"Defeat" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... She realized that Greek had met Greek and in the combat of wills she was vanquished. Nevertheless, she was not generous enough to own defeat. ...
— The Wall Between • Sara Ware Bassett
... their action. The time of three hundred eighty thousand soldiers would expire in October. He must have half a million to take their places. A Congressman objected that elections were approaching; that the rigorous law he proposed would be intensely unpopular; that it might mean the defeat, at the polls, of many Republican Representatives; it might even mean the President's defeat. He replied that he had ...
— Lincoln • Nathaniel Wright Stephenson
... went out of the house exhausted and almost hopeless. The source of his strength had failed within him. He looked forward to defeat. ...
— The Zeit-Geist • Lily Dougall
... misconceptions, and weak misapprehensions, and miserable blunders, upon them.—They will be inclined, rather, to challenge the world to establish one blot in what they love so well; and would gladly stake all upon the issue of a conflict before a fair tribunal,—if submission might follow upon defeat. ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... ears should meet. And as a whirlwind they came against rebellion, raining raven-feathered arrows in a storm of death; and they prevailed against Hi-lie and his people. Then those that survived destruction and defeat submitted, and promised allegiance; and once more was the law of righteousness restored. But Tchin-King had been dead for ...
— Some Chinese Ghosts • Lafcadio Hearn
... those to which only Bad Temper can blind them. Those spectres foreshadow grim fate; they are Lawlessness, Ruin, Starvation; To the Thunderer dismal defeat, to the conquerors ...
— Punch Among the Planets • Various
... was rivalry with the emperor, combined with an eager desire to recover his influence in Italy, and to restore France to the position in Europe which had been lost by the defeat of Pavia, and the failure of Lautrec at Naples. This was his first object, to which every other was subsidiary. He was disinclined to a rupture with the pope; but the possibility of such a rupture had been long contemplated by French statesmen. It was a contingency ...
— The Reign of Henry the Eighth, Volume 1 (of 3) • James Anthony Froude
... venison still hung on the tree. These were permitted to remain—as a bait to the singular trap that Ossaroo was about to set—only that they were raised higher from the ground, in order that the tiger might not too readily snatch them away, and thus defeat the stratagem of ...
— The Plant Hunters - Adventures Among the Himalaya Mountains • Mayne Reid
... me? My mind confesses defeat and struggles none the less. Could he be a brother? Can it be possible, after all, that my name is B. Jones? Anything seems possible. Yet a thought shows me that this supposition is untenable. If I am ...
— Who Goes There? • Blackwood Ketcham Benson
... at once straight to the exaggeration which is the sure forerunner of defeat in the sort of a conflict which was engaging her. "Are you feeling any worse?" she cried in a despairing incredulity which was instantly marked as inhumanly unfilial by the scared revulsion on her face as well as Mrs. Emery's pale glare of horror. ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... shipping companies. The absolute refusal of the New Zealand Government to recognize The Federation of Labor, or to interfere with the new Unions under the Arbitration Act that had taken their place, finally settled the question, and completed the defeat of the strikers. The officials of the Federation declared the strike at an end, and the Australian Federation announced that the boycott was also at ...
— The Unpopular Review, Volume II Number 3 • Various
... god ought not, For the gods are not malicious, To have promised victory;— It would have been quite sufficient, Without this most false assurance, The defeat to have permitted. Then if God must be all sight, Every god should see distinctly With clear vision to the end; Seeing THAT, he erred in fixing On a false conclusion; then Though the deity may with fitness Be divided into ...
— The Wonder-Working Magician • Pedro Calderon de la Barca
... assault, in the sudden neutrality of some of its most ostentatious champions, and in the general reserve of its supporters in the House. Even the superb perseverance of Pitt was beginning to be weary of a contest, in which victory lost its fruits on the one side, while defeat seemed only to give fresh vigour on the other. But a new triumph was to ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... that came was the fox. He looked at the snare anxiously, from a distance, and, approaching cautiously, soon made himself thoroughly acquainted with its size and power. Then he cried, "Thus do I defeat the machinations of my enemies!"—and, avoiding the trap altogether, by leaping completely over it, he went on his ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, September 1878, No. 11 • Various
... The defeat of Burr dashed the hopes of the Federalists of New England; the bubble of a Northern Confederacy vanished. It dashed also Burr's personal ambitions: he could no longer hope for political rehabilitation in New York. And the ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... General Walker's lawless invasion of Central America in 1858, he took pains to make it plain that it was the filibusters' method, and not their object, which he condemned. In fact, he condemned their method chiefly because its tendency was to defeat their object. ...
— Stephen Arnold Douglas • William Garrott Brown
... senseless provision for simply restricting the discretion of the king in giving names to his own officers who should preside at the trials of particular offences; as if the king, who made and unmade all his officers by a word, could not defeat the whole object of the prohibition, by appointing such individuals as he pleased, to try such causes as he pleased, and calling them by such names as he pleased, if he were but permitted to appoint and name such officers ...
— An Essay on the Trial By Jury • Lysander Spooner
... information on the subject. Had I as persistently applied myself to my profession, and resorted to half as many tricks and ways to gain my clients' cases, it would have been out of the range of probability for my opponents to ever defeat me. I might have had a practice which would have required the aid of a score or more partners. I understand very well that such statements as this are not likely to exalt me in the reader's estimation, but I started out to tell the truth, and I shall ...
— Fifteen Years in Hell • Luther Benson
... ship that had been allowed to sail so leisurely into Carlisle Bay under her false colours was a Spanish privateer, coming to pay off some of the heavy debt piled up by the predaceous Brethren of the Coast, and the recent defeat by the Pride of Devon of two treasure galleons bound for Cadiz. It happened that the galleon which escaped in a more or less crippled condition was commanded by Don Diego de Espinosa y Valdez, who was own brother to the Spanish Admiral Don Miguel de Espinosa, ...
