"Ruin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... yet when Isaac died, the estate, with all its vast possibilities would have gone to ruin, had not he, Frederick, buckled down to it and put the burden on his back. Work! He remembered the enlargement of the town water-system—how he had manoeuvred and financed, persuaded small loans at ruinous interest, and laid ...
— The Turtles of Tasman • Jack London
... forms, or one object must relieve and set off another. There must be distinct stages and salient points for the eye to rest upon or start from in its progress over the expanse before it. The distance of a landscape will oftentimes look flat or heavy, that the trunk of a tree or a ruin in the foreground would immediately throw into perspective and turn to air. Rembrandt's landscapes are the least picturesque in the world, except from the straight lines and sharp angles, the deep incision and dragging of his pencil, like a harrow over the ground, and the broad contrast ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... great by continual accumulation, I hope you will not think the dignity of your character impaired by an account of a ludicrous persecution, which, though it produced no scenes of horrour or of ruin, yet, by incessant importunity of vexation, wears away my happiness, and consumes those years which nature seems particularly to have assigned to cheerfulness, in ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... modern manufacture. The Commissioners have decided that the old will do mixed with the new."... "But did I not in vain try to make him understand that this brilliant gold would hurt the faces, and completely ruin the effect of colour?"... The answer of the Procurator was, "The Bianchini do not scruple to use it, and their mosaics please the eye much better than yours," so his brother Valerio, laughing, asks, "What need ...
— Arts and Crafts in the Middle Ages • Julia De Wolf Addison
... immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples crumble into ruin; pictures and statues decay; but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to-day as when they first passed through their authors' minds ages ago. What was then said and thought still speaks to us as vividly as ever from ...
— Character • Samuel Smiles
... and 200,000 (2000 pounds) for a pair of costly carpets; a well-wrought bronze cooking machine came to cost more than an estate. In this barbaric hunting after art the rich amateur was, as might be expected, frequently cheated by those who supplied him; but the economic ruin of Asia Minor in particular so exceedingly rich in artistic products brought many really ancient and rare ornaments and works of art into the market, and from Athens, Syracuse, Cyzicus, Pergamus, Chios, Samos, and other ancient seats of ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... laughter may effect reconciliation. Practical men will try to destroy him, but so far they have not succeeded; men of faith will prophesy his eventual ruin, but meanwhile we have to live in his company; and how can we live there at peace with ourselves unless with laughter at his antics and our own vain efforts to restrain them? Surely the age-long struggle against him justifies us in making this compromise for our happiness. ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... then he hath wasted it: 90 Are my discourses dull? barren my wit? If voluble and sharp discourse be marr'd, Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard: Do their gay vestments his affections bait? That's not my fault; he's master of my state: 95 What ruins are in me that can be found, By him not ruin'd? then is he the ground Of my defeatures. My decayed fair A sunny look of his would soon repair: But, too unruly deer, he breaks the pale, 100 And feeds from home; poor I am but ...
— The Comedy of Errors - The Works of William Shakespeare [Cambridge Edition] [9 vols.] • William Shakespeare
... this will mean to me? It means failure—complete failure! I never could get through the scene again. It means thousands of dollars, that's what it means. Because I let a stage-struck fool like you speak a line! Talk about gratitude! You turn and ruin me!" ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... great cost, repair that which he might have kept up with a small charge: it frequently happens, that the same house which one person built at a vast expense, is neglected by another, who thinks he has a more delicate sense of the beauties of architecture; and he suffering it to fall to ruin, builds another at no less charge. But among the Utopians, all things are so regulated that men very seldom build upon a new piece of ground; and are not only very quick in repairing their houses, ...
— Ideal Commonwealths • Various
... my father liked so much, over the basin stand in his bedroom.[19] All the knowledge I have gained in these 17 years only makes me more full of awe and wonder at Tintoret. But it is so sad—so sad;—no one to care for him but me, and all going so fast to ruin. He has done that infant Christ in about five minutes—and I worked for two hours in vain, and could not tell why in vain—the mystery of his touch ...
— The Life of John Ruskin • W. G. Collingwood
... in utter ruin. Not even the cooking utensils remained: and of his men there was left but Ali, whose leg still caused him to limp a little. So Bruce was commanded by no less person than Kathlyn to be her father's guest till they departed for America. ...
— The Adventures of Kathlyn • Harold MacGrath
... Lefroy; whatever you may have to say about me will certainly not be prevented by my paying you money. Though you might be able to ruin me to-morrow I would not give you a dollar to ...
— Dr. Wortle's School • Anthony Trollope
... The man who built that house was the citizen Nicholas Philibert, who had risen to wealth out of his business of baker, and was respected throughout the whole town. Bigot, the Intendant of the colony, was bringing the public finances to appalling ruin by his thefts and extravagances—for we all knew he was a robber—and was driving the people to madness. The Bourgeois Philibert was their mouthpiece. If the chateau of St. Louis stood out as the castle ...
