"Indefensible" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the key to that ecclesiastical statesmanship which dominates the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The programme of the great Popes, from Gregory VII to Boniface VIII, must appear a tissue of absurdities, of preposterous ambitions and indefensible actions, unless it is studied in relation to a theology as far remote from primitive Christianity as from the cults and philosophies ...
— Medieval Europe • H. W. C. Davis
... "wrinkled-up nut" of his Puzzlehead boyhood. "I'm not sticking up for them. I detest their methods as much as you do. I think they're monstrous and indefensible. All I said was that, things being as they are, you can't help seeing that their horrible ways are bringing the vote a jolly sight nearer than it's ever been before. Millions of people who never would have thought about woman ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... found his protection and his way to progress, not in mutual support, like other animals, but in a reckless competition for personal advantages, with no regard to the interests of the species. To a mind accustomed to the idea of unity in nature, such a proposition appears utterly indefensible. And yet, improbable and unphilosophical as it is, it has never found a lack of supporters. There always were writers who took a pessimistic view of mankind. They knew it, more or less superficially, through their own limited experience; they knew of history what the annalists, always ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... of Strasburg, was committed to the charge of Colonel Kenly, of the 1st Maryland Regiment in the Federal service, and 1000 rifles and 2 guns were placed at his disposal. The post itself was indefensible. To the west and south-west, about three miles distant, stand the green peaks of the Massanuttons, while to the east the lofty spurs of the Blue Ridge look down into the village streets. A mile and a half north the forks of the Shenandoah unite in the broad river that ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... logic or demand of justice could change Judge Hunt's will. We were convicted before we had a hearing and the trial was a mere farce." Some time afterwards Judge Selden wrote her: "I regard the ruling of the judge, and also his refusal to submit the case to the jury, as utterly indefensible." Scarcely a newspaper in the country sustained Judge Hunt's action. The Canandaigua Times thus expressed the general sentiment in an editorial, soon after ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper
... independence of Cuba being, in my opinion, impracticable and indefensible, the question which next presents itself is that of the recognition of belligerent rights in the parties to the contest. In a former message to Congress I had occasion to consider this question, and reached the ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 1, No. 59, December 23, 1897 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... doubt that the apostles imbibed the logic, like the astronomy, of their own day, with all its defects. Indeed, the same is otherwise plain. Paul's reasonings are those of a Gamaliel, and often are indefensible by our logical notions. John, also (as I had been recently learning,) has a wonderful similarity to Philo. This being the case, it becomes of deep interest to us to know,—if we are to accept results at second hand from Paul and John,—what was the sort of ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... directed to the inconveniences which arose from the number of private companies, whose duty it was to regard the dividends of the shareholders rather than the interests of the public. The existence of a monopoly of this kind in private hands seemed to him indefensible. His attention was especially directed to the injury done to trade by the differential rate imposed on goods traffic; on many lines it was the custom to charge lower rates on imported than on exported goods, and this naturally had a very bad effect on German manufactures. He would have liked to remedy ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... possible you have assumed cosine squared theta negligible. Mathematically, it is of course vanishingly small compared to the first power of the cosine, but fields of that type must be exact, and your neglect of the square is indefensible. Since you cannot integrate with the squared term in place, ...
— Spacehounds of IPC • Edward Elmer Smith
... fellow-workers. Cavour's budgets had the inherent defect that they continued to show increased expenditure and a deficit, but no minister who had lacked the power and the courage to brave criticism by a financial policy which would have been certainly indefensible if Piedmont alone was concerned, could have done what he did. Meanwhile, on the whole, the economic state of the country improved in spite of heavy taxation: the exports and imports increased; there were signs of industrial activity; agriculture revived. Cavour ...
— Cavour • Countess Evelyn Martinengo-Cesaresco
... there are still 194 Unions without a woman on the Board of Guardians, the present arrangement, by which the Women Inspectors can only inspect Poor Law Institutions on sufferance, is seen to be indefensible and the need for reform in this ...
— Women Workers in Seven Professions • Edith J. Morley
... felt that good judgment and the dramatic habit of things altogether excluded the simple physics of Democritus. Indeed, as things then stood, Democritus had no right to his simplicity, except that divine right which comes of inspiration. His was an indefensible faith in a single radical insight, which happened nevertheless to be true. To justify that insight forensically it would have been necessary to change the range of human vision, making it telescopic in one region and microscopic in another; whereby the objects so transfigured ...
— The Life of Reason • George Santayana
... power, by changing dynasties or revolutionizing governments. The claim of the supreme ruler de facto may be a bad one; he may owe his power to some act of great political injustice—to an iniquitous war—to an indefensible revolution—to a foul conspiracy; but the flaw in his title cannot be regarded as weakening in the least the claim of the people under him to the administration of justice among them as the ordinance ...
— Leading Articles on Various Subjects • Hugh Miller
... inherited evil to be total. It declares that our first parents "were wholly defiled in all faculties and parts of soul and body," and that we, in consequence, "are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." This statement is indefensible. But we shall consider this in another section on "Total Depravity," and only allude ...
— Orthodoxy: Its Truths And Errors • James Freeman Clarke
... a party does not need two legislative organs, the House of Lords retired whenever the Conservatives controlled the House of Commons, and only resumed its proper functions when the Liberals had a majority. Hence its most indefensible characteristic as a Second Chamber became its strongest practical bulwark; for it enlisted the support of many who had no particular views about Second Chambers in the abstract, but were keenly interested in the predominance of ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... that that set of ten applied with beautiful precision to the special vices of that people and that time; but there is room for many more needed ones to-day. There is no commandment against gambling, for instance; one of the most universal and indefensible evils. Gambling does no one good; the winner of unearned money is corrupted and the loser both corrupted and deprived. Gambling undermines all habits of industry and thrift; it unsettles our reliance on care, patience, thoroughness, ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... which now distinguish it,—for Sir George Beaumont had them planted at a later time; and where the group of kindred and friends—the Wordsworths and their relatives—now lie, the turf was level and untouched. The iron rails and indefensible monuments, which Wordsworth so reprobated half a century later, did not exist. The villas which stud the slopes, the great inns which bring a great public, were uncreated; and there was only the old Roman road where the Wishing-Gate ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 7, No. 43, May, 1861 • Various
... out-flamed itself in its last-recorded performance, and he had begun to suspect that it had been responsible for some, though by no means all, of his troubles. The killing of Haig's bull, he now realized, was a foolish and indefensible act, which could be traced easily to him because of the bull that was gored; and he must prepare to account to Haig for it. And so, knowing that he would again be in the wrong, as in the affair at the post-office, he was torn between accentuated bitterness toward Haig and growing ...
— The Heart of Thunder Mountain • Edfrid A. Bingham
... versification adapt themselves to every phase of sentiment, and sound every note in the scale of felicity. Some defects are to be acknowledged, but they sink into insignificance when measured by the magnitude of his achievement. Sudden transitions, elliptical expressions, mixed metaphors, indefensible verbal quibbles, and fantastic conceits at times create an atmosphere of obscurity. The student is perplexed, too, by obsolete words and by some hopelessly corrupt readings. But when the whole of Shakespeare's vast work is scrutinised with due attention, the glow ...
