Miller, who has been drinking over-night, and is now but indifferently sober. There is not a door in the country that he cannot break by running at it with his head. The pilgrims are all ready, the host gives the word, and they defile through the arch. The Miller blows his bagpipes as they issue from the town; and away they ride to Canterbury, through the boon sunshine, and between the white hedges of ...
— Dreamthorp - A Book of Essays Written in the Country • Alexander Smith |