— The False Chevalier - or, The Lifeguard of Marie Antoinette • William Douw Lighthall
... in God's hands, and through his servant's faith, the instrument of shielding him from temptation and purging his dross away. In the same subordinate and instrumental sense in which the rich man's wealth was his ruin, the poverty of the poor man saved him. But these results are not uniform—are not necessary; they may be—they often are reversed. The wealth of a rich man may help him heavenward, and the poverty ...
— The Parables of Our Lord • William Arnot
... the United States who have offered the ruin of our country in return for the aid and comfort which they have invoked abroad have received less patronage and encouragement than they probably expected. If it were just to suppose, as the insurgents have seemed to assume, that foreign nations in this case, ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... says the man Twyning worked that. The man Twyning—that Judas Iscariot chap, you remember—is very thick with old Bright, the girl's father. Old Bright pretty naturally thinks his daughter has gone back to the man who is responsible for her ruin, and this Twyning person—who's a partner, by the way—wrote to Sabre and told him that, although he personally didn't believe it—'not for a moment, old man,' he wrote—still Sabre would appreciate the horrible scandal that had arisen, and would appreciate the fact ...
— If Winter Comes • A.S.M. Hutchinson
... inducements to matrimony among the Turks. But they are an indolent people, and are much averse to improving their country by commerce, planting, or building; appearing to take delight in letting their property run to ruin. Alexandria, Tyre, and Sidon, which once commanded the navigation and trade of the whole world, are at present in the Turks' possession, but are only very inconsiderable places. Indeed, observes a judicious author, it is well for us that the Turks are ...
— The Mirror Of Literature, Amusement, And Instruction - Vol. X, No. 289., Saturday, December 22, 1827 • Various
... capitalists' war, in that it was largely caused by the anti-British attitude and advice of the South African Netherlands Company, the Dynamite Monopoly, and other leeches which drained the country. To them a free and honest government meant ruin, and they strained every nerve, even to paying bogus English agitators, in order to hinder the cause of reform. Their attitude undoubtedly had something to do with stiffening the backs of the Boers and so ...
— The War in South Africa - Its Cause and Conduct • Arthur Conan Doyle
... own rule in Naples, in the Ionian Islands, on the eastern shore of the Adriatic, and finally in the Spanish peninsula. Beyond that his advance was stayed by the Sea Power of Great Britain, which at last wrought his ruin. Thus in the event the predictions of the British admiral were postponed, ...
— The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain • A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
... this world? The grave answers: "It is no more." Where is now the glory of those mighty conquerors, who placed their supreme happiness in subjugating nations to their sway, in making widows and orphans, and in spreading devastation and ruin wherever they went? It is no more! We can say of them, in the words of the royal Prophet: "I have seen the wicked highly exalted, and lifted up like the cedars of Libanus. And I passed by, and lo! he was not: and I sought ...
— The Happiness of Heaven - By a Father of the Society of Jesus • F. J. Boudreaux
... of speculation and adventure, such as is too apt to be produced by the unnatural excitements of a state of war, had seized upon the popular mind, and threatened, in its reaction, to bring the whole nation to ruin. ...
— Continental Monthly, Volume 5, Issue 4 • Various
... indirectly to the ruin of the order of the Templars. The record is one of the dark episodes of history, encompassed with contradictions, full of surprises, painful to contemplate, whatever view may be taken, ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... he reached the shack Pierre Eustach had built midway of his line, and took inventory of his fur. It was not more than a third of a catch; the lynx was half-ruined, a mink was torn completely in two. The second day he found still greater ruin, still more barren traps. He was like a madman. When he arrived at the second cabin, late in the afternoon, Baree's tracks were not an hour old in the snow. Three times during the night he heard the ...
— Baree, Son of Kazan • James Oliver Curwood
... and hurried out into the early night, not to go anywhere, but to walk up and down, to try to find his way out of the chaos, which now seemed ruin, and now the materials out of which fine actions and a happy life might be shaped. Three hours later ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... the long brooding memory of his life's one, deep, irreparable loss. We see in it the warrior who served in the great battle of Campaldino: the mourner who sought refuge from grief in the action and danger of the war waged by Florence upon Pisa: the magistrate whose justice proved his ruin: the exile who ate bitter bread when Florence banished the greatest of her sons. The mask is as full as the portrait of intellect and feeling, of strength and character, but it lacks something of the early sweetness and sensibility. ...
— Recollections of Dante Gabriel Rossetti - 1883 • T. Hall Caine
... was wanted to reimburse the owners for their losses, and the splendid herds of the county were preserved. Forfar, on the other hand, set herself to cure the plague, with the result of a universal infection, the loss of many thousands of cattle, and the ruin of hundreds of farmers. Finally the malady was crushed out in the entire island by the method adopted by Aberdeen and other well advised counties ...
