"Ruinous" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Barbiere di Seviglia." She sang at various concerts in different cities, until she reached the age of twelve and a half, when her career was temporarily interrupted, for Maurice Strakosch, observing the ruinous effect the continuous strain upon her delicate voice was working, insisted upon her discontinuing singing altogether, which advice she happily followed. After this interval of two years' silence, and having emerged from the wonder-child ...
— Great Men and Famous Women, Vol. 8 (of 8) • Various
... to interfere with your mode of life, unwise and ruinous as I may consider it," he said, "as long as it does not interfere with your discharge of duty. But to-day you are clearly incapacitated for labor, and I have a right to complain. If it happens again, I shall be obliged ...
— Risen from the Ranks - Harry Walton's Success • Horatio Alger, Jr.
... sterling. This state of bankruptcy was by no means the result of imprudence or ostentatious extravagance. During the Rebellion the City had been despoiled by both parties under various pretexts. After the Restoration the great fire consumed a vast amount of city property and necessitated a ruinous outlay in the reconstruction of entire streets. To this was added the shutting up of the Exchequer by Charles II., and the seizure of the charter when the City refused any longer to provide the means for his ...
— The Corporation of London: Its Rights and Privileges • William Ferneley Allen
... the master had begun a Euclid class, which was at once his despair and his pride. In the Twentieth school of that date there was no waste of the children's time in foolish and fantastic branches of study, in showy exercises and accomplishments, whose display was at once ruinous to the nerves of the visitors, and to the self-respect and modesty of the children. The ideal of the school was to fit the children for the struggle into which their lives would thrust them, so that the boy who could spell and read and cipher was supposed to ...
— Glengarry Schooldays • Ralph Connor
... Manifold are the ruinous phantasies which lead unhappy mortals to pandemonium. This one has a fancy for the turf, another patronizes the last imported choryphee. The turf is generally a settler—the stage is also a safe road to a safe settlement, and between a race-horse ...
— International Weekly Miscellany, Vol. 1, No. 5, July 29, 1850 • Various
... and Mr "O'Grady" concluded an impassioned statement of his wrongs with "Voila tout, Mr Archdeacon, voila tout." "Waller tew," quoth churchwarden No. 1; "what ha' he to dew with it?" And there was the visit to that woful church, damp, rotten, ruinous. The inspection over, the rector said to my father, "Now, Mr Archdeacon, that we've done the old church, you must come and see my new stables." "Sir," said my father, "when your church is in decent order, I shall be happy to see your new stables." And "the next time," he told me, "I really ...
— Two Suffolk Friends • Francis Hindes Groome
... After having made some ruinous bargains in fezes, Turkish cloths and perfume, I engaged a trap, and we started for Aden. The journey was not one of beauty, but it had singular interest. Every turn of the wheels carried us farther and farther away from a familiar ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... buyers and glaring with gas recalled to me the purpose of my journey. I took my seat in a third-class carriage of a deserted train. After an intolerable delay the train moved out of the station slowly. It crept onward among ruinous house and over the twinkling river. At Westland Row Station a crowd of people pressed to the carriage doors; but the porters moved them back, saying that it was a special train for the bazaar. I remained alone in the bare carriage. In a few minutes the train drew up beside ...
— Dubliners • James Joyce
... (nervous energy), even though it be only the winking of an eyelid; and the labor entailed upon the system, of raising the temperature of the stomach to normal figures, after deluging it with ice water, involves a ruinous waste of vital force, in addition to the other reasons urged against it. It cannot be doubted that this essentially American habit is responsible for a large proportion of the dyspepsia that sits like an incubus upon the nation. Every substance ...
— The Royal Road to Health • Chas. A. Tyrrell
... beech-grove, and richly-colored copse. The little parish-church of St. Lawrence, perhaps the smallest in England, stands on a knoll, and terminates the cultivated valley; immediately beyond which we entered upon a scene of the wildest grandeur and solemnity. Many of the ruinous precipices of the upper cliffs project in horizontal strata, yet have perpendicular rents. Some of the shattered masses give the clearest echoes: we stood before one which responded every syllable with an exactness which was truly astonishing.—There is sometimes what may ...
— Brannon's Picture of The Isle of Wight • George Brannon
... Scott wrote in 1814:—'The monument is now nearly ruinous, and the inscription has fallen down.' Lockhart's Scott, ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... you." Dumont never would accept a favor from any one. He regarded favors as profitable investments but ruinous debts. ...
— The Cost • David Graham Phillips
... first ever held in this State, called by the women of Indiana to consider the true position of woman. An excellent but short address was made by the President, Hannah Hiatt, on the importance of the movement and the ruinous consequences of dividing the interests of men and women, and making their relations antagonistic in the State, the Church, and the affairs of every-day life. Much was said against woman's taking ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume I • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... ruinous. A carpenter could put the thing right at no great expense. But it would take time. And meanwhile the minutes were flying, and lock-up was now little more than half ...
— The White Feather • P. G. Wodehouse
... as she had in hundreds of other instances since she had been in the hospital, that she was no longer in her own parlor, but in a public place, with scores of eyes noting every movement, and that such an act of just disdain would probably be misunderstood, and possibly be ruinous to a belief in her genuine sympathy with the misfortunes of the sick which she had labored ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy
... they would vindicate the correctness of her theory, by winning good positions in life. She believed slavery had assisted the development of the South, but was equally positive that its effect upon the white race was ruinous in the extreme. ...
— Camp-Fire and Cotton-Field • Thomas W. Knox
... those brown curls. Such as he are spoilt to begin with by their mothers, and then all the other women follow suit. And he has a frank, shrewd face with something behind it. If only he had left his purple coat and gold frippery in Constantinople! Such finery is out of place in this dismal ruinous city." ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... a massive but ruinous gateway, surmounted by a bell, which Sergeant Treacher rang regularly at six, nine, and twelve o'clock in the morning, and at three, six, and nine p.m., and struck to announce the intervening hours: for the Islands ...
— Major Vigoureux • A. T. Quiller-Couch
... glad to hear it," replied the Baron pleasantly; "for it proves after all that this robbery (if robbery there has been) was not so very ruinous. Sometimes people think they are robbed, and then it is very sweet afterwards to find that they have not been so; for it adds to their joy in their property. Now, are you quite convinced, good sir, that these people (if there were any) stole, or took, or even borrowed ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... free speech. It will lead to the open discussion of the general policy, the rural police, the trade regulations, the taxes, the desirability of maintaining superfluous expensive bureaux, the lavish (Manila) municipal non-productive outlay, and ruinous projects of no public utility, such as the construction of the Benguet ...
— The Philippine Islands • John Foreman
... concealed behind it. These injudicious performances have tended to weaken instead of strengthen the tower. The interior walls above the main arches of the tower, up to the bases of the fifty-two pillars, which surround the bellringers' chamber, are in a very ruinous state, particularly at the four angles, where rude cavities, running in a diagonal direction, have been made large enough for a man to creep in,—these unaccountable holes have tended very much to increase the danger, as all the masonry connected with them is drawn off ...
— Bell's Cathedrals: The Cathedral Church of Hereford, A Description - Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • A. Hugh Fisher
... Before long I noticed that the shawl was beginning to have a very torn and tattered appearance. On examination, I found that a native mouse had established itself in the top of the hive, and had levied a ruinous tax upon the shawl to make itself a nest. Never was a fabric more completely reduced into its original elements than were large sections of that shawl. It was a masterly piece of analysis. The work of the wheel and the loom was exactly ...
— Squirrels and Other Fur-Bearers • John Burroughs
... qualified men. But it will be asked, how are many struggling mines in sparsely populated countries to obtain the services of all these eminent scientists? The reply is by co-operation. One of the most ruinous mistakes of the past has been that each little mining venture has started on an independent course, with different management, separate machinery, etc. Can it then be wondered at that our gold-mining is not ...
