"Offensive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... (ni nodi) thou dost not mark, thou art blind to the arms of the enemy both defensive and offensive. "Nodi," may also have reference to "nod" in the ...
— Y Gododin - A Poem on the Battle of Cattraeth • Aneurin
... feeling towards great men was one of jealousy and hate. He longed for the time when "decrepitude or death" might put an end to Pitt; and even when death had freed him from "this trumpet of sedition," he denounced the proposal for a public monument to the great statesman as "an offensive measure to me personally." But dull and petty as his temper was, he was clear as to his purpose and obstinate in the pursuit of it. And his purpose was to rule. "George," his mother, the Princess of Wales, had continually repeated ...
— History of the English People, Volume VII (of 8) - The Revolution, 1683-1760; Modern England, 1760-1767 • John Richard Green
... meantime, while the grand jury was hearing testimony against him, one of the beloved women of his family was called for examination, and District Attorney Dickson asked her some questions that deeply wounded her. She returned home weeping. My brothers and I felt that the questions had been needlessly offensive, and after an indignant discussion of the matter, I undertook to remonstrate personally ...
— Under the Prophet in Utah - The National Menace of a Political Priestcraft • Frank J. Cannon and Harvey J. O'Higgins
... traffic. Column after column of lorries came pounding along, bearing their freight of shells, trench-mortar bombs, wire, stakes, sandbags, pipes, and a thousand other articles essential for the offensive, so that great dumps of explosives and other material arose in the green wayside places. Staff cars and signallers on motor-bikes went busily on their way. Ambulances hurried backwards and forwards ...
— Attack - An Infantry Subaltern's Impression of July 1st, 1916 • Edward G. D. Liveing
... feel so uneasy in his presence!" And Vergniaud laughed lightly. "For the rest, he is a brilliant creature enough, and thoroughly manly. The other evening at the Club that little Vicomte de Lorgne was chattering in his usual offensive manner about women, and Leigh astonished everyone by the way in which he pulled him up. There was almost a very pretty quarrel,—but a stray man happened to mention casually,—that Leigh was considered one of the finest shots in England. ...
— The Master-Christian • Marie Corelli
... as usual at work in the garden, whilst her brothers were bringing in a load of manure which smelt very offensive. The habit of drawing spiritual meanings from all external objects had become so completely second nature to Dominica, that her thoughts seem to have shaped themselves into these analogies on all occasions. The bad smell therefore suggested to her mind an image of ...
— The Life of St. Frances of Rome, and Others • Georgiana Fullerton
... glorious laughter over the fun of his own jeremiads; "so far from being a prophet he is a bad Scotch joker, and knows himself to be a wind-bag." He blamed Froude's revelations of Carlyle in "The Reminiscences," as injurious and offensive. Froude himself he often likened to Carlyle; the thoughts of both, he said, ran in the same direction, but of the two, Froude was by far the ...
— Biographical Study of A. W. Kinglake • Rev. W. Tuckwell
... a very remarkable control over Macfarlane; issued orders like the Great Bashaw; became inflamed at the least discussion or delay, and commented rudely on the servility with which he was obeyed. This most offensive person took a fancy to Fettes on the spot, plied him with drinks, and honoured him with unusual confidences on his past career. If a tenth part of what he confessed were true, he was a very loathsome rogue; ...
— Tales and Fantasies • Robert Louis Stevenson
... throw it into the sea. It was well known that Dorkin had been a quarrelsome man, and he feared that if he could not produce the body when the relief came, he might be deemed a murderer. He therefore let it lie until it became so overpoweringly offensive that the whole building, from foundation to cupola, was filled with the horrible stench. The feelings of the solitary man can neither be conceived nor described. Well was it for John that he had the Word of God in his hand, and the grace of God in his ...
— The Story of the Rock • R.M. Ballantyne
... a complex feeling in the mother's heart. For some reason she felt sorry for her. Her pity, however, was not offensive; not bred of familiarity. She marveled that here was a lady walking on foot and carrying a dangerous ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... domestic altar. During the day all the cookery and washing is done, and though at the latter process there is no want of little children, the temporary tenant of the boat does not suffer the least annoyance; nothing offensive meets his eye; and, at the most, he merely hears at rare intervals the whining voice of some poor little wretch. The youngest child is generally tied on its mother's back while she steers; the elder children, too, have sometimes similar burdens, but jump and climb about without ...
— A Woman's Journey Round the World • Ida Pfeiffer
... mate, were responsible for the little bird's perturbation. What were they doing? Something rude, as usual. Perched on a couple of twigs, they were bending over, stretching out their necks and peering into a small hole in one of the larger branches. The male was especially offensive, standing there and staring into the cavity, and ...
— Our Bird Comrades • Leander S. (Leander Sylvester) Keyser
... knowledge, deeper understanding and sympathy between those who name the Name that is above every name. And our people overseas have much to teach us in this matter. Over great areas of social opportunity and service the Catholic Church may act unitedly and must do so, if she is to enter on offensive warfare and not stand for another generation on the defensive. The war has made a difference here. Men, who in the conventional days of peace rarely met, have joined hands in service. Catholic and Protestant, Churchman and Free ...
— The War and Unity - Being Lectures Delivered At The Local Lectures Summer - Meeting Of The University Of Cambridge, 1918 • Various
... those mentioned above as advocated by the extreme labor leaders contain the vital error of being class legislation of the most offensive kind, and even if enacted into law I believe that the law would rightly be held unconstitutional. Moreover, the labor people are themselves now beginning to invoke the use of the power of injunction. During the last ten years, and within my own knowledge, at ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... by the pair made the dining-room so horribly offensive that Madame de Montcornet, whose senses were very delicate, would have been forced to leave the room if Fourchon and Mouche had remained. To this circumstance the old man was indebted for his twenty-five francs. He left the room with a timid glance at Michaud, ...
— Sons of the Soil • Honore de Balzac
... now some months since the great autumn offensive was conducted with the idea of biting off an awkward salient in my circumstances—in brief, of obtaining the necessary telephone to enable me to commence an ordered existence. For many, many days my voice had been unheard crying in the wilderness that I was a poor demobilised ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 158, April 21, 1920 • Various
... select the best and publish them in the second volume of the 'Almanac'. Schiller was captivated by the idea, and 'Xenia' now became the order of the day. It was soon decided not to restrict them to the offensive journals, but to take a shot wherever there was a mark. Both conspirators took great delight in the proposed Teufelei,—it would be such sport to stir up the vermin and hear them buzz. They gave the milder 'Xenia' pet names such as 'jovial brethren', ...