— Scientific American, Volume 40, No. 13, March 29, 1879 • Various
... flowers of which she had delighted to cultivate. And now while he suffered intense misery he determined to plunge into still more intense, and strove for greater emotion than that which already tore him. I was perplexed, and most anxious to know what this portended; ah, what could it po[r]tend but ruin! ...
— Mathilda • Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
... more or less than the natural recourse of all mean-spirited and defeated tyrannies to rule or ruin, making of course a wide distinction between the will and the power, for the hanging of traitors is soon to begin before a month is over. The Nations of Europe may rest assured that Jeff Davis and Co. will be ...
— The Victim - A romance of the Real Jefferson Davis • Thomas Dixon
... 'tis your Duty, my Dear, to warn the Girl against her Ruin, and to instruct her how to make the most of her Beauty. I'll go to her this moment, and sift her. In the meantime, Wife, rip out the Coronets and Marks of these Dozen of Cambric Handkerchiefs, for I can dispose of them this ...
— The Beggar's Opera • John Gay
... explain the recent revolt and its punishment. Acuna has also endeavored to procure military supplies from that country to supply the present deficiency; he dreads lest the trade with China may be cut off, which would ruin the Philippine colony. Acuna has enlisted several military companies among the Indians, who have done good service in quelling the Sangley insurrection. He recounts his difficulties in equipping a small fleet ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... our ruler of to-day, to be base, cowardly, and dull; I saw him, in every age, combine to pull down that which was immediately above and to prey upon those that were below; his dulness, I knew, would ultimately bring about his ruin; I knew his days were numbered, and yet how was I to wait? how was I to let the poor child shiver in the rain? The better days, indeed, were coming, but the child would die before that. Alas, your highness, in surely no ungenerous impatience ...
— The Dynamiter • Robert Louis Stevenson and Fanny van de Grift Stevenson
... night dispersed at dawn, and will not gather again till a fresh attempt makes their presence necessary. But, alas! to renew this attempt now, when your Majesty's gaolers are on their guard, would be your ruin. Let them take every precaution, then, madam; let them sleep in security, while we, we, in our devotion, shall go ...
— Celebrated Crimes, Complete • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... of Balzac's delays, she became firmer. The novelist felt that she was too exacting, for he was working sixteen hours a day to complete the last two volumes for her, and he believed that the suit with which she threatened him was prompted by his enemies, who seemed to have sworn his ruin. Madame Bechet lost but little time in carrying out her threat, for a few days ...
— Women in the Life of Balzac • Juanita Helm Floyd
... the bank and watched the logs piling higher and higher. Well did they know what the delay might mean to Rodgers & Peterson. Much depended upon that drive coming out, and for it to be held up during summer meant almost ruin to the firm. They were a hardy body of men who stood there late that afternoon discussing the matter. They were great workmen these, well versed in woodland lore. All winter long had they taken their part in that big lumber operation, and, now ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... dreadful existence. The passages were damp and slippery, the walls covered in evil-looking red and yellow spongey fungus, the roof too low to allow one to walk upright, the ventilation practically non existent, the atmosphere, always bad, became in the early mornings intolerable, all combined to ruin the health of those who had to live there. But not only was one's health ruined, one's "nerves" were seriously impaired, and the tunnels had a bad effect on one's moral. Knowing we could always slip down a staircase to safety, we lost the art of walking ...
— The Fifth Leicestershire - A Record Of The 1/5th Battalion The Leicestershire Regiment, - T.F., During The War, 1914-1919. • J.D. Hills
... such places as are most worthy the notice of a passenger. He observed to me that buildings are always best preserved in places little frequented and difficult of access; for when once a country declines from its primitive splendour, the more inhabitants are left, the quicker ruin will be made. Walls supply stones more easily than quarries; and palaces and temples will be demolished to make stables of ...
— Rasselas, Prince of Abyssinia • Samuel Johnson
... to the mass of the people. It seems to have extended to those who guided the public councils, and to have contributed to the adoption of a system, which, more than once, brought their cause to the brink of ruin. They did not distinguish sufficiently between the momentary efforts of a few brave men, brought together by a high sense of the injuries which threatened their country, and carried into action under the influence of keen ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... to speak, of His character, should be in stern and continual antagonism to that evil which is the worst foe of men, and is sure to lead to their death. It is because God is love, that 'to the froward He shows Himself froward.' and opposes that which, unopposed and yielded to, will ruin the man that does it. So this is one of the characteristic marks of all true messages from God, that men who will not part with their evil call them 'stern,' 'rigid,' 'gloomy,' 'narrow' Yes, of course; because God must look upon godless lives with disapprobation, and must desire by all means ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... generosity which produced the day of Navarino. It was thought that a Liliputian could play the part of a giant. Impossibilities were asked of a new State, without means, without resources, scarcely risen from the tomb of oblivion and ruin. If clear-sighted men of this period had been listened to—Leopold of Belgium, Palmerston, Metternich even—Greece would have had limits more natural in order that she might breathe and act more freely. This youngest child of the European States would to-day be a strong Power, ...