— Getting Gold • J. C. F. Johnson
... of the ruinous civil wars the people began to grow more and more restless. The king was extremely unpopular. Perhaps the people might have winked even at such outrages against decency as were perpetrated by the king had not their critical faculties been sharpened by ...
— The Age of the Reformation • Preserved Smith
... was indulgent and kind, though quick and passionate, brooking no opposition; and the girls were really more attached to him and found more pleasure in his society than in their mother's. Zelica, the youngest, was his special favorite, and he humored and petted her at a ruinous rate, though often storming at some ...
— What Can She Do? • Edward Payson Roe
... This point has been made evident to all in the retouching, which many photographs receive. Likeness is so dependent on those surfaces connecting the features or upon the light and shade of the features, that any tampering with them in a sensitive part is ruinous. ...
— Pictorial Composition and the Critical Judgment of Pictures • Henry Rankin Poore
... and sinews by which antichristianism remains; and were these dispirited, the whole building would quickly become a ruinous heap. ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... heedlessly, intent only on walking away her pain, over gray, brooding fields and winding slopes, and along the skirts of ruinous, dusky pine woods, curtained with fine spun purple gloom. Her dress brushed against the brittle grasses and sere ferns, and the moist night wind, loosed from wild places far away, blew her ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... wish of Commynes, after so judicious a sketch, we may add another: Please God that people may no more suffer themselves to be taken captive by the corrupting and ruinous pleasures procured for them by their masters' grand but wicked or foolish enterprises, and may learn to give to the men who govern them a glory in proportion to the wisdom and justice of their deeds, and by no means ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume III. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... for a single gold standard would, if successful, produce widespread disaster throughout the commercial world. The destruction of silver as money and the establishment of gold as the sole unit of value must have a ruinous effect on all forms of property, except those investments which yield ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... and which, by the way, in this country, are always steered by pressing the contrary rein against the neck, and not by pulling on the bit,—we started off on a fine run over the country. The first place we went to was the old ruinous presidio, which stands on a rising ground near the village, which it overlooks. It is built in the form of an open square, like all the other presidios, and was in a most ruinous state, with the exception of one side, ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... bur (Xanthium spinosuzn), a plant with long triple spines like the barbary, and burs which are ruinous to the wool of the sheep—otherwise, itself very like a chenopodium, ...
— A Dictionary of Austral English • Edward Morris
... short of continental empire; his armies had been gradually advancing, and, under various pretexts, taking possession of every fortress in Prussia, and towards the frontiers of Russia. Supposing himself in a position to enforce the ruinous demands which he well knew could not be granted, he looked forward with confidence to the subjugation of Russia, after which Sweden would become an easy conquest. Alexander saw that the existence of his empire depended on the exertions he was now compelled to make, and before ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... man can desire that we should remain as we are, and what other way out of our difficulties can be suggested but a general legislative union, with representation by population, a federal union, or a dissolution of the present union. I am sure that a dissolution cry would be as ruinous to any party as (in my opinion) it would be wrong. A federal union, it appears to me, cannot be entertained for Canada alone, but when agitated must include all British America. We will be past caring for politics when that measure is finally achieved. What powers should ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... the sands stretch level and far, Around this little oasis of Tamarind trees. A curious, Eastern fragrance fills the breeze From the ruinous Temple garden ...
— India's Love Lyrics • Adela Florence Cory Nicolson (AKA Laurence Hope), et al.
... is an exquisitely tender and pathetic farewell, but not the stifled cry of a man who has received a crushing blow. Not easily, but yet without any ruinous convulsion, he makes that transition from love to "mere friendship" which passionate men so ...
— Robert Browning • C. H. Herford
... general depravity; and the individual is no longer encouraged to struggle with vicious propensities, when he concludes them irresistibly inherent in his nature. Perhaps it was not possible to imagine principles at once so seductive and ruinous as those now disseminated. How are the morals of the people to resist a doctrine which teaches them that the rich only can be criminal, and that poverty is a substitute for virtue—that wealth is holden by the sufferance of those who do not possess it—and that he who is the frequenter ...
— A Residence in France During the Years 1792, 1793, 1794 and 1795, • An English Lady
... which has, on more than one occasion, risen to the first floor of the houses and stores built on the edge of the levee; fortunately, the greater part of the town, being built on higher ground, escapes the ruinous periodical duckings. It is situated seven hundred and fifty miles below the falls of St. Anthony, and twelve hundred miles above ...
— Lands of the Slave and the Free - Cuba, The United States, and Canada • Henry A. Murray
... no evidence of an approaching termination of the ruinous conflict which has been raging for seven years in the neighboring island of Cuba. The same disregard of the laws of civilized warfare and of the just demands of humanity which has heretofore called forth expressions of condemnation from the nations of Christendom has continued to blacken the sad ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... admiral's fleet was not ready before the beginning of 1498. Even then further embarrassment occurred in manning it, as few were found willing to embark in a service which had fallen into such general discredit. This led to the ruinous expedient of substituting convicts, whose regular punishments were commuted into transportation, for a limited period, to the Indies. No measure could possibly have been devised more effectual for the ruin of the infant settlement. The seeds ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... that perhaps she would not speak in that way if she had done him the honor of visiting his farms of Casentino, although these had suffered from long and ruinous lawsuits. She would have seen there what ...
— The Red Lily, Complete • Anatole France
... After Regnier had stated that his commission was purely verbal he went on to observe that it was to be regretted that a treaty of peace had not put an end to the war after Sedan; that the maintenance of the German armies on French territory was ruinous to the country; and that it would be doing France a great service to obtain an armistice preparatory to the conclusion of peace. That as regarded this, the French army under the walls of Metz—the only army remaining organised—would be ...
— Camps, Quarters, and Casual Places • Archibald Forbes
... was, to say the least, facile. So, too, he probably knew by experience—he certainly knew by native shrewdness and acquired observation—that to look too much on the wine when it is red, or on the cards when they are parti-coloured, is ruinous to health and fortune; but he thought not over badly of any man who did these things. Still it is possible to admit this in him, and to stop short of that idea of a careless and reckless viveur which has so often been put forward. In particular, Lady Mary's view of his childlike ...
— Joseph Andrews Vol. 1 • Henry Fielding
... paper his future style and title: "Antoine Francois de Cyrano Derues de Bury, Seigneur de Buisson-Souef et Valle Profonde." He is worthy of Thackeray's pen, this little grocer-snob, with his grand and ruinous acquaintance with the noble and the great, his spurious titles, his unwearied ...
— A Book of Remarkable Criminals • H. B. Irving
... nor made the slightest attempt to write verses, and the idle hours threw him again into evil company, similar to that from which he had escaped at Burghley Park. There were, among the labourers of Helpston, two brothers of the name of John and James Billings, who lived, unmarried, at a ruinous old cottage, nicknamed Bachelors' Hall. Both were given to poaching, hard drinking, and general rowdyism, and fond, besides, of meeting kindred spirits, of the same turn of mind, at the riotous evening assemblies in their little cottage. Hitherto, John Clare's passion for poetry had ...
— The Life of John Clare • Frederick Martin
... An idea has generally prevailed among English farmers, and agriculturists of other countries who have heard of Alderman Mechi's experiments, that they were impracticable and almost valueless, because they would not pay; that the balance- sheet of his operations did and must ever show such ruinous discrepancy between income and expenditure as must deter any man, of less capital and reckless enthusiasm, from following his lead into such unconsidered ventures. In short, he has been widely regarded at home and abroad as a bold and ...