— The Life and Works of Friedrich Schiller • Calvin Thomas
... farmers in India were only beginning to recover from the oppression and neglect of former rulers and the visitation of terrific famines. Trade was as depressed as agriculture. Transit duties, not less offensive than those of the Chinese, continued to weigh down agricultural industry till Lord W. Bentinck's time and later. The English Government levied an unequal scale of duties on the staples of the East and West Indies, against which the former petitioned in vain. The East India Company kept the ...
— The Life of William Carey • George Smith
... from Mr. Quaver. She attempted to join, but was so far away that she felt, as she afterwards remarked, like a cat in a strange garret. Paul did not sing. He thought that, if it was an offence for him to sing in the choir, it would be equally offensive to sing in the congregation. Azalia, Daphne, Hans, and all the members of the choir, who were sitting in the pews with their parents, were silent. They had talked the matter over ...
— Winning His Way • Charles Carleton Coffin
... him to aid me in coming to the truth. Let me request, Mrs. Estabrook, that you discontinue referring to him in offensive terms, or I may withdraw my offer guaranteeing you from loss. Grant, if you will accompany me, I have some questions to ...
— Helping Himself • Horatio Alger
... to human dignity and independence tempts a little comment, especially as this is an aspect of the old order on which I do not remember that we have had much talk. As it seems to us, perhaps the most offensive feature of private capitalism, if one may select among so many offensive features, was its effect to make cowardly, time-serving, abject creatures of human beings, as a consequence of the dependence for a living, of pretty nearly everybody upon some ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... these encounters. To meet such objections as these the Board resolved to allow the sum of L10 per annum to every mariner employed on board their cruisers who should lose a hand or foot, or receive any greater injury by firearms "or other offensive weapons of the smugglers while in the actual execution of their duty so as to disable them from further service; and we have also resolved to pay the surgeons' bills for such of the mariners as may receive slighter wounds." But it was stipulated ...
— King's Cutters and Smugglers 1700-1855 • E. Keble Chatterton
... or four French officers of the army. I perceived by his looks when he entered that he was a little excited, but I met him cordially. He began a conversation about his action with Captain Weatherall, and instead of speaking handsomely as he had done before, he used expressions which I considered offensive, and I at once took him up by observing that being under a flag of truce, it was impossible for me to notice ...
— The Privateer's-Man - One hundred Years Ago • Frederick Marryat
... more strictly to it, and to preserve inviolate the safeguards which it affords to the rights of individual States, and the interests of sectional minorities." 5. Reprobates all legislation or combinations designed to affect the institutions peculiar to the South, as derogatory and offensive to the Southern States, and calculated to "defeat the restoration of peaceful and harmonious sentiments in these States." These dignified and temperate resolutions passed with singular unanimity: the 3d with but three, ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 2, No. 12, May, 1851. • Various
... considerations could blind to the importance of saving Austria and Hungary from the grasp of the Osmanli, overcame all these machinations; and the ratification of the diet was eventually given to a league, offensive and defensive, with Austria, on March 31, 1683—the same day on which the vast host of the Ottomans broke up from its cantonments about Adrianople, and directed its march towards ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 334, August 1843 • Various
... reached Detroit and crossed the river to assume the offensive. He was strongly hopeful of success. The Canadians appeared friendly and several hundred sought his protection. Even the enemy's militia were deserting to his colors. In a proclamation Hull looked forward to a bloodless conquest, informing the Canadians that they ...
— The Fight for a Free Sea: A Chronicle of the War of 1812 - The Chronicles of America Series, Volume 17 • Ralph D. Paine
... motion. I had never heard anything like it before. Something extraordinary was certainly happening. Either the Germans were changing the army in front of us, or else I thought they had got tired of holding the line in our immediate front, and anticipating a strong offensive of which rumors were abroad, they were preparing to retreat to the Rhine. I reported the occurrence to ...
— The Red Watch - With the First Canadian Division in Flanders • J. A. Currie
... with perfect assurance, and yet with nothing of offensive boldness, rather with an air of camaraderie, "but I heard you talking, you two, and I thought I would give you a few points. I don't know whether you know it or not, but I have recently secured the position of cashier there, in Adkins ...
— The Debtor - A Novel • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... herself disdained and slighted. Marriage had not changed Camors's habits: he dined at home, instead of at his club, that was all. She believed herself loved, however, but with a lightness that was almost offensive. Yet, though she was sometimes sad and nearly in tears, she did not despair; this valiant little heart attached itself with intrepid confidence to all the happy chances the future might ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... is now engaged in this nauseous puffery business, and the infection is rapidly spreading to the illustrated weeklies and magazines. No wonder that foreigners have much to say about our bad manners, worse taste, lack of refinement and offensive "loudness," when the "leading society ladies" of the land will pay big prices to have themselves written up like variety actresses or prize cattle, when they will pay to have their portraits paraded ...
— Volume 1 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... standards demanded by the English-reading public, I have not hesitated to authorize the present translation without palliation or amputation, fully convinced that the reader will not find anything in this novel objectionable or offensive to his moral sense. Morality is not to be found in words but in deeds and in the lessons which ...
— Woman Triumphant - (La Maja Desnuda) • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... her at it!" said Dave, with offensive male assumption. "Oy shall see to Mrs. Spicture's toast, and see she gets it hot. And Mrs. Burr she'll give leave to butter it, and say how much, and the soyde edge trimmed round toydy with a knoyf." All these details, safely based on items of ...
— When Ghost Meets Ghost • William Frend De Morgan
... there was a scene between my old aunt and me after our early morning coffee. Thus it is two or three times a week. This time it was about a dirty window-pane, and on this particular morning, exasperated by the continuous gush of her reproaches, I flung an offensive word, and banged the door as I went off to work. So Mame has had to weep all the day. She has fostered and ruminated her spleen, and sniffed up her tears, even while busy with household duties. Then, as the day declined, she ...
— Light • Henri Barbusse
... all the liquid and solid excrements into a manure-cellar underneath the cow-stable. In this cellar, dry swamp-muck, dry earth, or other absorbent material, is mixed with the manure in sufficient quantity to keep down offensive odors. A little dry earth or muck is also used in the stable, scattering it twice a day in the gutters and under the hind legs of the cows. Where this is carried out, it has ...
— Talks on Manures • Joseph Harris
... we have not, except you repute the great plenty of red and fallow deer whose colours are oft garled white and black, all white or all black, and store of conies amongst the hurtful sort. Which although that of themselves they are not offensive at all, yet their great numbers are thought to be very prejudicial, and therefore justly reproved of many, as are in like sort our huge flocks of sheep, whereon the greatest part of our soil is employed almost in every place, and yet our mutton, wool, and felles never the better cheap. The young ...
