"Devastating" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... what had been to the unconscious merpussy nothing but a mutual accommodation imposed by a common lot—common subjection to the forces of gravitation and the extinction of friction by the reaction of short grass on leather—had been to her companion a phase of stimulus to the storm that was devastating the region of his soul; a new and prolonged peal of thunder swift on the heels of a blinding lightning-flash, and a deluge to follow such as a real storm makes us run to shelter from. On Dr. Conrad's side of the analogy, there was no shelter, and he didn't ask ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... where a dam 150 ft. high, the construction of which for irrigation purposes was commenced in 1755 and completed in 1789, was filled for the first time in February, 1802, and two months later gave way, destroying part of the town of Lorca and devastating a large tract of the most fertile country, and causing the death of 600 people. The immediate cause of failure in this case the author has been unable to ascertain. In Algeria the Sig and Tlelat dams were destroyed in 1865; and in the United States of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 595, May 28, 1887 • Various
... London, "Phil. Mag." xxi. p. 180.] At first I imagined that they had been precipitated from the mountains around; and I referred the shingle to land-shoots, which during the rains descend several thousand feet in devastating avalanches, damming up the rivers, and destroying houses, cattle, and cultivation; but though I still refer the materials of many such terraces to this cause, I consider those at the mouths of valleys to be due to ancient glacial action, especially when laden ...
— Himalayan Journals (Complete) • J. D. Hooker
... at six o'clock James Stonehouse himself had driven up in a taxi, to the driver of which he had appeared to hand the contents of all his pockets, and a moment later stormed into the house in a mood which was, if anything, more devastating than his ungovernable rages. He had been exuberant—exultant—his good-humour white-hot and dangerous. Looking into his brilliant blue eyes with their two sharp points of light, it would have been hard to tell whether he was laughing or mad with anger. His moods were like that—too close ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... Indians relate a legend mixed of brotherliness and the retribution of God. Once the pines possessed the field, as the worn stumps of them along the streamside show, and it would seem their secret purpose to regain their old footing. Now and then some seedling escapes the devastating sheep a rod or two down-stream. Since I came to live by the field one of these has tiptoed above the gully of the creek, beckoning the procession from the hills, as if in fact they would make back toward that skyward-pointing finger of granite on the opposite range, ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... are worn to great advantage in India on diseased parts of the body. The curative properties of these cells I have seen verified in authentic instances. When, years ago (I believe about 1852), cholera was devastating some parts of Europe, it was remarked at Munich (Bavaria) that among the thousands of its victims there was not a single coppersmith. Hence, it was recommended by the medical authorities of that town to wear disks of thin copperplate ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various
... England determined to seize the favourable opportunity of invading her possessions in America. These were headed by Sir David Kerkt and his brothers, who procured the command of a small fleet of English vessels, and after devastating the coasts in the vicinity of Quebec, sent a summons to the Governor to surrender the town itself. Not having received supplies from France for three years, its resources were nearly exhausted, nevertheless, as Champlain. was in. hourly expectation ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... hurt and puzzled Don Carlos, and she gloried in the thought, flattering herself that she was really taking her revenge. She was completely mistress of herself again, sure of her own powers, and during supper she laid herself out to be "nice," with almost devastating effect, playing on the emotions of the Spaniard like a skilled musician on a sensitive instrument. Deliberately she encouraged him, only to rebuff him when she had inflamed his ardour, deliberately she set herself to excite his passions, ...
— Bandit Love • Juanita Savage
... congratulations, a sort of sunburst of gladness, after a long night of gloom and anxiety; then two or three days of calming down, by degrees —a receding of tides, a quieting of the storm-wash to a murmurous surf-beat, a diminishing of devastating winds to a refrain that bore the spirit of a truce-days given to solitude, rest, self-communion, and the reasoning of herself into a realization of the fact that she was actually done with bolts and bars, prison, horrors and impending, ...
— The Gilded Age, Complete • Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner
... Jupiter A bolt upon the lands nor pours abroad Clap upon clap, when skies are cloudless all? Or, say, doth he, so soon as ever the clouds Have come thereunder, then into the same Descend in person, that from thence he may Near-by decide upon the stroke of shaft? And, lastly, why, with devastating bolt Shakes he asunder holy shrines of gods And his own thrones of splendour, and to-breaks The well-wrought idols of divinities, And robs of glory his own ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... nitrate fields, where there was a financing house, a gentleman of the name of Edwards, and—a Government; or, rather, two Governments—two South American Governments. And you know what came of it. War came of it; devastating and prolonged war came of it, Mr. Gould. However, here we possess the advantage of having only one South American Government hanging around for plunder out of the deal. It is an advantage; but then there are degrees of badness, and that Government ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... great city, which was never seriously threatened with danger, should have acted thus, there is undoubtedly much excuse to be found for the Vesuviani themselves, whose houses and lives were certainly in danger from the devastating streams of lava. It was with a sigh and a smile that we learned how the good people of Portici attributed their escape from the fate of Bosco-Trecase to the direct interposition of a wonder-working Madonna enshrined in one of their own ...
— The Naples Riviera • Herbert M. Vaughan
... which he had come to love, were sharing his utter dismay. Almost at his very feet rushed a boisterous torrent, melting the packed earth of the road like wax in a tropic sunshine, and carrying its devastating work of erosion to the very spot ...
— Tom Slade Motorcycle Dispatch Bearer • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... da Carpi was, in fact, a great physician, surgeon, and student of anatomy. He is said to have been the first to use mercury in the cure of syphilis, a disease which was devastating Italy after the year 1495. He amassed a large fortune, which, when he died at Ferrara about 1530, he bequeathed to the ...
— The Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini • Benvenuto Cellini
... at twelve o'clock promptly, being unable to remain away any longer, and gave an excellent imitation of a visitation of locusts performing their well-known devastating act. If any two travellers by land or sea ever received their money's worth in food it was Steve and Tom. They took the menu card and briskly demanded everything in order, and when, having finished their dessert, they made the discovery ...
— Left End Edwards • Ralph Henry Barbour
... sector, with canned tuna the primary export. Transfers from the US Government add substantially to American Samoa's economic well-being. Attempts by the government to develop a larger and broader economy are restrained by Samoa's remote location, its limited transportation, and its devastating hurricanes. Tourism ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... enemies, if we can. I don't know where to look for these. I will have to ask the mycologists what we may anticipate along the line of natural enemies. I would like to ask if it is common for a weak species to become a devastating species. Have we many parallels in the field of mycology? The point relating to raising immune kinds is one for discussion. Are we to raise immune chestnuts? The history of most plants, I think, ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the Second Annual Meeting - Ithaca, New York, December 14 and 15, 1911 • Northern Nut Growers Association
... mind are not always destroyed [20] by the first uprooting; they reappear, like devastating witch-grass, to choke the coming clover. O stupid gar- dener! watch their reappearing, and tear them away from their native soil, until no seedling be left to propagate— ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... spectacle for which the unhappy captain had prayed long and devoutly. The Philadelphia was in flames—red, devouring flames, pouring out of her hold, climbing the rigging, licking her topmasts, forming fantastic columns—devastating, unconquerable flames—the frigate was doomed, doomed! And every now and then one of her guns would explode as though booming out her requiem. Bainbridge ...