— A Walk from London to John O'Groat's • Elihu Burritt
... handsome doorways also are often half buried in the debris which for three hundred years or more has been accumulating in the narrow lanes, so much so that in many cases the doors cannot be opened at all. There is an air of decay and sadness in many of these quarters, for these half ruinous houses, once the palaces of the Memluks, are now the habitations of the lowest of the people, and poverty and squalor reign where once had been gaiety and ...
— Peeps at Many Lands: Egypt • R. Talbot Kelly
... The ruinous condition of the town and works, which altogether did not cover half a mile of ground in length and nothing like it in width, may be conceived by the accounts I have already given. I may remark that from one end to the other it was strewed with ...
— Hurricane Hurry • W.H.G. Kingston
... which all deeply spiritual teaching is open, is a kind of antinomianism—a species of religious bargaining between the soul and God; and that is a thing which is, of course, totally alien to His will, and completely ruinous to true progress. The process of such thought is something like this: 'Christ has performed for me a work of infinite love and merit. If I confess and deplore evil, I may claim pardon for it and purifying from its guilt by faith in the ...
— Standards of Life and Service • T. H. Howard
... Jodhpur or Jaipur States in preference to any elder son by another mother. The quarrels to which this stipulation gave rise led to the conquest of the country by the Marathas, at whose hands Mewar suffered more cruel devastation than it had ever been subjected to by the Muhammadans. Ruinous war also ensued between Jodhpur and Jaipur for the hand of the famous Udaipur princess Kishen Kumari at the time when Rajputana was being devastated by the Marathas and Pindaris; and the quarrel was only ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... treasure is abused When misers keep it; being put to loan, In time it will return us two for one. Rich robes themselves and others do adorn; Neither themselves nor others, if not worn. Who builds a palace and rams up the gate Shall see it ruinous and desolate. Ah, simple Hero, learn thyself to cherish. Lone women like to empty houses perish. Less sins the poor rich man that starves himself In heaping up a mass of drossy pelf, Than such as you. His ...
— Hero and Leander • Christopher Marlowe
... subject is ill understood by those who were unprepared for what has just been said, is the excuse to my own mind, Gentlemen, for having made so protracted a demand upon your attention. The ruinous tendencies of this self-flattering enterprize can only be checked by timely and general foresight. The contest in which we are engaged has been described by Persons noticing it from a distance, as the work of a Cabal of Electioneering Jobbers, who have contrived to set up the Thanet ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... countries, he might have referred, it is true, to high Whig authority:—"The late Lord Oxford told me," says Lord Bolingbroke, "that my Lord Somers being pressed, I know not on what occasion or by whom, on the unnecessary and ruinous continuation of the war, instead of giving reasons to show the necessity of it, contented himself to reply that he had been bred up in a hatred to France."—But no authority, however high, can promote a prejudice into a reason, or conciliate any respect for this sort of ...
— Memoirs of the Life of the Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan V1 • Thomas Moore
... against Scotland. In 1769 he wrote:—'I am delighted to see the daily and hourly progress of madness and folly and wickedness in England. The consummation of these qualities are the true ingredients for making a fine narrative in history, especially if followed by some signal and ruinous convulsion—as I hope will soon be the case with that pernicious people.' Ib p. 431. In 1770 he wrote:—'Our government has become a chimera, and is too perfect, in point of liberty, for so rude a beast as an Englishman; who is a man, a bad animal too, corrupted by above a century ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 2 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... away a king's daughter, betrothed to the leader of the warriors, was a perilous thing, and Diarmuid's heart stood still at the thought of it; yet Grania's tears prevailed, and they two fled forth that night to the hills and forests. Dire and ruinous was the wrath of Cormac and of Find when they awoke and found that these two were fled; and whatever might was in the king's hand, whatever power in the hosts of Find, was straightway turned against them in pursuit. Yet the two fled as the deer might fly, visiting with their loves every wood ...
— Ireland, Historic and Picturesque • Charles Johnston
... born about the year 1742. His father, Henry Johnston, was of Scottish descent. During the many civil and ecclesiastical troubles which greatly agitated England preceding the ascent of William, Prince of Orange, to the throne in 1688, and the ruinous consequences of the defeat of Charles Edward, the "Pretender," at the battle of Culloden, in April, 1746, a constant tide of emigration was flowing from Scotland to the northern part of Ireland, or directly to the shores of the New ...
— Sketches of Western North Carolina, Historical and Biographical • C. L. Hunter
... in truth, made a ruinous mistake. Had the date been May instead of August he might still have saved Burgoyne. But at the end of August, when the net was closing on Burgoyne, Howe was three hundred miles away. His disregard of time and distance had been magnificent. In July he had sailed to the mouth of the Delaware, ...
— Washington and his Comrades in Arms - A Chronicle of the War of Independence • George Wrong
... same time at Metz, the streets of which place are said to have been filled with eleven hundred dancers. Peasants left their plows, mechanics their workshops, housewives their domestic duties, to join the wild revels, and this rich commercial city became the scene of the most ruinous disorder. Secret desires were excited and but too often found opportunities for wild enjoyment; and numerous beggars, stimulated by vice and misery, availed themselves of this new complaint to gain a temporary livelihood. Girls and boys quitted their ...
— Introduction to the Science of Sociology • Robert E. Park
... of the ungodly, with whom she begged him to have no communion. She spoke of the necessity there was for constant watchfulness and prayer; told him to avoid all exhibition of self-will or disobedience; but above all to shun falsehood, that most ruinous of all vices, since it is the first step on the way which leads to eternal death. She bade him remember how the Scriptures teach, "Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life;" and that it is ever ...
— Watch—Work—Wait - Or, The Orphan's Victory • Sarah A. Myers
... why spend a single breath in referring to such miserable specimens of humanity? The world knows what they are; and Canada ought to have some slight acquaintance with them: as they built her into the worthless Grand Trunk at a ruinous figure, and, like her present, leading, political juggler, Sir John A., fleeced her in every direction that a collop could be cut out ...
— Ridgeway - An Historical Romance of the Fenian Invasion of Canada • Scian Dubh
... resolved that this "pestilent Scotchman" must be got rid of. A bill in Chancery was filed against him on some pretext or other, with the view of putting an end to his tenancy. Years of irritating and ruinous litigation followed, the ultimate result of which was a decision in Mr. Gourlay's favour. But it was the old story of Jarndyce v. Jarndyce. The protracted litigation had eaten up the substance of the successful litigant, and ...
— The Story of the Upper Canada Rebellion, Volume 1 • John Charles Dent
... could not kill in his mind the hope that the floor would yield. The greatness of the resulting catastrophe fascinated him. He knew that he should be disappointed if the catastrophe did not occur. That it would mean ruinous damage to the extent of hundreds of pounds, and enormous worry, did not influence him. His reason did not influence him, nor his personal danger. He saw a large hook in the wall to which he could ...
— Clayhanger • Arnold Bennett
... heard you to the end, though you have spoken insultingly of councils in which I have had my share. Will you look at this little clause in this paper, Sir. The excitement you speak of will come ere long, and that at a rate less ruinous than this whole army's loss. There's a line—there's a line, Sir, that will make null and void, very soon, if not on the instant, all the evil of these golden promises. There'll be excitement enough ere long; but better ...
— The Bride of Fort Edward • Delia Bacon
... to the silencing system any longer, Mr. St. John," Mrs. Malcomson implored. "The silent acquiescence of women in an iniquitous state of things is merely an indication of the sensual apathy to which your ruinous 'poetry of the pulpit' has reduced the greater ...