— Chronicle and Romance (The Harvard Classics Series) • Jean Froissart, Thomas Malory, Raphael Holinshed
... have found that her capacity for hatred had increased and also her dangerous qualities, and she would have found all this because God had so ordered life that it is adaptable, making the defensive and offensive qualities of the being capable of increase or decrease in answer to environment ...
— The Beach of Dreams • H. De Vere Stacpoole
... this indefensible practice. In the first place, the ship should be always put under snug sail; and that part of the vessel, in which the scene takes place, should be completely screened in, and no cruel or offensive practices permitted. The Captain should always have the power of protecting his officers and passengers from being compelled to submit to the demands of old Neptune, by paying a small fine for the exemption: say cabin passengers, five ...
— A Voyage Round the World, Vol. I (of ?) • James Holman
... bore. To cheer him up was quite impossible, and although it seemed to Johnnie that the Cuban climate agreed with him and that he lacked only strength of will to cheat the grave, the mere suggestion of such a thought was offensive to the invalid. He construed every optimistic word, every effort at encouragement, either as a reflection upon his sincerity or as the indication of a heartless indifference to his sufferings. He continued to talk wistfully about joining the Insurrectos, and ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... hate him I came. Weak purpose of a heart too full Of love for you to speak of aught besides! Take your revenge, punish my odious passion; Prove yourself worthy of your valiant sire, And rid the world of an offensive monster! Does Theseus' widow dare to love his son? The frightful monster! Let her not escape you! Here is my heart. This is the place to strike. Already prompt to expiate its guilt, I feel it leap impatiently to meet Your arm. Strike home. Or, if it would disgrace you To steep ...
— Phaedra • Jean Baptiste Racine
... the immediate cause of your present visit. I cannot, however, go so far as to say that I think you have exercised a sound discretion in the matter. In expressing such an opinion, however, I am far from wishing to utter anything which may be irritating or offensive to your feelings." ...
— The Kellys and the O'Kellys • Anthony Trollope
... nonsense had gone far enough, so I brought the conversation back to Mr. Wilde; but he was scanning my face again in a manner highly offensive to me. ...
— The King In Yellow • Robert W. Chambers
... atmosphere of duplicity and lax morals. She had the vices of the Stuarts,—an extravagant idea of the sacred prerogatives of kings, a disregard of popular rights, a willingness to break engagements. Her levity, even if it had been kept within bounds, would have been offensive to her Calvinistic subjects. She had at heart the restoration of the Catholic system. In Knox she found a vigilant and fearless antagonist, with so much support among the nobles and the common people ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... be haughty and contemptuous, and make a parade of rugged and incorruptible honesty. In short, be as vain and offensive ...
— Punch, Vol. 99., July 26, 1890. • Various
... bowman, then, reckless of his very life poured upon the Pandavas, the Panchalas, and the Srinjayas, showers of long shafts and calf-toothed and crescent-shaped arrows. And with weapons, O monarch, he checked with his shafts and with showers of other weapons, both offensive and defensive, all sped with energy and wrath, the five foremost of mighty car-warriors of the Pandavas, who had been struggling vigorously in battle. Excited with wrath, he slaughtered in that battle countless elephants and ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... sexual relationship incurably offensive to others and altogether wrong, and that is cruelty. But who can define cruelty? How far is the leaving of a third person to count as cruelty? There again I hesitate to judge. To love and not be loved is a fate for which it seems no one can be blamed; to lose love and to change one's ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... the courtesy due a guest. But any reference to patriotism was offensive, and he had been particularly provoked. So, behind the broad shoulders of the other he ...
— The Plow-Woman • Eleanor Gates
... as unchristian and unlawful not only all wars, whether offensive or defensive, but all preparations for war; every naval ship, every arsenal, every fortification, we regard as unchristian and unlawful; the existence of any kind of standing army, all military chieftains, all monuments commemorative of victory over a fallen foe, ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... church. He is evidently half way between an idealist and a sentimentalist, with hardly an atom of practical sagacity or knowledge of affairs. The cool dogmatism with which he condemns the great statesmen of his country, is particularly offensive as coming from a man utterly ignorant of the difficulties which a statesman has to encounter. It is curious also to see how extremes meet; this theory of absoluteism "fraternizes" with that of socialism. A person reading, in the second volume, ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 3 September 1848 • Various
... of the duke of Marlborough, he resigned the privy seal, and joined the discontented tories in a motion, extremely offensive to the queen, for inviting the princess Sophia to England. The queen courted him back with an offer no less than that of the chancellorship; which he refused. He now retired from business, and built that house in the Park, which is now the queen's, ...
— Lives of the Poets, Vol. 1 • Samuel Johnson
... of the guests, and the danger arising from the feuds into which they were divided, few of the feasters wore any defensive armour, except the light goat-skin buckler, which hung behind each man's seat. On the other hand, they were well provided with offensive weapons; for the broad, sharp, short, two-edged sword was another legacy of the Romans. Most added a wood-knife or poniard; and there were store of javelins, darts, bows, and arrows, pikes, halberds, Danish axes, and ...
— The Betrothed • Sir Walter Scott
... your negroes be lodged at a proper distance, to prevent them from being troublesome or offensive; but at the same time near enough for your conveniently observing what passes among them. When I say that they ought not to be placed so near your habitation as to be offensive, I mean by that the smell which is natural to some nations of negroes, such as the Congos, the Angolas, the ...
— History of Louisisana • Le Page Du Pratz
... is dead. The news reached Paris by telegram night before last, and the two Messieurs Keller, the Comte de Gondreville, the Marechale Carigliano, in fact the whole family are now at Gondreville. Abd-el-Kader has resumed the offensive in Africa; the war is being vigorously carried on. This poor young man was among the first victims of the renewal of hostilities. You will receive confidential instructions, so Monsieur le prefet told me, in ...
— The Deputy of Arcis • Honore de Balzac
... systems—The Defensive Battle seldom effects positive results (Gettysburg; Fredericksburg)—The Offensive Battle (Marlborough; Frederick the Great; Napoleon; Wellington; Grant; Franco-Prussian War; Battle of Blenheim described)—The Defensive-Offensive Battle (Marengo; Austerlitz; Dresden; Vittoria; Orthez; Toulouse; Waterloo; ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... to assume command of the besieging militia, as the "Continental Army" of America, there are facts which mark the months of that siege, as months of that wise preparation which ensured the success of the war. Washington at once took the offensive. He was eminently aggressive; but neither hasty nor rash. Baron Jomini said that "Napoleon discounted time." So did Washington. Baron Jomini said, also, that "Napoleon was his own best chief-of-staff." So, ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. 1, Issue 1. - A Massachusetts Magazine of Literature, History, - Biography, And State Progress • Various
... series of delicate leaf-like paddles, which probably served as respiratory organs, would appear to have been carried on the under surface of the thorax. That they had their enemies may be regarded as certain; but we have no evidence that they were furnished with any offensive weapons, or, indeed, with any means of defence beyond their hard crust, and the power, possessed by so many of them, of rolling themselves into a ball. An additional proof of the fact that they for the most part crawled along the sea-bottom is found in the ...