— Jefferson and his Colleagues - A Chronicle of the Virginia Dynasty, Volume 15 In The - Chronicles Of America Series • Allen Johnson
... else, is easier to tear down than to build up, and one of the most devastating instruments of destruction is discourtesy. A contact which has taken years to build can be broken off by one snippy letter, one pert answer, or one discourteous response over the telephone. Even collection letters, no matter how long overdue the accounts are, bring in more returns ...
— The Book of Business Etiquette • Nella Henney
... portion of the army was concentrated at the Southern extremity of Russia, for it was here that the fleets of the allied powers would be encountered. Like devastating swarms of locusts the semi-barbarous warriors descended upon the fertile fields, destroying all that lay in their path. Great was the misery of the peasantry in that section of the Empire; greater still the hardships endured by the Jews, who were despoiled of their ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... the French fact, are true to the human fact; and I should say that in these the reality of Zola, unreal or ideal in his larger form, his epicality, vitally resided. His people live in the memory as entirely as any people who have ever lived; and, however devastating one's experience of them may be, it leaves no doubt ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... pinnacle and stood looking somberly down at the devastation that was being wrought, with no greater beginning, probably, than a dropped match or cigarette stub. He was thinking hazily that so his old life had been swept away in the devastating effect of a passing whim, a foolish bit of play. The girl irritated him with her chatter—yet three months ago he himself would have considered it brilliant conversation, and would have exerted himself to keep pace ...
— The Lookout Man • B. M. Bower
... to man with the same refrain, even as religion, "Sacrifice! Abnegate! Submit!" The spirit of Anarchism has lifted man from his prostrate position. He now stands erect, with his face toward the light. He has learned to see the insatiable, devouring, devastating nature of property, and he is preparing to strike the ...
— Anarchism and Other Essays • Emma Goldman
... NA natural hazards: periodic, devastating cyclones (December to April); Piton de la Fournaise on the southeastern coast is an active volcano international ...
— The 1995 CIA World Factbook • United States Central Intelligence Agency
... they were arrested by the Atlantic on the one side, and the Indian ocean on the other—of the stern crusaders, who, nursed amid the cloistered shades and castellated realms of Europe, struggled with that devastating horde "when 'twas strongest, and ruled it when 'twas wildest"—of the long agony, silent decay, and ultimate resurrection of the Eternal City—are so many immortal pictures, which, to the end of the world, will fascinate every ardent and imaginative mind. But, not withstanding this ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 350, December 1844 • Various
... relieved only by the coy confidences of the amorous Maria (played by Miss GLADYS GORDON with a nice sense of fun). Mr. HENRY CAINE, as "The Daisy," presented very effectively the rough-and-ready humour and the frank brutality of his type; but he perhaps failed to convey the devastating attractions which he was alleged to have for the frail sex; and his sudden spasms of tragic emotion seemed a little ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 159, September 22, 1920 • Various
... the Borgoo robbers, and so manifest a dread of them, that a minder on the high-way is of very rare occurrence. When this crime was perpetrated, the whole nation seemed to be terror-struck, and the people rose up in arms, as if a public enemy were devastating their country, and slaughtering its inhabitants without mercy. This is the only instance they ever heard of a young man entertaining a strong attachment for a female. Marriage is celebrated by the natives as unconcernedly as possible. A man thinks as little of taking a wife as of cutting ...
— Lander's Travels - The Travels of Richard Lander into the Interior of Africa • Robert Huish
... midnight," replied the Nome King, "we shall arrive at the Emerald City by daybreak. Then, while all the Oz people are sleeping, we will capture them and make them our slaves. After that we will destroy the city itself and march through the Land of Oz, burning and devastating ...
— The Emerald City of Oz • L. Frank Baum
... and each other by their violence. Scarcely did one become eminent before it was torn to pieces by its comrades, or perished of its own rage. They were like barbarous hordes, exterminating one another or falling into dissolution, while devastating everything ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... breath of hot wind blew now with its rising and gathering strength, and in Virginia, and Brazil, and down the St. Lawrence valley, it shone intermittently through a driving reek of thunder-clouds, flickering violet lightning, and hail unprecedented. In Manitoba was a thaw and devastating floods. And upon all the mountains of the earth the snow and ice began to melt that night, and all the rivers coming out of high country flowed thick and turbid, and soon—in their upper reaches—with swirling trees and the bodies of beasts and men. They rose steadily, steadily in the ...
— Tales of Space and Time • Herbert George Wells
... frowzy clothes, bill-hook in hand, a symbol of the patient work of the world. So helpless a crowd, so patient in trouble, so bewildered as to the meaning of it all; and zigzagged all across it, in nations, in families, in individuals, the jagged lines of evil, so devastating, so horrible, so irremediable; and even worse than evil—which has at least something lurid and fiery about it—the dark, slimy streaks of meanness and jealousy, of boredom and ugliness, which seem to have no use at all but to make things move heavily ...
— The Silent Isle • Arthur Christopher Benson
... ejaculated Mrs. Gubling, as one devastating tableful rose lingeringly from the repast, and another flock began to gather in hungry expectancy at the door,—"I do declare, I'm near beat out. Is this a starvin' community? At this rate they'll eat up all there is in the house, and ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... tall young man, who carried a very delicate, tiny, blackdressed lady in his arms; she was thinking of a tall man, who steered his small ship in between cliffs and rocks in a devastating gale. She heard a whole conversation over again. She blushed: Eugene Carlson might have thought that you were paying court to him! With a little jealous association of ideas she continued: No one would ever run after Clara in a wood in the ...
— Mogens and Other Stories - Mogens; The Plague At Bergamo; There Should Have Been Roses; Mrs. Fonss • Jens Peter Jacobsen
... him stretched the road to Mantua. Was it only last April that upon this road he and Valerius had had that revealing hour? The most devastating of all his memories swept in upon him. Valerius had had his first furlough in two years and they had spent a week of it together in Verona. The day before Valerius was to leave to meet his transport at Brindisi ...
— Roads from Rome • Anne C. E. Allinson
... in at last; but I believe it was mostly the rain that did it; it was falling just then with a devastating violence which quieted down gradually while we talked. His manner was very sober and set; his bearing was that of a naturally taciturn man possessed by an idea. My talk was of the material aspect of his position; it had the sole aim of saving him from ...