— The Heavenly Twins • Madame Sarah Grand
... every misdemeanor in the Company's servants were to be immediate, and had a tendency to lower the value of the stock, something might justly be expected from the pecuniary security taken by the act. But from the then state of things, it was more than probable that proceedings ruinous to the permanent interest of the Company might commence in great lucrative advantages. Against this evil large pecuniary interests were rather the reverse of a remedy. Accordingly, the Company's servants have ever since covered over the worst oppressions of the people under their ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VIII. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Uncle Dynevor! He was, without exception, the most wrong-headed person I ever came in contact with, yet so excessively plausible and eager that he carried my poor father entirely along with him. Louis! nothing is so ruinous ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. I) - or, The Clue of Life • Charlotte M. Yonge
... ruinous!" burst out Mnesiphilus. "Soon there will be no allied fleet, nor any cause or country to fight for. You must have the council meet again; this vote must be set aside; if it be carried out the liberty of Greece is at ...
— Historic Tales, vol 10 (of 15) - The Romance of Reality • Charles Morris
... decline of Graeco-Roman civilisation, and was perpetuated by the teaching of Christianity. The philosophy of Epicurus and of Zeno an utter detachment from the business of mankind—prepared the way for the spirit of the Gospels. So, at length, we get our notion of Church and State—a separation ruinous to religion and making impossible anything like perfection in politics; it has thoroughly rooted in people's minds that fatal distinction between Man as a responsible soul and Man as a member of society. Our work is to restore ...
— Our Friend the Charlatan • George Gissing
... prospect of a brilliant political career as a Commoner, and he had too much good sense—in view of the very large fortune settled upon the Archduchess—to diminish it by any imprudent insistence on a claim which, extremely valuable as a ground for some advantageous compromise, could only prove ruinous if pressed to any exact recognition. The Government's advisers, therefore, approved most highly of the marriage between M. de Hausee and the Archduchess Marie-Brigitte-Henriette, and were disposed to ...
— Robert Orange - Being a Continuation of the History of Robert Orange • John Oliver Hobbes
... world of proud indifference. But what was the good of telling her he wanted this company in proud indifference. What was the good of talking, any way? It must happen beyond the sound of words. It was merely ruinous to try to work her by conviction. This was a paradisal bird that could never be netted, it must fly by itself ...
— Women in Love • D. H. Lawrence
... rode Geraint into the castle court, His charger trampling many a prickly star Of sprouted thistle on the broken stones. He look'd and saw that all was ruinous. Here stood a shatter'd archway plumed with fern; And here had fall'n a great part of a tower, Whole, like a crag that tumbles from the cliff, And like a crag was gay with wilding flowers: And high above ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 5 • Charles Sylvester
... several parts of the town to hold my goods, and appointed over each a clerk, to sell both wholesale and retail; and by this economy received considerable profit and income. Afterwards, to unite my concerns in one spot, I bought a large house, which stood on a great deal of ground, but was ruinous, pulled it down, and built that your majesty saw yesterday, which, though it makes so great an appearance, consists, for the most part, of warehouses for my business, with apartments absolutely necessary for myself ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... but he hoped that it would be renewed. His requests, which appeared just and reasonable, were, however, refused, owing to protests on the part of merchants of Bretagne and Normandy, who claimed that this monopoly was ruinous to their commerce. Finally de Monts appealed to his former partners, who decided to furnish two vessels, at their own expense, with supplies and stores necessary for the settlement. Pont-Grave was given the command of a fur-trading vessel, and the other was laden with provisions and stores ...
— The Makers of Canada: Champlain • N. E. Dionne
... the sort of enjoyment for which they sacrificed so much, I accompanied them. Passing not a few more inviting-looking places, we entered a low tavern in the upper part of the Canongate, kept in an old half-ruinous building, which has since disappeared. We passed on through a narrow passage to a low-roofed room in the centre of the erection, into which the light of day never penetrated, and in which the gas was burning dimly in a close, sluggish atmosphere, rendered still more stifling ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... in conversation stated that the only place where he had anything like a crop of cacao at present, was where the hurricane of the 11th of October had devastated his estate most severely, and which he at that time considered a ruinous visitation. I hope the lesson will not ...
— The Commercial Products of the Vegetable Kingdom • P. L. Simmonds
... theology, including all speculations on the why and the wherefore, optimism, pessimism, freedom, necessity, causality, and so forth, are not only for the most part loss of time, but frequently ruinous. It is no answer to say that these things force themselves upon us, and that to every question we are bound to give or try to give an answer. It is true, although strange, that there are multitudes of burning questions which we must do our best to ignore, to forget their existence; ...
— The Autobiography of Mark Rutherford • Mark Rutherford
... notable of Keimer's books was the folio edition of Sewell's History of the Quakers, which he began in 1725. It was a work of upwards of seven hundred pages and Keimer soon found that he had taken the contract at a ruinous rate. It was only by the help of Franklin and Meredith that he was enabled to ...
— A Short History of English Printing, 1476-1898 • Henry R. Plomer
... Protector himself. During the military operations connected with this political manoeuvre, the Duke of Sung was guilty of the most ridiculous piece of ritual chivalry; highly approved, it is true, by the literary pedants of all subsequent ages, but ruinous to his own worldly cause. The Ts'u army was crossing a difficult ford, and the Duke's advisers recommended a prompt attack. "It is not honourable," said the Duke, "to take advantage even of an enemy in distress." ...
— Ancient China Simplified • Edward Harper Parker
... into Serjeants' Inn garden, he passed daily with ease to his chambers, dedicated to business and study. His friends he enjoyed at home, and politic ones often found him out at his chambers." He rebuilt Serjeants' Inn Hall, which had become poor and ruinous, and improved all the dwellings in Chancery Lane from Jackanapes Alley down to Fleet Street. He also drained the street for the first time, and had a rate levied on the unwilling inhabitants, after which his at first ...
— Old and New London - Volume I • Walter Thornbury
... laid upon some unsecured logs, crossed the river. The broncos stopped and smelt it, not liking it, but some encouraging speech induced them to go over. On the other side was a log cabin, partially ruinous, and the very rudest I ever saw, its roof of plastered mud being broken into large holes. It stood close to the water among some cotton-wood trees. A little higher there was a very primitive saw-mill, also out of repair, with some logs lying about. An emigrant wagon and a forlorn tent, ...
— A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains • Isabella L. Bird
... from which I had escaped, 'as from an enemy,' was seemingly quite local. It carried no clouds with it, and came from such a quarter that it did not trouble the sea within view. The two castles, black and ruinous as the rocks about them, were still distinguishable from these by something more insecure and fantastic in the outline, something that the last storm had left imminent and the next would demolish entirely. It would be difficult to render in words ...
— Essays of Travel • Robert Louis Stevenson
... framed the fundamental law of the State, and which you and many of us considered, if not sacred, at least to have been permanently settled, it becomes us to be on the alert to defeat a measure, which if it should succeed, will not only be ruinous, and in the highest degree unjust to many of us who have emigrated here under the most solemn assurance that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude" should exist; but it will be of incalculable injury to the interest of the State, of the Union, and of the extension and advancement ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 3, 1918 • Various
... housemaid, shone pre-eminent. She would sit there and discourse by the hour of lonely and deserted houses, long silent galleries, down which misty shapes had been seen to glide in the pallid moonlight, gaunt and ruinous chambers, the wainscot of which rattled, and the tattered tapestry of which swayed and rustled mysteriously; gloomy passages through which unearthly sighs were audibly wafted; dismal cellars, with never-opened doors, from whose profoundest recesses came at dead of night ...
— The Rover's Secret - A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba • Harry Collingwood
... avert came as a result of the introduction of the very civilization of which he was the champion, for with peace came new wants that the most unscrupulous of traders at once sought to supply at prices ruinous to the social and moral welfare of ...