— The Ancient Life History of the Earth • Henry Alleyne Nicholson
... evil. A certain degree of power must be granted to public officers, for they would be of no use without it. But the ostensible semblance of authority is by no means indispensable to the conduct of affairs, and it is needlessly offensive to the susceptibility of the public. The public officers themselves are well aware that they only enjoy the superiority over their fellow-citizens which they derive from their authority upon condition of putting themselves on a level with the whole community by their ...
— Democracy In America, Volume 1 (of 2) • Alexis de Tocqueville
... metamorphoseon synagogae]) it is one of the most abominable and obscene stories ever penned even by a Greek. Some of the disgusting details are omitted in the versions of Ovid and Hyginus, but in the least offensive version that can be made the ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... the animal psychologists were warned by the mighty ones in the science that they must interpret their results in terms of consciousness or not call themselves psychologists any longer, they rebelled; and some of the best fighters among them took the offensive, by insisting that human psychology, no less than animal, was properly a study of behavior, and that it had been a great mistake ever to define it as ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... feel far more uncomfortable on a cushion than I do on this bit of hard oak. Our ancestors had an innate sense of form that we have not. Look at these chairs, nothing can be plainer; a cottage stool is hardly more simple, and yet they are not offensive to the eye. I had them made from a ...
— Celibates • George Moore
... out of fifty battles which he fought, he was the assailant in at least forty. Other generals have equalled him in the art of disposing troops on the ground; some have given battle as well as he did—we could mention several who have received it better; but in the manner of directing an offensive campaign he has surpassed all. The wars in Spain and Russia prove nothing in disparagement of his genius. It is not by the rules of Montecuculi and Turenne, manoeuvring on the Renchen, that we ought to judge of such enterprises: the first warred ...
— The Illustrated London Reading Book • Various
... extravagances with impunity. There is a striking difference in this respect between him and Addison, who, if he attacked authority, took care to have common sense on his side, and never hazarded anything offensive to the feelings of others, or on the strength of his own discretional opinion. There is another inconvenience in this assumption of an exotic character and tone of sentiment, that it produces an inconsistency between the knowledge which the individual has time to acquire, and which the author ...
— Hazlitt on English Literature - An Introduction to the Appreciation of Literature • Jacob Zeitlin
... something almost mysterious in the Garlick that it should be so thoroughly acceptable, almost indispensable, to many thousands, while to others it is so horribly offensive as to be unbearable. The Garlick of Egypt was one of the delicacies that the Israelites looked back to with fond regret, and we know from Herodotus that it was the daily food of the Egyptian labourer; yet, in later times, the Mohammedan legend recorded that "when Satan stepped ...
— The plant-lore & garden-craft of Shakespeare • Henry Nicholson Ellacombe
... far as their mutual relation was concerned; though rambling and scrambling, restricted by mediocrity of income (L400 a year, made up between the two fathers), and pestered by the continual, and to Percy at last very offensive, presence of Miss Westbrook as an inmate of the house. They lived in York, Keswick in Cumberland, Dublin (which Shelley visited as an express advocate of Catholic emancipation and repeal of the Union), Nantgwillt in Radnorshire, Lynmouth in Devonshire, ...
— Adonais • Shelley
... beginning to make its influence felt at the time under discussion was the feudal system. Hitherto, civilized Europe had depended for offensive and defensive operations on large slow-moving armies of foot-folk; these were ineffective against marauding barbarians, Vikings in their sharp-prowed ships, or the light cavalry of Hungarian or Saracen. Moreover, the governmental system organized by Charlemagne had ...
— From a Terrace in Prague • Lieut.-Col. B. Granville Baker
... It was needful for the security of the priest and the tranquillity of the religious rites that he should keep watch outside, lest any of the more fanatical of the Huguenots should deem it their duty to break in on what they had worked themselves into believing offensive idolatry. ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... country—an opinion not intended for your ears, but addressed to a compatriot of the speaker—of English people in general, based upon his experience of those whom he has seen. Such an experience is quite illuminating. I know few things more offensive than the behaviour of a certain class of German when he is in Paris. The noisy, nasal American at the Carlton or Savoy is no more representative of America than the loud-voiced, check-suited Englishman at Delmonico's or the Waldorf-Astoria is the man by whom ...
— The Twentieth Century American - Being a Comparative Study of the Peoples of the Two Great - Anglo-Saxon Nations • H. Perry Robinson
... Figueras. Motion to permit a loss of two per cent. a month on assignats. Vernier, successor to Cambon, states the expence of the last campaign at 3,000,000,000 in assignats; and the last month at 738 millions. 15. An alliance offensive and defensive concluded at the Hague between France and Holland; the first article excludes the Stadtholder for ever; the second assures to France one million of livres for the expence of the war. A vigorous action near Mayence. Great agitation at Naples; several disturbers ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... vulgar, and malicious. In the Mississippi book the author gives his first interview with Brown, also his last one. For good reasons these occasions were burned into his memory, and they may be accepted as substantially correct. Brown had an offensive manner. His first ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... brutality was to the full as unworthy of the simplicity of intellect;* and that the aversion to cant, which was the strongest characteristic of his mind, led him into the very faults he despised, only through a more displeasing and offensive road. That same aversion to cant is, by the way, the greatest and most prevalent enemy to the reputation of high and of strong minds; and in judging Swift's character in especial, we should always bear it in recollection. This aversion—the very antipodes to ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... lamp-scissors, rags for wiping off oil, can all find place here. See that lamp-rags are burned now and then, and fresh ones taken; as the smell of kerosene is very penetrating, and a room is often made unpleasant by the presence of dirty lamp-rags. If properly cared for, lamps need be no more offensive than gas. ...