— Captain Blood • Rafael Sabatini
... against such a serious contingency—when the battle has been fought and lost, and great interests are seriously compromised, or for ever sacrificed—then the client is apt, in the first smarting agony of defeat, to forget the chance which he had been content to run, and to persuade himself that he had from the first calculated as a matter of certainty on the great man's attendance—and intense is that client's chagrin, and loud are his complaints. Can ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... that instances of this sort, respecting Gypsies, are not very numerous; seeing all writers concur in stating, every attempt by coercive means to alter the peculiar habits of this people, have had a tendency to alienate them still more from civil associations, and directly to defeat the end proposed. It is time therefore that a better and a more enlightened policy should be adopted in Europe, towards a race of human beings, under so many hereditary disadvantages as are the helpless, the ...
— A Historical Survey of the Customs, Habits, & Present State of the Gypsies • John Hoyland
... respectable inhabitants. So the Cadi drew it up, and came and read it to me, and took my deposition and witnessed my signature, and the Maohn went his way rejoicing, in that 'the words of the Englishwoman' would utterly defeat Ali Bey. The truth was that the worthy Maohn worked really hard, and superintended the horrible dead cattle business in person, which is some risk and very unpleasant. To dispose of three or four hundred dead oxen every day with a limited number ...
— Letters from Egypt • Lucie Duff Gordon
... Despite the rise in recent decades of the Irish Nationalist and Labor groups, it is still true in Great Britain, as it has been since political parties first made their appearance there, that two leading party affiliations divide between themselves the allegiance of the mass of the nation. The defeat of one means the triumph of the other, and either alone is competent normally to govern independently if elevated to power. This means, on the one hand, a much more thoroughgoing predominance of the governing ...
— The Governments of Europe • Frederic Austin Ogg
... of using such with any effect. Cuncta prius tentanda might have been formerly urged with some plausibility, but cuncta prius tentata may now be replied: for surely, if a few monopolizing fishmongers could defeat that excellent scheme of the Westminster market, to the erecting which so many justices of peace, as well as other wise and learned men, did so vehemently apply themselves, that they might be truly said not only to have laid the whole strength of their heads, but ...
— Journal of A Voyage to Lisbon • Henry Fielding
... and for whose ultimate freedom he had provided in his will. In the long-drawn-out slavery agitation he had taken a keen interest, rather as observer than as participant. As the heat of controversy increased, his lack of zeal for the peculiar institution led to his defeat for the bench by a more active partisan. His was too just a mind not to perceive the arguments on both sides; but, on the whole, he had stood by the ancient landmarks, content to let events drift to a conclusion he did not expect to ...
— The House Behind the Cedars • Charles W. Chesnutt
... Dick," replied Nicholas. "You hope to turn away suspicion from Alizon by this device; but you must not go to excess, or you will defeat ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... were two contests between Brill and Roxley, a rival college located some miles away. One contest was at baseball, and the other football. During the past Fall, Roxley had suffered its second defeat on the gridiron at the hands of Brill. But the Spring previous, its baseball nine had literally "wiped up the diamond" with Brill by a score of 6 to 0. My, readers can, therefore, well imagine how anxious ...
— The Rover Boys in Business • Arthur M. Winfield
... A great defeat they had suffered at Wareville the year before still stung, and the spur of revenge was added to the spur of need. What they felt they ought to do was exactly what they wanted to do, and they were full of hope. They did not know ...
— The Forest Runners - A Story of the Great War Trail in Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... imagine that I could compare with that!" thought Corinna with amusement. Her sense of defeat was humorous rather than resentful; yet she realized that it contained a disagreeable sting. Was her long day over at last? Had the sun set on her conquests? Had her adventurous return to power been merely ...
— One Man in His Time • Ellen Glasgow
... more cordial to Randal than it had ever been before. He then begged to inquire what Randal thought of the rumors that had reached himself as to the probable defeat of the government, and how far Audley's spirits were affected by such risks. But Randal here, seeing that Harley could communicate nothing, was reserved ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 5, No. 3, March, 1852 • Various
... widespread tribal propaganda. The tribal spirit, which is an innate quality of every people, was roused to such a pitch that in the crisis of war the national or tribal bonds held; sixty millions of people acted as if they were members of a Highland clan. Even defeat, if it has loosened, has not broken the national bonds which were forged by the governing classes ...
— Nationality and Race from an Anthropologist's Point of View • Arthur Keith
... while the tribes swallowed their defeat, and before the rumor of war died out, they must have come very near to the bare core of things. That was the time Seyavi learned the sufficiency of mother wit, and how much more easily one can do without a man than might ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... these eternal differences it was his joy to thresh out and wrangle over by the hour. It was no wonder if he loved the Greeks; he was in many ways a Greek himself; he should have been a sophist and met Socrates; he would have loved Socrates, and done battle with him staunchly and manfully owned his defeat; and the dialogue, arranged by Plato, would have shown even in Plato's gallery. He seemed in talk aggressive, petulant, full of a singular energy; as vain you would have said as a peacock, until you trod on his toes, and then you saw that he was at least clear of all the sicklier elements ...
— Memoir of Fleeming Jenkin • Robert Louis Stevenson
... the Revolutions of Spain down to the present eventful crisis of the Peninsula, and to divide it, by a supposed change of scene, into, THREE PERIODS. The FIRST of these represents the Invasion of the Moors, the Defeat and Death of Roderick, and closes with the peaceful occupation of the country by the victors. The SECOND PERIOD embraces the state of the Peninsula when the conquests of the Spaniards and Portuguese in the East and West Indies had raised to the highest pitch the renown of their arms; sullied, ...