— Popular Science Monthly Volume 86
... flag while the war lasted; and to make matters worse, the Secretary had sent to England, as special agent for building or buying vessels, a man well known throughout the kingdom to be bankrupt in fame and fortune, who was hawking our government securities about the country at a ruinous rate of discount; and who inflicted much loss and injury upon the Confederate Government in various ways during his connection with it. The management of naval affairs abroad should have been left in the hands of Captain Bullock, the efficient agent of the Navy Department in England, who showed ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... Macready believed that the star of regeneration had arisen. Unfortunately 'twas, in the words of a contemporary dramatic poet, "a rising sorrow splendidly forlorn." The financial condition of Covent Garden Theatre was so ruinous that not even the most successful play could have ...
— Life of Robert Browning • William Sharp
... softly shining eyes, close to the horse; and she laid her hand upon its belly and stroked it. And Cassandra saw her and reviled her, saying, "Thou shame to Ilium, and thou curse! The Ruinous Face, the Ruinous Face! Cried I not so in the beginning when they praised thy low voice and soft beguiling ways? But thou too, thou ...
— The Ruinous Face • Maurice Hewlett
... much of him as of you," at last she said. "Such an engagement to you would be fraught with much misery, but to him it would be ruinous." ...
— Castle Richmond • Anthony Trollope
... years since in a small and ruinous house, little better than a hovel, an old woman who was reported to have considerably exceeded her eightieth year, and who rejoiced in the name of Alice, or popularly, Ally Moran. Her society was not much courted, for she was neither rich, nor, ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 4 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... dignity and consequence) which fail of execution, are much worse than none. They weaken the government, expose it to contempt, destroy the confidence of all men, native and foreigners, in it, and expose both aggregate bodies and individuals who have placed confidence in it to many ruinous disappointments which they would have escaped had no such law or ordinance been made." This principle, by the way, not only applies to an internal law which cannot be executed; it applies even more to international action, such as a universal arbitration treaty which cannot ...
— Theodore Roosevelt - An Autobiography by Theodore Roosevelt • Theodore Roosevelt
... on the other hand, content, prosperity, and happiness are most observable in those parts of the country where there has been the least endeavor to administer relief by law. In truth, nothing is so baneful, so utterly ruinous to all true industry, as interfering with the legal value of money, or attempting to raise artificial standards to supply its place. Such remedies suit well the spirit of extravagant speculation, but they sap the very foundation of all honest acquisition. By weakening ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster
... depredation against which the governor's activities were no check. Estates were invaded, and men, women and children killed, or carried into the mountains and held as hostages. In the middle and western part of the island the ruinous movements went on without being stayed; planters and people generally railed at the governor, and said that through his neglect these dark things were happening. It was said he had failed to punish ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... wonderful, so logical, so certain of the desired result. And now there were other thoughts forcing their way to the front. How would their names live in history? How would Englishmen throughout the world regard this deed? Was it really the truth they were following, or some false and ruinous shadow? These were fugitive doubts, perhaps, but to more than one of those midnight toilers they presented themselves in the guise of ...
— The Devil's Paw • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... had fulfilled the end of his office, by setting them free, he explained that his retaining it was no longer necessary. "Should I remain your regent," continued he, "the country would be involved in ruinous dissensions. The majority of your nobles now find a vice in the virtue they once extolled; and seeing its power, no longer needful, seek to destroy my upholders with myself. I therefore remove the cause of contention. I quit the ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... meditation. Although a fanatical admirer of illustrious generals, the common sense of that peasant woman made him think of the opulence that would bring to a country so many hands now idle and necessarily ruinous, so many forces kept unproductive, if they were employed for the great industrial enterprises which, at the present pace, it would take centuries ...
— Mademoiselle Fifi • Guy de Maupassant
... succeeded in cutting Geof out, as he termed it, very neatly, by the simple device of interesting May in a certain sketch which she undertook at his suggestion. The subject was a common enough one in Venice; a tranquil rio between ruinous walls,—here, a bit of quaint mediaeval sculpture,—there, a splash of verdure over the arch of a gateway,—a pointed church tower in remote perspective. The clever craftsman found no difficulty in inventing reasons why a similar combination of advantages ...
— A Venetian June • Anna Fuller
... Wherefore, he commands his officers that they should then, when they see that they could hold the town no longer, do it what harm and mischief they could, rendering and tearing men, women, and children. 'For,' said he, 'we had better quite demolish the place, and leave it like a ruinous heap, than so leave it that it may be ...
— The Holy War • John Bunyan
... opposition of vested interests and chartered brigands in the great money hunt. It was this: A certain charitable lady gave some years of her life to the study of those conditions in which, as I have said, the criminally inactive, the hopelessly useless, were produced by authorized routine, at a ruinous cost in money and degeneracy, and to the great profit ...
— The Message • Alec John Dawson
... real danger is, lest a man should be as those Jews, and not know the day of his visitation. Ah, that is ruinous indeed, when a man's eyes are blinded as those Jews' eyes were; when a great temptation comes on him, and he thinks it no temptation at all; when hell is opening beneath him, with the devils trying to pluck him down, ...
— Town and Country Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... prospered in his enterprises and acquired a handsome fortune, so that his sons would not be dependent on their own exertions for support. Gabriel unfortunately knew this circumstance too well, and on the faith of his father's fortune indulged in habits of extravagance and dissipation as ruinous as they were disgraceful. The captain did not live to witness the complete degradation of his favorite son. His vessel was wrecked on a homeward voyage, and the waves became the sailor's winding-sheet. His wife did not long survive him. She died, ...
— Ernest Linwood - or, The Inner Life of the Author • Caroline Lee Hentz
... liberal education will therefore be a great hodge-podge; and he who narrows his field and digs deep will be viewed as an alien. If more than one man in a hundred should thus dare to concentrate, the ruinous effects of being a specialist will be sadly discussed. It may make a man exceptionally useful, they will have to admit; but still they will feel badly, and fear that ...
— This Simian World • Clarence Day
... casting a curious and hostile eye over the signs of parsimonious neglect which it presented. Sheep and cattle were feeding in part of it; part of it was standing for hay; and everywhere the fences were ruinous, and the roads grass-grown. It was, Tatham knew, let out to various small farmers, who used it as they pleased. As to the woods which studded it, "the man must be a simple fool who could let them get into such a state!" Tatham prided himself ...
— The Mating of Lydia • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... these sordid and ruinous contentions, several of the principal merchants of Montreal entered into a partnership in the winter of 1783, which was augmented by amalgamation with a rival company in 1787. Thus was created the famous "Northwest ...
— Astoria - Or, Anecdotes Of An Enterprise Beyond The Rocky Mountains • Washington Irving
... remain out in the cold,—seeing, as they did, that by so doing no good would be done to the country? Dissensions among their foes did, when properly used, give them power,—but such power they could only use by carrying measures which they themselves believed to be ruinous. But the ruin would be as certain should they abstain. Each individual might have gloried in standing aloof,—in hiding his face beneath his toga, and in remembering that Rome did once exist in ...
— Phineas Redux • Anthony Trollope
... to walk through to the river? The wind's in the corn; you rub your hands For beeves hereafter ready for market; Or else you hear the rustle of skirts Like the girls when dancing at Little Grove. To Cooney Potter a pillar of dust Or whirling leaves meant ruinous drouth; They looked to me like Red-Head Sammy Stepping it off, to "Toor-a-Loor." How could I till my forty acres Not to speak of getting more, With a medley of horns, bassoons and piccolos Stirred in my brain by crows and robins And the creak of a wind-mill—only these? And I never ...