— The Contemporary Review, Volume 36, September 1879 • Various
... speculation; and when the Government wanted land owned by private parties who were citizens of the Republic (for no foreigner was permitted by law to own land directly or indirectly, so that the curse of Absentee Landlordism which was the ruin of Ireland, should never blight the happiness of the people of Eurasia), they added up the assessments for the previous five years and divided them by five and added twenty per cent. to it in payment for the land, together with fair compensation for any buildings there might be on ...
— Eurasia • Christopher Evans
... you walk circumspectly,' rigidly, accurately, punctiliously. Live by law—that is to say, live by principles which imply duties; for to live by inclination is ruin. The only safety is, look to your feet and look to your road, and restrain yourselves, ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... Titus, ma'am, is a fine ruin. It was originally built by the emperor of that name to commemorate the conquest of Jerusalem. The arch of Septimius Severus was built by the Emperor of that name, and the arch of Constantine was built by the emperor ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... seven, and passed over about forty miles of the dreariest hill-country I ever saw; the climax of wretchedness was reached in Bowes, where yet stands the original of "Dotheboys Hall"; it has long ceased to be used as a school, and is falling into ruin, in which the whole place seems to be following its example—the roofs are falling in, and the windows broken or barricaded—the whole town looks plague-stricken. The courtyard of the inn we stopped at was grown over with weeds, and a mouthing idiot lolled against the ...
— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll • Stuart Dodgson Collingwood
... submitted, and opened his gates on the twenty-second of July, the day of St. Mary Magdalene, being twenty-five days after the capture of Viseu. And Zadan became tributary to the King, and the King took with him many of the Moors, to be employed in building up the churches which had fallen to ruin since the land ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... always good customers of ours, too, Mawruss," Abe commented, "and we couldn't send the work out by contractors in this shape. It would ruin ...
— Potash & Perlmutter - Their Copartnership Ventures and Adventures • Montague Glass
... higher than those with which my cousin has spoken of him. He has rescued him, whom we dearly love, from slavery; he has saved Genoa from great disaster, and many towns and villages from plunder and ruin. I do indeed feel proud that such a knight should wear my gage, and, were there no other reason, I should be unwilling that, so long as he carried it, another should possess a similar one from me. I am sure that Sir Gervaise will have felt that this was the meaning ...
— A Knight of the White Cross • G.A. Henty
... wracke procure: Retire you from him, saue frrom wrathfull rage Of angry Caesar both your Realme and you. You see him lost, so as your amitie Vnto his euills can yelde no more reliefe. You see him ruin'd, so as your support No more hencefourth can him with comfort raise. With-draw you from the storme: persist not still To loose your selfe: this ...
— A Discourse of Life and Death, by Mornay; and Antonius by Garnier • Philippe de Mornay
... drifting to ruin, Katherine," he answered hoarsely. He was an abandoned hulk, with anchorage gone and no hand at the helm—broken, blind, rolling ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... uttered a cry of dismay, and warning to his brother to get out of the way. Then, as if by a miracle, it fell back with a heavy thud on to the other wheels, and bumped and jolted on after the long team of oxen into the obscurity. And then, when ruin seemed to have come completely upon the expedition, wish-wash! splish-splash! the foaming of water—the crunching of wheels over stones and sand—a quick rush—and the waggon was standing, axletree deep, in a swiftly flowing river, down whose ...
— Off to the Wilds - Being the Adventures of Two Brothers • George Manville Fenn
... round of complicated nothingness. But if I was a blundering amateur in all this, they were not so much discourteous as envious. They knew that I had won my position by my achievements as a chemist and in a vague way they understood that I had saved the empire from impending ruin, and for this achievement I ...
— City of Endless Night • Milo Hastings
... had never heard of the Pont de La Caille. But you will not mention it? You will not ruin me?" ...
— At the Villa Rose • A. E. W. Mason
... wild telling of the ruin of the place and the hardness of the people, and I saw that want and bare living had gone far to loosen his wits. I knew the countryside, and I recognised that change was only in his mind. And a great pity seized me for ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... Spicer," said Cumberland quietly; "I know you might do what you have threatened, and that to me it would be neither more nor less than ruin, but—and this is the real question—pray what possible advantage (save calling people's attention to the share, a pretty large one, you have had in making me what I am) ...