— A Life of William Shakespeare - with portraits and facsimiles • Sidney Lee
... the proletariat. A crime against the Republic was indefensible, but one against the individual was dealt with, with all the paraphernalia of an elaborate administration of justice. There were citizen judges and citizen advocates, and the rabble, who crowded in to listen to the trials, acted as ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... such a leader. His followers felt: "He is one of us. He is not proud and does not care for style."[166] The era of vulgarity in national politics was ushered in by Jackson, who as President introduced the custom of rewarding political workers with offices, an innovation entirely indefensible; he ought to have continued the practice of his six predecessors. The interaction between government and politics on the one hand and the life of the people on the other is persistent, and it may be doubted whether the United States would have seemed as it did ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes
... atoned to some extent for the lack of railways, told in favour of German science and industry, and against the backward Russians. Apart from the absence of natural defences, the Russian frontier had been artificially drawn so as to make her Polish province an indefensible salient, though properly organized it would have been an almost intolerable threat alike to East Prussia and to Austrian Galicia. But for her preoccupation in the West, Germany could have conquered Poland ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... strongest and most unequivocal guarantees respecting her territorial integrity. Provided these guarantees were observed faithfully, the closing of the Scheldt by Holland in time of war, the critical situation on the Eastern frontier created by the indefensible cul-de-sac of Dutch Limburg, and the supremacy in Luxemburg of a foreign Power, did not seriously jeopardize the country's security. The treaties of 1839 were considered as forming a whole, the moral safeguard of guaranteed neutrality counterbalancing, ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... and yet the charge of madness was very staggering; madness being, in the first place, indefensible, and everybody's enemy when at large; and Robert's behaviour looked extremely like it. It had already been as a black shadow haunting enthusiastic minds in the village, and there fell a short silence, during which ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... ultimatum to Serbia, therein stating her demands, and on the following day informed all the European powers of her attitude. The neutral Press of the world and an unusually large section of the German Press, immediately pronounced Austria's position to be indefensible and untenable. The German Government, in spite of these facts, gave its official and unreserved support to Austria's attitude on July 26th. After eight weeks of war (on September 25th), Austria officially declared that she had never ...
— What Germany Thinks - The War as Germans see it • Thomas F. A. Smith
... and healthfulness of thought. When error, in its most extravagant forms, had driven the simplicity of the Gospel out of the Church and the world, it is not to be wondered at that the mind was led to the most shocking perversions, and the conscience ensnared to the most indefensible actions. ...
— Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather - A Reply • Charles W. Upham
... childishness is incredible. His intention in such places is that the verses should be recited as running on without pause, and the rhyme occurring in their midst should be like a phonetic accident, merely satisfying the prescribed form. But his phonetic rhymes are often indefensible on his own principle. The rhyme to communion in 'The Bugler' is hideous, and the suspicion that the poet thought it ingenious is appalling: eternal, in 'The Eurydice', does not correspond with burn all, and in 'Felix Randal' and some ...
— Poems of Gerard Manley Hopkins - Now First Published • Gerard Manley Hopkins
... 1842, on account of the interests of his family, alleging that "he would never enter public life again, unless the needs of his country imperatively demanded it," yet four years later he organized a regiment for the invasion of Mexico,—not only for making war upon a republic, but an unjust and indefensible war. General Grant's opinion ought to be conclusive on this latter point, for he belonged to the same political party as Pierce and Hawthorne. Certainly, Pierce's services were not required for the defence of his ...
— The Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne • Frank Preston Stearns
... heaven, we know enough of arbitration to foresee the fatal tendency of all arbitrators to compromise." Roosevelt believed that the "claim of the Canadians for access to deep water along any part of the Alaskan coast is just exactly as indefensible as if they should now claim the island of Nantucket." He was willing, however, to refer the question unconfused by other issues to a second Joint Commission of six. The commission was duly constituted. There was no odd neutral member of this body, ...
— Theodore Roosevelt and His Times - A Chronicle of the Progressive Movement; Volume 47 in The - Chronicles Of America Series • Harold Howland
... ordered a thorough reconnoissance by General Mendoza, an engineer officer, who reported "that Padierna was absolutely indefensible, and that it was believed best to retire for reasons expressed in his note." General Valencia ordered Colonel Barreiro to Zacatepetl to watch and report the movements of the enemy. He further ordered Colonel Mendoza to occupy with his regiment the edge of the pedregal, having in his front a ...
— General Scott • General Marcus J. Wright
... of God began to occupy me. It seemed to me in the highest degree indefensible of Him to interfere every time I sought for a place, and to upset the whole thing, while all the time I was but imploring ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... forces of the upper waters of the Mississippi on Island Number 10 near New Madrid. The work of putting this little Gibraltar in a state of perfect defense had been rushed with all possible haste. New Madrid had been found indefensible and ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... for perusing the heart which was not in perfect harmony with him through the series of responsive movements to his own, informed him of a something in her character that might have suggested to Mrs Mountstuart Jenkinson her indefensible, absurd "rogue in porcelain". Idea there was none in that phrase; yet, if you looked on Clara as a delicately inimitable porcelain beauty, the suspicion of a delicately inimitable ripple over her features touched a thought of innocent ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith
... comparison at all between the absurd strong man and the slight Marathon runner of small muscles but splendid vitality. If we are to test vitality in muscular terms at all—that in itself being a quite indefensible assumption—we must do so in terms of endurance, and not in terms of horse power or ass power, at ...
— Woman and Womanhood - A Search for Principles • C. W. Saleeby
... patriotism, may seem sometimes to require such a line of conduct; but, unless there is a reasonable expectation of relief arriving from without, protracted resistance is useless, and, from a military point of view, indefensible. Defeated commanders have not, however, always seen this, or, seeing it, they have allowed prudence to be overpowered by other considerations. Psamatik, like many another ruler of Egypt, though ...
— Ancient Egypt • George Rawlinson
... from making any insurrectionary movement. Alvarado himself declared that he had information that the Mexicans intended to rise, but he gave no proofs, whatever, to justify his suspicions. The affair, indeed, seems to have been utterly indefensible, and must ever remain a foul ...
— By Right of Conquest - Or, With Cortez in Mexico • G. A. Henty
... precise and classical Christian; the only man alive who thinks concerning the person and doctrines of Christ what he himself thought and taught." His "Letter concerning the two first chapters of Luke" has the further title, "Who was the father of Christ?" He calls "not absolutely indefensible" the opinion of the anonymous German author of the "Natural History of Jesus of Nazareth," that Joseph of Arimathaea was the father of Jesus Christ. He mentions that "a more recent anonymous theorist, with greater plausibility, imagines ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... by short surprise attacks, and that it possesses in its mobility the infallible means of circumventing points of resistance. This conception, which restricts the functions of Cavalry within their narrowest limits, seems to me entirely untenable. It is essentially indefensible when it is a matter of gaining time or of carrying a given position, such as a defensible post on the lines of communication, a convoy marching under escort, the destruction of a defended railway, or ...