— Spoon River Anthology • Edgar Lee Masters
... interest of the proprietor to have good cultivating tenants as it is that of the tenants to have good proprietors; and it is felt to be the interest of both to adjust their terms amicably among themselves, without a reference to a third and superior party, which is always costly and commonly ruinous.[6] ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... of streets in the place, and saw certain sights. The Park is very pretty, and all the buildings round about it have an air of neatness—almost of stateliness. The houses are tall, the streets spacious, and the roads extremely clean. In the Park is a little theatre, a cafe somewhat ruinous, a little palace for the king of this little kingdom, some smart public buildings (with S. P. Q. B. emblazoned on them, at which pompous inscription one cannot help laughing), and other rows of houses somewhat resembling a little Rue de Rivoli. ...
— Little Travels and Roadside Sketches • William Makepeace Thackeray
... she passed through the Abbey gateway, the wicket being left open, and proceeded towards the ruinous convent church, taking care as much as ...
— The Lancashire Witches - A Romance of Pendle Forest • William Harrison Ainsworth
... what he read, Mr. Morley says that it was as true of Florence in the Sixteenth Century as of Athens, Corinth, Corcyra in the Fifth Century before Christ, as set forth in Thucydides, that it was a prey to intestine faction and the ruinous invocation of foreign aid. "These terrible calamities," says Thucydides, "always have been and always will be, while human nature remains the same. Words cease to have the same relations to things, and their meanings are changed to suit the ingenuities of enterprise and the atrocities ...
— Volume 10 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... line, and in the year 18— belonged to another Abner Dimock, who kept tavern in Greenfield, a town of Western Massachusetts, and, like his father and grandfather before him, had one only son. In the mean time, the old house in Haddam township had fallen into a ruinous condition, and, as the farm was very small, and unprofitable chestnut-woodland at that, the whole was leased to an old negro and his wife, who lived there in the most utter solitude, scratching the soil for a few beans and potatoes, and in the autumn gathering nuts, or in the spring roots ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... Notwithstanding the ruinous state of the beef, the gentleman managed to out himself some delicate slices, part of which he ate in silence. When he next spoke, it was, in a less querulous tone, to ask ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte
... it had grown and grown till its branches, which used to drag on the gravel, now covered the path entirely—she overheard David explaining to Janetta how he and his brothers and Mr. Roy had made the wooden letter-box, which actually existed still, though in very ruinous condition. ...
— The Laurel Bush • Dinah Maria Mulock Craik
... of European beet-sugar has cut off all Continental demand for their staple, and has in some degree superseded its use in America. Brigandage is on the increase, as poverty and want of legitimate employment prevail. Money, when it can be borrowed at all, is at a ruinous interest. The army of office-holders still manage to extort considerable sums in the aggregate from the people, under the guise of necessary taxes. Financial ruin stares all in the face. It is a sad thing to say, but only too true, that among people heretofore considered above ...
— Due South or Cuba Past and Present • Maturin M. Ballou
... in the education of these girls, low as are the terms they pay. I saw quite a ruinous heap of spoilt envelopes and fashionable sheets of thick cream-laid; for they have to make their experiments on the best material, and the slightest alteration in the position of a pin where the stamping process has to be several times repeated spoils the whole result. ...
— Mystic London: - or, Phases of occult life in the metropolis • Charles Maurice Davies
... intemperate mother! What a soul-ruinous example to a daughter! When we consider the relation between the mother and the child, how great are the maternal responsibilities. The mother ought to attract the attention of the child by her love. Chilled by the sin of intemperance, ...
— Gathering Jewels - The Secret of a Beautiful Life: In Memoriam of Mr. & Mrs. James Knowles. Selected from Their Diaries. • James Knowles and Matilda Darroch Knowles
... wheeled round immediately: and, to Mr. Blyth's great delight, inspected the sketch of the old five-barred gate with the most extraordinary and flattering attention. "Wants doing up, don't it?" said Mat, referring to the picturesquely-ruinous original of the gate represented. "Yes, indeed," answered Valentine, thinking he spoke of the creased and ragged condition of the paper on which the sketch was made; "a morsel of paste and a sheet of fresh paper to ...
— Hide and Seek • Wilkie Collins
... again foul, we put into a little place called Sâkeeah, a port of the island in the S.E. Here is nothing in the shape of a port town, only a small square ruinous hovel of mud and plaster, and a rude hut put up temporarily by a Maltese, who is building a boat. I often think the Maltese are the Irish of the South. Maltese enterprise is prevalent in all parts of the Mediterranean but in their own country. The port, such ...
— Travels in the Great Desert of Sahara, in the Years of 1845 and 1846 • James Richardson
... durable wood will, of course, answer the same purpose. The tube is pierced with holes to admit the water. In wet meadows, these tubes laid deep would be durable and efficient, and far more reliable than brush or even stones, because they may be better protected from the admission of sand and the ruinous working of vermin. Their economy depends upon the price of the wood and the cost of tiles—which are far better if they ...
— Farm drainage • Henry Flagg French
... treason; and the bond cracked 'twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction; there's son against father: the king falls from bias of nature; there's father against child. We have seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves.—Find out this villain, Edmund; it shall lose thee nothing; do it carefully.—And the noble and true-hearted Kent ...
— The Tragedy of King Lear • William Shakespeare [Collins edition]
... changes and ameliorations of the times, the owners and all dependent upon it will stand appalled and prostrate, as the sot whose liquor has been withheld, and nothing but the bad and worthless habit left to remind the country of its ruinous effects. The political economist, as well as all wise statesmen in this country, cannot think of any measure going to discharge slavery that would not be a worse state than its existence." His own remedy for the depression prevailing at the time when he wrote, was to divert a large ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... views have undergone a change so far as to be convinced that no alteration of the Constitution in this respect is wise or expedient. The influence of an accumulating surplus upon the credit system of the country, producing dangerous extensions and ruinous contractions, fluctuations in the price of property, rash speculation, idleness, extravagance, and a deterioration of morals, have taught us the important lesson that any transient mischief which may attend the reduction ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... earth, mother, before Cedar Hall shall go out of the family. If I can bring things to pass with old Stillinghast, I might, on the credit of marrying one of his heiresses raise the money at a ruinous interest. At any rate, Cedar Hall, goes not ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... of President Grant in his memorable message of December 7, 1875, are signally relevant to the present situation in Cuba, and it may be wholesome now to recall them. At that time a ruinous conflict had for seven years wasted the neighboring island. During all those years an utter disregard of the laws of civilized warfare and of the just demands of humanity, which called forth expressions of condemnation ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... ominous (albeit obscure) hints as to the part he would play in the family history. The precise wording of none of these old prophecies has come down to us; but they seem in general to have intimated that the dark-eyed Helwyse would bring the race to a ruinous and disgraceful end, saving on the accomplishment of conditions too improbable to deserve recording. The dead must return to life, the living forsake their identity, love unite the blood of the victim to that of ...
— Idolatry - A Romance • Julian Hawthorne
... vocal organs have not formed definitely established habits, and the chest register is often pushed upward to c'', d'', or even e'' [music notation]. This is practically always done in singing an ascending scale loudly, and the result is not only distressing to the listener, but ruinous to the voice. In former days this type of singing was common in our public schools, the result being that most boys honestly thought it impossible to sing higher than c'' or d'' [music notation] this being the limit beyond ...
— Essentials in Conducting • Karl Wilson Gehrkens
... first had been guilty of a fatal error in the education of his pupil. He had governed him throughout on the ruinous principle of concession. Nero was not devoid of talent; he had a decided turn for Latin versification, and the few lines of his composition which have come down to us, bizarre and effected as they are, yet display a certain sense of melody and power of language. But his vivid ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... in among the crowd with ungovernable fury. A terrible slaughter of the scarcely resisting multitude ensued, and not less than three thousand citizens were slain upon the spot. 12. Flaccus attempted to find shelter in a ruinous cottage; but, being discovered, was slain, with his eldest son. Gracchus, at first, retired to the temple of Dian'a, where he resolved to die by his own hand, but was prevented by two of his faithful friends and followers, Pompo'nius and Lucin'ius, ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... first sight of a church since her arrival, except that in the chapel, which was a dismal neglected vault, where a ruinous altar and mouldering crucifix testified to its sacred purpose. The old baron had been excommunicated for twenty years, ever since he had harried the wains of the Bishop of Augsburg on his way to the Diet; and, though his household and family were not under the same ...