— The Easiest Way in Housekeeping and Cooking - Adapted to Domestic Use or Study in Classes • Helen Campbell
... heavy china bowl as if tempted to bounce it from Blaze's head. Then, not deigning to argue, she whisked past him and into the sick-room. It was evident from her expression that she considered the master of the house a harmless but offensive old busybody. ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach
... depict the general spirit of his subject—as if he were copying from memory, not from a few particular sittings. An ordinary painter will delineate with rigid fidelity, and will make a caricature. But the learned artist contrives so to temper his composition, as to sink all offensive peculiarities and hardnesses of individuality, without diminishing the striking effect of the likeness, or acquainting the casual spectator with the secret of his art. Miss Edgeworth's representations of the Irish character ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... fighting for a cause now lost. Perhaps it is pride on my part to remind you that my early predictions have come true, and perhaps it is a wish that the thought I may plant in your mind will spread to others. You have lost at Gettysburg a hope and an offensive that you can never regain, and Grant at Vicksburg has given a death blow to the Western ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... towards corporate activity and capital today, much of it founded in reason, more in apprehension, and a large measure is due to the personal traits of arbitrary, unreasonable, incompetent, and offensive men in positions of authority. The accomplishment of results by indirection, the endeavor to thwart the intention, if not the expressed letter of the law (the will of the people), a disregard of the rights of others, a disposition ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... sweets was uncanny. He had an extra sense in that direction, which was a trouble to all smaller boys. No matter how cunningly one concealed a sticky treasure, just when one was secretly enjoying it he came leaping out of space with the most offensive friendliness crinkling all over his face, and his desire to participate in the confection was ...
— Here are Ladies • James Stephens
... demand from the Nizam the cession of ... Guntoor. In this mission he was eminently successful, not only obtaining that which he came to demand, but inducing the Nizam to enter into a treaty of offensive and defensive alliance against Tippoo Sultan. For this service His Majesty was pleased to create him a baronet (1791), and he received a mark of still further approbation from the Court of Directors (East India Company) in a vote which they ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... not ill-looking; but there was an expression upon her countenance that precluded the idea of either virtue, honesty, or amiability. It was a mixed expression of malice and cunning. Her manner, too, was bold and offensive, like that of one who had been guilty of some known crime, and had become reckless. It was only of late she had assumed that tone, and her mistress had observed ...
— The White Chief - A Legend of Northern Mexico • Mayne Reid
... party felt the effect of the other's fire, and when daylight came again the skirmishers and lines of battle were in about the same position they had taken up the evening before. Soon after daybreak it became evident that the conflict was to be renewed, and a little later the enemy resumed the offensive by an attack along my left front, especially on Walker's brigade. His attempt was ineffectual, however, and so easily repulsed as to demonstrate that the desperate character of his assaults the day before had nearly exhausted ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. I., Part 2 • P. H. Sheridan
... a manufacturer of silk. The provincial accent notwithstanding, his conversation on general subjects soon declared him a man of logical mind and of much homely information. A sufficient self-esteem allied itself with his force of character, but robust amiability prevented this from becoming offensive; he had the sense of humour, and enjoyed a laugh at himself as well as at other people. Though his life had been absorbed in the pursuit of solid gain, he was no scorner of the attainments which lay beyond his own scope, and in these latter years, now that the ...
— The Emancipated • George Gissing
... waste so sensibly. Prof. Willoughby visited him a few days before he died. He found the skin very cold, the respiration feeble and slow, but otherwise natural; but the effluvia from the breath, and perhaps the skin, were extremely offensive. During the greater part of the latter week of his life the parents say there was a considerable discharge of foul reddish matter from the lungs. To this perhaps the offensive smell referred to ...
— Fasting Girls - Their Physiology and Pathology • William Alexander Hammond
... in turn, slowly. There was nothing unpleasant in the intonation, and Thorpe's sharp glance failed to detect any trace of offensive intention in his companion's fatuous visage. Yet it seemed to pass between the two men that Gafferson was surprised, and that there were abundant grounds for ...
— The Market-Place • Harold Frederic
... she had to be constantly on the watch. To be continually in a state of fear and strife was very trying. And Maslova was specially exposed to attacks, her appearance being attractive and her past known to every one. The decided resistance with which she now met the importunity of all the men seemed offensive to them, and awakened another feeling, that of ill-will towards her. But her position was made a little easier by her intimacy with Theodosia, and Theodosia's husband, who, having heard of the molestations ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... in a counter-offensive, were striving to regain some of the lost ground, and, for the moment, were driving before them the French and American forces. Back rushed the advance lines to their supporting columns, and Drew, seeing some of his own messmates, ...
— The Moving Picture Boys on the War Front - Or, The Hunt for the Stolen Army Films • Victor Appleton
... and I perceive that you are very much offensed. One time more I demand pardon; but I cannot be like you want, and by consequence I can never more call myself your dear godchild; if you love me not, and I am offensive, I have not business of you and your silver. Please give it to one unhappy little boy. It is worth better that I have hunger, it is worth better that I be made dead by the boches, than to be like one little mendicant. I demand to Maman if it is not ...
— Deer Godchild • Marguerite Bernard and Edith Serrell
... send to her—the Sheegowish."[85] He insisted; and she at last consented to take something, throwing it in at the door, with the remark, "My son gives you, or feeds you this." But it was of such on offensive nature that she threw it ...
— The Myth of Hiawatha, and Other Oral Legends, Mythologic and Allegoric, of the North American Indians • Henry R. Schoolcraft
... that there was something you had done, something in your past which, if known, might utterly preclude the possibility of your obtaining what you wanted—it is an absurd hypothesis, of course: but let us use it for the sake of argument. We will say you had done your best to live down that offensive 'something' done, and were still doing all that lay in your power to atone for it; that nobody but one person shared the knowledge of that 'something' with you, and upon his silence you could rely. Now ...
— Cleek: the Man of the Forty Faces • Thomas W. Hanshew
... independence made any common government impossible. Neither Austria nor Prussia would submit to any external authority, or to one another; the Kings of Bavaria and Wuertemberg were equally jealous of their independence. All that could be done was to establish a permanent offensive and defensive alliance between these States. For the management of common concerns, a Diet was appointed to meet at Frankfort; the Diet, however, was only a union of diplomatists; they had to act in accordance with instructions from their governments and they ...
— Bismarck and the Foundation of the German Empire • James Wycliffe Headlam
... He belonged, moreover, to a race whose laws, modes, and habits of thought forbade satire and humor; very naturally, therefore, he listened to his friend with varying feelings; one moment indignant, then uncertain how to take him. The superior airs assumed had been offensive to him in the beginning; soon they became irritating, and at last an acute smart. Anger lies close by this point in all of us; and that the satirist evoked in another way. To the Jew of the Herodian period patriotism was a savage passion scarcely ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... persistent inquiries of neighbours about someone who is long in dying. An unfortunate husband was bothered each morning by repeated calls from children, who were sent by busy mothers to find out "Just how Miss Blake was feeling this morning." At last this became offensive, and he said: "Well, she's just the same—she ain't no better and she ain't no worse—she keeps just about so—she's just about dead, ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... as you understand it," and she felt it was very difficult to make him understand it, as the discovery involved a very offensive implication; "he is too fine a ...
— Queechy, Volume II • Elizabeth Wetherell
... The Wealdian main fleet waited. There was no offensive movement by the fleet. There was no defensive action from the ground. With fusion-bombs certain to be involved in any actual conflict, there was something like an embarrassed pause. The Wealdian ships were ready ...