— Cavalry in Future Wars • Frederick von Bernhardi
... this weakness, the temptation is great for these monopolies to strengthen themselves in ways quite indefensible on any score. The alliance of trade monopolies with trusts, in order to strengthen themselves, we have already considered. But the trust which makes such an alliance must plead guilty to the charge of discrimination ...
— Monopolies and the People • Charles Whiting Baker
... It is indefensible that in the face of incidents of our history such as these Californians should be ignorant of the lives and experiences of those who preceded them on this coast. The history of their experiences is a part ...
— California, Romantic and Resourceful • John F. Davis
... gathered around the capitol. Cinna was overshadowed by the greatness of that plebeian general who had defeated the Cimbrians, and who was bent upon revenge for the mortification and insults he had received from the Roman aristocracy. Famine and desertion soon made the city indefensible, and Rome capitulated to an army of her ...
— Ancient States and Empires • John Lord
... ashamed to entertain such a notion for a moment. If we look back through the long and weary years of our civil war, we shall find that mistakes were made on the side of the arbitrary exercise of power, from which a few individuals suffered; but indefensible as some of these were, according to the strict letter of the law, we can now see their real harmlessness to the public as clearly as we see the error of those who committed them. At no time have our liberties been in less peril than ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... me to ask whether the act of publishing a book deprives a man of all claim to the courtesies usual among gentlemen? If not, the attempt to pry into what is obviously meant to be withheld—my name—and to publish the rumors which such prying may give rise to, seems to me quite indefensible, still more so to state these rumors as ascertained facts. I am, sir. ...
— George Eliot; A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings & Philosophy • George Willis Cooke
... pleased to see the force of what I urged. As far as I had inclinations in the case, they were towards the cause, not of Burgundy himself, whose murder of Orleans was alike treacherous and indefensible, but of his cause, seeing that Flanders is wholly under his authority, and that in Artois he is well-nigh paramount at present. On the other hand, Amiens and Ponthieu, which lie but a short distance to the south of me, are strongly Orleanist, and I have therefore every motive for standing ...
— At Agincourt • G. A. Henty
... by their relations to other individuals who are fellow members of the nation with them. That any person should be dependent for the means of support upon another would be shocking to the moral sense as well as indefensible on any rational social theory. What would become of personal liberty and dignity under such an arrangement? I am aware that you called yourselves free in the nineteenth century. The meaning of the word could not then, however, have been at all what it is at present, or you certainly ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... he would not have exceeded the bounds of what is regarded as a fair method of deceiving an enemy, but his subsequent proceedings were absolutely indefensible, and are, indeed, almost incredible on the part of the man who in some respects carried the point of honor almost to an extreme. His notion, no doubt, was to paralyze the action of the enemy by exciting ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... and his compeer working in the fields of South Italy: and between the household servants of a Virginian family and the plantation-slaves of the farther South. Let us remember, in passing judgement on what is admittedly an indefensible system, that during the war which resulted in the freeing of the American slaves the slaveholders of the South trusted their household slaves to protect the women and children during their absence from home and that that trust was nowhere betrayed. ...
— Progress and History • Various
... national achievements which men justify to themselves as a patriotic feat, or, it may be, a necessity of empire, and it is not classified among punishable offences at all. And then it is necessary to remember that many things that are indefensible when only a few do them, seem to become, by an extraordinary method of reasoning, regarded as allowable when so many people do them that a spurious public opinion and a decadent fashion is born, which shelters ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... present paints butterflies better than any other girl I know, and has a peculiar capacity for the softening of plumes and finessing of antennae. Grant me to be a good teacher, and grant her disposition to be such as I suppose, and the result will be what might at first appear an indefensible iniquity, namely, that this girl, who has already excellent gifts, having also excellent teaching, will become perhaps the best butterfly-painter in England; while myriads of other girls, having ...
— A Joy For Ever - (And Its Price in the Market) • John Ruskin
... one resuming an argument] There can't be two opinions about it, Ronny. Young Dunning's refusal is simply indefensible. ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... at least one half of the States. But there was never a more notable example of manifest destiny than the gradual but certain progress of the opposition to slavery; for there never was a system, any attempt to defend which showed how utterly indefensible such a system must needs be. Every argument advanced in its favor was so manifestly absurd, or so shocking to the ordinary sense of mankind, that the more it was discussed the more widespread and earnest became the opposition. Had the slaveholders been wise, they ...
— James Madison • Sydney Howard Gay
... Indian was not an unprovoked or groundless hatred, that the severity of his warfare was not a mere gratuitous and bloody-minded cruelty. There are a thousand actions, of which we are hearing every day, that are indefensible in morals: and yet we are conscious while we condemn the actors, that, in like circumstances, we could not have acted differently. So is it with the fierce and violent reprisals, sometimes made by frontier rangers. Their best defence lies in the statement that they were men, and that ...
— Western Characters - or Types of Border Life in the Western States • J. L. McConnel
... a wise man when he moved the capital of Israel from Shechem, an indefensible site, commanded by overhanging mountains and approached by two easy vales, to Shomron, the "watch-hill" which stands in the centre of the broad Vale ...
— Out-of-Doors in the Holy Land - Impressions of Travel in Body and Spirit • Henry Van Dyke
... with the Duke of Sutherland upon the whole case—viz. upon the petition for land, as affected by the shocking menaces of the Seceders—has, in no other way, been able to evade the double mischief of undertaking a defence for the indefensible, and at the same time of losing the land irretrievably, than by affecting an unconsciousness of language used by his party little suited to his own sacred calling, or to the noble simplicities of Christianity. Certainly it is unhappy for the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various
... see it from this distance, the selfish designs of Japan are as indefensible as are those of Italy. The two situations appear to parallel each other in their bearing upon the fate of weak and helpless nations. Would it not be an opportune time to cast another die, this one in the direction of Japan, that the whole ...
— Woodrow Wilson as I Know Him • Joseph P. Tumulty
... only thoroughly logical people in the world, and their excessive development of the logical faculty leads them at times into pitfalls. "Ils ont lesdefauts de leurs qualites." In this country we have found out that systems, absolutely indefensible in theory, at times work admirably well in practice, and give excellent results. No Frenchman would ever admit that anything unjustifiable in theory could possibly succeed in practice—"Ce n'est pas logique," he would ...
— The Days Before Yesterday • Lord Frederick Hamilton
... admit that this uncertainty on the question of justice may not exist in every case. I have always believed that some of the cessions of territory forced on Bulgaria were utterly indefensible from any point of view whatsoever. I refer, not to Macedonia, that impossible jumble of contradictions, but more ...