— Frank Fairlegh - Scenes From The Life Of A Private Pupil • Frank E. Smedley
... and consolation in their bitter bereavement. They were smarting with shame at the thought that it was their son, the lad of whom they had been so proud and upon whose future they had built such high hopes, who was the author of my undeserved disgrace and ruin, so far as my career in the British Navy was concerned; and they wanted me at home in order that they might have the comfort of doing what they could to make up to me for their son's treachery. And in the plenitude of my affection I was, ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... extended; but turn for a moment to matters of manners. Where are the awful corner-groceries that helped the saloons to ruin men and boys, and where are the busy nickel-in-the-slot machines and shameless smokers in the street-cars? Where are the sellers of lottery tickets, where the horse-races ...
— A Backward Glance at Eighty • Charles A. Murdock
... wish to fight; for the battle would be hopeless, with only death at the end for him, and it would ruin the men and lose the ship.... Blood marks a ship with a mark that cannot be washed away. And Joel loved his ship; and he loved his men with something of the love of a father for children. Children they were. He knew them. Simple, easily led, easily ...
— All the Brothers Were Valiant • Ben Ames Williams
... as one of the world's masterpieces. The Italians call it "Il Pensiero." The sullen strength of the attitude gives one a vague ominous impulse to get away. Some one has said that it fulfils Milton's conception of Satan brooding over his plans for the ruin of mankind. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... ought not to astonish us that Christianity, though unable in the sequel to prevent their reappearance in splendor after the invention of printing, was at this period sufficiently powerful to accomplish their ruin."—Ibid. ...
— Men, Women, and Gods - And Other Lectures • Helen H. Gardener
... she continued to look at him—a man of promise, who had plainly traveled far on the road to ruin—the conviction grew on her that the sweet-faced woman in the photograph was no loving wife of his. He was a man who might easily take a woman's fancy, but not one to hold her love for years through the stress of life. Moreover, Bucky O'Connor ...
— Brand Blotters • William MacLeod Raine
... animals bearing their brand. It soon appeared that the cattle were the property of four farmers living within a short distance of each other. They had arrived in Estcourt with their families two days previously, weary and broken down with fatigue, hunger, and the loss and ruin of their property. Their gratitude was deep indeed at this wholly unexpected recovery of a large portion of their herds, and they started the next morning, mounted on some ponies they had picked up for a trifle, to drive ...
— With Buller in Natal - A Born Leader • G. A. Henty
... relish for auld world trumpery. After breakfast you shall make your visit to Melrose Abbey; I shall not be able to accompany you, as I have some household affairs to attend to, but I will put you in charge of my son Charles, who is very learned in all things touching the old ruin and the neighborhood it stands in, and he and my friend Johnny Bower will tell you the whole truth about it, with a good deal more that you are not called upon to believe— unless you be a true and nothing-doubting ...
— Abbotsford and Newstead Abbey • Washington Irving
... monument of the sin of deception; and that child who deliberately snatches the reins of control from the hands where God decrees them, and dares substitute her will and judgment for those of parents or guardians, drives inevitably on to ruin, and will live to curse her folly. That day Peleg was fishing, and surprised us at the moment when Cuthbert was bending down to kiss me. Having heard all that passed, he waited till evening, and finding me in the little garden attached to our house, ...
— Infelice • Augusta Jane Evans Wilson
... Ruin on it for a deceiver and insincere, The yellow one with two faces like a hypocrite! It shows forth with two qualities to the eye of him that looks on it, The adornment of the loved one, the colour of the lover. Affection for it, think they who judge truly, Tempts men to commit that which shall ...
— Amaryllis at the Fair • Richard Jefferies
... chance of a compensating benefit to mankind at large. Last, and longest, I thought of the boy upstairs. I had not meant to sacrifice him; a young life, of some promise, is only less sacred to me than a mature life rich in beneficent activities. But this young fellow was going to be my ruin. I could see it in his eyes. He had found me out about the letter; he would be the means of my being found out and stopped for ever in the work of my life. It was his life or mine; it should be his; but I was not going to take it there in the house, for ...
— The Camera Fiend • E.W. Hornung
... my dear Prose: what may insure your promotion would be my ruin. I never nursed a child or shelled a pea in my life; the first I should certainly let fall, and the second I probably should eat for my trouble. So pray continue at your post of honour, and I will go for the fresh beef every morning as you were accustomed to do when ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... was in some measure open to foreigners, Europe, especially England, in hot haste to take advantage of the opportunity, sent over engineers and machinery, and great sums of money, much of which was quite wasted, to the hopeless ruin of a great part of ...
— Anahuac • Edward Burnett Tylor
... was surprised by a letter from Anne, which directed him to break his white staff. Even after this event, the irresolution or dissimulation of Harley kept up the hopes of the Whigs during another month; and then the ruin became rapid and violent. The Parliament was dissolved. The Ministers were turned out. The Tories were called to office. The tide of popularity ran violently in favour of the High Church party. That party, feeble in the late House of Commons, was now irresistible. ...