— Lord Jim • Joseph Conrad
... detestation of what was at once elegant and harmless. The headless busts of men and women, round the house of the governor, yet prove the excesses of the mob; and the destruction of two places of worship was the close of their devastating labours. ...
— A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany, Volume Two • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... national situation. It was a time of general alarm and uncertainty, from political unrest, commercial stagnation, and devastating pestilence. "The terrors of the time begat a hundred forms of strange fanaticism; and among men who were not fanatics there was a deep and wide conviction that national judgments were overtaking national sins, and that the only hope of safety for England lay in ...
— The Grand Old Man • Richard B. Cook
... in three divisions. Where they got all their regiments, I don't know, but their 7th Grenadier Guards were there, and their 47th, 58th, 59th, 80th, and 87th regiments of the line, not counting a Jaeger battalion and no end of artillery. They carried the Three Poplars—a hill—and they began devastating everything. We couldn't face their fire—I don't know why, Jack; it breaks my heart when I say it, but we couldn't hold them. Then they began howling for cannon, and, of course, that settled the Chateau. The town was in flames when ...
— Lorraine - A romance • Robert W. Chambers
... His manner throughout was that engaging mixture of modesty afraid of being thought conceited and eager pride in showing his skill so attractive to everybody. At first he shot deliberately, splitting cards, hitting marbles, and devastating whole rows of clay pipes. Then he took to secreting the weapons in various pockets from which he produced and discharged them in lightning time. His hand darted with the speed and precision ...
— The Gray Dawn • Stewart Edward White
... his extreme age. To be sure, it was many years since anybody had asked him to take part in any service whatsoever, even a funeral service—for which, as is well understood, a man retains efficiency long after he has ceased to be of use in the pulpit, no matter how devastating may be the weather. But that fact did not seem to bear ...
— On Christmas Day In The Evening • Grace Louise Smith Richmond
... (London, 1875).] Thanks to the goats, Maltese fever has lately been introduced into Calabria. Man, with his charcoal-burning, has completed the disaster. What happens? The friable rock, no longer sustained by plant-life, crashes down with each thunderstorm, blocks up the valleys, devastating large tracts of fertile land; it creates swamps in the lowlands, and impedes the outflow of water to the sea. These ravenous fiumare have become a feature in Calabrian scenery; underneath one of ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... once a conviction that I had my eye upon his fruit and a determination to confound my strategy. The apple was dwindling fast, and, redoubling my protests, I quickened my pace. For a second the boy hesitated. Then he took two last devastating bites, flung the core in my face, ...
— Jonah and Co. • Dornford Yates
... hundred stacks of corn and beans in their stack-yards. After walking about seven miles we arrived at the dismal-looking village of Buchlyvie, where we saw many houses in ruins, standing in all their gloominess as evidences of the devastating effects of war. Some of the inhabitants were trying to eke out their livelihood by hand-loom weaving, but there was a poverty-stricken appearance about the place which had, we found, altered but little since Sir Walter Scott wrote of it in the following rhyme which he had ...
— From John O'Groats to Land's End • Robert Naylor and John Naylor
... brought their owners handsome incomes until about twenty years ago, when the blight, more devastating than the cotton boll weevil, came with destruction as swift as that which befell Sennacherib. I heard the story of an old plantation near Lipa, whose high-bred Castilian owner once lived in splendor, ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe
... more articles than poems. Whereas, if he wrote more poems than articles, two hundred was the highest figure it had yet attained. And supposing the poems came and the articles didn't? For in these things he was in the hands of the god. Therefore he had long been a prey to devastating anxiety. But he hoped great things from the transformation of The Museion. It certainly promised him a larger and more certain revenue in the future, almost justifying his marriage in the autumn. It had been expressly understood that his promise to Flossie was ...
— The Divine Fire • May Sinclair
... this inheritance during the lifetime of Rodolph, the latter's nephew, the Emperor Conrad the Salique, assumed control of the kingdom which then was incorporated into the German Empire. Not without devastating wars and desperate opposition on the part of the heirs of the Rodolphian line was the country preserved to the German sovereign, and under his distant rule it became a prey to continuous dissensions between the bishops and the ...
— The Counts of Gruyere • Mrs. Reginald de Koven
... however, by the second line they refer to the crusading period; and by the last line they denote the bad government of the Turks, under which the wild Bedaween are encroaching upon civilisation, and devastating the recompense of honest ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... be the only vital necessity in a nation's life. But the one vital necessity in a man's spiritual life he had missed. If he had had this, he told himself, life's bludgeons, however searching, however devastating, he could have laughed at. A man must have the thought of some good woman's love to sustain him. But for Enoch, the thought of any woman's love, Luigi had tainted at its source. He had neither mother nor mate, and until he had evolved some philosophy which would reconcile him to doing ...
— The Enchanted Canyon • Honore Willsie Morrow
... passing of Blake, the spiritual Maxine entered upon a new phase—was arbitrarily forced into a new phase of existence. The passing of Blake was sudden, tremendous, devastating in its effect, leaving as consequences a ...
— Max • Katherine Cecil Thurston
... of the republic, for the most part, rejected the ancient system of devastating a vanquished state by an instant, unsparing, and crushing plunder, which may answer very well where the tenure is expected to be brief, but does not accord with the formula subdue, retain, advance. Yet depopulation was the necessary ...
— History of the Intellectual Development of Europe, Volume I (of 2) - Revised Edition • John William Draper
... degree of Knight Kadosch had sworn hatred to the Pope and Bourbon monarchy, rallied likewise to the royal cause. "The French spirit triumphed over the masonic spirit in the greater number of the Brothers. Opinions as well as hearts were still for the King." It needed the devastating doctrines of Weishaupt to undermine this spirit and to turn the "degrees of vengeance" from vain ceremonial into ...
— Secret Societies And Subversive Movements • Nesta H. Webster
... and only goes on trading because its creditors give it time. To the uncertainties of the weather, and the chances of cholera, war, and earthquake, we have added an artificial uncertainty worse than any of these—we have invented a series of financial cyclones, which sweep round the globe, devastating all lands, and no more to be predicted—despite theories of sun-spots, cyclones and financial crises—than wrecks at sea; indeed, far less predictable, for I believe with the ex-mayor quoted by Bonamy Price, that ...
— Without Prejudice • Israel Zangwill
... Christian ranks some soldiers whose hands are too nerveless or too full of worldly trash to grasp the sword which they have received, much less to strike home with it at any of the evils that are devastating their own lives or darkening the world. The feebleness of the Christian conflict with evil, in all its forms, whether individual or social, whether intellectual or moral, whether heretical or grossly and frankly sensual, is mainly ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Agsan Valley as far south as Verula. They were tailed men from all accounts, the tail of the men being like a dagger, and that of the women like an adze of the kind used by Manbos. For 14 years they continued their depredations, devastating the whole valley till all the Manbos had fled or been killed, except one woman on the Argwan River or, as some say, on ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... heritage against external foes. The Oriental rallied and expelled Hellenism again from the Asiatic hinterland, while the new cloud of Rome was gathering in the west. In four generations[2] of the most devastating warfare the world had seen, Rome conquered all the coasts of the Mediterranean. Greek city and Greek dynast went down before her, and the political sceptre passed irrevocably ...