— The Geneva Protocol • David Hunter Miller
... matter, and indeed everything else except the pure self-luminous Brahman, would hardly appeal to our reason. If this system of world-order were only seeming appearance, with no other element of truth in it except pure being, then it would be indefensible in the light of reason. It has been proved that whatever notions we have about the objective world are all self-contradictory, and thus groundless and false. If they have all proceeded from the indefinite they must show this character ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... may arrest, to-morrow, the mail of the Union, and its passage from State to State, and refuse it a passage forever. Pennsylvania, a central State, may separate the North from the South, prevent all intercommunication, render our country a republic divided and indefensible. Louisiana, purchased by taxes imposed upon the people of all the States, may secede and establish a separate and independent government, lay protective or prohibitory imposts on the imports and exports of this State and of the West, carried through her ports and the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3 No 2, February 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... republican government were too just copies of the originals from which they were taken. If it had been found impracticable to have devised models of a more perfect structure, the enlightened friends to liberty would have been obliged to abandon the cause of that species of government as indefensible. The science of politics, however, like most other sciences, has received great improvement. The efficacy of various principles is now well understood, which were either not known at all, or imperfectly known to the ancients. The regular distribution of power into distinct departments; ...
— The Federalist Papers • Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, and James Madison
... declared to her brother, with a pertinacity which he had been unable to understand— which, indeed, had looked like sheer audacity, that he would never marry Margaret Ibbotson. Philip was now convinced that he had done his sister much wrong. Her temper and conduct were in some instances indefensible; but since he had learned all this, and become aware how much of what he had censured had been said and done out of affection for himself, he had been disposed rather to blame her for the lateness of her explanations, than for any excess of zeal on his account,—zeal ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... altogether indefensible, and therefore without fortifications. There are only two iron guns upon a bastion that fronts the beach; and here the French had formed a considerable battery against the English cruisers, in the war of 1744, when ...
— Travels Through France and Italy • Tobias Smollett
... eighty-seven bishops assembled in the Council of Carthage, and told them that they were all on an equality, he might have felt that the doctrine of episcopal parity, as then understood, must be given up as indefensible if assailed by the skill of a vigorous logician. Who could believe that the bishop of Carthage held exactly the same official rank as every one of his episcopal auditors? He was the chief pastor of a flourishing ...
— The Ancient Church - Its History, Doctrine, Worship, and Constitution • W.D. [William Dool] Killen
... natural phenomenon besides plays, though unjustifiably, a great role in imaginative sketches of winter life in the high north, and it is in the popular idea so connected with the ice and snow of the Polar lands, that most of the readers of sketches of Arctic travel would certainly consider it an indefensible omission if the author did not give an account of the aurora as seen from his winter station. The scientific man indeed knows that this neglect has, in most cases, been occasioned by the great infrequency of the strongly luminous aurora just in the Franklin archipelago on the north coast ...
— The Voyage of the Vega round Asia and Europe, Volume I and Volume II • A.E. Nordenskieold
... "Duke of Gloucester" schooner was taken, but the "Prince Regent" had gone to Kingston three days before; the weather which drove Chauncey back had enabled her to join her fleet as soon as released by the ice. By her escape the blow lost most of its effect; for York itself was indefensible, and was taken again without difficulty in the following July. A 30-gun vessel approaching completion was found on the stocks and burned, and a large quantity of military and naval stores were either destroyed or brought away ...
— Sea Power in its Relations to the War of 1812 - Volume 2 • Alfred Thayer Mahan
... and participation in it. The various foreign publications, whether they received their inspirations from Mr. Gutzlaff or not matters little, differed on most points, but were agreed on this, that the trade in opium was morally indefensible, and that we were bound, not only by our own interests, but in virtue of the common obligations of humanity, to cease to hold all connection with it. Those who had surrendered their stores of opium at the request of Captain Elliot held that their claim ...
— China • Demetrius Charles Boulger
... time that the Primary Electors of the National Institute of France having proposed Haydn, the great composer, and Mr. Sheridan, as candidates for the class of Literature and the Fine Arts, the Institute, with a choice not altogether indefensible, elected Haydn. Some French epigrams on this occurrence, which appeared in the Courier, seem to have suggested to Sheridan the idea of writing a few English jeux-d'esprit on the same subject, which were intended for the newspapers, but I rather think never appeared. These verses ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... of art that was not illicit must have been eminently welcome. But The Task has merits of a more universal and enduring kind. Its author himself says of it:—"If the work cannot boast a regular plan (in which respect, however, I do not think it altogether indefensible), it may yet boast, that the reflections are naturally suggested always by the preceding passage, and that, except the fifth book, which is rather of a political aspect, the whole has one tendency, to discountenance the modern enthusiasm ...
— Cowper • Goldwin Smith
... dogma of the two principles, or two gods, the one good, the other evil, as if this dogma were a better solution to the difficulties over the origin of evil. Yet again he acknowledges that it is an indefensible opinion and that the oneness of the Principle is incontestably founded on a priori reasons; but he wishes to infer that our Reason is confounded and cannot meet her own objections, and that one should disregard them and hold fast the revealed ...
— Theodicy - Essays on the Goodness of God, the Freedom of Man and the Origin of Evil • G. W. Leibniz
... instructions to General Nott to bring back with him to India both the mace and the gates. The latter, as is well-known, now lie mouldering in the lumber-room of the fort at Agra, for their authenticity is absolutely indefensible; but the mace could nowhere be found by the British plunderer. Mahmud reigned from 997 to 1030 A.D., and in his days Ghuznee was probably the first city in Asia. The extensive ruins of his city stretch northwards along the Cabul road for more than two miles from the present town; but all that ...
— Gipsy Life - being an account of our Gipsies and their children • George Smith
... Stevenson understood this, and consequently Mr. Moore cannot understand Stevenson. Another is the paradox of charity or chivalry that the weaker a thing is the more it should be respected, that the more indefensible a thing is the more it should appeal to us for a certain kind of defence. Thackeray understood this, and therefore Mr. Moore does not understand Thackeray. Now, one of these very practical and working mysteries in the Christian tradition, and one which the Roman Catholic Church, as I say, ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... contrary, as he alleged, to all the laws of civilized warfare, and defying him to a combat in the open field. Marion replied, that the practice of the British in burning the houses of all who would not submit and join them, was more indefensible than that of shooting pickets, and that as long as they persisted in the one he would persevere in the other. That as to his defiance, he considered it that of a man in desperate circumstances; but if he wished to witness a combat between ...
— A Sketch of the Life of Brig. Gen. Francis Marion • William Dobein James
... German vessels of war should ... destroy on the high seas an American vessel or the lives of American citizens, it would be difficult for the Government of the United States to view the act in any other light than as an indefensible violation of neutral rights.... The Government of the United States would be constrained to hold the Imperial German Government to a strict accountability for such acts of their naval authorities and to take any steps it might be necessary ...
— Woodrow Wilson and the World War - A Chronicle of Our Own Times. • Charles Seymour
... Liverpool in Lancashire. Here he prospered indifferently for a time, now as a Schoolmaster, now as a Quack Doctor, under his old High Dutch alias, and now as an Agent for the crimping of children for the West India plantations, which last traffic I have ever held, for reasons personal, to be utterly Indefensible and Abominable. A Bill of Indictment before the Grand Jury speedily, however, put an end to the chaplain's dealings in flesh and blood; so he made what haste he could to town, where squandering what means he had with him in Riot and Unthrift, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Captain Dangerous, Vol. 2 of 3 • George Augustus Sala
... than a perception of some sort of regularity, and as regularity is an inescapable condition of existence, all that it proves is existence. On that point there is no dispute. And the moral justification of the cosmic process while intellectually indefensible, adds an element of moral repulsion. That the process as we know it is morally repugnant is shown by the appeal to the future, the request to suspend judgment till such time as the plan is completed, when it is hoped that the end will justify the means. God, it is trusted, will justify himself in ...