— Critical and Historical Essays Volume 2 • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... every science is, beyond cavil, the mark of interrogation; we owe most of our greatest discoveries to a Why? and all the wisdom in the world, perhaps, consists in asking Wherefore? in every connection. But, on the other hand, this acquired prescience is the ruin ...
— The Magic Skin • Honore de Balzac
... had glimpses of the devastation that it brings to the country over the hills and valleys and over the plains and forests of which it rages. Again and again we have been told of the horrible suffering and utter ruin which was the share of the civic population, rich and poor, young and old, man, woman, or child. But these latter features are apt to be overshadowed by the more sensational events of battle and siege, and in the excitement of these we easily lose sight of the tremendous drama ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume IV (of 8) • Francis J. (Francis Joseph) Reynolds, Allen L. (Allen Leon)
... evidently in the same boat; but you aren't a bit sneaky, either of you. Let's see the wreckage; I suppose you got into trouble because you wanted to see how things worked, and Johnny, as usual, couldn't keep out of other folks' hot water. Where's the ruin?" ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume VI. (of X.) • Various
... returned with any effect. Major Grant was taken in an attempt to force into the woods, where he observed the thickest of the fire. On losing their commander, and so many officers killed and wounded, the Highlanders dispersed, and were only saved from utter ruin by the provincials. Only one hundred and fifty of the Highlanders succeeded in making their ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... speaker, and Alessandro was aware of his own incapacity to play the part of a respectful lover. Nothing could more strongly point the man's brutality than this act, which contributed in no small measure to his ruin. ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Satan and Antichrist are to be dealt a mortal blow, a blow from which they will not recover, it must be done through the young. For every cause which is not, or cannot be made, the cause of the rising generation, is doomed from the very outset. "This is the total ruin of the Church," said Luther as early as 1516; "for if ever it is to flourish again, one must begin by instructing the young. Haec est enim ecclesiae ruina tota; si enim unquam debet reflorere, ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... who mourn'st the Daisy's fate, That fate is thine—no distant date; Stern Ruin's ploughshare drives, elate, Full on thy bloom, Till crushed beneath the furrow's weight, Shall be ...
— Six Centuries of English Poetry - Tennyson to Chaucer • James Baldwin
... was then in the most deplorable depression, overrun with French armies; and with Napoleon at Erfurth, in the pride of that "bad eminence" on which he stood in such Titanic grandeur, and from which he was so soon to be flung with such Titanic ruin. Our conversation naturally turned on the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine—Vol. 54, No. 333, July 1843 • Various
... flowers, Fresh as the air, and new as are the hours. The early cherry with the later plum, Fig, grape, and quince, each in his time doth come: The blushing apricot and woolly peach Hang on thy walls that every child may reach. And though thy walls be of the country stone, They're rear'd with no man's ruin, no man's groan; There's none that dwell about them wish them down; But all come in, the farmer and the clown, And no one empty-handed, to salute Thy lord and lady, though they have no suit. Some bring a capon, some a rural cake, Some nuts, some apples; some that think they make The better cheeses, ...
— Specimens with Memoirs of the Less-known British Poets, Complete • George Gilfillan
... him sing as he used to. Then Squire Clamp has complained of him before the church, and you know father is over-sensitive about his relations with 'the brethren,'—even with those who are trying to ruin him. He is melancholy enough. I hope he will be better, if he gets through his difficulties; otherwise I am afraid to think of what ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 2, Issue 11, September, 1858 • Various
... a time, when things got too hot for us, I went on the stage. It threw the 'tecks off the scent. I wanted to stay at it, for I liked it, but mother was mad to ruin Dudgeon, and Dad could not keep straight. So we began again. I wore a wig and made up. You'll find it ...
— The Rider of Waroona • Firth Scott
... you surely will not allow your good people to kindle a fire here in the yard? I beg that you will forbid it; there is no knowing what mischief might result from it; and besides, it will ruin ...
— Sister Carmen • M. Corvus
... Oh, this would ruin me with Valma! oh, if your lordship hasn't any feeling for me, don't let Valma think that I'm a—that I'm—! [Going down on her knees before him.] Oh, I won't tell on you! I promise I won't, if you'll only let me go! I will hold ...
— The Gay Lord Quex - A Comedy in Four Acts • Arthur W. Pinero
... British officers, who deprived them of either or all on the most frivolous pretenses. Indians, slaves, and a desperate banditti of the most profligate characters were caressed and employed by the enemy to execute their infamous purposes. Devastation and ruin marked their progress and that of their adherents; nor were their violences restrained by the charms or influence of beauty and innocence; even the fair sex, whom it is the duty of all, and the pleasure and pride of the brave ...