— The Balkans - A History Of Bulgaria—Serbia—Greece—Rumania—Turkey • Nevill Forbes, Arnold J. Toynbee, D. Mitrany, D.G. Hogarth
... heroism of those devoted Japanese infantry was something to send a thrill through the heart of a man; no sooner did they show than the whole of the ground which they occupied and that in front of them was swept by a devastating crossfire from the whole line of the Russian trenches, which beat down the young barley as a heavy shower of rain might level it. To me, unaccustomed to this style of fighting, it looked as though nothing might venture upon that shot-swept zone and live; yet ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... undermined the most precious tales in the holy books of all peoples. The development of biblical criticism has discredited the dogma of direct revelation and unique nature of the Hebrew Bible. Textual scholarship has been equally devastating to the sacred scriptures which form the literary basis of the other world religions. It avails one nothing to deny these things, for they are actually undeniable. We must face the implied intellectual revolution honestly and see what is to be ...
— The Necessity of Atheism • Dr. D.M. Brooks
... there. A terrible storm came over her, as if she were drowning. She was possessed by a devastating hopelessness. And she approached mechanically to the altar. Never had she known such a pang of utter and final hopelessness. It was beyond ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... Pope Leo X. to the honorary command of a Papal regiment of cavalry. When still in his teens the youth served with distinction in France and in the Neapolitan war; and, on attaining his majority, he was sent with a detachment of troops to the assistance of the Emperor Charles V., in the devastating war ...
— The Tragedies of the Medici • Edgcumbe Staley
... More unhappiness!" he said to himself. Really if life at Riseholme was to become a series of agitated days ending in devastating discoveries, the sooner he went away with Foljambe and Dicky the better. He did not quite know what it was like to be in love, for the nearest he had previously ever got to it was when he saw Olga awake on the mountain-top ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson
... fulness; not a star Shone, not a sound was heard; the very winds, Danger's grim playmates, on that precipice Slept, clasped in his embrace.—O, storm of death! Whose sightless speed divides this sullen night: 610 And thou, colossal Skeleton, that, still Guiding its irresistible career In thy devastating omnipotence, Art king of this frail world, from the red field Of slaughter, from the reeking hospital, 615 The patriot's sacred couch, the snowy bed Of innocence, the scaffold and the throne, A mighty voice invokes thee. Ruin calls His brother ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley Volume I • Percy Bysshe Shelley
... the room three times each second, and through the passionate, obstinate head stormed in motley confusion the combined thoughts of the other twelve: from the mightiest hope to the most crushing doubt, from the most humble resolves to the most devastating plans of revenge; and, meanwhile, he had eaten up all the loose flesh on his right thumb, and was busied now with his nails, sending large pieces ...
— A Happy Boy • Bjornstjerne Bjornson
... population of the north and east, have remained to the present day a large element in the English race). But near the end of the tenth century new swarms of 'Danes' reappeared from the Baltic lands, once more slaughtering and devastating, until at last in the eleventh century the 'Danish' though Christian Canute ruled for twenty years over all England. In such a time there could be little intellectual or literary life. But the decline of the Anglo-Saxon ...
— A History of English Literature • Robert Huntington Fletcher
... complain. When the moon rose it shone over endless snow, broken only by dim, solid-looking masses of conifers. Here and there she could also vaguely discern rocky ledges upon which gaunt twisted limbs were reminders of devastating forest fires. There were also great smooth places that must have been lakes or the beds of wide rivers shackled in ice overlaid with heavy snow. Whenever the door of the car was opened a blast of cold would enter, bitingly, ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... Our king's descendant, disinherited, Must steal in secret through his own domain; While his first peer and nearest relative Contends against him in the hostile ranks; Ay, his unnatural mother leads them on. Around us towns and peaceful hamlets burn. Near and more near the devastating fire Rolls toward these vales, which yet repose in peace. Therefore, good neighbors, I have now resolved, While God still grants us safety, to provide For my three daughters; for 'midst war's alarms ...
— The Works of Frederich Schiller in English • Frederich Schiller
... crazy, enthusiastic Americans, engineers, health officers, executives, school teachers, Constabulary, labored on in the glory of service: eradicated cholera, built roads and bridges, brought six hundred thousand children into school that two score tribes might find a common tongue, fought the devastating cattle plagues, wiped out brigandage and piracy, brought order and first semblance of prosperity to eight millions ...
— Terry - A Tale of the Hill People • Charles Goff Thomson
... region of the great woods and the valleys of the higher peaks; and thin streams swell to raging floods which burst suddenly from the altitudes, rolling down rocks and trees and wreck of forests, uplifting crags, devastating slopes. And sometimes, down the ravine of the Roxelane, there comes a roar as of eruption, with a rush of foaming water like a moving mountain-wall; and bridges and buildings vanish with its passing. ...
— Two Years in the French West Indies • Lafcadio Hearn
... ledges the most valuble ores exist, but coal and fossils are searched for in vain. Many a change during the geological periods have these granite mountains looked upon. They have seen fire and water successively sweep over the surface of our globe. Devastating epochs passed, continents sunk and rose, and mountains were piled on mountains in the dread chaos, but these stood firm and undaunted, though scarred and seamed by glaciers, and washed by the billows of a primeval sea, presenting nearly the ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 2 • Various
... structure looked—as remembered objects will look, when we see them again after a long interval—smaller than I had supposed it to be. Otherwise, I could discover no change in the mill. But the wooden cottage attached to it had felt the devastating march of time. A portion of the decrepit building still stood revealed in its wretched old age; propped, partly by beams which reached from the thatched roof to the ground, and partly by the wall of a new cottage ...
— The Guilty River • Wilkie Collins
... and a financial services industry, although the International Banking Repeal Act of 2002 resulted in the termination of all offshore banking licenses. Economic aid from New Zealand in 2002 was US$2.6 million. Niue suffered a devastating typhoon in January 2004, which decimated nascent economic programs. While in the process of rebuilding, Niue has been dependent on ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... from out of their pastures, came scattering blindly adown the track; and men and horses moved quickly to one side to avoid a devastating collision. ...
— Robin Hood • Paul Creswick
... 21st, treaties were there signed with France, with Holland, and with Denmark. Peace was based upon the maintenance of the status quo; no cession of territory was to take place. The rights of commerce and of navigation were to be as provided by the treaty of 1662. Never was a costly and devastating war entered upon more recklessly, conducted, on our side at least, with more helpless inefficiency, and closed with a smaller result in any change which it effected. The people of England accepted peace as a relief; they ...