— Theism or Atheism - The Great Alternative • Chapman Cohen
... that led Burgoyne, a professed enemy of oppression in India and elsewhere, to accept his American command when so many other officers threw up their commissions rather than serve in a civil war against the Colonies. His biographer De Fonblanque, writing in 1876, evidently regarded his position as indefensible. Nowadays, it is sufficient to say that Burgoyne was an Imperialist. He sympathized with the colonists; but when they proposed as a remedy the disruption of the Empire, he regarded that as a step backward in civilization. ...
— The Devil's Disciple • George Bernard Shaw
... Twain) the sense of contrast which is the mountain of humour or is said to be so." However that may be, Mark Twain was irresistibly driven to the conclusion, Southern born though he was, that slavery was unjust, inhuman, and indefensible. The advanced thinkers in the South had reached this conclusion long before the beginning of the Civil War, and many Southern men had actually devised freedom to their slaves in their wills. The slaves were treated humanely, their material wants were cared for by ...
— Mark Twain • Archibald Henderson
... indivisible, but consists of many separate, independent faculties, is a momentous truth, revealed by the insight of Gall. One of the results of this great discovery may at times underlie the plural use of the important word intellect when applied to one individual. If so, it were still indefensible. It has, we suspect, a much less philosophic origin, and proceeds from the unsafe practice of overcharging the verbal gun in order to make more noise in the ear of the listener. The plural is correctly used when we speak of two or ...
— Essays AEsthetical • George Calvert
... "To subject savage tribes to the penalties of laws with which they are unacquainted, for offences which they, very possibly, regard as acts of justifiable retaliation for invaded rights, is a proceeding indefensible, except under circumstances of urgent and extreme necessity."—Fourth Report of the Colonization Commissioners, presented to the House of Commons, 29th ...
— Journals Of Expeditions Of Discovery Into Central • Edward John Eyre
... no such power to oppose the development of the Copernican ideas as the older Church had enjoyed. Yet there were some things in its warfare against science even more indefensible. In 1772 the famous English expedition for scientific discovery sailed from England under Captain Cook. Greatest by far of all the scientific authorities chosen to accompany it was Dr. Priestley. Sir Joseph Banks had especially ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... myself, and to my character—aye, sir, and I HAVE a character which is very dear to me, and will be the best inheritance of my two daughters—to tell you, on behalf of another, that your conduct is wrong, unnatural, indefensible, monstrous. And I tell you, sir,' said Mr Pecksniff, towering on tiptoe among the curtains, as if he were literally rising above all worldly considerations, and were fain to hold on tight, to keep himself from darting skyward like a rocket, 'I tell you without fear ...
— Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit • Charles Dickens
... occasionally he indulged in paradoxes which cannot be defended. I will not conceal the fact that these occasional kickings over the traces personally delighted me as a young man, and still delight me, but, all the same, they are indefensible from the point of view of the serious man—that dreadful person, the vir pietate gravis. For instance, it was always said by some of his friends, and I think with truth, for I have not dared to verify the point, that he began his leader recording the Austrian ...
— The Adventure of Living • John St. Loe Strachey
... of the fleet, when drawn up in line of battle, but lay stupidly upon your back, gazing at the sky; nor did you get up and let your men see you, until Marcus Agrippa had forced the enemies' ships to sheer off." Others imputed to him both a saying and an action which were indefensible; for, upon the loss of his fleets by storm, he is reported to have said: "I will conquer in spite of Neptune;" and at the next Circensian games, he would not suffer the statue of that God to be carried in procession ...
— The Lives Of The Twelve Caesars, Complete - To Which Are Added, His Lives Of The Grammarians, Rhetoricians, And Poets • C. Suetonius Tranquillus
... be affected by the measure, was subsequently eaten up by himself in cross-examination towards the close of his evidence given before the Currency Committee. But it is of course the rule, to which there are few exceptions, that those who are engaged in the unfortunate business of bolstering up an indefensible case, invariably let out something which is absolutely destructive to the cause they are advocating; and we find another instance of this at p. 191, Appendix I. of the "Report of the Currency Committee." ...
— Gold, Sport, And Coffee Planting In Mysore • Robert H. Elliot
... wealthy mine-owners and the Western Federation of Miners, at whose head stood Messrs. Haywood, Pettibone, and Moyer, who were about that time indicted for the murder of the Governor of Idaho. Much that was lawless, much that was indefensible, had been done by both sides. The Legislature of Nevada was in sympathy with, or at least was afraid of not expressing sympathy for, Messrs. Moyer, Haywood, Pettibone, and their associates. The State was practically without any police, and the Governor had recommended ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... have been wholly justifiable; and, conversely, the Northern States, in forcibly preventing secession and compelling the inhabitants of the States composing the Confederacy to remain under the authority of the Federal Government, would have perpetrated a great and indefensible wrong against the people of the South by depriving them of a right to which they were by nature entitled. This is the logic of the application of the principle of "self-determination" to the political rights at issue ...
— The Peace Negotiations • Robert Lansing
... often occurs. A few folk still cling to this spelling—there was a "segar-shop" in the Strand till quite recently, and I saw the notice "segars" the other day over a small tobacco-shop in York—which has no authority, and on etymological grounds is indefensible. The derivation of "cigar" is not altogether clear; but the probabilities are strongly in favour of its connexion with "cigarra," the Spanish name for the cicada, the shrilly-chirping insect familiar in the southern countries of Europe, and the subject of frequent ...
— The Social History of Smoking • G. L. Apperson
... a baseless and indefensible critical assertion. It is evidently to be ascribed to the fact that the metre of the ancient ballads is employed in both plays. But my tone is quite different from Hertz's; the language of my play has a different ring; a light summer breeze plays over the rhythm of my ...
— The Feast at Solhoug • Henrik Ibsen
... Charing Cross for our penny. We desire to get the worth of our bawbee. And it is a cold day when we don't. But it must be remembered that a Scotsman is conscientious, and he knows that tipping is an indefensible vice, so he discourages it as much as possible, being compelled by custom to fall in with it. Then, again, the man who claims that Americans are not liberal doesn't know what he is talking about. The trouble with the American is that he does not know the exact amount ...
— The Idler Magazine, Volume III., July 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly • Various
... with woman he is no longer scrupulously conscientious. We begin to have our suspicions of his uprightness when we find him in his Subjection of Women laying it down as a fundamental postulate that the subjection of woman to man is always morally indefensible. For no upright mind can fail to see that the woman who lives in a condition of financial dependence upon man has no moral claim to unrestricted liberty. The suspicion of Mill's honesty which is thus awakened is confirmed by further critical ...