— Some Poems by Sir Walter Scott • Sir Walter Scott
... the side of the assailants, thereby assisting us to form a judgment on a momentous episode in naval history. The evidence was completed; some being adduced from the other side, by our fellow-countryman Sir J. K. Laughton, in his 'Defeat of the Spanish Armada,' published by the Navy Records Society. Others have worked on similar lines; and a healthier view of our strategic conditions and needs is more widely held than it was; though it cannot be said to be, even yet, universally prevalent. Superstition, ...
— Sea-Power and Other Studies • Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge
... appoint, of which due Notice is forwarded to the Governor. Should the Enemy, direct their force to Connecticutt or any part of New Engd & attempt to make that the Seat of the War, this Summer, Nothing shall be wanting on the part of this Board, to defeat their Designs. ...
— The Original Writings of Samuel Adams, Volume 4 • Samuel Adams
... weakness, and the deep growl of inebriate repletion. Another interval and then the catastrophe. I heard the soft voice of the night, the fall of the snow, the muffled tread of advancing regiments, the low word of command,—then all at once a thunderous explosion of cannon,—and, finally, silence, defeat and death." ...
— The Bastonnais - Tale of the American Invasion of Canada in 1775-76 • John Lesperance
... insufficient provision to meet the pressing needs of the unfortunate. Consequently, it felt the urgency of haste to get as many refugees as possible to Bear Valley before storms should gather and delays defeat the purpose of its coming; that it divided what it could conscientiously spare among those whom it was obliged to leave, cut wood for the fires, and endeavored to give encouragement and hope to the desponding, but did not remain long ...
— The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate • Eliza Poor Donner Houghton
... what immediate spot may have been the birthplace of such a man as Washington. No people can claim, no country appropriate him. The boon of Providence to the human race,—his fame is eternity, and his residence, creation. Though it was the defeat of our arms, and the disgrace of our policy, I almost bless the convulsion in which he had his origin. If the heavens thundered, and the earth rocked, yet, when the storm had passed, how pure was the climate that it cleared! ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... had success attended me in this unequal contest. The next shot would leave me nearly powerless. If that, however, proved as unerring as the first, the chances of defeat were lessened. The savages within, knowing the intentions of their associate with regard to the captive girl, would probably mistake the report which they heard for that of his piece. Their mistake, however, would speedily give ...
— Edgar Huntley • Charles Brockden Brown
... her promise, and Zeus gave his word that the Trojans should defeat the Greeks. That night Zeus sent a deceitful dream to Agamemnon. The dream took the shape of old Nestor, and said that Zeus would give him victory that day. While he was still asleep, Agamemnon ...
— Tales of Troy: Ulysses the Sacker of Cities • Andrew Lang
... was not further discussed. At six o'clock the boys had tea. The cricket match had, of course, resulted in a crushing and overwhelming defeat for St. James's. The rival eleven had been asked to tea; there were cherries for tea ...
— Orpheus in Mayfair and Other Stories and Sketches • Maurice Baring
... warmest friendship could suggest."— "True," said I, "for it was the receipt of that letter which recovered me from a growing indisposition, to behold once more the cheerful face of day; and as the Roman State, after the dreadful defeat near Cannae, first raised its drooping head by the victory of Marcellus at Nola, which was succeeded by many other victories; so, after the dismal wreck of our affairs, both public and private, nothing ...
— Cicero's Brutus or History of Famous Orators; also His Orator, or Accomplished Speaker. • Marcus Tullius Cicero
... all taking stock of visible or audible (and I may add intellectual or verbal) shape, has its appropriate accompaniment of emotional changes: the ease or difficulty of understanding producing feelings of victory or defeat which we shall deal with later. And although the various perceptive activities remain unnoticed in themselves (so long as easy and uninterrupted), we become aware of a lapse, a gap, whenever our mind's eye (if not ...
— The Beautiful - An Introduction to Psychological Aesthetics • Vernon Lee
... long week of his imprisonment he had been cheerful, at times even gay. However evil his case might have looked, his elastic spirits had mounted above all difficulties and cares, confident in the face of apparent defeat. Now at last he lay still, bruised, as it were, and battered and weary. The flame of courage burned very low in him. From sheer exhaustion he fell after a time into a troubled sleep, but even there the enemy followed him and would not let him rest. He seemed to himself to be ...
— Jason • Justus Miles Forman
... philosophical writer, it should be on his having made this first record of experiments in education. ... In noting anecdotes of children, the greatest care must be taken that the pupils should not know that any such register is kept. Want of care in this particular would totally defeat the object in view, and would lead to many and irremediable bad consequences, and would make the children affected and false, or would create a degree of embarrassment and constraint which must prevent the natural action of the understanding or the feelings. ... In the registry ...
— Richard Lovell Edgeworth - A Selection From His Memoir • Richard Lovell Edgeworth
... contemptible. But the Prussian rhetorician had two incompatible sentiments in his mind; and he insisted on saying them both at once. He wanted to think of an English Army as a small thing; but he also wanted to think of an English defeat as a big thing. He wanted to exult, at the same moment, in the utter weakness of the British in their attack; and the supreme skill and valour of the Germans in repelling such an attack. Somehow it must be made ...
— The Appetite of Tyranny - Including Letters to an Old Garibaldian • G.K. Chesterton
... were burned or he suffered great reverses, Edison considered them merely the fortunes of war. In this respect he was most like General Washington, who, though losing more battles than he gained, learned to 'snatch victory from the jaws of defeat,' and win ...
— Radio Boys Cronies • Wayne Whipple and S. F. Aaron
... was incomparably the best of all those that bore sway in Sicily at that time, governing his citizens according to law and justice, and openly professing an aversion and enmity to all tyrants." Was the defeat of Dionysius the first of his youthful exploits, as some say? I cannot determine; but it is certain that he gathered the surviving exiles of Naxos, and gave them this plateau to dwell upon, and it was no longer called Mount Taurus, as had been the wont, but ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... baffled rage, for, now that it was too late, she saw that she had quite overshot the mark, and given her brother-in-law a complete advantage over her designs. "And that hateful, designing cat!" as she stigmatized Mrs. Harold "had completed her defeat." She had gauged her brother-in-law as "a perfect simpleton where a woman was concerned," and never had she so miscalculated. He was easygoing when at home on leave, or off on one of his outings, as he had been ...
— Peggy Stewart at School • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... ha, ha, I must have leave to laugh to think how neatly I shall defeat this Son of a Whore of ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn - Volume IV. • Aphra Behn
... value, and his use; out of it, the greatest talents are wholly unserviceable to the public. No man, who is not inflamed by vainglory into enthusiasm, can flatter himself that his single, unsupported, desultory, unsystematic endeavours, are of power to defeat, the subtle designs and united cabals of ambitious citizens. When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied ...
— Thoughts on the Present Discontents - and Speeches • Edmund Burke
... was the sense of ignominy and defeat, the feeling of intense hatred toward the man who had told him the truth. That unholy heritage from his mother, the hot, wild, passionate blood, which had proven so fatal to the boy, welled up like a stream of fire in the man's ...
— The Northern Light • E. Werner
... sidings near Calais there was one sight that revealed the defeat of a nation more even than these crowds of refugees. Hundreds of Belgian engines had been rushed over the frontier to France to escape from being used in the enemy's service. These derelict things stood there in long rows with a dismal look of lifelessness and abandonment, and ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs
... forcibly illustrates the difficulty of changing public opinion, once formed, even when supplemental data enforce military recognition of their value. The Battle of Franklin, which secured to General Thomas the opportunity to fortify Nashville and ultimately defeat Hood, and the battles of Stone River, Gettysburg, Chicamauga and Monocacy, are among the actions of the late war in which differences of statement as to positions and movements have greatly qualified first ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Vol. II, No. 6, March, 1885 - A Massachusetts Magazine • Various
... the midst of these misfortunes, caused by the mere fact of war, should come the news of defeat at sea, still more serious consequences must follow. After defeat at sea all regular and secure communication between Great Britain, her Colonies, and India comes to an end. With the terrible blow to Britain's reputation which defeat at sea must bring, what will be the position of the 100,000 ...
— Britain at Bay • Spenser Wilkinson
... after the defeat of Arabi, and the "pacification." It is now fourteen years later. The English are still there, and the Egyptian ministers and governors now understand quite well that they must cease to hold their offices if ...
— Problems of Expansion - As Considered In Papers and Addresses • Whitelaw Reid
... employed in the island voyage as rear admiral, the earl of Essex having the chief command, and the lord Thomas Howard the post of vice-admiral. The design of it was to defeat and destroy at Ferol, as well as in the other ports of the enemy, the Spanish fleet intended for a new expedition against England and Ireland; and to seize upon such Indian fleets of treasure, as they should meet with belonging to the king of Spain, to conquer, restrain, and garrison, ...
— The Lives of the Poets of Great Britain and Ireland (1753) - Volume I. • Theophilus Cibber
... in front of a tumbledown cheap 'villa' in an unfinished cheap neighbourhood,—the whole place a living monument of the defeat of the speculative builder. ...
— The Beetle - A Mystery • Richard Marsh
... save for the article about the price of land, as to which I am in no way a judge, I see not that any man will be a penny the poorer; but if, on the other hand, such deeds as those you speak of were committed, you would set the nobles throughout the land against you, you would defeat your own good objects, and would in the end bring destruction upon yourselves; so that instead of bettering your position you ...
— A March on London • G. A. Henty
... anticipated them in so doing, now triumphed immoderately, and uttered boastings magniloquent enough for Homeric heroes. Yet they were, as General Johnston said, "almost as much disorganized by victory as were the Federals by defeat." Many of them also hastened to their homes, spreading everywhere the cheering tidings that the war was over and ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... earnest piety, mingled with high-born courtesy and a gallantry which never deserted them, whether on the eve of battle, during its exciting course, in the triumph of victory, or amidst the gloom of defeat. So inherent was this gallantry and chivalric courtesy in their nature, that in spite of the restraint which their customs (resembling those of their neighbours and enemies, the infidels of Stamboul) induced them to exercise upon ...
— Life of Chopin • Franz Liszt
... I will wear this dagger then; Cassius from bondage will deliver Cassius: Therein, ye gods, you make the weak most strong; Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat: Nor STONY TOWER, nor walls of beaten brass, Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron, Can be retentive to the strength of spirit. If I know this, know all the world besides, That part of tyranny, that I do bear, I ...
— The Philosophy of the Plays of Shakspere Unfolded • Delia Bacon
... on the part of the author demands a corresponding change in the actor. Clearly, he must speak verse differently from prose, though there are foes to poetry who beg him to break up the lines and defeat the efforts of the poet; and he must adopt a manner in a blank-verse tragedy unsuitable to a play by Mr Barrie. Moreover, he ought to aim at seeming natural in both. Here is the rub; he must aim at seeming, not being, natural. Obviously, ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... little," Dorothea interrupted, mindful of her late encounter and (as she believed) defeat. "By all accounts, M. Raoul appears to have made himself agreeable to ...
— The Westcotes • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... and virtue of those who framed the fundamental law of the State, and which you and many of us considered, if not sacred, at least to have been permanently settled, it becomes us to be on the alert to defeat a measure, which if it should succeed, will not only be ruinous, and in the highest degree unjust to many of us who have emigrated here under the most solemn assurance that "neither slavery nor involuntary ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... Europe from a successful war. Some Frenchmen still cherish plans of revenge for 1870; but candid French opinion is beginning to admit that the constantly increasing resources of Germany in men and money make any deliberate policy of that kind almost suicidal. France would lose much more by a defeat than she could gain from a victory, and the fruits of victory could not be permanently held. Italy, also, has no unsatisfied ambition which a war could gratify, except the addition of a few thousand Austrian-Italians to her population. Russia still looks longingly ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... of all sense of humour on their part, that the situation was occasionally grotesque. Stolidly unmindful of the effect they produced on the minds of others in the pursuit of their own selfish ends, they pursued the tenor of their way with bucolic doggedness. The doggedness ended in the defeat of all Henry's enemies; in Margaret's case it ended ...
— Studies from Court and Cloister • J.M. Stone
... as a tide coming in over a flat beach. These instants added more years to him than as many months that had gone before. His boyhood was passing, since experience and conflict, whether it end in victory or defeat, give the years to a man far more than the passing of time. So in God's sight Robin added many inches to the stature of his spirit in this little parlour ...
— Come Rack! Come Rope! • Robert Hugh Benson
... unthinking boy the distant sky Seems on some mountain's surface to relie; He with ambitious haste climbs the ascent, Curious to touch the firmament; But when with an unwearied pace, He is arrived at the long-wish'd-for place, With sighs the sad defeat he does deplore, His heaven is still as distant as before! The ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. II (of 3) - Edited, With Memoir And Notes, By His Son, The Earl Of Beaconsfield • Isaac D'Israeli
... own and that he has no fears for the result. The French cavalry has been destroyed, two of their divisions of infantry have ceased to exist, and only the Guard is in reserve. If you give us a vigorous support the defeat will be changed to absolute rout and—" His knees gave way under him and he fell in a heap ...
— The Adventures of Gerard • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Ministry had been imposed on the Court, and although his policy of accepting the fusion of the orders was followed, his influence really amounted to little. The Queen and the Comte d'Artois soon plucked up courage after their first defeat, and took up once more the policy of repression; but {63} as it was now apparently useless to attempt to stem the tide by means of speeches or decrees, they persuaded the King that force was the only means. By using the army he could get rid ...
— The French Revolution - A Short History • R. M. Johnston
... one hour to go around and come back through the enemy, and when he started I moved to the front with the balance of the reserve, to put everything I had into the fight. This meant an inestimable advantage to the enemy in case of our defeat, but our own safety demanded the hazard. All along our attenuated line the fighting was now sharp, and the enemy's firing indicated such numerical strength that fear of disaster to Alger increased my anxiety terribly as the time set for his cheering ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... been no easy task for a girl of her limited education and undisciplined nature to take the training course. But she had gallantly stood to her guns and out of seeming defeat, won a victory. For the first time in her diversified career she had worked in a congenial environment toward a fixed goal, and in a few weeks now she would be launching her own little boat on the ...
— Calvary Alley • Alice Hegan Rice
... a surpassing military genius has perceived it with her clear eye. And a new road is required, and that same clear eye has noted where it must go, and has marked it out for us. The man does not live, never has lived, never will live, that can improve upon it! The old state of things was defeat, defeat, defeat—and by consequence we had troops with no dash, no heart, no hope. Would you assault stone walls with such? No—there was but one way with that kind: sit down before a place and wait, wait—starve it out, if you could. The new case is the ...
— Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc - Volume 1 (of 2) • Mark Twain
... Prussia. This was also damned,—but then, it was badly executed! 4. Symphony,—"The Fall of Warsaw,"—still manuscript. "The music paints most touchingly the rash, superficial, chivalrous character of the Poles, their love of freedom amid the thunder of cannon, their terrible fall in the bloody defeat, their solitary condition on strange soil, the awful judgment that fell upon that people." We are sorry to add, that the Berlin orchestras will not play this work,—preferring Mozart, Haydn, Beethoven. 5. A Choral and Organ Book,—"one of Marx's most interesting ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... that I am an able logician; if I show warmth, I am acting the indignant innocent; if I am calm, I am thereby detected as a smooth hypocrite; if I clear up difficulties, I am too plausible and perfect to be true. The more triumphant are my statements, the more certain will be my defeat. ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... suddenly stung with shame, But he most who was cause of the defeat; Therefore he moved, and ...
— Divine Comedy, Longfellow's Translation, Hell • Dante Alighieri
... Attempting to pierce and envelop the allied left center, Von Kluck marched across the front of the British to strike at the Fifth French Army commanded by General d'Esperey, who had replaced Lanrezac after the Charleroi defeat. But the turn of the tide was at hand. The Sixth French Army from Paris, under General Manoury, fiercely attacked Von Kluck's rear guards on the Ourcq; Sir John French drove against the right of the main German ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... said he was still moving in the matter of Sammy's appointment—[As a West Point cadet.]—and would stick to it till he got a result of a positive nature one way or the other, but thus far he did not know whether to expect success or defeat. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... have hitherto ended, in disaster to the strikers. But I am sure that strikes will not always end so. It is only a question of time, and of a very little time, till the union of labor shall be so perfect that nothing can defeat it. We may say this will be a very good time or a very bad time; all the same it is coming."—W. D. Howells, in Harper's ...
— Snow on the Headlight - A Story of the Great Burlington Strike • Cy Warman
... against Hood and that this success was largely due to his intimate knowledge of Hood's character, gained while they were classmates at West Point, which enabled him to foresee what Hood would do and then make the proper dispositions to defeat him. At Franklin he relied so confidently on his ability to foretell what Hood's action would be that he not only wholly neglected to give any personal attention to the preparations for assault which ...
— The Battle of Franklin, Tennessee • John K. Shellenberger
... nations playing for position, Italy joining the Allies, the debacle of Russia, the awful casualty lists, the return of disabled soldiers, the ceaseless war work of our women, the United States at last declaring war on Germany, the final line up and defeat of the Hun, and the horror and apparent uselessness of it all; some reflection of all these may be found by the reader ...
— War Rhymes • Abner Cosens
... was one of the scandals that most stirred the anger of the Romans. But the nobles hated those who had obstinately fought against the Roman armies for four years, and scorned those whose God had not saved them from ruin. At the same time Jewish persistence after defeat and the continuance of Jewish missionary activity offended the majesty of Rome, which, though tolerant of foreign religious ideas, was accustomed not merely to the physical submission of her enemies, but to their cultural ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... as it is San Jacinto day. Thermopylae had its messenger of defeat, but the Alamo had none. Mr. President and fellow citizens, those glorious heroes who fell for their country on the bloody ...
— Rolling Stones • O. Henry
... I heard of Powart's scheme to bombard Alma, I saw a way to free the poor idiots on Holl! A way to release them from their bondage—OUR bonds, Mona—and defeat Powart's trickery, and ...
— The Devolutionist and The Emancipatrix • Homer Eon Flint
... ever to the ending, Cricket chirps at need, 50 Executes the hand's intending, Promptly, perfectly,—indeed Saves the singer from defeat With her ...
— Browning's Shorter Poems • Robert Browning
... the Rhine: men of the North who denied the existence of everything south of the Loire: men of the South who called all those who lived north of the Loire Barbarians: and there were men who boasted of being of Gallic descent: and, craziest of all, there were "Romans" who prided themselves on the defeat of their ancestors: and Bretons, and Lorrainians, and Felibres, and Albigeois; and men from Carpentras, and Pontoise, and Quimper-Corentin: they all thought only of themselves, the fact of being themselves was sufficient patent of nobility, and they wild not put up with the idea ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... question. Since her life had led her to nothing better than smouldering resentment and sharp regret, it had not been the holy life she had meant it to be—the failure she must score against herself was a total one, a general defeat—and all that she had believed she had been doing for the dead man's sake must count for nothing, since she had not once been really ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... profound anxiety, for an answer—but in vain. It was not forthcoming. The Egyptian blushed and hung down his head. Never was triumph more consummate; never was defeat borne with so ill a grace. Indeed, I could not endure the spectacle of the poor Mummy's mortification. I reached my hat, bowed to him ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 5 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... designed for dignified attitudes and patronising superiority; nevertheless, as he now wandered slowly up the street, his nose was in the air and he said to the whole world: "The storm may have done its best to defeat me—it has failed. I am as I was. I ask charity of no man. I know ...
— Jeremy • Hugh Walpole
... idea of the sultan proving treacherous was a suggestion of a complicated knot that it would take no end of policy to undo. Whereas, if it was all true about Rajah Gantang, his defeat and the breaking up of his power would be hailed with delight, and work greatly towards the pacification of a country terribly broken up by petty quarrels, strengthen Hamet's position, and give inimical chiefs a lesson on ...
— Middy and Ensign • G. Manville Fenn
... sent on duty to the rear one day, had a chance to observe some of the measures being taken there to insure the defeat of the Kaiser's troops. The ground was fairly covered with ammunition boxes and shells—well concealed from hostile airmen, of course, even had they been able to pass that far to the rear. And the guns, large and small, ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... intensely alive to all impulses, and so unsupported by any moral convictions, would suffer in so keen a contest waged under such unequal and cruel conditions. It was in truth a year of great passion and great despair. Defeat is bitter when it comes swiftly and conclusively, but when defeat falls by inches like the pendulum in the pit, the agony is a little beyond verbal expression. I remember the first day of my martyrdom. The clocks were striking eight; we chose our ...
— Confessions of a Young Man • George Moore
... possessed of a rosary rich with many relics of saints, he resolved to play again with his antagonist, armed not only with the rosary, but strengthened by having previously received the sacrament: by these means he conquered his adversary, who, after his defeat, said to him these words,—'Thine ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... the way you must some day come into your own.—I like to think about it. I like to think about victory and conquest, instead of defeat and failure. Somehow thinking about a thing seems to bring it, don't ...
— Contrary Mary • Temple Bailey
... to dare the brilliant seduction of the witching eyes of Ziska,—to win her or to lose her forever! And consider every point as he would, the weary conviction was borne in upon him that, whether he met with victory or defeat, the result would bring ...
— Ziska - The Problem of a Wicked Soul • Marie Corelli
... Shakespeare, who justly denounced the indignity INTENDED, not offered, to the great Puritan poet's remains by Royalist landsharks, satisfied himself that the corpse was that of a woman of fewer years than Milton. Thus did good Providence, or good fortune, defeat the better half of their nefarious project: and I doubt not their gains were spent as money is which has been "gotten over the devil's back." Steevens' assurance gives us good reason for believing that Mr. Philip Neve's indignant protest is only good in the general, and that ...
— Shakespeare's Bones • C. M. Ingleby
... was the triumph of Juniper at the success of his efforts on this occasion, this very success was well nigh bringing about a total defeat. For it came to Frank's ears, by a side wind, as such things so often do, that his man had been playing him a trick, and had been filling up his glass continually with strong ale when he was not ...
— Frank Oldfield - Lost and Found • T.P. Wilson
... situation in the quiet of his little cottage that evening, he was not sorry that circumstances kept him longer in Simiti. For he had long been meditating a plan, and the distraction incident upon a complete change of environment certainly would delay, if not entirely defeat, its consummation. He had planned to translate his Testament anew, in the light of various works on Bible criticism which the explorer had mentioned, and which the possession of the newly discovered gold ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... and be false to them. Ah! but you will deem me a recreant. With the waking hours I thought of my King and Queen. My elder brother died with Lord Shrewsbury in Gascony, and after me the next heir is a devoted Yorkist who would turn my castle, the key of Cleveland, against the Queen. I knew the defeat would make faithful swords more than ever needful to her, and that it was my bounden duty, if it were possible, to save my life, my sword, and my lands for her. Mistress, you are a good woman. Did I ...
— Grisly Grisell • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Lord Cardross, with about fourteen other prisoners, in passing through Hamilton, tied them in couples, drove them before the troops like sheep, attacked the Covenanters at Drumclog, received a thorough defeat from the undisciplined "rebels," who freed the prisoners, and sent the dragoons back completely routed to ...
— Hunted and Harried • R.M. Ballantyne
... Herkimer's signal; he would speed at once along the road to the British position and fling himself on its rear, while, at the same time, Gansevoort must issue forth and attack it in front. St Leger's army, it was hoped, would crumble in hopeless defeat between ...
— The War Chief of the Six Nations - A Chronicle of Joseph Brant - Volume 16 (of 32) in the series Chronicles of Canada • Louis Aubrey Wood
... of Lutzen we almost lose sight of Wallenstein, and no victories were commensurate with his reputation and abilities. He continued inactive in Bohemia, while all Europe was awaiting the exploits which should efface the remembrance of his defeat. He exhausted the imperial provinces by enormous contributions, and his whole conduct seems singular and treacherous. His enemies at the imperial court now renewed their intrigues, and his conduct was reviewed with the most malicious ...
— A Modern History, From the Time of Luther to the Fall of Napoleon - For the Use of Schools and Colleges • John Lord
... from the beginning—being, as has been said, inherent in the system—it was not until the year 1995 (as the ancients for some reason not now known reckoned time) that the collapse of the vast, formless fabric was complete. In that year the defeat and massacre of the last army of law and order in the lava beds of California extinguished the final fires of enlightened patriotism and quenched in blood the monarchical revival. Thenceforth armed opposition to anarchy ...
— The Collected Works of Ambrose Bierce • Ambrose Bierce
... long absence. It was explained that he had fallen ill at Florence; it also came out that he had had a very distinguished reception from the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and that the Venetian Senate had presented him with a chain of gold for a Latin poem he had written on a recent defeat of the Turks at sea by the Venetian navy; and, what was most to the point, it appeared, by addresses of his own at Amsterdam, and at a meeting of the Walloon Synod at Leyden, that he had found in Italy great opportunities "for advancing ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... The lesson of Braddock's defeat (July 9, 1755) was memorable in the history of the Old Southwest. Well might Braddock exclaim with his last breath: "Who would have thought it? ... We shall know better how to deal with them another time." Led on by the reckless and ...
— The Conquest of the Old Southwest • Archibald Henderson
... sheriff found that he had made a mistake, he tried to mend matters by a serious toast, in which he expressed a hope that, for the sake of the district, the minister would be able to defeat all the machinations of his intriguing neighbour—here he was stopped in his speech by a meaning look from the minister over at me, as I sat at the end of the table—and ended with some wandering remarks, which were meant to turn off the ...
— The Visionary - Pictures From Nordland • Jonas Lie
... are years when none are born at all. And they have forgotten so much. But now, perhaps they can increase once more, not only in wisdom and strength of arms, but in numbers. The mermen have kept a watch on them, content to let matters rest, sure that time would defeat them. But now, time no longer ...
— Star Born • Andre Norton
... interval of seven generations? Not a word reaches us of London for two hundred years except once when, after a defeat of the British by the Saxons at Crayford in the year 457, we read that the fugitives crossed over London Bridge to take refuge within the walls of the City. What happened during ...
— The History of London • Walter Besant
... would withdraw his army four or five coss[223] from the city, that they might remove with bag and baggage in security. This being done, they issued out with all their forces, and making an unexpected assault on the unprovided enemy, gave them a total defeat with great slaughter. As it was feared that Malek Amber might revenge this defeat upon the other parts of the country, the Khan-Khana raised numerous forces, and demanded 300,000 mamudies[224] towards the charges, sending also an experienced Deccan ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. VIII. • Robert Kerr
... society to take care of itself. No; that is just what we should endeavor to prevent society from doing. The world is growing too wise for us gentlemen. Accordingly, this Interments Bill, by which our interests are so seriously threatened, has been brought into Parliament. We must join heart and hand to defeat and crush it. Let us nail our colors—which I should call the black flag—to the mast, and let our war-cry be, "No surrender!" or else our motto will very soon be, "Resurgam;" in other words, it will be all up with us. We stand in a critical position in regard to public opinion. In order ...
— International Weekly Miscellany Vol. I. No. 3, July 15, 1850 • Various
... the Lake of the Skeezers," replied Ozma. "From what that dreadful Su-dic said I imagine the Skeezers are good people and worthy of our friendship, and if we go to them we may help them to defeat the Flatheads." ...
— Glinda of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... of death, or will he choose death in battle rather than defeat and slavery, who believes the world below ...
— The Republic • Plato
... army. Urco Huaranca explains the dispositions he has made to oppose the army advancing from Cuzco, and his plan of defence. In the next scene Rumi- naui, as a fugitive in the mountains, describes his defeat and the complete success of the strategy of Ollantay and Urco Huaranca. His soliloquy is in the octosyllabic quatrains. The last scene of the second act is in the gardens of the Convent of Virgins of the Sun. ...
— Apu Ollantay - A Drama of the Time of the Incas • Sir Clements R. Markham
... consecrated the beautiful river-side church, which the proud Order had dedicated to the Virgin Lady Mary. The late Master of the Temple had only recently died in a dungeon at Damascus, and the new Master of the Hospital, after the great defeat of the Christians at Jacob's Ford, on the Jordan, had swam the river covered with wounds, and escaped to ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... scatter to the four winds, those people," she said. "He would not have fled unless disaster was staring him in the face. Something has transpired to defeat his ugly plan. They will all run to cover ...