— The Life of Edward Earl of Clarendon V2 • Henry Craik
... Britain after the withdrawal of the Roman troops is extremely obscure, but there can be little doubt that for many years the inhabitants of the provinces were exposed to devastating raids by the Picts and Scots. According to Gildas it was for protection against these incursions that the Britons decided to call in the Saxons. Their allies soon obtained a decisive victory; but subsequently they turned their arms against the Britons themselves, alleging that they had ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3 - "Brescia" to "Bulgaria" • Various
... her breath came quick and fast, her tiny hand clenched, her face flushed, and there was a devastating ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... familiar objects with the delighted eyes of a traveller returning to a favorite foreign country. So she did not complain because when she had left the earth it had been hurrying towards the height of June, and she had returned to find the golden boughs of October already stripped by devastating winds. The flames leaped merrily under the great carved mantel-piece in her white-panelled drawing-room, showing the date 1661, and the initials of the man who had put it there, and on its narrow shelf a row of Chelsea figures which she had picked up in various corners of Oxford. The chintz ...
— The Invader - A Novel • Margaret L. Woods
... Members of the House of Commons, Tory and Liberal Unionist peers, Ulster captains of industry, the Grand Master of the Belfast Orangemen, and an eminent Jesuit.[47] In its reunion of men divided by bitter feuds, it was just the kind of Conference that assembled in Durban in 1908, six years after a devastating war, to discuss and to create the framework of South African Union. That Conference was the natural outcome of the grant of Home Rule to the defeated Boer States. The Irish Conference, succeeding a land-war far more destructive and ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... to the so lately placid face of Sadie in search of the devastating "snoot," but met only a serene glance of ...
— Little Citizens • Myra Kelly
... accumulated in formidable masses, and fragments of scoriae and pumice-stone weighing two hundredweight were thrown to a distance of a league and a half; while the ice and snow which had lain on the mountain for centuries were liquefied, and rolled in devastating ...
— The Story of Ida Pfeiffer - and Her Travels in Many Lands • Anonymous
... included in the Roman empire were exposed, extended from the Atlantic to Ethiopia, from Arabia to India, and from the Nile and Red Sea to Greece and the north of Asia Minor. Instances are recorded in history of clouds of the devastating insect crossing the Black Sea to Poland, and the Mediterranean to Lombardy. It is as numerous in its species as it is wide in its range of territory. Brood follows brood, with a sort of family likeness, ...
— Callista • John Henry Cardinal Newman
... browbeating and terrorizing weak officials, and of forcing legislation of their own invention through City Councils and State Legislatures. Their very cocksureness is their chief source of strength. They combat objection with such violence and with such a devastating cynicism that it quickly fades away. The more astute politicians, in the face of so ruthless a fire, commonly profess conversion and join the colours, just as their brethren went over to prohibition in the "dry" States, and the ...
— A Book of Prefaces • H. L. Mencken
... cushions of a fine equipage. I plunged into dissipation, into corroding vice, I desired and possessed everything, for fasting had made me light-headed like the tempted Saint Anthony. Slumber, happily, would put an end at last to these devastating trances; and on the morrow science would beckon me, smiling, and I was faithful to her. I imagine that women reputed virtuous, must often fall a prey to these insane tempests of desire and passion, which rise in us in spite of ourselves. Such dreams have ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... a devastating fire of stones enfiladed the company, and one by one they fell, save for the commander himself, who bowed his grizzled wrought-steel head and sobbed, "The ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... make a mound of earth, which is called Govardhan, that is the mountain in Mathura which Krishna held upside down on his finger for seven days and nights, so that all the people might gather under it and be protected from the devastating storms of rain sent by Indra. After dancing round the mound they drive their cattle over it and make them trample it to pieces. At this time a festival called Marhai is held, at which much liquor is drunk and ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume II • R. V. Russell
... political struggle. In Trieste and in Poland, in Alsace and in Macedonia, we find kings and politicians contending for the minds and souls of children, and it is in the school, the college, and the university that has been prepared the conflict that is now devastating Europe. ...
— The Unity of Civilization • Various
... the Norman power by dividing the party opposed to it. William crossed to Normandy in 1073, leading a considerable army composed in part of English. The campaign was a short one. Revolt was punished, as William sometimes punished it, by barbarously devastating the country. Le Mans did not venture to stand a siege, but surrendered on William's sworn promise to respect its ancient liberty. By a later treaty with Fulk of Anjou, Robert was recognized as Count of Maine, but as a vassal of Anjou and ...
— The History of England From the Norman Conquest - to the Death of John (1066-1216) • George Burton Adams
... of this tiger are the lacerating pinnacles of the Corbiere and the impaling rocks of Portelet Bay and Noirmont; the hind-claws are the devastating diorite reefs of La Motte and the Banc des Violets. The head and neck, terrible and beautiful, are stretched out towards the west, as it were to scan the wild waste and jungle of the Atlantic seas. The nose is L'Etacq, the forehead Grosnez, the ear Plemont, the mouth the ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... bearings of the study of yeast, and other such organisms, I have spoken elsewhere. It is certain that, in some animals, devastating epidemics are caused by fungi of low order—similar to those of which Torula is a sort of offshoot. It is certain that such diseases are propagated by contagion and infection, in just the same way as ordinary contagious and infectious diseases are propagated. ...
— Critiques and Addresses • Thomas Henry Huxley
... sanction to the notion of an automatic and wholesale progress in human affairs. Our part, the human part, was simply to enjoy the usufruct. Evolution inherited all the goods of divine Providence and had the advantage of being in fashion. Even a great and devastating war is not too great a price to pay for an awakening from such an infantile and selfish dream. Progress is not automatic; it depends upon human intent and aim and upon acceptance of responsibility for its production. It is not a wholesale matter, but a retail ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... not long after this that Jack received news that the James Boys had escaped from prison, reorganized the old gang and were devastating the State. ...
— Jack Wright and His Electric Stage; - or, Leagued Against the James Boys • "Noname"
... feminine portion of society. The announcement of the marriage of Hambleton Durrett would be news of the first magnitude, to be absorbed eagerly by the many who had not the honour of his acquaintance, —comparable only to that of a devastating flood or a murder mystery or a ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... now engaged. The journey was not altogether devoid of adventure, by any means; for upon one occasion they killed no less than five of their oxen through overwork during a hurried flight from the neighbourhood of a devastating grass fire; they lost three more at one fell swoop while crossing a flooded river; six succumbed to snake bites; four fell a prey to lions; and seven died of sickness believed to have been induced ...