— The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage • Almroth E. Wright
... Anderson of the Third Maryland regiment, who had collected a number of fugitives not far from the field of battle, proceeded toward Charlotte by easy marches in order to give stragglers time to join him. But as Charlotte was utterly indefensible and as no barrier lay between it and the victorious enemy Gates retreated to Salisbury and sent Colonel Williams, accompanied by another officer, on the road leading to Camden to gain information of the movements of Cornwallis, ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing
... them, and not see that the judgment on things is always on character, and that the last testing principle is, "See—not what manner of stones, but what manner of men." While we deplore the forces that destroyed, we have also to deplore the indefensible lives of the monks which at their last stage stirred such forces to ...
— Scottish Cathedrals and Abbeys • Dugald Butler and Herbert Story
... position, provided good cause is shown why it should be so accepted; but that it should be accepted as a matter of understanding—as a statement making the order of the universe comprehensible—is a quite indefensible position."'[31] ...
— A Candid Examination of Theism • George John Romanes
... not before you The word was injudicious, I allow— But hear my explanation, I implore you, And you will be indignant too, I vow! SIR JOSEPH. I will hear of no defence, Attempt none if you're sensible. That word of evil sense Is wholly indefensible. Go, ribald, get you hence To your cabin with celerity. This is the consequence Of ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan
... origin, and cannot intrinsically be justified in the same way; and if all wealth consisted of such commodities as are due to the efforts of man, and to the man-made machinery which assists him, all interest would be really, as it is said to be by some, indefensible. But, he continues, since interest on capital such as machinery is not the whole of the interest paid in the modern world, but is only a minor part of it, and since in the modern world all forms of capital are interchangeable, ...
— A Critical Examination of Socialism • William Hurrell Mallock
... the reign of favorites; but this was but a small part of the evils of the times. Every thing abroad and at home was mismanaged. Patents of monopolies were multiplied; the most grievous exactions were made; indefensible executions were ordered; the laws were perverted; justice was sold; and an ignominious war was closed by a still more ignominious peace. The execution of Raleigh was a disgrace to the king, the court, and the nation, because ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... these "natural history effects"—to remark on "the sinuous motion of the worm," "the graceful gamboling of the leviathan," the orchestral imitations of the bellowing of the "heavy beasts," and such like. It is probably indefensible on purely artistic grounds. But Handel did it in "Israel in Egypt" and elsewhere. And is there not a crowing cock in Bach's "St Matthew Passion"? Haydn only followed the ...
— Haydn • J. Cuthbert Hadden
... making a great mistake, Wolff," Seaman declared angrily. "I am your superior in the Service, and your attitude towards me is indefensible." ...
— The Great Impersonation • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... Front of the Cathedral was, beyond doubt, the last portion of the original design to be carried out, for among its details the ball-flower, a typical feature of the decorated style, frequently occurs. The governing idea of its facade is indefensible. Not merely because in common with Wells, Lincoln, and other churches, it does not emphasize the construction of the nave and aisles, and hides them by a screen, but because the screen itself poses as an integral part of the building. Even considered solely as an architectural composition, without ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Salisbury - A Description of its Fabric and a Brief History of the See of Sarum • Gleeson White
... refuse in all cases of all sorts of contracts to make good the losses resulting from appreciation in the cost of labor and material. The expenditure that such a policy would entail is incalculable, and the policy itself is, in my judgment, indefensible. The bill at the last session for the relief of this claimant in the case of another vessel constructed by him was, as I have said, carefully put upon the lines I have indicated, and if this claim could have been maintained upon, those ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents, Volume IX. • Benjamin Harrison
... other man" who fired the shot are in the country to this day. But that other man's name, inquire as you please, you shall not hear; for the Highlander values a secret for itself and for the congenial exercise of keeping it I might go on for long to justify one point and own another indefensible; it is more honest to confess at once how little I am touched by the desire of accuracy. This is no furniture for the scholar's library, but a book for the winter evening school-room when the tasks are over and the hour for bed draws ...
— Kidnapped • Robert Louis Stevenson
... his force, sallied out to relieve it, but it was taken before his arrival, and Don Louis had marched away to Dinan, leaving a small garrison in Conquet. It was again captured by Sir Walter, but finding it indefensible he returned with the whole of his force to Hennebon. Don Louis captured Dinan and then besieged Guerande. Here he met with a vigorous resistance, but carried it by storm, and gave it up to be pillaged by his soldiers. He now sent back to Charles ...
— Saint George for England • G. A. Henty
... indefensible, territory inhabited by a single homogeneous people. The Poles themselves, centering in the western cities of Warsaw and Cracow, constituted a majority of the population, but the Lithuanians, a kindred Slavic folk, covered the east-central part of the kingdom and a large number of ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... my action is almost indefensible. I'm admitting that. But I have very good reasons for what I am doing. (He turns to CROSBY.) Roscoe, I've been your close friend for a great many years. You've trusted me and believed in me. I'm going to ask you to wait. After all, twenty-four ...
— The Thirteenth Chair • Bayard Veiller
... harmonize science with revelation is, on the one hand, the re-examination of the Scripture texts on which are based the principia from which deductions are made, and which we call theology; and, on the other hand, the rejection of indefensible statements which are at war with both science and consciousness, except in those matters which claim special supernatural agency, which we can neither prove nor disprove by reason; for supernaturalism claims to ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume VI • John Lord
... merely unconscious of the lapses in his processes of reasoning, and of his imperfect comprehension of the significance of his statements; he is unconscious also of the mass of inherited and acquired prejudices, often quite indefensible, which he ...
— An Introduction to Philosophy • George Stuart Fullerton
... substantial bridge that runs across from Estcourt to Fort Napier, a quaint-looking structure, neither ornamental nor useful, for hills behind and round it command the situation. Thus commanded, it is utterly indefensible, and would need an army corps to hold it. The garrison, under Brigadier-General Wolfe-Murray, at this time consisted of the Royal Dublin Fusiliers, the Border Regiment, one squadron of Imperial Light Horse, Natal Field Artillery, and some scouts. This small force would have ...
— South Africa and the Transvaal War, Vol. 2 (of 6) - From the Commencement of the War to the Battle of Colenso, - 15th Dec. 1899 • Louis Creswicke
... attack, sought to improve his indefensible position. He reformed his centre by the simple expedient of suppressing it. Apia was evacuated. The two flanks, Mulinuu and Matautu, were still held and fortified, Mulinuu (as I have said) to the isthmus, Matautu on a line from the bayside to the little river Fuisa. The centre ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 17 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... little sense of having countenanced an indefensible proceeding, perhaps because it was late, the customers thinned away from the tent shortly after this episode. The man stretched his elbows forward on the table leant his face upon his arms, and soon began to snore. The furmity ...
— The Mayor of Casterbridge • Thomas Hardy
... American lawyers. The ablest advocates of the Torrens system I know are lawyers, men who say that lawyers ought to be content with the really useful ways of earning money and not insist on keeping up utterly useless and indefensible means of getting fees out of the people. Such lawyers, indeed, deserve honor; my criticism is aimed only at those who realize the wisdom of a changed system but are led by selfishness to ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... Law, and I must leave my readers to form their own conclusions. That it has occasionally been beneficial, in the peculiar state of the communities in which it has been practised, must be admitted; but it is equally certain that it is in itself indefensible, and that but too often, not only the punishment is much too severe for the offence, but what is still more to be deprecated, the innocent do occasionally suffer with ...
— Diary in America, Series One • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)
... of being so exposed, had, at the commencement of the siege, been considered indefensible ...
— The Record of a Regiment of the Line • M. Jacson
... a coolness had sprung up between Pope and Addison. Considering Pope's offences against the senate, his ridicule of Philips, his imposition of that ridicule upon Steele, and his indefensible use of Addison's fame as a stalking-horse in the attack upon Dennis, it is not surprising that he should have been kept at arm's length. If the rod suspended by Philips at Button's be authentic (as ...
— Alexander Pope - English Men of Letters Series • Leslie Stephen
... be seen; or that—being ignorant of Gaelic—it would have helped them if they had known; and he admits that "MacPherson's subsequent conduct, in postponing from time to time the publication, when urged to it by friends who had liberally furnished him with means for the purpose . . . is indefensible." In 1773 and 1775, e.g., Dr. Johnson was calling loudly for the production of the manuscripts. "The state of the question," he wrote to Boswell, February 7, 1775, "is this. He and Dr. Blair, whom I consider as deceived, ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Eighteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... Shepherdstown, and his artillery and cavalry to Williamsport. In carrying out these movements, however, he lost five guns and five caissons. He passed the river and rejoined the main body at Harper's Ferry. The latter place is wholly indefensible against an enemy holding the hills around it. It is like fighting at the bottom of a well. General Tyler had therefore very wisely moved across the river to Maryland Heights, where he had a strong fortified post. From that commanding eminence he could very soon shell out any ...
— Chancellorsville and Gettysburg - Campaigns of the Civil War - VI • Abner Doubleday
... have but a slip-slop way of christening our public buildings. When a man tells us that he called on a friend at the Horse Guards, or looked in at the Navy Pay, or dropped a ticket at the Woods and Forests, we put up with the accustomed sounds, though they are in themselves, perhaps, indefensible. The 'Board of Commissioners for Regulating Weights and Measures', and the 'Office of the Board of Commissioners for Regulating Weights and Measures', are very long phrases; and as, in the course of this tale, frequent mention will be made of the public establishment in question, ...
— The Three Clerks • Anthony Trollope
... own delinquencies. It was absurd to think of tragic melodramas; no, everything wound up with universal happiness. However, while she had thus been indulging in the cowardly, but pleasing, thought that nothing was absolutely indefensible, Juliette and Pauline had opened the door of the pavilion, and were now dragging Malignon in their train into the garden. And, all at once, Helene heard Henri speaking to her in a ...
— A Love Episode • Emile Zola
... they appear to be. That will be admitted; but it will be urged that the hampering and limiting with which we have been dealing is not merely legitimate but inevitable, whereas the hampering and limiting—should such there be—on the part of the Church is wholly illegitimate and indefensible. ...
— Science and Morals and Other Essays • Bertram Coghill Alan Windle
... thy sake, to let her know how very earnest I had been: but assured her that I had been her zealous friend; and that my motives were founded upon a merit, that, I believed, was never equaled: that, however indefensible Mr. Lovelace was, he had always done justice to her virtue: that to a full conviction of her untainted honour it was owing that he so earnestly desired to call so inestimable a jewel his—and was proceeding, when she again cut ...
— Clarissa, Volume 7 • Samuel Richardson
... battle or command, he promised them, that if they behaved themselves bravely in the next engagement, he would give them up two cities to spoil and plunder, Thessalonica and Lacedaemon. This is the one indefensible thing of all that is found fault with in the life of Brutus; though true it may be that Antony and Caesar were much more cruel in the rewards that they gave their soldiers after victory; for they drove out, one might almost say, all the old inhabitants of Italy, to put their soldiers in possession ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... mistaken. What Charles Lamb said of the Scotchman is far truer of this type of Puritan Irishman; he does not see things suddenly in a new light; all his brilliancy is a blindingly rapid calculation and deduction. Bernard Shaw never said an indefensible thing; that is, he never said a thing that he was not prepared brilliantly to defend. He never breaks out into that cry beyond reason and conviction, that cry of Lamb when he cried, "We would indict our dreams!" or of Stevenson, "Shall we never ...
— George Bernard Shaw • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... philosopher, the philistine. Possibly by so doing we have given the impression that poets are beating the air against an abstraction when they are in reality delivering thumping blows upon the body of a personal enemy. And if these generalizations appear indefensible, still more misleading, it may be urged, is an attempt to represent that the poet, when he takes issue with this and that opponent, is answering a challenge hidden away from the unstudious in the tenth book of Plato's Republic. It is doubtful ...
— The Poet's Poet • Elizabeth Atkins
... claim of the Cherokees to the above country, it is altogether new and indefensible; and never was heard of, until the appointment of Mr. Stewart to the superintendency of the Southern colonies, about the year 1764; and this, we flatter ourselves, will not only be obvious from ...
— Report of the Lords Commissioners for Trade and Plantations on the Petition of the Honourable Thomas Walpole, Benjamin Franklin, John Sargent, and Samuel Wharton, Esquires, and their Associates • Great Britain Board of Trade
... had had any doubts about the right and wrong of an attempt to thwart the sheriff before, Laura had none now. Perhaps her course was indefensible; but intuitively she believed that farmer to be a bad man. And she was sure that he was the one who had set the ...
— The Girls of Central High in Camp - The Old Professor's Secret • Gertrude W. Morrison
... one modern method which has always seemed to me much to be condemned, and that is the habit of changing the end of a story, for fear of alarming the child. This is quite indefensible. In doing this we are tampering with folklore and confusing ...
— The Art of the Story-Teller • Marie L. Shedlock
... and malignant rebel," cried Oliver. "Art thou not ashamed, sir, to detain me before the door of a house which you had no force to defend? Wearest thou so white a beard, and knowest thou not, that to refuse surrendering an indefensible post, by the martial law, ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... eagerly seized upon and proclaimed. There is scarcely an evil practice for which the doer may not raise up or create reasons in justification, and plausible arguments may be made to gloss over the most detestable and indefensible crimes. ...
— Secret Band of Brothers • Jonathan Harrington Green
... among themselves is self-evident; that Christian nations shall defend themselves from the assaults of savages is also obvious; but that two Christian nations should go to war for anything, on any ground whatever, is to my mind inexplicable and utterly indefensible. ...
— In the Track of the Troops • R.M. Ballantyne
... indefensible has been your handling of the border slave states of Maryland, Kentucky and Missouri. You have not yet declared the slaves free in these states, the only ones in which you actually have the power ...
— A Man of the People - A Drama of Abraham Lincoln • Thomas Dixon
... with an amount of decision and of moderation that is remarkable in so young a non-commissioned officer. Sergeant Overton thereby demonstrated his fitness to command men. Private Hinkey's conduct, from start to finish, as testified to by the witnesses, was gross and indefensible. Such conduct in a soldier of the regular Army is nothing short ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys as Sergeants - or, Handling Their First Real Commands • H. Irving Hancock
... the rejection of any burden whatever, on account of our colonies"; and the reason for the tendency was certainly the purely economic views to which {284} Cobden was accustoming Britain, and the cogency of the arguments by which he was driving amateur politicians from their earlier indefensible positions. That trade was all-important, and that the operations of trade disregarded the irrelevant facts of nationality and race; that no one community could interfere in the social and political life of another without disaster to both; that the defence of colonies was not only dangerous to ...