— This World Is Taboo • Murray Leinster
... age of a man nowadays, sir, is a thing impossible to know," says Miss Majendie. "You wear glasses—a capital disguise! I mean nothing offensive—so far—sir, but it behoves me to be careful, and behind those glasses, who can tell what demon lurks? Nay! No offence! An innocent man would feel ...
— A Little Rebel • Mrs. Hungerford
... of kissing his hand in token of her respect and gratitude;—but that had been done often enough, and could not very well be repeated in the cab. So they sat silent, and he was rejoiced when he saw those offensive words, Popham Villa, on the posts of his gateway. "We have only a humble little house, my dear," he said, as they turned in. She looked at him and smiled. "I believe you West Indians generally ...
— Ralph the Heir • Anthony Trollope
... too apt, in considering the ways and habits of any people, to judge of them by the effect of those ways and habits on us, rather than by their effects on the owners of them. When we go among garlic eaters, we condemn them because they are offensive to us; but to judge of them properly we should ascertain whether or no the garlic be offensive to them. If we could imagine a nation of vegetarians hearing for the first time of our habits as flesh eaters, we should feel sure ...
— Volume 1 • Anthony Trollope
... with Enver Bey. His scheme is flatly revolutionary, namely, the deposition of Abdul, a secret alliance, offensive and defensive, with us; the Germanisation of the Turkish army and navy; the fortification of the Gallipoli district according to our plans; a steadily increasing pressure on Serbia; a final reckoning with Russia which is definitely to settle the status of Albania and Serbia ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... handsome Villa Residence' Means mud-built walls and clay-clogged walks; And drains offensive to the sense, And swamps whence ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, October 8, 1892 • Various
... she found no slightest thing offensive in the young man's veiled, approving surveillance, Anna felt almost as if she were in flight from peril—some brand-new, delightful peril—as, now, she hurried out of range of it and sought her father where, by the after-hatch, he perched upon a great coiled cable staring, staring, staring out across ...
— The Old Flute-Player - A Romance of To-day • Edward Marshall and Charles T. Dazey
... were manned by British seaman, and Captain Foster could talk like this without saying anything offensive to the British merchant service. Nowadays such an observation about "Dutchmen" would be a personal insult to four-fifths of the crew of a British ...
— Foster's Letter Of Marque - A Tale Of Old Sydney - 1901 • Louis Becke
... public, and not yet utterly expelled from that of the profession, are at the bottom of this, or contribute to it largely. One of the most ancient is, that disease is a malignant agency, or entity, to be driven out of the body by offensive substances, as the smoke of the fish's heart and liver drove the devil out of Tobit's bridal chamber, according to the Apochrypha. Epileptics used to suck the blood from the wounds of dying gladiators. [Plinii Hist. Mundi. lib. xxviii. c. 4.] The Hon. Robert Boyle's little book ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... the great walls, the strong ramparts that divide the two kingdoms, and had driven off a great quantity of stock that his people also had there; 6th, because the Chinese had induced other Tartars, his enemies, to write him some very offensive letters; and, 7th, because in different wars the Chinese of Leatum had aided his enemies, although this was without the knowledge of the king of China. Wherefore he asked that the Chinese king should order the people of ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898 • Emma Helen Blair
... highest of high divinities, and as such had celebrated him in song. But he had been unfortunate in his first actual experience of him. He had found him, not "pacing Heaven's golden floor," but staggering across Miss Grace's drawing-room, a most offensive, fifth-rate, disreputable little god. Of course he knew it wasn't the same thing, it wasn't the same thing at all. But he was bound by his past. He had forged a chain of infamous but irresistible association ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... bring himself to go away. As the evening advanced he thought: "How foolish! What madness it was to think of such a thing!" He was easier after that, and began to listen to the talk of the people about him. It was free, but not offensive. In the frequent intervals some of the men played with the girls, pushing and nudging and joking with them, and the girls laughed and answered back. Occasionally one of them would turn her head aside and look into John's face with a saucy smile. "God forbid ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... winter prevent communication with the Faubourg St. Germain; and I was thinking I would speak to you on the subject." He approached the window, and, looking out, said, "You are right, it is very ugly; and very offensive to see dirty linen washed before our windows. Here, write immediately: 'The quay of the Ecole de Natation is to be finished during next campaign.' Send that order to the Minister of the Interior." The quay was finished the ...
— Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte, Complete • Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne
... belonging to this hospital, the one in Kent Street, called the Lock, and the other at Kingsland, whither such unfortunate people as are afflicted with the French disease are sent and taken care of, that they may not prove offensive to the rest; for surely more miserable objects never were beheld, many of them having their noses and great part of their faces eaten off, and become so noisome frequently, that their stench cannot be borne, their very bones rotting ...
— London in 1731 • Don Manoel Gonzales
... 75) refers to this custom and exclaims, rapturously, "Oh! how strong is a mother's love when even the offensive and putrid clay can be thus worshipped for the spirit that once was its tenant"(!!). Angas was an uneducated scribbler, but what shall we say on finding his sentimental view accepted by the professional German anthropologists, Gerland ...
— Primitive Love and Love-Stories • Henry Theophilus Finck
... me to say, is to fight behind trees and rocks and hedges and earthworks: never to risk a man in the open except where absolutely necessary, and when absolute victory is sure. To husband her resources in men and means is the South's first duty, sir. I hope General Lee will never fight another offensive battle." ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... his majesty's sense of the invariable consideration and friendship with which his majesty's subjects are treated by the citizens of America. There appears to be a universal wish among the Americans to cultivate an alliance, offensive and defensive, with his majesty of Russia. The cry is, "all the Russians want is a fleet, and we'll lend them that." In fact, a deadly animosity pervades America towards Great Britain; and although it is not publicly confessed, for the Americans are too able ...
— A Ramble of Six Thousand Miles through the United States of America • S. A. Ferrall
... preserved by discipline. I was always struck, not merely by the courtesy of the men, but also by a certain sober decency of language. If a man had to report to me any disagreeable fact, for instance, he was sure to do it with gravity and decorum, and not blurt it out in an offensive way. And it certainly was a significant fact that the ladies of our camp, when we were so fortunate as to have such guests, the young wives, especially, of the adjutant and quartermaster, used to go among the tents when the men ...
— Army Life in a Black Regiment • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... objectionable than the close proximity of a stable, or even of a large number of horses picqueted in the open,—I have frequently been camped where fifty or sixty elephants were for several days in the same position within a hundred yards of the tents, and still there was no offensive scent. ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... envy and arrogance, all positive vices, are the characteristics that ultimate themselves in ill-manners. Rudeness is, as it were, the offensive odor exhaled from the corrupt fruit of an evil tree; and he who would be a branch of the true vine must remember, whenever he is tempted to do a rude thing, that he will never yield to such temptation unless there is hidden somewhere upon his branch fruit that should ...