— The Adventures of Dick Maitland - A Tale of Unknown Africa • Harry Collingwood
... associations which scratch my heart regularly every month when my affairs take me into those parts. Forgetting is the most wearisome of all pains to which we humans are subject; and for some of us there is so much to forget. For some of us there is Beatrice to forget, and Dora, and Christina, and the devastating loveliness of Isabel. For another thing, its atmosphere is so depressingly Slavonic. It is as dismal and as overdone as Rachmaninoff's Prelude in C sharp minor. How shall I give you the sharp flavour of it, or catch the ...
— Nights in London • Thomas Burke
... complications of horse-cars, target companies, and barrels of everything, Mr. BENTHAM also amused his friends with circuits of several of the fine public markets of New York; explaining to them the relations of the various miasmatic smells of those quaint edifices with the various devastating diseases of the day, and expatiating quite eloquently upon the political corruption involved in the renting of the stalls, and the fine openings there were for Cholera and Yellow Fever in the Fish and Vegetable departments. Then, as a last treat, he led his panting companions through several ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 2, No. 29, October 15, 1870 • Various
... millions; it was the nurse of a new civilization, and softening the manners and morals of men, its influence has been felt even in the worst quarter of history—in war. The continual massacres of the Greek and Roman kings and chiefs, and the extermination of nations by them—the all-devastating warfare of the Timurs and Gengis Khans—are in general not more to be met with; only my own dear fatherland was doomed to experience once more the cruelties of the Timurs and Gengis Khans out of the sacrilegious hands of the dynasty of Austria, which calumniates Christianity ...
— Select Speeches of Kossuth • Kossuth
... realize the power and nature of life in all its glory. But he could not realize the nature and effect of death and sorrow until he should eat of the fruit of the tree of death, and become intoxicated with the mania of its devastating forces. And for this cause Jehovah commanded Adam that he should not eat of the fruit of the tree of death ...
— The Secret of the Creation • Howard D. Pollyen
... a nature that it seemed as if every string must be broken. This mania spread until even the outlying bassoons, triangles, and celestas were infected. A piercing note of command, however, from a clarinet caused a devastating dumbness to fall suddenly on every instrument except the piano, which continued self-consciously alone. The pianist looked at the ceiling mostly, but one note seemed to be an especial favourite with him, and whenever he played ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson
... torrid zone it took the form of excessive rain and humidity, excessive heat, or excessive dryness and aridity. In the temperate and frigid zones, life was a seasonal battle with bitter cold, torrents of cold rain in early winter or spring, devastating sleet, and deep snow and ice that left no ...
— The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals • William T. Hornaday
... frightful butchery; the Cuirassiers, enraged at the losses suffered by their comrades of the Hussars and Dragoons, almost entirely exterminated the eight Russian battalions, All were either killed or captured! The battlefield was a scene of horror. Never has a cavalry charge had such a devastating result. The Emperor demonstrated his satisfaction with the Cuirassiers by embracing their general before the whole division. General D'Hautpoul exclaimed, "To show myself worthy of this honour, I shall dedicate my life to your majesty." He kept his word, for the next day he ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... the Western Empire, proved more destructive to the interests of literature than either volcanoes or earthquakes, and soon caused the disappearance of those libraries which, during several centuries, had been multiplied in Italy. Those of the East, however, escaped this devastating torrent; and both Alexandria and Constantinople preserved their literary treasures, until their capture by the Saracens and the Turks, who finally subverted ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 3, February, 1851 • Various
... which disintegrate effete forms of matter merely to allow the forces of life to rebuild them again—and these may propagate in the human system if it so happens that the human system is prepared to receive them. Their devastating process is called disease, but they never begin their work till the being they attack has either wasted a vital opportunity or neglected a vital necessity. Far more numerous are the beneficial germs of revivifying and creative power—and if these find place, they are ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... memory of events and of landmarks. Out of the soil of diseased imagination has sprung up a growth as terrible as the drunkard's phantasies. The earthquake, flood, tidal wave, famine, withering or devastating wind and poisonous gases, the geological monsters and ravening bird, beast and fish, have their representatives or ...
— The Religions of Japan - From the Dawn of History to the Era of Meiji • William Elliot Griffis
... young chief was a great warrior, and so were his braves, and, for awhile, wherever they went they were victorious, devastating the country by massacre too terrible to think of. But the chief of the tribe, from which these warriors had broken away, was also a great and savage warrior, and when he discovered that his wife was faithless and had eloped with another, ...
— The Law-Breakers • Ridgwell Cullum
... incentive. She wanted to talk to Portia. They hadn't had a real talk since that devastating day—ages ago—when, yielding to an impulse of passionate self-revelation, Portia had exhibited her great sacrifice and her equally great, though thwarted desire; had said to Rose, "I am the branch they cut off ...
— The Real Adventure • Henry Kitchell Webster
... have traced the course of events which ended in the complete overthrow of Xerxes and his great army. Our present task is to describe the chief incidents in the cruel and devastating war, commonly known as the Peloponnesian War, which lasted for twenty-seven years, and finally broke up the Athenian Empire. The cause of that war was the envy and hatred excited in the other states of Greece by the power and ...
— Stories From Thucydides • H. L. Havell
... church, till now gloomy, seemed to Rosalie to be illuminated. The girl was fascinated by his slow and solemn demeanor, as of a man who bears a world on his shoulders and whose deep gaze, whose very gestures, combine to express a devastating or absorbing thought. Rosalie now understood the Vicar-General's words in their fullest extent. Yes, those eyes of tawny brown, shot with golden lights, covered ardor which revealed itself in sudden ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... feelings play with devastating force. One may be satisfied with what he has until some one else he knows gets more; that is to say, the causes of most of the dissatisfaction and discontent of the world are envy and jealousy. In many cases it ...
— The Nervous Housewife • Abraham Myerson
... beleaguered until August fifteenth, and it held out for nearly a fortnight. Finally, on September sixteenth, Massena crossed the Portuguese frontier, and Wellington, who lay near by but had not ventured to assume the offensive, began a slow and cautious retreat down the valley of the Mondego, devastating the country as he went. At last he made a stand on the heights near Busaco, over against a gorge where the river breaks through the hills into the plains below. Massena attacked on September twenty-seventh and was repulsed with a loss of four thousand ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... undertakings; and that this defeat can be brought about only by using against her the same effective agencies of destruction and the same martial spirit on which Germany itself relies. Horrible as are the murderous and devastating effects of this war, there can be no lasting peace until Europe as a whole is ready to make some serious and far-reaching decisions in regard to Governmental structures and powers. In all probability the sufferings and losses of this widespread war must go further and cut deeper before Europe can ...
— The New York Times Current History of the European War, Vol. 1, January 9, 1915 - What Americans Say to Europe • Various
... looking over the estate, entered the forest, in order to visit his relatives there. His fellow monkeys, who knew of his marriage with the princess, believed him to be of some importance, and begged him to save them from the famine which was devastating the forest. This Amo-Mongo, with much boasting of his wealth, promised to do, declaring that at the time of harvest he would give them ...