— The Dove in the Eagle's Nest • Charlotte M. Yonge
... how far this infallibility of the Pope goes. If a man is infallible he can not make a mistake, and I can prove by every man of broadmindedness and intelligence that the Popes of Rome, for centuries past, have made nothing but mistakes, and their mistakes have been not only ruinous to those whom they profess to teach, but their mistakes have had a tendency to paralyze the righteous ambitions of every nation to which their influence has extended. If the claim of Catholicism is true that her Popes are infallible, then ...
— Thirty Years In Hell - Or, From Darkness to Light • Bernard Fresenborg
... blood. These men roamed the ranges, stealing the Circle Bar cattle and killing Circle Bar cowboys. Your father had trouble in keeping men; in order to surround himself with enough men to protect his cattle and resist the aggressions of Dunlavey's hired assassins he was forced to pay ruinous wages. ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... during tempests; the Polish or Italian peasant is still persuaded to pay fees for sounding bells to keep off hailstorms; but the universal tendency favours more and more the use of the lightning-rod, and of the insurance offices where men can be relieved of the ruinous results of meteorological disturbances in accordance with the scientific laws of average, based upon the ascertained recurrence of storms. So, too, though many a poor seaman trusts to his charm that has been bathed in holy water, or that has ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... among you exclaim, 'When shall we descry the enemy? when shall we be led to the field of battle?' At length they are unharbored from their retreats; your wishes and your valor have now free scope; and every circumstance is equally propitious to the victor, and ruinous to the vanquished. For, the greater our glory in having marched over vast tracts of land, penetrated forests, and crossed arms of the sea, while advancing towards the foe, the greater will be our danger and difficulty if we should attempt a retreat. We are inferior to our ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... to the greatest difficulties, and their debtors in this country were not only suddenly deprived of accustomed and expected credits, but called upon for payments which in the actual posture of things here could only be made through a general pressure and at the most ruinous sacrifices. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... question; encouraged what seemed impious questioning in the sons; had set "the hearts of the sons against the fathers"; and some instances there were in which the teaching of Socrates had been more conspicuously ruinous than theirs. "If you ask people at Athens," says Socrates in the Meno, "how virtue is to be attained, they will laugh in your face and say they don't so much as know what virtue is." And who was responsible for that? Certainly that Dialogue, ...
— Plato and Platonism • Walter Horatio Pater
... Notwithstanding the ruinous state of his pecuniary affairs, the resolution which the poet had formed not to avail himself of the profits of his works still continued to be held sacred by him; and the sum thus offered for the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... to a thrift of the highest kind, as contrasted with a waste the most deplorable and ruinous of all; thrift of those faculties which connect us with the unseen and spiritual world; with humanity, with Christ, with God; thrift of the immortal spirit. I am not going now to give you a sermon on duty. You hear such, I doubt not, in church every Sunday, far better than I can ...
— Health and Education • Charles Kingsley
... diversified habits, interests, and domestic institutions, must be sacredly and religiously observed. Any attempt to disturb or destroy these compromises, being terms of the compact of union, can lead to none other than the most ruinous ...
— U.S. Presidential Inaugural Addresses • Various
... she was bound to give it up,—that she was bound to give it up for her own sake, and more especially for his; that the engagement, if continued, would never lead to a marriage, and that it would in the meantime be absolutely ruinous to her,—and to him. Parson John came up and spoke to her with a strength for which she had not hitherto given Parson John credit. Her Aunt Sarah was very gentle with her, but never veered from her opinion that the engagement must of necessity be ...
— The Vicar of Bullhampton • Anthony Trollope
... as great as that which occurs when the powerful steam, bursting the boiler in which it is enclosed, ceases to be the servant and becomes the master of man; and it would have required but little foresight to enable those who had the government of this machine to see that it must prove almost as ruinous. ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... company of Kentuckians, and some other small parties, joined them, making up their strength to about six hundred men; but they were still obliged to wait for ammunition, and as the troops began to get impatient, their leaders marched them to Refugio, a small town and ruinous fort, about thirty miles further on. Here, in the latter days of January 1836, General Houston, commander-in-chief of the Texian forces, suddenly and unexpectedly appeared amongst them. He assembled the troops, harangued them, and deprecated the proposed ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 363, January, 1846 • Various
... who's that?' I exclaimed suddenly, as looking up from my block-book I saw the figure of a slight man in the careless morning-dress of a gentleman, crossing the ruinous bridge in our direction, with considerable caution, upon the precarious footing of the battlement, which alone offered an ...
— Uncle Silas - A Tale of Bartram-Haugh • J.S. Le Fanu
... feeling which happily prevails between the employers and the workmen in our great industry as another of the most important elements of its future prosperity. It confers honor on all concerned that by our Boards of Conciliation and Arbitration, ruinous strikes, and even momentary suspensions of labor, are avoided; and still more that masters like our esteemed Treasurer, Mr. David Dale, should deserve, and that large bodies of workmen should have the manliness and discernment to bestow on him, the confidence implied ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... I will quote the just and striking observations of an excellent modern writer. "In whatever village," says he, "the fanatics get a footing, drunkenness and swearing,—sins which, being more exposed to the eye of the world, would be ruinous to their great pretensions to superior sanctity—will, perhaps, be found to decline; but I am convinced, from personal observation, that every species of fraud and falsehood—sins which are not so readily detected, but ...
— Coleridge's Literary Remains, Volume 4. • Samuel Taylor Coleridge
... unexpectedly upon us. While it justifies the surrender on the ground of technical error, it utters a solemn warning in the name of Europe, that, if the demand were a mere pretext to force us into a ruinous war, such a proceeding will not again be tolerated. This pamphlet, entitled Une Parole de Paix, is the article which appeared in the Journal des Debats, December 11, 12, and 13, since published as a ...
— The Uprising of a Great People • Count Agenor de Gasparin
... I understand it, married beneath her—a man her family didn't like. The father and mother died, and Agatha, who was brought up by the father's relations, was often at the Grange, a little, old-fashioned, half-ruinous place, a mile or two from where we live in the North of England. The Grange belongs to her mother's folks, but I think there was still a feud between them and her father's people, who had her trained to earn her living. We saw a good deal ...
— Masters of the Wheat-Lands • Harold Bindloss
... level of Margrave of Brandenburg." Eden, from Berlin; June 19, 1792. Records: Prussia, vol. 151. "He (Moellendorf) reprobated the alliance with Austria, condemning the present interference in the affairs of France as ruinous, and censuring as undignified and contrary to the most important interests of this country the leaving Russia sole arbitress of the fate of Poland. He, however, said, what every Prussian without any exception of party will say, that this country can ...
— History of Modern Europe 1792-1878 • C. A. Fyffe
... of the companies put an end to the ruinous and criminal struggle. George Simpson, afterwards knighted, {406} who has been sent to look over matters in Athabasca, is appointed governor, and Nicholas Garry, one of the London directors, comes out ...
— Canada: the Empire of the North - Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom • Agnes C. Laut
... carry out his wicked purpose against Antonio and Marianna's peace and happiness. He depicted in startling colours the folly and madness of amorous old men, who call down upon their own heads the most ruinous mischief which Heaven can inflict upon a man, since all the love which might have fallen to their share is lost, and instead hatred and contempt shoot their fatal darts at them ...