— The Elements of Character • Mary G. Chandler
... to the fact that nearly fifty years ago Mr. Edwin Chadwick impressed upon the community the evils which were caused by the impure condition of the air in our towns owing to the retention of refuse around houses. The speaker remarked that the gases, which were the result of putrefaction, were offensive to the smell, and some of them, such as sulphureted hydrogen, when present in undue proportions in the air, would kill persons outright, or when those gases were in smaller proportions in the air breathed by people, there would ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 358, November 11, 1882 • Various
... disregarding the general indictment as though he had not heard a word of it, took up the defence of Barrios. The man was competent enough for his special task in the plan of campaign. It consisted in an offensive movement, with Cayta as base, upon the flank of the Revolutionist forces advancing from the south against Sta. Marta, which was covered by another army with the President-Dictator in its midst. Don Jose became quite ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... toward the northeast, too. We'll go in the direction of Piqua and Chillicothe, their big towns. As we've concluded over and over again, the offensive is the best defensive, and we'll push it to the utmost. What's your opinion, Sol? Who do you think will be the next leader to come ...
— The Eyes of the Woods - A story of the Ancient Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... grayish white color. They are very delicate and spoil quickly if allowed to stand for any length of time in a warm place. There are two general methods of canning shrimp—the "dry pack" and "wet pack." Nearly all the trade now calls for "wet pack" because the other always has a rather offensive odor and the meat is never so fresh and sweet of flavor as the "wet pack." Canned shrimp is very pleasing to the taste and is preferred by many to ...
— Every Step in Canning • Grace Viall Gray
... some slower hours; and what you see here is but the interest: it is one of his whose Roman pen had as much true passion for the infirmities of that state, as we should have pity to the distractions of our own: honest—I am sure—it is, and offensive cannot be, except it meet with such spirits that will quarrel with antiquity, or purposely arraign themselves. These indeed may think that they have slept out so many centuries in this satire and are now awakened; which, had it been ...
— Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist, Volume II • Henry Vaughan
... influences from abroad; 5. Domestic spiritual history.—Perhaps I have not quite done with them yet, but may make them the block of a new and somewhat larger structure for Boston, next winter. The newspaper reports of them in New York were such offensive misstatements, that I could not send you, as I wished, a sketch. Between my two speeches at Baltimore, I went to Washington, thirty-seven miles, and spent four days. The two poles of an enormous political battery, galvanic coil on coil, self-increased by series on series of plates from ...
— The Correspondence of Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson, 1834-1872, Vol II. • Thomas Carlyle and Ralph Waldo Emerson
... was in all ways so foreign to my friend's nature that I was daunted out of all my just susceptibility. Sure, an offensive expression, however vivacious, appears a wonderfully small affair in circumstances so extreme! But here there is a strange thing to be noted. He had only once before referred to the lady with whom he was contracted. ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition, Vol. XII (of 25) - The Master of Ballantrae • Robert Louis Stevenson
... mythology as connected with literature for our province, we have endeavored to omit nothing which the reader of elegant literature is likely to find occasion for. Such stories and parts of stories as are offensive to pure taste and good morals are not given. But such stories are not often referred to, and if they occasionally should be, the English reader need feel no mortification in ...
— Bulfinch's Mythology • Thomas Bulfinch
... was, there 's no material Objection to our union to-day; No risk remains of that offensive cereal Being employed in such a reckless way; You can say "Yes" without one apprehensive Thought that your brother is, a deadly shot; Rice as a missile now is too ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, March 17, 1920 • Various
... life and death,' I said, 'don't you understand?' It drooped its eyes half shut and said, 'Then why don't you go the other two hundred pounds?' I'd rather live in a world of solid wasps than give in to the stonewalling stupidity of that offensive creature. I—" ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells
... few seconds; then he went on. "I'm beginning to grasp the situation, I believe. Let me tell you a few things about the Hlats, major. For one, they form quite pronounced likes and dislikes. Eltak, for example, would have been described by most of his fellow men as a rather offensive person. But the Hlats actually became rather fond of him during the fifteen or so years he lived on ...
— Lion Loose • James H. Schmitz
... subject to his authority; and the success of his rebellion encouraged the ambition of every leader of the foreign mercenaries. The use to which Alaric applied his new command, distinguishes the firm and judicious character of his policy. He issued his orders to the four magazines and manufactures of offensive and defensive arms, Margus, Ratiaria, Naissus, and Thessalonica, to provide his troops with an extraordinary supply of shields, helmets, swords, and spears; the unhappy provincials were compelled to forge the instruments ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 3 • Edward Gibbon
... whole of that winter there was very little for the higher commands to do, except to collect and send up material for the trenches, and to try and keep pace with the German developments—for we could do little or nothing in the way of offensive action. ...
— The Doings of the Fifteenth Infantry Brigade - August 1914 to March 1915 • Edward Lord Gleichen
... encroachments of a savage enemy, aided by British emissaries, and led on by American tories. The accession to its strength, caused by the number of emigrants, who came into the different settlements, was indeed considerable; yet it was insufficient, to enable the inhabitants to purchase by offensive operations, exemption from [173] invasion, or security from the tomahawk and scalping knife. Assured of this, Virginia extended to them farther assistance; and a small body of regular troops, under the command of General McIntosh, was ...
— Chronicles of Border Warfare • Alexander Scott Withers
... am unjust to him; but I thought he treated us all with a sort of bland pity that I found very offensive.' ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... After the offensive announcement that the students were to deliver up their money to the principal, and take his receipt for it, the crew were dismissed from muster, after being informed that the business of receiving ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... our people to land on its shores, and, on the other hand, I was reluctant to deny to the great interests of the world and of civilization the facilities of such communication as were proposed. I therefore withheld any resistance to the landing of the cable on condition that the offensive monopoly feature of the concession be abandoned, and that the right of any cable which may be established by authority of this Government to land upon French territory and to connect with French land lines and enjoy all the necessary facilities or privileges incident to the use ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... house is his castle. As much so as though it had drawbridge, portcullis, redoubt, bastion and armed turret. Even the officer of the law may not enter to serve a writ, except the door be voluntarily opened unto him; burglary, or the invasion of it, a crime so offensive that the law clashes its iron jaws on any one who attempts it. Unless it be necessary to stay for longer or shorter time in family hotel or boarding-house—and there are thousands of instances in which it is necessary, as I showed you ...
— The Wedding Ring - A Series of Discourses for Husbands and Wives and Those - Contemplating Matrimony • T. De Witt Talmage
... declaration that I do not mean to produce a conflict between the states, but I have tried to show by fair reasoning that I propose nothing but what has a most peaceful tendency. The quotation that "a house divided against itself cannot stand," and which has proved so offensive to Judge Douglas, was part of the same thing. He tries to show that variety in the domestic institutions of the different states is necessary and indispensable. I do not dispute it. I very readily agree with ...
— Standard Selections • Various
... But I wouldn't think about it. I would enjoy the present. But the calm waters of happiness had been ruffled and it was beyond my power to restore their tranquillity. I began to think of many things, of the war itself, of the possible offensive, and soon the fretful rebellious discontent, that obsessed all those of us who had not lost their ...
— Combed Out • Fritz August Voigt
... passing from hand to hand, before it is multiplied by a transcript. It is easy to convey an imperfect book, by a distant hand, to the press, and plead the circulation of a false copy, as an excuse for publishing the true, or to correct what is found faulty or offensive, and charge the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 6 - Reviews, Political Tracts, and Lives of Eminent Persons • Samuel Johnson
... the busiest of the two; But ah, methinks you'd tell a diff'rent tale If two whole days beyond the garden pale You were to leave the mattock and the spade And all at once take up the poet's trade: To give a manuscript a fairer face, And all the beauty of poetic grace; Or give the most offensive flower that blows Carnation's sweets, and colours of the rose; And change the homely language of the clown To suit the courtly readers of the town— Just such a work, in fact, I mean to say, As well might please the critics ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 14, Issue 382, July 25, 1829 • Various
... estimate its moral and intellectual value is difficult, for like so much in Hinduism it offers the sharpest contrasts. Its obvious manifestations may seem to be acts of devotion which cannot be commended ethically and belief in puerile stories: yet we find that this offensive trash continually turns into gems of religious thought unsurpassed in the annals of Buddhism ...
— Hinduism And Buddhism, Volume II. (of 3) - An Historical Sketch • Charles Eliot
... support. He had left heavy college bills, and he had quite made up his mind that he would not be a minister and that he would be a lawyer. He could scarcely have decided on two things more offensive to his father. Only for the hope of having a minister in the family had Peter submitted to his son's continued demands for money. For this end he had bought books, and paid for all kinds of teachers and tours, and sighed over the cost of Ronald's different hobbies. And now he was not ...
— Winter Evening Tales • Amelia Edith Huddleston Barr
... frequent than any dull avenue or easy sequence. Lady Sandgate was shiningly modern, and perhaps at no point more so than by the effect of her express repudiation of a mundane future certain to be more and more offensive to women of real quality and of formed taste. Clearly, at any rate, in her hands, the clue to the antique confidence had lost itself, and repose, however founded, had given way to curiosity—that is to speculation—however disguised. ...
— The Outcry • Henry James
... intimation that the ministry had sent a surgeon to execute what was proposed, and that the instruments and dressings were prepared in the next room. Alarmed and terrified at this sudden appointment, he flew to the other end of the room, and, snatching up an earthen chamber-pot, which was the only offensive weapon in the place, put himself in a posture of defence, and with many oaths threatened to try the temper of the barber's skull, if he should presume to set his nose within ...
— The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle, Volume I • Tobias Smollett
... 144-45.—46. Horunga Vog, read Hjorunga Vagr in Icelandic, or Vaag in Danish. In Romany Rye (p. 359) it is Englished as "Horinger Bay".—50. Hickathrift: A Norfolk worthy of the eleventh century, whose prodigious exploits with the axle of his cart as an offensive weapon, and the wheel as a shield, are handed down in the chap-books of the last three centuries. See p. 63; also Bibliog. at the end of Romany Rye.—51. Elzigood: William E., of Heigham, Norwich, ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... good reason why you should allow your righteousness to become offensive, as that of the ranter, who hates rather than pities iniquity because, in his opinion, God is a God of vengeance," I suggested ironically. "But rather let your virtues grow ...
— The Touchstone of Fortune • Charles Major
... French sea link between the Old World and the New; therefore its breaking was of supreme importance. It was the one real fortress ever heard of in America, and it was in absolutely alien hands; therefore, so ran New England logic, it was most offensive to all true Britons, New Englanders, and Puritans; to all rivals in smuggling, trade, and privateering; and ...
— The Great Fortress - A Chronicle of Louisbourg 1720-1760 • William Wood
... walking along the street in Peking, I passed a gateway from which there came an odour that was not only offensive but sickening. I went on a little distance further and entered one of the best curio shops of the city, and going into the back room, I found the odour of the street emphasized tenfold, as one of the employees of the firm had just ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland
... stout Frenchmen. But, even as he searched his brain for words that would convey to them in their native tongue his disapproval of this jostling, he perceived that they, though stout and in a general way offensive, were in this particular respect guiltless. The prodding hand belonged to somebody invisible behind them. It was small and gloved, a woman's hand. It held ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... and some part of the old building required to be covered from the eye, the vacant ground, which was large, is very happily cast into a wilderness, with a labyrinth and espaliers so high that they effectually take off all that part of the old building which would have been offensive to the sight. This labyrinth and wilderness is not only well designed, and completely finished, but is perfectly well kept, and the espaliers filled exactly at bottom, to the very ground, and are led up to ...
— From London to Land's End - and Two Letters from the "Journey through England by a Gentleman" • Daniel Defoe
... in the general economy of nature, it is but too true that farmers and gardeners often find them a pest, and with each returning summer the pages of agricultural journals abound with remedies, offensive and defensive, against the obnoxious invaders. In such cases, it becomes desirable to know what remedial means are the most efficacious, and we are glad to find that the question has been taken up by persons competent to discuss ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 425 - Volume 17, New Series, February 21, 1852 • Various
... moral fibre, a culpable setting of attainments, or of convenience, above creed, in the administration of the household. Once had Lady Isabel been actually overheard by Evans, offering to a friend, in excuse for the indifferent show made by her household in the parish church, the offensive explanation that "R.C.'s were so sympathetic, and so easy to find, while Protestants were not only scarce, but were so proud of being Protestants, and expected so much admiration"—here she had perceived the presence of Evans, and had unavailingly begun upon the weather, ...
— Mount Music • E. Oe. Somerville and Martin Ross
... it best to take the offensive. "I haven't betrayed myself," I said angrily. "Somebody must have done it for me. I've not left the hut since I came down except for an occasional breath ...
— A Rogue by Compulsion • Victor Bridges
... already been condemned by the Church, and in particular by the Council of Constance, and such judgments must suffice if anything were to be held settled in Christianity. He promised him, however, if he would retract the offensive articles, that his other writings should be fairly dealt with, and finally demanded a plain answer "without horns" to the question whether he intended to adhere to all he had written or would retract ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 9 • Various |