— Philippine Folk-Tales • Clara Kern Bayliss, Berton L. Maxfield, W. H. Millington,
... which protect them from the floods, it is of vital importance that a well-matured and comprehensive plan for improvement should be put into operation with as little delay as possible. The cotton product of the region subject to the devastating floods is a source of wealth to the nation and of great importance to keeping the balances ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 8: Chester A. Arthur • James D. Richardson
... time ago the names of a neighboring nobleman and his niece, who lives with him. The man I allude to as Lord Bilberry, but is now Earl of Cockletown. He was raised to this rank for some services he rendered the government against the tories, who had been devastating the country, and also against some turbulent papists who were supposed to have privately encouraged them in their outrages against Protestant life and property. He was a daring and intrepid man when in his prime of life, and appeared to seek danger for its own sake. He is now an old ...
— The Evil Eye; Or, The Black Spector - The Works of William Carleton, Volume One • William Carleton
... so I say to you who love peace (and who does not love peace?) if you take part in any of these peace movements you are playing the German game and helping Germany. [Loud applause.] They talk of peace, but consider the position of our allies. The Germans in possession of the North of France, devastating the country, even today driving thousands of innocent, helpless people at the point of the bayonet, outraging women, and burning homes! And people in this country—an allied nation—allowing themselves to talk about terms ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... reason on earth that has manifested itself for this devastating and terrible war it is that it has been a maker ...
— Americans All - Stories of American Life of To-Day • Various
... Abraham established himself in Canaan, when a devastating famine broke out—one of the ten God appointed famines for the chastisement of men. The first of them came in the time of Adam, when God cursed the ground for his sake; the second was this one in the time of Abraham; the third compelled Isaac to take up his abode among ...
— The Legends of the Jews Volume 1 • Louis Ginzberg
... to submit. Other Free Companies such as Hawkwood's joined in the war. The Florentines hired that of the Star. But Hawkwood was not to be denied. He marched up Arno, devastating the country, and at last deigned to return to Pisa by ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... told the time when Charles the First was beheaded, and recorded the death-devouring progress of the Great Plague and the Fire of London. There is no doubt that the sun often shone even in these devastating occasions, so that we may picture Sir Thomas Blank telling the time here and ...
— New Treasure Seekers - or, The Bastable Children in Search of a Fortune • E. (Edith) Nesbit
... individual and concerted action, that is our next duty. Truth spreads, not like the devastating torrent, but like the tide. From individual to individual as from pebble to pebble it slowly creeps in and spreads the silent power of its rising waters. "No one ever talks freely about anything without contributing something, let it be ever ...
— Catholic Problems in Western Canada • George Thomas Daly
... ravages, and its devastating effects were to be seen in the darkened dwellings and the mourning habiliments of all classes. An expression of dejection and anxiety appeared in the faces of the few persons we encountered in our walk to the hotel, which plainly indicated ...
— The Backwoods of Canada • Catharine Parr Traill
... after this event, and the little town where it took place had something else to think of. The ill-advised step of the Prussian government, who, relying upon the aid of Russia, declared war against Napoleon, brought the devastating hordes of republican France among them. The battle of Jena placed the whole kingdom at the foot of the conqueror; and few towns suffered more, comparatively, than the little burgh which, by the decree of a very doubtful sort of justice, ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 435 - Volume 17, New Series, May 1, 1852 • Various
... the Powers for this rushing pageant of political events. It gave him little chance to grieve. Now and then the tragedy of Bertha gripped him by the throat and shook him with its devastating loneliness. He found a certain solace in Aleta's company. She was always ready, glad to walk or dine with him. She ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... back. But it was of no avail. In vain did Keble and Pusey wring their hands and stretch forth their pleading arms to their now vanishing brother. The fatal moment was fast approaching. Ward at last published a devastating book in which he proved conclusively, by a series of syllogisms, that the only proper course for the Church of England was to repent in sackcloth and ashes her separation from the Communion of Rome. The reckless author was deprived of his degree by an outraged University, ...
— Eminent Victorians • Lytton Strachey
... The devastating effects of these storm-waves is still further illustrated by the total destruction of Coringa, on the Coromandel Coast, in 1789. During a hurricane, in December of that year, at the moment when a high tide was at its ...
— The Ocean and its Wonders • R.M. Ballantyne
... individual had been the aggressor. They left a war-club painted as the Lenape paints his[A] in the country of the Cherokees, where they purposely committed a murder, and that people, deceived by appearances, fell suddenly on the Lenape, and a bloody and devastating war ensued between the two nations. They frequently stole into the country of the Lenape and their associates, committing murders and making off with plunder. Their treachery having at length been discovered, the Lenape marched with a powerful force ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 1 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... and population she practically equalled all three of them together. But whatever the expectations were, they were doomed to disappointment, for, while she was last in starting, she did not reach any decisive result at all. Australia, New Zealand—and even South Africa, so lately the scene of a devastating war—each gave money, while Canada gave none. New Zealand, with only one-seventh of Canada's population, gave a Dreadnought, while Canada gave none. Australia had a battle-worthy squadron of her own—but Canada had nothing but ...
— All Afloat - A Chronicle of Craft and Waterways • William Wood
... the exploring party stood on the summit of the hill, where the black flag waved over a scene of utter desolation. The vegetation was withered to pallid rags: even the tiniest weedling in the rock crevices had been poisoned by the devastating blast. ...
— The Mystery • Stewart Edward White and Samuel Hopkins Adams
... servants who would resent her appearance, and Gaga; and Sally was such a little girl in the face of a definite trial. She was a little girl, and she would never be able to deal with what lay ahead. It was a long, devastating spasm of doubt, like a trembling of the earth. The house towered above her, huge and gloomy; and other houses, equally oppressive, continued from the Merricks' house, with basements and railings and great black fronts and lace curtains, until the road turned and its end was unseen. And Sally, who ...
— Coquette • Frank Swinnerton
... bulldog's "crank" tail, but long and bushy. He was far from being a handsome dog; but he looked every inch a fighter, and there was a certain invincibility about his appearance which, combined with his swiftness in action and the devastating severity of all his attacks, served to win for him the submissive respect of almost every dog he met. Occasionally, and upon a first meeting, some careless, undiscerning dog would overlook these qualities. The same dog never made the same ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... nursery of tribes, some wandering with their herds, some dwelling in villages and tilling their fields, but all warlike and all barbarians. And over this plain at intervals swept conquering hordes from Asia, the terrible Huns, the devastating Avars, and others of varied names. But as yet the Russia we know did not exist, and its very name ...
— Historic Tales, Vol. 8 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... excused in a matter so devastating to republican institutions as this if I quote further from the disclosures of Thomas Beet: "There is another phase," he says, "of the private detective evil which has worked untold damage in America. This is the private constabulary ...
— Violence and the Labor Movement • Robert Hunter
... this is joy!" I acquiesced again. But the shadow of lying was in your eyes, The mother in you, fierce as a murderess, glaring to England, Yearning towards England, towards your young children, Insisting upon your motherhood, devastating. ...
— Look! We Have Come Through! • D. H. Lawrence
... think of a force we should think of a person, we should see the world as the men and women who made the myths saw it. Everything that moved, or made a sound, or flashed out light, or gave out heat was a person to them; they could not think of the wind rushing through the trees or the storm devastating the fields without out imagining someone like themselves, only more powerful, behind the uproar and destruction, any more than we can see a lantern moving along the road at night without thinking instinctively that ...
— Myths That Every Child Should Know - A Selection Of The Classic Myths Of All Times For Young People • Various
... instant Tou Tou is scrawling and scrambling like a great spider up the steep bank: in an instant more she is tugging, tearing, devastating; while the faint petals that no mightiest king can restore, but that any infant with a touch can destroy, are showering in scented ruin around her. It gives me a pain to see it, as if I saw some sentient thing in agony. I think I feel, with ...
— Nancy - A Novel • Rhoda Broughton
... already beyond computation. The population is cut up into so many minute sections that the caste edifice overtowers everything else, so that it is in imminent danger of toppling over. It is claimed that war among civilized nations will soon become an impossibility because of the growing devastating power of modern weapons of warfare. In like manner, caste is speedily passing through its very excesses to a reductio ad absurdum; its spirit is so rampant, and its gross evils are becoming so intolerable, that even the patient ...
— India, Its Life and Thought • John P. Jones
... surrounded him, and from those he admired as his masters, took hold of him. He was afraid of his own otherness, as all men are afraid when the first knowledge of their own essential loneliness begins to trouble their depths. The pathos of his struggle to kill the seed of this devastating knowledge is apparent in his declared desire to become 'a polished gentleman.' In the note which he added to his memoir for M. Dupin in 1749 he confesses to this ideal. If only he could become 'one of them,' indistinguishable ...
— Aspects of Literature • J. Middleton Murry
... eternal they both knew, but they had always supposed there were intermissions. Then the cook's family, which had hitherto been moderately healthful, began to show signs of invalidism, though no such calamity as actual dissolution ever set its devastating step within the charmed circle of her relatives. Cousins fell ill whom she alone could comfort; nephews developed maladies for which she alone could care; and, according to Thaddeus's record, John had been compelled on penalty of a fine to attend the funerals of some twenty-four deceased intimate ...
— Paste Jewels • John Kendrick Bangs
... forgotten what they are about. We have seen no human sacrifices, but we have reason to believe that they take place, and from what we hear the people are undoubtedly cannibals. There are several tribes on the islands, in some instances two or more an the same island, who carry on devastating wars with each other, and who all slaughter and eat the captives taken in battle. Though they seem much attached to their country, they firmly hold to the belief that there is a far better land to the east, and numbers are seized with a strong desire to visit ...
— The Cruise of the Mary Rose - Here and There in the Pacific • William H. G. Kingston
... destruction of the woods, to say nothing of its effects upon the rainfall, caused the top soil to be washed away, and thus impoverished the arable land, filling the rivers with earth, rendering them innavigable, and converting them from gently-flowing streams to devastating torrents, which annually bestrew the valleys and plains with sand and stones.[2] In the next place, emphyteusis has caused every kind of improvement to be avoided. The soil has been exhausted by over-cropping; public works, like roads, wells, irrigating ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... a staggerer coming from a mere keeper, but from this exquisitely beautiful, this calm statue of a girl, it was simply devastating. Stafford stared ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... devastating hurricanes (September to December) and coastal flooding (especially in ...
— The 1991 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... A devastating curiosity seized upon us boys concerning that Latin grammar, for we had discovered the nature of the book. Strong wanted to steal it one night, but concluded not to. "In the first place," reflected Strong, "I haven't the heart to do it, and in the next place I haven't the moral courage. ...
— Modern Prose And Poetry; For Secondary Schools - Edited With Notes, Study Helps, And Reading Lists • Various
... small village has to contend in the cultivation of rice. The continual repairs of temporary dams, which are nightly trodden down and destroyed by elephants; the filling up of the water-courses from the same cause; the nocturnal attacks upon the crops by elephants and hogs; the devastating attacks of birds as the grain becomes ripe; a scarcity of water at the exact moment it is required; and other numerous difficulties which are scarcely ...
— Eight Years' Wandering in Ceylon • Samuel White Baker
... life. Splendid level alkali flats abound east of Rock Springs, and I bowl across them at a lively pace until they terminate, and my route follows up Bitter Creek, where the surface is just the reverse; being seamed and furrowed as if it had just emerged from a devastating flood. It is said that the teamster who successfully navigated the route up Bitter Creek, considered himself entitled to be called "a tough cuss from Bitter Creek, on wheels, with a perfect education." A justifiable regard for individual rights would seem to favor my own assumption ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle V1 • Thomas Stevens
... sidelong glance at Mason, who stood as if carved out of marble. The effects of the ray blast were devastating, having paralyzed his entire nervous system. While the victim was still able to breathe and his heartbeat remained normal, he was unable to move so much as an eyelid. The gun was developed after all lethal weapons had been outlawed by the Solar ...
— Danger in Deep Space • Carey Rockwell
... learned, received ample illustration some few years prior to my acquaintance with him, when—his system being experimental rather than mature—a devastating endemic of typhoid in the prison had for the time stultified his efforts. He stuck to his post; but so virulent was the outbreak that the prison commissioners judged a complete evacuation of the building and overhauling of the drainage to be necessary. ...
— At a Winter's Fire • Bernard Edward J. Capes
... strife raged wildly there, 'Mid cries for help and struggles of despair; All human efforts powerless to assuage, The greedy fire-fiend's devastating rage. ...
— Home Lyrics • Hannah. S. Battersby
... see, trying in vain to ward off the devastating, torturing whip of flame and to extinguish the fire ravaging his hair, the brute half ran, half fell ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... century was marked by: (a) two devastating world wars; (b) the Great Depression of the 1930s; (c) the end of vast colonial empires; (d) rapid advances in science and technology, from the first airplane flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (US) to the landing on the moon; (e) the ...
— The 2008 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... nor had war been decreed, but he heard that they were exceeding wealthy and expected that Orodes would be easy to capture, because but newly established. Therefore he crossed the Euphrates and proceeded to traverse a considerable portion of Mesopotamia, devastating and ravaging the country. As his crossing was unexpected by the barbarians no strong guard had been placed at that point. Silaces, then governor of that region, was quickly defeated near Ichnai, a fortress so named, after contending with a few horsemen. He was wounded and retired to report personally ...
— Dio's Rome • Cassius Dio |