— Weird Tales. Vol. I • E. T. A. Hoffmann
... Cerf-Volant, and every man has his fancy. Now, mine is billiards. If it wasn't for billiards, I might be eating off silver plate. For, I tell you this," and he fumbled for a scrap of paper in his ragged trousers pocket, "it is billiards that leads on to a dram and plum-brandy.—It is ruinous, like all fine things, in the things it leads to. I know your orders, but the old 'un is in such a quandary that I came on to forbidden grounds.—If the hair was all hair, we might sleep sound ...
— Poor Relations • Honore de Balzac
... held their meeting. That a person in their employ should differ from them boldly, and condemn their course openly, was an extraordinary event; that a young man in the outset of his career should dare so much was unprecedented. It would be a ruinous thing, they said among themselves, for so young a man to lose so important a position on the very threshold of his professional life, and they were convinced that his knowledge of this would restrain him. But they were astounded to find that it ...
— That Lass O' Lowrie's - 1877 • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... transubstantiation German finds himself sober—he believes himself ill Govern under the appearance of obeying Informer, in case of conviction, should be entitled to one half Man had only natural wrongs (No natural rights) No calumny was too senseless to be invented Ruinous honors Sovereignty was heaven-born, anointed of God That vile and mischievous animal called the people Understood the art of managing men, particularly his superiors Upon one day twenty-eight master cooks were dismissed William of Nassau, ...
— Quotations From John Lothrop Motley • David Widger
... not,'' he writes, "the taxes, nor the lettres de cachet, nor any of the other abuses of authority; it is not the sins of the intendants, nor the long and ruinous delays of justice, that has most angered the nation; it is the prejudices of the nobility for which it has exhibited the greatest hatred. What proves this clearly is the fact that it is the bourgeois, the men of letters, ...
— The Psychology of Revolution • Gustave le Bon
... its Government had acted at once instead of waiting while the representatives of a score of other nations were discussing whether any action was permissible. Would not the alternative between breaking the engagement and undertaking a bitter and ruinous war against a powerful and friendly nation put us in an intolerable position? Half a dozen States in the League might for one reason or another wish to resist the claim of the United States for redress. Names of States which might possibly so combine could be given, but it is better ...
— Rebuilding Britain - A Survey Of Problems Of Reconstruction After The World War • Alfred Hopkinson
... been spacious enough to shelter a numerous family and to store a great quantity of goods and provisions, but it was now long since the ruinous chambers had been occupied. Smoke rose only from the opening in the roof of the main building, but its slender column showed from what a very scanty ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... work was scarcely half finished. To add to the difficulty, state stocks depreciated over twenty per cent., embarrassing the administration in its efforts to raise money. The Democrats pronounced such a policy disastrous and ruinous; and, although the Whigs replied that the original estimates were wrong, that the price of labour and material had advanced, and that when completed the canals would speedily pay for themselves, the people thought it ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... of your pictures, cousin; I have a taste for pictures,—a ruinous passion, but we all ...
— The Alkahest • Honore de Balzac
... arrangements may be made for the more effectual and informal use of the Conciliation Boards. Meanwhile it savours of the absurd to talk and write—as certain fault-finders have done—as though every arbitration under the Act were a disturbance of industry as ruinous as a prolonged strike. Other critics have not stickled to assert that it has mischievously affected the volume of the Colony's industries, a statement which is simply untrue. It is the reviving prosperity ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... mischievous, pestilential, baneful, foul, noisome, poisonous, deadly, harmful, noxious, ruinous, deleterious, hurtful, perverting, unhealthful, destructive, ...
— English Synonyms and Antonyms - With Notes on the Correct Use of Prepositions • James Champlin Fernald
... of cedar wood. Some were of stone, a thing unusual in the Indies, and some were partly stone, with wooden upper storeys. There was a fine stone convent peopled by Sisters of Mercy, and a dirty, ruinous old hospital for "the sick men belonging to the ships of war." On the shore there was a quay, backed by a long stone custom-house. The main street ran along the shore behind this custom-house, with cross-streets leading to the two great squares. The eastward ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... was a ruinous house, which clearly had had no occupants for many years. As Robert Cairn's gaze lighted upon its gaping window-frames and doorless porch, he seized his ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... young men of her class; too much exercise, or lack of rest and quiet at certain periods when nature demands it. All the while the physician is silent concerning the glove-fitting, steel-clasped corset, the heavy, dragging skirts, the bands engirding the body, the pinching, deforming boot, and the ruinous social dissipation of fashionable society. These will account for much of the feebleness of young women and girls. For they exhaust nervous force, make freedom of movement a painful impossibility, and frequently ...
— The Arena - Volume 4, No. 22, September, 1891 • Various
... fireplaces with quaint mantels, and tiling, and hardwood floors gave the house an appearance of solid comfort that approached luxury. The church in Milton had purchased the property from the heirs, who had become involved in ruinous speculation and parted with the house for a sum little representing its real worth. It had been changed a little, and modernized, although the old fireplaces still remained; and one spare room, an annex to the house proper, had been added recently. There was ...
— The Crucifixion of Philip Strong • Charles M. Sheldon
... the Cathedral Church. The building, with its site and garden, having been vested in the Crown, when Episcopacy was abolished, were granted in the year 1791, for the purpose of erecting an Infirmary; and the ancient but ruinous building was then removed.—(Caledonia, ...
— The Works of John Knox, Vol. 1 (of 6) • John Knox
... small farm-house on our right hand, with a hawthorn hedge before it, upon which seems to stand a peacock, curiously cut out of thorn. Passing on we came to a place called Pandy uchaf, or the higher Fulling mill. The place so called is a collection of ruinous houses, which put me in mind of the Fulling mills mentioned in "Don Quixote." It is called the Pandy because there was formerly a fulling mill here, said to have been the first established in Wales; which is still to be seen, but which ...
— Wild Wales - Its People, Language and Scenery • George Borrow
... Quincy, "that we don't keep store to please our competitors, but to serve the public. I believe in low prices in sugar, tea, and coffee, to draw trade. But general cuts in prices are ruinous in the end, for our competitors will cut too, and we ...
— The Further Adventures of Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks • Charles Felton Pidgin
... to the ruinous cowshed which was my divisional headquarters. Wake, as I heard later, had swum the river opposite to Mitchinson's right, and reached the other shore safely, though the current was whipped with bullets. But he had scarcely landed ...
— Mr. Standfast • John Buchan
... even in the kiss. Who knows what absorbing emotion, besides love's immediate impulse, may have been uttered in that shadowy embrace? There may have been some contrition for ill-temper or neglect, or some triumph over ruinous temptation, or some pledge of immortal patience, or some heart-breaking prophecy of bereavement. It may have been simply an act of habitual tenderness, or it may have been the wild reaction toward a neglected duty; the renewed self-consecration of the saint, or the joy of the sinner that repenteth. ...
— Oldport Days • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... slowly a black edge crept into view and gathered Graham's attention. Soon it was no longer an edge but a cavity, a huge blackened space amidst the clustering edifices, and from it thin spires of smoke rose into the pallid winter sky. Gaunt ruinous masses of the building, mighty truncated piers and girders, rose dismally out of this cavernous darkness. And over these vestiges of some splendid place, countless minute men were clambering, ...
— The Sleeper Awakes - A Revised Edition of When the Sleeper Wakes • H.G. Wells
... zig-zag chimneys, out of which it seemed as though even smoke could not choose but come in more than naturally fantastic shapes, imparted to it in its tortuous progress; and vast stables, gloomy, ruinous, and empty. The place was said to have been built in the days of King Henry the Eighth; and there was a legend, not only that Queen Elizabeth had slept there one night while upon a hunting excursion, to wit, in a certain oak-panelled room with a deep bay window, but that next morning, while ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens |
