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Defile   Listen
verb
Defile  v. t.  
1.
To make foul or impure; to make filthy; to dirty; to befoul; to pollute. "They that touch pitch will be defiled."
2.
To soil or sully; to tarnish, as reputation; to taint. "He is... among the greatest prelates of this age, however his character may be defiled by... dirty hands."
3.
To injure in purity of character; to corrupt. "Defile not yourselves with the idols of Egypt."
4.
To corrupt the chastity of; to debauch; to violate; to rape. "The husband murder'd and the wife defiled."
5.
To make ceremonially unclean; to pollute. "That which dieth of itself, or is torn with beasts, he shall not eat to defile therewith."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Defile" Quotes from Famous Books



... traces tightened, the sleds sped forward. They entered the defile. The trail twisted up the side of the abyss. Less than three feet wide for long stretches, the dogs had to slacken and pass upward in line, one by one. Covered with new ice it was dangerously slippery, and in climbing the men had to hold to jutting ...
— The Eternal Maiden • T. Everett Harre

... a defile, which was nothing more than the bed of a mountain-torrent, now dry. For a long distance there was no spot of level ground where our travellers could have encamped, even had they desired to stop. At length, however, ...
— Popular Adventure Tales • Mayne Reid

... large Mimoseous tree. There is apparently very little diminution in the volume of water, though several minor streams were passed between this and the Mookh. Liriodendron is becoming more frequent. The views of the mountains are very varied; and that of the Koond defile or Chasm, very beautiful; water- falls seem to be distinctly visible down one hill or mountain, in particular. The finest view however is on the Lohit, opposite Dyaroo Mookh, at which place the three huge, ever snowy peaks, ...
— Journals of Travels in Assam, Burma, Bhootan, Afghanistan and The - Neighbouring Countries • William Griffith

... condescension when they serve others, and so can be of service to mankind. A man proves that he is the son of a heavenly Father by his service for his least brother. When that dignity, heaven born, is in a man's heart there is nothing in the dirt he may touch by deeds of kindness that can defile him; ...
— Levels of Living - Essays on Everyday Ideals • Henry Frederick Cope

... were now urging him to withdraw a little distance into the hills to where the bed of the road ran through a defile between two hills. The soldiers would no doubt advance directly up the line of what had been the railroad, covering the workmen and engineers who would be coming on behind them. If they were allowed to go on up into the defile without warning or opposition they could be shot ...
— The Shepherd of the North • Richard Aumerle Maher

... by the same line of paling, but, in reality, a close pheasant preserve, occupying the banks of a ravine, which, after a deep and tortuous course, terminated in the declivity heretofore described as forming the park boundary. Luke plunged into the heart of this defile, fighting his way downwards, in the direction of the brook. His progress was impeded by a thick undergrowth of brier, and other matted vegetation, as well as by the entanglements thrown in his way by the taller bushes of thorn and hazel, the entwined and elastic branches of which, in their ...
— Rookwood • William Harrison Ainsworth

... that it proceeded of the king's humanity, and of a zeal which he had, that they should be brought up in virtue and good learning; and I doubt not but it was so understood by a great number of the Jews. But the secret practice of the devil was understood by Daniel, when he refused to defile himself with the king's meat, which was forbidden to the seed of Abraham in the law of their God. Well, God began shortly after to show himself mindful of his promise made by his prophet, and to trouble Nebuchadnezzar himself, by ...
— The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3. • John Welch, Bishop Latimer and John Knox

... by fate, or as persons are observed to be in the hour of approaching death or disaster. Fit, foot. Flit, to depart. Flyped, turned up, turned in-side out. Forbye, in addition to. Forgather, to fall in with. Fower, four. Fushionless, pithless, weak. Fyle, to soil, to defile. Fylement, obloquy, defilement. ...
— Weir of Hermiston • Robert Louis Stevenson

... which has, when analyzed, been found pure. Now, copper will tinge water green, and that very strongly; but water thus impregnated will not be transparent, and will deposit the copper it holds in solution upon any piece of iron which may be thrown into it. There is a lake in a defile on the northwest flank of Snowdon, which is supplied by a stream which previously passes over several veins of copper; this lake is, of course, of a bright verdigris green, but it is not transparent. Now the coloring effect, of which ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... of hell! Spurn me, and put on me the brand of shame. A white man's honour! what of that, I say? Shall these black curs cry "Coward" in my face? They who would perish for their gods of clay — Shall I defile my country and my race? My country! what's my country to me now? Soldier of Fortune, free and far I roam; All men are brothers in my heart, I vow; The wide and wondrous world is all my home. My ...
— Rhymes of a Rolling Stone • Robert W. Service

... know, right away, how to keep itself alive and well and doing well. It wants brought up for consideration the wrongs which oppress it, the evils which defile it, the crimes which degrade it; to have their causes investigated, and their remedies suggested. This is live work; and it is such work as this which occupied the attention of the Woman's Congress. No uncertain sound there. Those "at a distance," those at the very ...
— A Domestic Problem • Abby Morton Diaz

... night was beginning to yield to the pale tints of early dawn. A bat was sounding the departure of the hours of darkness with a singular note resembling the gurgling of liquid from a narrow bottle-neck. A neighing of horses was heard far up the defile; then, with the first rays of dawn, we distinguished a sledge driven by the baron's servant; its bottom was littered with straw; on this the body ...
— The Man-Wolf and Other Tales • Emile Erckmann and Alexandre Chatrian

... funeral procession defile past me, I think I even made one of the Committee sent by the Society of Men of Letters to march in the funeral convoy. It was superb. This lawyer from the Provinces, good honest man, eloquent orator, honest politician ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... up the marble walk which runs through the garden grounds, and is set on either side with marble statues, for the most part of heathen Gods and Goddesses, with which these Lagidae were not ashamed to defile their royal dwellings. At length we came to a beautiful portico with fluted columns of the Grecian style of art, where we found more guards, who made way for the Lady Charmion. Crossing the portico we reached a marble vestibule where a fountain splashed softly, ...
— Cleopatra • H. Rider Haggard

... rods, his force had been attacked by the regiment which had just escaped from the field of battle. They had been ordered by some superior officer on the ground to attack the major's command; and the regiment had rushed into the narrow defile, where only a portion of it could be brought into action. The sharpshooters were rapidly reducing the numbers at the head of the column, though the ranks were immediately filled up by ...
— A Lieutenant at Eighteen • Oliver Optic

... of presenting himself to Miss Mowbray at all. He was himself sensible of this, formed a hasty and desperate resolution not to suffer the present moment to escape, and, just as the ascent induced the pony to slacken its pace, Tyrrel stood in the middle of the defile, about six yards ...
— St. Ronan's Well • Sir Walter Scott

... the flesh. It has pleased Our Lady and my patron saint to bless the pittance to which I restrain myself, even as the pulse and water was blessed to the children Shadrach, Meshech, and Abednego, who drank the same rather than defile themselves with the wine and meats which were appointed them by the King of ...
— Ivanhoe - A Romance • Walter Scott

... the Gap she saw a fire on one side of the road and could hear talking, but she had no difficulty passing it, on the other side. But on, where the Gap narrowed—there was the trouble. It must have been an hour before midnight when she tremblingly neared the narrow defile. The rain had ceased, and as she crept around a boulder she could see, by the light of the moon between two black clouds, two sentinels beyond. The crisis was at hand now. She slipped to one side of the road, climbed the cliff as high as she could and crept about it. She was past one picket ...
— The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come • John Fox

... so will cost him the means of subsistence. This will depend upon the value which he sets upon the opinions that be has to proclaim. If such a proposition is true, the world must efface its habit of admiration for the martyrs and heroes of the past, who embraced violent death rather than defile themselves by a lying confession. Or is present heroism ridiculous, and only past heroism admirable? However, nobody has a right to demand the heroic from all the world; and if to publish his dissent from the opinions which he nominally holds would reduce a man to ...
— On Compromise • John Morley

... had gone. By the signs that Ferne had given them they found the entrance which they sought, and when they had thrust aside the curtain of branch and vine, saw the clearing through the tunal. It lay beneath the stars, a narrow defile much overgrown, walled on either side by impenetrable wood. On went Sedley and his men, cautiously, silently, until they had wellnigh pierced the tunal, that was scarce wider, indeed, than an English copse. Before them, quiet as the tomb, rose the fortress—no sound save their stealthy movement and ...
— Sir Mortimer • Mary Johnston

... required to ascend, as the country was, on the neighbourhood of Grenoble or Echelles; while the ascent to the summit of the Little St Bernard, would not require more than half the time. 2. The narrow defile of St Jean de Maurienne, which leads from the plain of Montmelian to the foot of Mont Cenis, corresponds much more closely with the description, given both in Livy[25] and Polybius[26], of that in which the first serious engagement took place between Hannibal and the Mountaineers, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 57, No. 356, June, 1845 • Various

... advance. As the front-line trenches lay within a few yards of the Turks, they were now practically cleared of men in order to avoid casualties from our own gunfire. The scheme laid down for our Battalion required a north-east advance by C and B Companies out of the narrow defile known as Krithia nullah. A gap was therefore made overnight in the barrier that had hitherto crossed the mouth of the defile and linked our fire trenches with those neighbouring. A machine gun was placed at the north-west corner of this gap ...
— With Manchesters in the East • Gerald B. Hurst

... post to post, and gird him with fire and sword. From land to land, from hill to hill, from Hereford to Caerleon, from Caerleon to Milford, from Milford to Snowdon, through Snowdon to yonder fort, built, they say, by the fiends or the giants,—through defile and through forest, over rock, through morass, we have pressed on his heels. Battle and foray alike have drawn the blood from his heart; and thou wilt have seen the drops yet red on the way, where the stone tells ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... any thinge for her, call in Mamilian, and hee would bee ready to doe her will. And saith, yt in all her talke or conference shee calleth her said devill, Mamil my God. Shee further saith, yt ye said Mamilian, her devill, (by her consent) did abuse and defile her body by comittinge wicked uncleannesse together. And saith, yt shee was not at the greate meetings at Hoarestones, at the forest of Pendle, upon All-Saints Day, where ——. But saith yt shee was at a second meetinge ye Sunday ...
— Discovery of Witches - The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster • Thomas Potts

... sum would pay me to defile my vessel in the way you propose," said the Yankee. "I'll take you and your own crew with pleasure; but the niggers ...
— Salt Water - The Sea Life and Adventures of Neil D'Arcy the Midshipman • W. H. G. Kingston

... doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves? And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead? And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? And if the body were not the soul, what is ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman

... jester's cap, with a bell hanging from every point, which gave out a tinkling sound as I picked it up. I let it fall again as though it had scorched me, the memory of what stood between Madonna Paola and me rising like a warning spectre in my mind. I would not again defile myself by the garb of folly; not again would I incur the shame of playing the Fool for the ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini

... Flodden ridge The Scots beheld the English host Leave Barmore Wood, their evening post, And heedful watched them as they crossed The Till by Twisel Bridge. High sight it is, and haughty, while They dive into the deep defile; Beneath the caverned cliff they fall, Beneath the castle's airy wall. By rock, by oak, by hawthorn tree, Troop after troop are disappearing; Troop after troop their banners rearing; Upon the eastern bank you see. Still pouring down the ...
— Marmion: A Tale of Flodden Field • Walter Scott

... blood for several days, and that men, women and children were butchered indiscriminately and left to rot by hundreds all through the Christian quarter; they say, further, that the stench was dreadful. All the Christians who could get away fled from the city, and the Mohammedans would not defile their hands by burying the "infidel dogs." The thirst for blood extended to the high lands of Hermon and Anti-Lebanon, and in a short time twenty-five thousand more Christians were massacred and their possessions laid ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... the spot out of breath, saw nobody, then returned in order to gain the fields through a defile, which Bouvard, no ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert

... analysis. The reading of them hurried him in pursuit of her from house to house during the autumn; and as she did not hint at the shadow his coming cast on her, his conscience was easy. Regarding their future, his political anxieties were a mountainous defile, curtaining the outlook. They met at Lockton, where he arrived after a recent consultation with his Chief, of whom, and the murmurs of the Cabinet, he spoke to Diana openly, ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... pay expenses. Thus they progressed through many a scene of loveliness, where the hand of God had sown broadcast all the forms and hues of grace and beauty which render this world attractive; they also passed through many a savage defile and mountain gorge—dark, gloomy, almost repulsive—which served to enhance their enjoyment ...
— Philosopher Jack • R.M. Ballantyne

... the cloud of smoke which rose in volumes from the discharge of musketry, on whose wing, at every round, he dreaded might be carried the fate of his grandfather. At last the firing ceased, and the troops were commanded to go forward. On approaching near the contested defile, Thaddeus shuddered, for at every step the heels of his charger struck upon the wounded or the dead. There lay his enemies, here lay his friends! His respiration was nearly suspended, and his eyes clung to ...
— Thaddeus of Warsaw • Jane Porter

... the Revolution. By his son, Theodorus Van Wyck, Esq., of Fishkill Hook, who remembers to have been shown, within the last forty years, by an individual then living, the bones of a "skinner," or cowboy, still lying unburied in a defile of the mountains. ...
— The Military Journals of Two Private Soldiers, 1758-1775 - With Numerous Illustrative Notes • Abraham Tomlinson

... There was a terrible collision there, and the conflict began among friends who should have been united against the enemy. Finally, the two troops, leaving behind them some corpses stifled in the press, or even killed by their companions, passed through the defile pell-mell and were lost sight of in the ravine. But during this struggle Seyton and Arbroath had lost precious time, and the detachment sent by Murray, which had taken the road by Glasgow, had reached the village beforehand; ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... their origin? They are simple crevasses, like those so often noticed on Alpine glaciers, only that these tremendous cracks in the surface are produced by the shrinkage of the crust consequent on cooling. Can we point out some analogies to this on the Earth? Certainly. The defile of the Jordan, terminating in the awful depression of the Dead Sea, no doubt occurs to you on the moment. But the Yosemite Valley, as I saw it ten years ago, is an apter comparison. There I stood on the brink of a tremendous chasm with perpendicular walls, a mile ...
— All Around the Moon • Jules Verne

... are blind ways provided, the foredone Heart-weary player in this pageant world Drops out by, letting the main masque defile By the conspicuous portal. ...
— Richard Vandermarck • Miriam Coles Harris

... mile above Mokatoba, in the same valley, with the Bua and Tembwe. We were told that elephants were near, and we saw where they had been an hour before; but after seeking about could not find them. An old man, in the deep defile between Kokwe and Yasika Mountains, pointed to the latter, and said, "Elephants! why, there they are. Elephants, or tusks, walking on foot are never absent;" but though we were eager for flesh, we could not give him credit, and went down ...
— The Last Journals of David Livingstone, in Central Africa, from 1865 to His Death, Volume I (of 2), 1866-1868 • David Livingstone

... of Tequendama, although not the largest in the world, yet affords a very beautiful sight. When swollen by the addition of all the waters of the valley, the river, a little above the Falls, is 175 feet wide, but on entering the defile which appears to have been made by an earthquake, it is not more than forty feet in breadth. The abyss into which it flings itself, is no less than 600 feet deep. Above this vast precipice constantly rises a dense cloud of foam, which, falling again almost immediately, is said ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part 2. The Great Navigators of the Eighteenth Century • Jules Verne

... the devotees on that very account. Ablutions, and the too subtle distinctions between pure and impure things, found in him a pitiless opponent: "There is nothing from without a man," said he, "that entering into him can defile him: but the things which come out of him, those are they that defile the man." The Pharisees, who were the propagators of these mummeries, were unceasingly denounced by him. He accused them of exceeding the Law, of inventing impossible precepts, in order to create occasions of sin: "Blind ...
— The Life of Jesus • Ernest Renan

... twelve miles from Jubbulpore, while gallantly leading on her troops in their third and last attempt to stem the torrent of Muhammadan invasion. Her tomb is still to be seen where she fell, in a narrow defile between two hills; and a pair of large rounded stones which stand near are, according to popular belief, her royal drums turned into stone, which, in the dead of night, are still heard resounding through the woods, ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman

... that the immortal treatise must be spiced; a little politics flung in: "Nothing goes down, else." The author answered in some heat that he would not dilute things everlasting with the fleeting topics of the day, nor defile science with politics. On this his Mentor smoothed him down, despising him secretly for not seeing that a book is a matter of trade and nothing else. It ended in Aubertin going to Paris to hatch his Phoenix. He ...
— White Lies • Charles Reade

... foe. The road mounts steadily, and this February morning had broken grey and cloudy, so that the colonel found himself in the mists that hang over these mountains during the spring months, long before he reached the narrow entrance to the grim and soundless Lancone Defile. The heavy clouds had nestled down the mountains, covering them like a huge thickness of wet cotton-wool. The road, which is little more than a mule-path, is cut in the face of the rock, and, far below, the river runs musically down to Lake Biguglia. The colonel rode alone, ...
— The Isle of Unrest • Henry Seton Merriman

... traced from the elevated position where they stood, though its termination was hidden by other projecting ridges. Further on, the sides of the mountain were bare and rugged, and covered with shelving stone. Beyond the defile before mentioned, and over the last mountain ridge, lay a wide valley, bounded on the further side by the hills overlooking Colne, and the mountain defile, now laid open to the travellers, exhibiting in the midst of the dark heathy ranges, which were its distinguishing ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth

... the multitude again, and said unto them, "Hear me all of you, and understand: there is nothing from without the man, that going into him can defile him; but the things which proceed out of the man are those ...
— His Life - A Complete Story in the Words of the Four Gospels • William E. Barton, Theodore G. Soares, Sydney Strong

... remaining a sign of the sky; a shadowy image, as truly a part of the great firmament of the human mind as the light of reason which it seems to interrupt. But the fair deceit and innocent error of it cannot be interpreted nor restrained by a wilful purpose, and all additions to it by art do but defile, as the shepherd disturbs the flakes of morning mist with smoke from his fire of dead leaves." Instead of retouching stories "to suit particular tastes, or inculcate favorite doctrines," Ruskin would ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry

... shake hands with him, and, when the speech was over, those nearest swooped upon him, cheering and waving, and grasping at his hand. Then a line was formed, and they began to defile by him, as he stood on the steps, and one by one they came up, and gave him hearty greetings, and passed on through the court-house and out at the south door. Tom Meredith and Minnie Briscoe came amongst the others, and Tom said only, "Good ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington

... sir?' and then he went on: 'You English are not fit even for slaves. Be quick! Can't you see that your lord and his friends are waiting to see me ride?' he says, 'and don't defile those red reins with your dirty white hands!' Of course I knew he was dreaming, and I shook him, but only made him burst out into a lot more stuff—telling me I was to fall ill and ask for the Hakim to cure me, and then we should be all together again. But that ain't ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn

... in the mouldy big Circus, having sundry of the lousy population idling within, whereby I did then liken it to a venerable cheese, in which is some faint stir of maggotry, that thou didst make a memorable speech against the land, where the only vocation of a nobleman is to defile the streets and be pimp to his ...
— Cromwell • Alfred B. Richards

... transforms himself into the wind. The chastiser of Paka always assumes these disguises. Do thou, therefore, O Vipula, protect this slender-waisted spouse of mine with great care. O foremost one of Bhrigu's race, do thou take every care for seeing that the chief of the celestials may not defile this spouse of mine like a wretched dog licking the Havi kept in view of a sacrifice. Having said these words, the highly-blessed Muni, viz., Devasarman, intend upon performing a sacrifice, set out from his abode, O chief of the Bharatas. Hearing these words of his preceptor, Vipula began to ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 4 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... and to sweep the temple with boughs of bay, and to sprinkle it with water from the fountain of Castalia. Also he was wont to keep the birds from the temple—for they would come from the woods of Parnassus hard by, eagles, and swans, and others—lest they should settle on the pinnacles or defile the altar with their prey. And for this end he carried arrows and a bow, slaying the birds if need was, but rather seeking to frighten them away, for he knew that some carried messages from the Gods to mortal men, ...
— Stories from the Greek Tragedians • Alfred Church

... copper coin and a loaf of bread and go down that deep defile there till thou comest to a deep river and there thou wilt see an old man ferrying people across the river. Put the coin between your teeth and let him take it from you, and he will carry you across, but ...
— Europa's Fairy Book • Joseph Jacobs

... the Fazarean groom, "send a messenger from me to the family of Beder, and you yourself drink the bitter cup of patience behind me." Meanwhile Shidoub, swift as the north wind, kept ahead of Dahir, bounding like a fawn and running like an ostrich, until he reached the defile where Dames was hidden. The slave had only thrown down less than a third of his pebbles, when he looked up and ...
— Oriental Literature - The Literature of Arabia • Anonymous

... had led them up a rocky defile, with gnarled little trees growing between the crags. Ahead, the hillside rose up in a broken, rocky cliff. There was a door, like a small tunnel entrance. A woman in a long white robe was ...
— The World Beyond • Raymond King Cummings

... feelings of our natures are disallowed. It is a novel which is all mind and passion. Corporeal attributes and necessities are thrown on one side, as they would destroy the charm of perfectability. Nothing can soil, or defile, or destroy my heroine; suffering adds lustre to her beauty, as pure gold is tried by fire: nothing can kill her, because she is all mind. As for my men, you will observe when you ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat (AKA Captain Marryat)

... when we smile!— But the conscience is quick to record, All the sorrow and sin We are hiding within Is plain in the sight of the Lord: And ever, O ever, till pride And evasion shall cease to defile The sacred recess Of the soul, we confess We are not always ...
— Riley Songs of Home • James Whitcomb Riley

... us from the promontory of the Puerta to the ridge of the great mountain. Here the eye looks down on two valleys, or rather narrow defiles, filled with thick vegetation. On the right is perceived the ravine which descends between the two peaks to the farm of Munoz; on the left we see the defile of Chacaito, with its waters flowing out near the farm of Gallegos. The roaring of the cascades is heard, while the water is unseen, being concealed by thick groves of erythrina, clusia, and the Indian fig-tree.* (* Ficus nymphaeifolia, Erythrina mitis. Two fine species of mimosa ...
— Equinoctial Regions of America • Alexander von Humboldt

... now Plato his name is laid upon me, whom I must confess, of all philosophers, I have ever esteemed most worthy of reverence, and with great reason, sith of all philosophers he is the most poetical. Yet if he will defile the fountain, out of which his flowing streams have proceeded, let us boldly examine with what reasons he did it. First, truly, a man might maliciously object that Plato, being a philosopher, was a natural enemy of poets; for, ...
— English literary criticism • Various

... every possible way, by every available agency, and at every occurring opportunity, so that no trace of the outrage may continue in the institutions of the Land, and especially that its accursed foot-prints may no longer defile the National Statute-book. Sir, it will be in vain that you pass Resolutions in tribute to him, if you neglect that Cause for which he lived, and do not ...
— The Great Conspiracy, Complete • John Alexander Logan

... had wrapped herself in a black cloak, and placed two pistols in her belt, and she carefully concealed the dark lantern. The mole-hole of the Hussites yawned before her! A long, dark, black defile, the more gruesome since it did not run straight but round about; the entire tunnel so like a catacomb, was vaulted, hewn out of the hard quartz. The walls were already as black as a scaffold, with the underground mould, ...
— Peter the Priest • Mr Jkai

... should be most carefully instructed,—that is, maintaining the sexual purity of his body. He should be taught from the beginning to think of his body as the sacred temple of his soul, which it is a sin against nature and against God to defile. That the child's body be kept uncontaminated is one of the most priceless gifts his parents can bestow upon him; the value of this was so keenly felt in antiquity that at a certain period of Greek supremacy the laws were most stringent concerning it, a ...
— The Renewal of Life; How and When to Tell the Story to the Young • Margaret Warner Morley

... Klaproth (Foe-koue-ki, p. 23) describes its upper course as far more considerable, and adds: 'Un peu a l'est de Sirmagha, le Gomal traverse la chaine de montagnes de Soliman, passe devant Raghzi, et fertilise le pays habite par les tribus de Dauletkhail et de Gandehpour. Il se desseche au defile de Pezou, et son lit ne se remplit plus d'eau que dans la saison des pluies; alors seulement il rejoint la droite de l'Indus, au sud-est de bourg de Paharpour.' The Kurrum falls into the Indus north of the Gomal, while, ...
— India: What can it teach us? - A Course of Lectures Delivered before the University Of Cambridge • F. Max Mueller

... Sometimes for hours he saw only the red glistering slopes tufted with thin bushes, and the hard blue heaven so close that it seemed his hand could touch it; then at a turn of the path the rocks rolled apart, the eye plunged down a long pine-clad defile, and beyond it the forest flowed in mighty undulations to a plain shining with cities and another mountain-range many days' journey away. To some eyes this would have been a terrible spectacle, reminding the wayfarer of his remoteness from his kind, and of the ...
— The Hermit and the Wild Woman and Other Stories • Edith Wharton

... of all mysteries is the upward tendency of so many souls through so much that clogs and would defile their wings, while so many others SEEM never even to look up. Then, having so begun with the dust, how do these ever come to raise their eyes to the hills? The keenest of us moral philosophers are but poor, mole-eyed creatures! One day, I trust, we shall laugh at many a difficulty ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald

... situated in the lower portion of a notch, called Tiefenkasten, which means, literally, deep chest, and certainly a deeper never has been seen. After breakfast they pursued their way farther, and towards four o'clock in the afternoon they reached the entrance of the savage defile of Bergunerstein, which deserves to be compared with that of Via Mala. The road lies between a wall of rocks and a precipice of nearly two hundred metres, at the bottom of which rush the swift waters of the Albula. This wild scenery deeply moved Mlle. Moriaz; she ...
— Samuel Brohl & Company • Victor Cherbuliez

... Kiti road was to be taken—were led as usual by Hamed's kirangozi. We had barely gone a mile before I perceived that we had left the Simbo road, had taken the direction of Kiti, and, by a cunning detour, were now fast approaching the defile of the mountain ridge before us, which admitted access to the higher plateau of Kiwyeh. Instantly halting my caravan, I summoned the veteran who had travelled by Kiti, and asked him whether we were not going towards Kiwyeh. He replied that we were. Calling my pagazis together, I bade Bombay tell ...
— How I Found Livingstone • Sir Henry M. Stanley

... The bravery of old, and still maintains The old Hellenic spirit and some likeness Of the fair Commonwealth which ruled the world. Surely, my father, 'tis a glorious spring Drawn from the heaven-kissed summits whence we come; And shall we, then, defile our noble blood By mixture with this upstart tyranny Which fouls the Hellenic pureness of its source In countless bastard channels? If our State Ask of its children sacrifice, 'tis well. It shall be given; only I prithee, father, Seek not ...
— Gycia - A Tragedy in Five Acts • Lewis Morris

... that they neared the mouth of Turtle Creek, a stream entering the Monongahela about eight miles from the French fort. The way was direct and short, but would lead them through a difficult country and a defile so perilous that Braddock resolved to ford the Monongahela to avoid this danger, and then ford it again to reach ...
— Montcalm and Wolfe • Francis Parkman

... to furnish troops in aid of Napoleon. In 1808 the Polish light cavalry, led by Kozietulski, won glory by the capture of Somosierra, a defile leading ...
— Pan Tadeusz • Adam Mickiewicz

... beach too, smooth, sloping, piled with white sand, gleaming now in the sun, and the little frothy waves that ran up it and lapped at his feet, like puppies nibbling, were just the friendliest frothy little waves in the world. But there were the remains of the fire left by the ruffians to defile it, and broken bottles and broken food were scattered about. The litter hurt his eyes so much that he gathered up every fragment, one by one, and threw them into the sea. When the last vestige of the foul invasion was cleared away ...
— The Sun Of Quebec - A Story of a Great Crisis • Joseph A. Altsheler

... to which yours is utterly abhorrent. Can you mix light with darkness, or filthy oil with water? As well hope to merge your life, black as it is with every wickedness, with that of the splendid creature you would defile. Do you suppose that a woman such as she will ever be really faithless to her love, even though you trap her into marriage? Fool, her heart is as far above you as the stars; and without a heart a woman is a husk that none but such miserables ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard

... multitudinous inhabited castles, affords a more cultivated picture; but in the steep and craggy mountains of the Danube, in its wild outlines and dilapidated castles, the imagination embraces a bolder range. At one time the river is confined within its narrowest limits, and proceeds through a defile of considerable altitude, with overhanging rocks menacing destruction. At another it offers an open, wild archipelago of islands. The mountains have disappeared, and a long plain bounds on each side of ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various

... procession and began to defile past him. "Smoking in the Court, half-a-crown," said one, in a dreadful voice. "Mr. BURROWES irregular in his attendance at Chapel, gated at eight," roared a second. "Mr. BURROWES persistently disorderly, sent down for the term," shouted a third; and then they ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 99., December 27, 1890 • Various

... the lad? Replied: 'It is the law; we must seek a youth or a maiden of clean life, and under age, to receive messages and admonitions.' We conversed with many more words, but it is not lawful for me to set them down. Pen and ink would degrade and defile the thoughts she uttered, and which my mind received that day. I broke the ring, and she passed, but to return once more next day. At even-song, a long discourse with that ancient transgressor, Mr B. Great horror and remorse; entire atonement and penance; ...
— The Haunters & The Haunted - Ghost Stories And Tales Of The Supernatural • Various

... ice-scoured rocks and above the timber-line, the trail ran around Crater Lake and gained the rocky defile that led toward Happy Camp and the first scrub-pines. To pack his heavy outfit around would take days of heart-breaking toil. On the lake was a canvas boat employed in freighting. Two trips with it, in two hours, would see him and his ...
— Smoke Bellew • Jack London

... perched on his crown, carrying a tremendous dragoon sabre at a poise, and trailing at his heels a huge steel scabbard, that had war in its very clattering. There was a good deal of difficulty in getting all the platoons (there were six) to look the same way; but, by the time they reached the defile of the bridge, the troops were in sufficiently compact order. In this manner they marched up the hill to the summit of the mountain, no other alteration taking place in the disposition of the forces, excepting that a mutual complaint ...
— The Pioneers • James Fenimore Cooper

... there science, religion, and philanthropy, PROFESSEDLY, go hand in hand. Like many other deluded parents, he thought that "Holiness to the Lord" was inscribed upon those walls, and that nothing which could pervert or defile the youthful mind, was permitted to enter there. With these views and feelings, he was undoubtedly sincere when he told me, "I would have a good home, and the nuns would take better care of me than he could." Rash his decision certainly ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson

... you we defile, Eloia! Eloia! Pray you, gentles, do not smile If we shout, in classic style, Eloia! Ludwig and his Julia true Wedded are each other to— So we sing, till all is blue, Eloia! ...
— The Complete Plays of Gilbert and Sullivan - The 14 Gilbert And Sullivan Plays • William Schwenk Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan

... and, ceasing her song, stretched out her hand to welcome her, saying, "Greeting, sister." But Zinita did not take it. "It is not fitting, sister," she said, "that my hand, stained with toil, should defile yours, fresh with the scent of flowers. But I am charged with a message, on my own behalf and the behalf of the other wives of our Lord Bulalio; the weeds grow thick in yonder corn, and we women are few; now that your love days are over, will not ...
— Nada the Lily • H. Rider Haggard

... speak plainer, swine-head! Never shall a work of mine defile itself in your dirty dollar-factory. I spit on you!' He spat viciously into the telephone disk. 'Your father was a Meshummad ...
— Ghetto Comedies • Israel Zangwill

... Soon we heard a challenge-trumpet Sounding in the pass below, And the distant tramp of horses, And the voices of the foe: Down we crouched amid the bracken, Till the Lowland ranks drew near, Panting like the hounds in summer, When they scent the stately deer. From the dark defile emerging, Next we saw the squadrons come, Leslie's foot and Leven's troopers Marching to the tuck of drum; Through the scattered wood of birches, O'er the broken ground and heath, Wound the long battalion slowly, Till they gained the field beneath; Then we bounded from our ...
— Lays of the Scottish Cavaliers and Other Poems • W.E. Aytoun

... very souls of men! She lived to separate, where Jesus died to make one! How weak and unworthy was I to be caught in her snares! how wicked and vile not to tear myself loose! The woman whose touch would defile the Pharisee, is pure beside such ...
— The Flight of the Shadow • George MacDonald

... ourselves, but to him that loved us, that died for us, and rose again (II Cor 5:14, 15). We shall do that which is naught too much, even then when we watch and take care what we can to prevent it. Our flesh, when we do our utmost diligence to resist, it will defile both us and our best performances. We need not lay the reins on its neck and say, What care we? the more sin the more grace, and the more we shall see the kindness of Christ, and what virtue there is in his Advocate's office to save ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... in times of old in castles set Amidst rich groves and cool, pellucid streams, And woodlands broad and fair to roam at will; But these by moats and battlements enclosed Were made impassable that the eyes impure Of man might not upon their beauty gaze, And so defile their virgin purity. For all that here delighted woman's eyes Was freely lavished by their royal sires; And countless guards to watch all day were there, And maidens numberless to sport with them And while away their tedious hours of life With ...
— Tales of Ind - And Other Poems • T. Ramakrishna

... they had overtaken the Indians as well as the horses. They had continued the pursuit alone after Fuentas left them, and towards nightfall entered the mountains into which the trail led. After sunset, the moon gave light until late in the night, when it entered a narrow defile, and was difficult to follow. Here they lay from midnight till morning. At daylight they resumed the pursuit, and at sunrise discovered the horses; and immediately dismounting and tying up their ...
— Heroes and Hunters of the West • Anonymous

... a thought it gives of the hallowedness and sacredness of the body, to think of the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. How considerately we ought to treat these bodies and how sensitively we ought to shun everything that will defile them. How carefully we ought to walk in all things so as not to grieve Him who dwells ...
— The Person and Work of The Holy Spirit • R. A. Torrey

... was to move south from Darksville by the Valley pike. Meanwhile, Wilson was to strike up the Berryville pike, carry the Berryville crossing of the Opequon, charge through the gorge or canyon on the road west of the stream, and occupy the open ground at the head of this defile. Wilson's attack was to be supported by the Sixth and Nineteenth corps, which were ordered to the Berryville crossing, and as the cavalry gained the open ground beyond the gorge, the two infantry corps, under command of General Wright, were expected ...
— The Memoirs of General Philip H. Sheridan, Vol. II., Part 4 • P. H. Sheridan

... a station about two days' journey from Lillehammer, on the main road to Trondhjem, I passed through a very steep and rugged defile in the mountains, with jagged rocks on the right and the foaming waters of the Logen on the left, where my attention was called by the skydskaarl to a small monument by the roadside hearing an inscription commemorative ...
— The Land of Thor • J. Ross Browne

... the woman said to this poor, miserable litte scrap of humanity as the soldiers pushed her roughly aside. "Spit on the aristocrat!" And the child tortured its own small, parched mouth so that, in obedience to its mother, it might defile and bespatter ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy

... nearly vertical cliffs, towering thousands of feet above the bottom of the valley; and on the E. by many peaked mountains of still greater altitude. At the entrance to the "amphitheatre," the actual distance between the colossal rocks which flank the defile is certainly not much more than 2 miles. From this standpoint the view across the level interior of the elliptical plain would be of extraordinary magnificence. Towards the S., but more than 12 miles distant, the outlook of an observer would be ...
— The Moon - A Full Description and Map of its Principal Physical Features • Thomas Gwyn Elger

... attention from native and barbarian alike. The very antagonism of the few foreign manners and habits he is obliged by his position to cultivate, tend rather to confirm him in his own sense of superiority than otherwise. For who but a barbarian would defile the banquet hour "when the wine mantles in the cups" with a white table-cloth, the badge of grief and death? How much more elegant the soft red lacquer of the "eight fairy" table, with all its associations of the bridal hour! The host, ...
— Chinese Sketches • Herbert A. Giles

... Heaven!" said Issachar lifting up his eyes, "how long will you suffer that this murderous and accursed race should defile ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard

... (16) the Achaeans were urgent for an alliance, and begged him to join them in an expedition against Acarnania. In the course of this the Acarnanians attacked him in a defile. Storming the heights above his head with his light troops, (17) he gave them battle, and slew many of them, and set up a trophy, nor stayed his hand until he had united the Acarnanians, the Aetolians, and the Argives, (18) in friendship with the ...
— Agesilaus • Xenophon

... Garcia; 'do not defile your hand by striking such rats as this, or if you must strike, use a stick. You have heard that he confesses to passing under a false name and to being an Englishman, and therefore one of our country's foes. To this I add upon my word of honour that to my knowledge he is a spy and a would-be ...
— Montezuma's Daughter • H. Rider Haggard

... that defile the land, the shrieking of steam, and the perpetual, terrible grinding of iron against iron (sounds which our little children grow up not to heed) are part of a system which enables Mr. Ruskin, one day to address a crowd ...
— Normandy Picturesque • Henry Blackburn

... South of this canyon, McCloud, one day on a hunting trip, found himself with two Indians pocketed in the rough country, and was planning how to escape passing a night away from camp when his companions led him past a vertical wall of rock a thousand feet high, split into a narrow defile down which they rode, as it broadened out, for miles. They emerged upon an open country that led without a break into the valley of the Crawling Stone below the canyon. Afterward, when he had become ...
— Whispering Smith • Frank H. Spearman

... too. Her face was set towards the sea and its great sincerity, which murmurs against the lies and the deceptions of many lives that defile the land, and takes so many more to itself that they may persist no longer in their evil doing. And perhaps it was her vision of the sea that swept from Lily any desire to be a coquette, or to be maidenly,—that is, false. She looked from the ...
— Tongues of Conscience • Robert Smythe Hichens

... Ebed gamal Mohar n'amu ('A camel's slave is the Mohar! they say'); so they say, and thou gainest a name among the Mohars and the knights of the land of Egypt. Thy name becomes like that of Qazairnai, the lord of Asel, when the lions found him in the thicket, in the defile which is rendered dangerous by the Shasu who lie in ambush among the trees. They measured four cubits from the nose to the heel, they had a grim look, without softness; they ...
— Patriarchal Palestine • Archibald Henry Sayce

... that heals division of love from love, and renews awhile Life and breath in the lips where death has quenched the spirit of speech and smile, Shows on earth, or in heaven's mid mirth, where no fears enter or doubts defile, ...
— Astrophel and Other Poems - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne, Vol. VI • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... another moment the group of dark-cloaked figures outside crept off in single file like a slithering serpent, moving down the rock defile toward where in the cauldron pit the lights of the mine shone on its dark ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, October, 1930 • Various

... for their mistress' liberty or life; but the odds were too great, both in numbers and equipment; and not five minutes passed, before they were all cut down, and stretched out, dead or dying, on the rocky floor of the dark defile. ...
— The Roman Traitor (Vol. 2 of 2) • Henry William Herbert



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