— American Prisoners of the Revolution • Danske Dandridge
... Lacedaemonians reserved to themselves. What profit shall he not reap as to the business of men, by reading the Lives of Plutarch? But withal, let my governor remember to what end his instructions are principally directed, and that he do not so much imprint in his pupil's memory the date of the ruin of Carthage, as the manners of Hannibal and Scipio; not so much where Marcellus died, as why it was unworthy of his duty that he died there. That he do not teach him so much the narrative part, as the business of history. The reading ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Presidential campaign of 1864 much ill-feeling was displayed by the opposition to President Lincoln. The Democratic managers issued posters of large dimensions, picturing the Washington Administration as one determined to rule or ruin the country, while the only salvation for the United States was the election ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... Maurice going off that grieves me," she said. "Sure, if you must go, you must. I'll not let the house go to ruin for want of dusting and cleaning, and looking afther the poultry and the pigs, and Dan Rafferty ...
— In the Wilds of Florida - A Tale of Warfare and Hunting • W.H.G. Kingston
... they abandoned the valley below and once more inhabited the cliff dwellings above. Here they lived many years, until at last a wise and good priest brought them peace, and persuaded them to build the pueblo which they now occupy—the village of Santa Clara. The ruin of the pueblo which they occupied previous to the invasion of the Spaniards is still to be seen about a mile distant from ...
— Seventh Annual Report • Various
... selling—of realizing something you possess—rings ominously in people's ears. The person who talks of selling proclaims his need of money—and often his approaching ruin. "It will save you at least a hundred and fifty or sixty thousand francs a year," ...
— Baron Trigault's Vengeance - Volume 2 (of 2) • Emile Gaboriau
... interference with the business of the roads. The railway owners and directors were slower than the public in accepting the doctrine of the quasi-public nature of their business. It was a powerful argument against them that their size and influence were such that they could and did ruin or enrich individual customers, and that they could make or destroy whole regions of the West. Enough positive proof of favoritism existed to give point to the demand that the ...
— The New Nation • Frederic L. Paxson
... My heart is too tender also. Much too tender. I am a Republican. I am a Red. As to all our present masters and governors, all those people you are trying to turn round your little finger, they are all horrible Royalists in disguise. They are plotting the ruin of all the institutions to which I am devoted. But I have never tried to spoil your little game, Rita. After all, it's but a little game. You know very well that two or three fearless articles, something ...
— The Arrow of Gold - a story between two notes • Joseph Conrad
... mistaken, when I have seen, at one time and another, a dozen fellows engaged in gambling? Of course such things as these will ruin the boys, and bring the ship ...
— Outward Bound - Or, Young America Afloat • Oliver Optic
... don't choose my wife to do such a thing for the greatest lady in the land! Good Heavens! if it were to come to the ears of the staff! It would be the ruin of me! I should never hold up my ...
— Mary Marston • George MacDonald
... dealing with new lands," I would say, "and there is need of new plans. It pays to think in trading as much as in statecraft," There were plenty that looked askance at us, and cursed us as troublers of the peace, and there were some who prophesied speedy ruin. But we discomforted our neighbours by prospering mightily, so that there was talk of Uncle Andrew for the Provost's chair at the ...
— Salute to Adventurers • John Buchan
... the gap stood bowlders, pillars, needles, and strange shapes of stone, peering over each other's heads into the gulf below. It was as if an army of misshapen monsters and giants had been petrified with horror, while staring at some inconceivable desolation and ruin. There was no hope for this concrete despair; no imaginable voice could utter for it a word of consolation; the gazer, like Dante amid the tormented, could only "look and ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... cost the poor fellow far away much thought to save, giving costly entertainments at home, filling her house with idle and empty-headed scapegraces, carrying on scandalous flirtations; till it becomes a happy thing, if the certain ruin she is bringing on her husband's head is cut short by the needful interference of Sir Cresswell Cresswell? There are cases in which tarring and feathering would soothe the moral sense of the right-minded onlooker. And even where things are ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... this loss was, he was more struck, more appalled, let us say, at the strangeness of the surrounding scene, than even by his own ruin. As he looked upon his fellow gamesters, he seemed, for the first time in his life, to gaze upon some of those hideous demons of whom he had read. He looked in the mirror at himself. A blight seemed to have fallen over his beauty, and his presence seemed accursed. ...
— The Young Duke • Benjamin Disraeli
... consisted simply and solely of urgent, impassioned appeals to the people to repent,—not because repentance is right; not because God is love, and it is base not to love and obey him; not even because godliness is in itself great gain, and sinfulness is, even temporarily, loss and ruin; but because there is a wrath to come, which will inflict terrible and unending suffering on the sinner. He is to "flee" for his life from torments indescribable and eternal; he is to call on Jesus, not to make him holy, but to save him from woe, to rescue him from frightful danger; all and every ...
— Bits About Home Matters • Helen Hunt Jackson
... it speaks of half-a-dozen things at once; it awakes with a crushing sense of certainty that late suspicion; it tells him of the ruin of the one man whom he most loves and honours in this narrow world—not his father, but the grey old father of his sweetheart; it tells him in an instant of a life of narrow means for the girl he loves; it hurls his own hopes in the mire, and ...