— British Supremacy & Canadian Self-Government - 1839-1854 • J. L. Morison
... mines at a distance from the centre of direction it is almost impossible to check mistakes of this description, caused by the ignorance or over sanguineness of the mine superintendent, and they are often as disastrous as they are indefensible. Another fertile source of failure is the craze for experimenting with untried inventions, alleged to be improvements on ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... have heard big manufacturers talk about control of production by the farmer as an indefensible "economy of scarcity." And yet these same manufacturers never hesitate to shut down their own huge plants, throw men out of work, and cut down the purchasing power of whole communities whenever they ...
— The Fireside Chats of Franklin Delano Roosevelt • Franklin Delano Roosevelt
... to a British law the telegraph was required to be a Government monopoly. This law had been passed six years before the telephone was born, but no matter. The telephone men protested and argued. Tyndall and Lord Kelvin warned the Government that it was making an indefensible mistake. But nothing could be done. Just as the first railways had been called toll-roads, so the telephone was solemnly declared to be a telegraph. Also, to add to the absurd humor of the situation, Judge ...
— The History of the Telephone • Herbert N. Casson
... to discredit Crozier's evidence because he chose to use another name than his own, because he was parted from his wife, because he left England practically penniless to earn an honest living—no one had shown it was not—was the last resort of legal desperation. It was an indefensible thing to endeavour to create prejudice against a man because of his own evidence given with great frankness. Not one single word of evidence had the defence brought to discredit Crozier, save by Crozier's own word ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... who enters one school system from another is a case in point. Such a pupil nearly always suffers a loss of time. The indefensible custom is to grade the newcomer down a little, because, forsooth, the textbooks he has studied may have differed somewhat from those he is about to take up, or because the school system from which he comes may be looked upon as inferior. Teachers are ...
— The Measurement of Intelligence • Lewis Madison Terman
... even so the Boers might conceivably get between him and his base. The same advantage we should possess on this western side of the theatre of war, except that we are so heavily outnumbered, and have adopted no heroic plan of abandoning the indefensible. We have an irregular force of mounted infantry at Mafeking, the Loyal North Lancashire Regiment at Kimberley, the Munster Fusiliers at De Aar, half the Yorkshire Light Infantry at De Aar, half the Berkshire ...
— From Capetown to Ladysmith - An Unfinished Record of the South African War • G. W. Steevens
... 23rd, the draft of his book was at last finished, and he dispatched it to James Hope for free criticism, suggestions, and revision. The 'physical state of the MS.,' as Mr. Gladstone calls it, seems to have been rather indefensible, and his excuse for writing 'irregularly and confusedly, considering the pressure of other engagements'—an excuse somewhat too common with him—was not quite so valid as he seems to have thought it. 'The defects,' writes ...
— The Life of William Ewart Gladstone, Vol. 1 (of 3) - 1809-1859 • John Morley
... his own early misdeeds; but the rights upon which he took his stand were those exercised by his predecessors. The uncompromising attitude of his opponents and their humiliation of him made it a life-long struggle between them. Henry was no saint; but his opponents' tactics were indefensible. Under less adverse circumstances he might have proved a successful ruler. But he was the victim of a party which deliberately subordinated means to ends in pursuit of an ideal which Henry could scarcely be expected ...
— The Church and the Empire - Being an Outline of the History of the Church - from A.D. 1003 to A.D. 1304 • D. J. Medley
... expense in defending the seat. Of course he, Sir Thomas, could do the same. He believed that it might be practicable for him to acknowledge the justice of the petition, to declare his belief that his own agents had betrayed him, and to acknowledge that his seat was indefensible. But, as he thought of it, he found that he was actually ignorant of the law in the matter. That he would make no such bargain as that suggested to him by Mr. Trigger,—of so much he thought that he was sure. At any rate he would do nothing that he himself ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... to gaze at her with a steadiness somewhat indefensible except as one considers that all motorists, meeting on the highway, are accustomed to take note of one another as comrades of the road. He was not conscious that the other young people in the car also regarded ...
— Red Pepper's Patients - With an Account of Anne Linton's Case in Particular • Grace S. Richmond
... what charm Victory had found in such a man as Snider, and why I insisted upon finding excuses for her and trying to defend her indefensible act. She was nothing to me. Aside from the natural gratitude I felt for her since she had saved my life, I owed her nothing. She was a half-naked little savage—I, a gentleman, and an officer in the world's greatest navy. There could be no close ...
— The Lost Continent • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... feelings, upon which men would move under given circumstances, or with the modes of action which in common prudence they would be likely to adopt. The truth is, that, as a coherent work of art, the Robbers is indefensible; but, however monstrous it may be pronounced, it possesses a power to agitate and convulse, which will always obliterate its great faults to the young, and to all whose judgment is not too much developed. And the best apology for Schiller is found in his own words, ...
— Biographical Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... I can tell 'ee; but I tried my luck again. 'What's a molar, Dame?' says I. ''Tis a wus word than t'other,' says she; 'and, if 'ee axes me any more voolish questions, I'll break thee yead for 'ee.' Do 'ee think 'tis a very bad word, Gearge?" added Abel, with a rather indefensible curiosity. ...
— Jan of the Windmill • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... in which he dealt with the potato blight, and consequent Irish Famine, is indefensible. His policy from first to last was a policy of delay—delay in a case in which delay was ruin. He went on by slow and almost imperceptible degrees preparing his colleagues for his altered views on the Corn duties; talking and writing all the time pathetically, ...
— The History of the Great Irish Famine of 1847 (3rd ed.) (1902) - With Notices Of Earlier Irish Famines • John O'Rourke
... mistake to underestimate either the magnitude, the fighting quality, or the staying power of the forces which are arrayed against us. But it would be equally foolish and equally indefensible to belittle our own resources, whether for resistance or attack. [Cheers.] Belgium has shown us by a memorable and a glorious example what can be done by a relatively small State when its citizens ...
— New York Times Current History: The European War from the Beginning to March 1915, Vol 1, No. 2 - Who Began the War, and Why? • Various
... best to correlate mathematical physics with practical composition. But during the past generation these attempts, never very hopeful, have become much less so. It is only too easy to play scientific havoc with the foundations of modern music: but, arbitrary and scientifically indefensible though they may be, they are our inheritance. Music has come to be what it is by methods that will not bear accurate investigation: our tonal systems are mere makeshifts, and no composer can completely express his thoughts in our clumsy notation. I doubt if, throughout all this last generation ...
— Recent Developments in European Thought • Various
... escaping a stain like that which attaches to England for the fate of Admiral Byng. Hull had proven during the Revolution that he was no coward. Whatever may have been his errors of judgment before the surrender, at the time of the surrender Detroit was indefensible. ...
— The Land We Live In - The Story of Our Country • Henry Mann |