— Green Fancy • George Barr McCutcheon
... Exiles; JOKIM feebly attempts to reply. On Division, in full House, Government defeated by five votes. MACNEILL's smile, as he announced the figures, simply enormous. "At first I thought it was an earthquake," said STANHOPE, shuddering. Nerves shattered by second defeat of Government in the week. Business done.—Looks as ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Volume 102, March 19, 1892 • Various
... number of the Queen's subjects in the Transvaal rose in rebellion against Her authority, and inflicted some reverses on Her arms. Thereupon, in spite of the reiterated pledges given to the contrary—partly under stress of defeat, and partly in obedience to the pressure of "advanced views"—the country was abandoned, and the vast majority who had remained faithful to the Crown, was handed to the cruel despotism of the minority who had ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... at the unquiet mourning of the hot and brilliant heaven that had seen the beginning of her love, that had heard his entreaties and her answers, that had seen his desire and her fear; that had seen her joy, her surrender—and his defeat. Lingard moved a little, and this slight stir near her precipitated her disordered and shapeless thoughts into ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... one occasion he had stood for an entire day and night absorbed in reflection amid the wonder of the spectators; how on another occasion he had saved Alcibiades' life; how at the battle of Delium, after the defeat, he might be seen stalking about like a pelican, rolling his eyes as Aristophanes had described him in the Clouds. He is the most wonderful of human beings, and absolutely unlike anyone but a satyr. Like the satyr in his language too; for he uses the commonest words as the outward mask of the ...
— Symposium • Plato
... critical, and defeat meant the annihilation of the gallant little army who had followed his fortunes through two campaigns, and who were to a man his devoted servants. He had led them, according to promise, upon another long march ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... Kellermann's charge and Desaix's death, du Bousquier would probably have become a minister. He was one of the chief assistances of that secret government whom Napoleon's luck send behind the scenes in 1793. (See "An Historical Mystery.") The unexpected victory of Marengo was the defeat of that party who actually had their proclamations printed to return to the principles of the Montagne in case ...
— An Old Maid • Honore de Balzac
... was in consequence of the enemy having retreated toward Jackson after his defeat at Raymond, and of information that re-enforcements were daily arriving at Jackson, and that General Joe Johnston was hourly expected there to take command in person. I therefore determined to make sure of that place and leave ...
— The Medallic History of the United States of America 1776-1876 • J. F. Loubat
... to arrive upon the scene was taking his turn at agitating the button and shaking the gates; and with no more profit of his undertaking than Hickey. After a minute or two of it he acknowledged defeat with an oath, and turned away to browbeat the straggling vanguard of belated wayfarers,—messenger-boys, slatternly drabs, hackmen, loafers, and one or two plain citizens conspicuously out of their reputable grooves,—who were drifting in at the entrance ...
— The Brass Bowl • Louis Joseph Vance
... be done?" asked the girl. "The Blueskins are bigger and stronger than the Pinkies, and if they have sharp sticks which are longer than ours, they will surely defeat us." ...
— Sky Island - Being the further exciting adventures of Trot and Cap'n - Bill after their visit to the sea fairies • L. Frank Baum
... would be enabled, by exerting themselves in the cause of the state, to put an end to their ignominious service. Scipio was very far from feeling contempt for that description of soldiers, inasmuch as he knew that the defeat sustained at Cannae was not attributable to their cowardice, and that there were no soldiers in the Roman army who had served so long, or were so experienced not only in the various kinds of battles, but in assaulting towns also. The legions ...
— History of Rome, Vol III • Titus Livius
... tell, concerned with the terrible Attila and his horde of devastating Huns, who had swept over Europe and threatened to annihilate civilization. Orleans was the turning-point in the career of victory of this all-conquering barbarian. From its walls he was driven backward to defeat. ...
— Historical Tales, Vol. 6 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality. French. • Charles Morris
... "favour us with their voices," is nonsense, while "keep silence" is by no means the meaning of [Greek: euphemesai]. Kennedy rightly explains it, "abstain from expressions unsuitable to the solemnity of the occasion, which, by offending the god, might defeat the object of their supplications." See Servius on Virg. AEn. v. 71; Lamb, on Hor. Od. iii. 1, 2; Broukhus. on ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... last a long two hours dragged thus away, and finally Dottie Wetherill at the end of her small string, and at a loss for more themes on which to trot around again to the main idea, reluctantly accepted her defeat and took herself away, leaving Ruth to her ...
— The Search • Grace Livingston Hill
... and leap from cake to cake; they thus made their escape to the Canadian shore, and joined the tribes of the Pottawatomies, Ottawas, and Chippewas. A year later the Wyandots, equipped with light birch canoes, set out to defeat the Senecas, and succeeded in inducing them to give combat on the water. The Senecas made a fatal mistake and came out to meet the enemy in their clumsily-constructed boats hollowed out of the trunks ...
— American Merchant Ships and Sailors • Willis J. Abbot
... branch of the game, we present a number of end positions, with the proper play necessary in each case. Our selection of positions is necessarily very limited; but those we give will serve to show the careful play that is requisite even when the stronger party feels sure of success, and the danger of defeat if he suffer his vigilance to be relaxed ...
— The Blue Book of Chess - Teaching the Rudiments of the Game, and Giving an Analysis - of All the Recognized Openings • Howard Staunton and "Modern Authorities"
... meditated), sent the servant of the lodging to engage a chaise-and-four, rushed into the room, where Roland fortunately still was, and exclaimed,—"Uncle, come with me! Take money, plenty of money! Some villany I know, though I can't explain it, has been practised on the Trevanions. We may defeat it yet. I will tell you all ...
— The Caxtons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of Mollenhauer and Simpson (ballot-box stuffing and personal violence at the polls not barred), in another victory, by, however, a greatly reduced majority. The Citizens' Municipal Reform Association, in spite of a resounding defeat at the polls, which could not have happened except by fraud, continued to fire courageously away at those whom it considered ...
— The Financier • Theodore Dreiser |