— VC — A Chronicle of Castle Barfield and of the Crimea • David Christie Murray
... his children spell-bound by the hour as he told them the ordinary folk-tales of the hamlet, with that ruin on the hillside as the stage for the majority of them; till his daughter Ruth, who was young and sentimental, though with a streak of passion running through her nature, learned to contemplate the ruin with an awe akin to his, and ...
— Drolls From Shadowland • J. H. Pearce
... checked a shudder with difficulty. 'So much the worse for you, so much the worse for you!' he continued fiercely. 'I am here to buy the information you hold, but if you will not sell, there is another way. At an hour's notice I can ruin your plans, and send you to a dungeon! You are like a fish caught in a net not yet drawn. It thrusts its nose this way and that, and touches the mesh, but is slow to take the alarm until the net is drawn—and then it is too late. So it is with you, and so it is,' he added, falling ...
— A Gentleman of France • Stanley Weyman
... sufficient reason that his career could not continue unless something did happen. Without either a quarrel, an understanding, or a miracle, three months of affianced bliss with Ruth Earp would exhaust his resources and ruin his reputation as one who was ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... rapidly at last. He too saw the questioning looks upon the faces of some of those around them. He saw the opposing warriors of both cities standing by the gate inactive, every eye turned upon him, and the trussed figure of the ape-man. He realized that indecision now meant ruin, and ruin, death. He raised his voice in the sharp barking tones of a Prussian officer, so unlike his former maniacal screaming as to quickly arouse the attention of every ear and to cause an expression of puzzlement to cross ...
— Tarzan the Terrible • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... nor of a community does the highest interest consist in Liberty, but in soundness of morals; without which Liberty only means licence to be vicious; licence to ruin oneself, and diffuse misery to others. To a man not proof against the omnipresent drinkshop, high wages are a curse; days called holy and short hours of work do but more quickly engulf him in ruin. But he pulls others too down in ...
— Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman • Giberne Sieveking
... acquire the talents and the political virtues which distinguish our brothers of the North, who have a system of government altogether popular in character, I am very much afraid these institutions might lead to our ruin instead of ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... perhaps admit of, direct and specific legislative interference. It originated in a vicious system of contagious private speculation, which has involved many thousands of those engaged in it in irredeemable, shall we add deserved, disgrace and ruin—and which had better, perhaps, be left to work its own cure. The last of the three causes was one to which all mankind is every where subject, and which is in a great measure beyond the reach of effective human interference. Before proceeding to explain the steps taken to remedy the second, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXIX. January, 1844. Vol. LV. • Various
... three words—anything and everything! The history of nations, as of individuals, is never rightly read until it is read in the light of knowledge of the influence that has been exerted over them by women. Cleopatra, in ancient Egypt, changed the history of Rome by the ruin of Marc Antony. Another heroine recently toppled Ireland down the fire-escape into the back-yard. So goes the world. In Judah, however, the crime that is done for love is pursued to its consequence of ever-accumulative ...
— Shadows of the Stage • William Winter
... soon known that Mortimer had committed extensive forgeries upon various persons, and that he had left the city. Officers were immediately despatched for his arrest, and in a few days he was brought back as a criminal. In his ruin, many others were involved. Among these was his father-in-law, who was stripped of every dollar in his ...
— Heart-Histories and Life-Pictures • T. S. Arthur
... desired to promote his advantage; but when I found that he was a treacherous person, who thought only of his own interest, and that, instead of carefully trying to preserve my son's honour, he plunged him into ruin by permitting him to give himself up to debauchery without seeming to perceive it, then my esteem for this artful priest was changed into disgust. I know, from my son himself, that the Abbe, having one day met him in the street, just as he was about to enter a house of ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... craggy rock of Areopagus, till before them rose a wooden palisade and a gate. Through this a steep path led upward to the citadel. Not to the Acropolis of fame. The buildings then upon the Rock in one short year would lie in heaps of fire-scarred ruin. Yet in that hour before Glaucon and Hermione a not unworthy temple rose, the old "House of Athena," prototype of the later Parthenon. In the morning light it stood in beauty—a hundred Doric columns, a sculptured pediment, ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... the Imperial Vicar of Genoa, remained, as Imperial legate, Podesta, Captain of the People, and Elector, bringing with him one thousand German horse. The rest of the army of Henry returned over the Alps. Pisa thought herself on the verge of ruin; she must make terms with her foes. This being done, there appeared to be no further need for Uguccione, whose German troops were expensive, and whose presence did but anger the Guelphs. Uguccione was a man ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... interest, high and low, though chiefly, no doubt, the middle and smaller proprietors and tenants, will be compelled to curtail their expenses to the lowest sum, and those who have already but a narrow margin of surplus, be reduced to beggary and ruin. ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various |
