"Undone" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... now, felt that the war had not been fought out, and the way to the lap of peace could only be won by vigorous use of the arms. Some few there were even then, as now there is a cackling multitude, besotted enough to believe that facts can be undone by blinking them. But our forefathers on the whole were wise, and knew that nothing is trampled more basely than right that ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... Flesh for no other Purpose, than to weigh less, I would 'count him a Fool for his Pains; because he runs the Risque of doing himself great Injury. But he must ride; the Match is made; he has a Master to oblige, and he is undone it he refuses: So he is managed accordingly against the Time. If I had a Mind to expose this Practice, and, laying open the whole Regimen Men are to go through in order to waste, acquaint the World with the ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... that I can speak for the Triplanetary Council—the government of three of the planets of our solar system—in saying that there need be no more conflict between our peoples. I also was compelled by circumstances to do certain things which I now wish could be undone; but as you have said, the past is past. Our two races have much to gain from each other by friendly exchanges of materials and of ideas, while we can expect nothing except mutual extermination, if we elect to continue this warfare. I offer ...
— Triplanetary • Edward Elmer Smith
... some in parchment, and them sell by retail, whereby many of the king's subjects, being binders of books, and having no other faculty therewith to get their living, be destitute of work, and like to be undone, except some reformation herein be had,—Be it therefore enacted, &c." By the 4th clause or provision, if any of these printers or sellers of printed books vend them "at too high and unreasonable ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... urged, in reply, not only that it was decidedly worth-while to undo what had been done, but that it must be undone. I then asked Richard whether he had thought ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... manors were attached and the country round was exempted from tax; while the Abbots were made superior to episcopal control, and were endowed with the right to sit in Parliament and a London house to live in during the session. Indeed nothing was left undone that could minister to the pride and power of the ...
— Highways & Byways in Sussex • E.V. Lucas
... he affected himself as having shaken it hard, flapped it with a mighty flutter, straight in front of his companion's nose. It gave him really almost the sense of having already acted his part. The momentary relief—as if from the knowledge that nothing of THAT at least could be undone—sprang from a particular cause, the cause that had flashed into operation, in Miss Gostrey's box, with direct apprehension, with amazed recognition, and that had been concerned since then in every throb of his consciousness. What it came to was that with an absolutely new quantity to deal ...
— The Ambassadors • Henry James
... in the country nurse The poor, that else were undone; Some landlords spend their money worse, On lust and pride at London. There the roysters they do play, Drab and dice their land away, Which may be ours another day; And ...
— Pastoral Poems by Nicholas Breton, - Selected Poetry by George Wither, and - Pastoral Poetry by William Browne (of Tavistock) • Nicholas Breton, George Wither, William Browne (of Tavistock)
... cried, "it's snowing in clouds. It will be a foot deep by morning! But we must make an effort to search the grounds. We must seem to leave nothing undone," and the thought being conceived, it was ...
— Nancy Stair - A Novel • Elinor Macartney Lane
... bore up an' give the chief a notion of the fix I was in. He writ a notice which I put into the newspapers every day for three months; but nothin' come of it. I cruised over the city week in and week out I went to every sort of place where they hired women hands; I didn't leave a think undone that a uneddicated man could do. But nothin' come of it. I don't believe there was a wretcheder soul in that big city of wretchedness than me. Sometimes I wanted to lay down in the ...
— The Story of a Bad Boy • Thomas Bailey Aldrich
... usual time, Kate entered, she moved across the room to light the lamps; but Toni sent her away with this part of her duty undone. To-night Toni wished to sit in the firelight. The fog had thickened in the last hour, and now it pressed against the windows like a chill, ghostly presence, hiding the garden, the river, the trees in thick and clammy folds. Looking across the room from her seat by the ...
— The Making of a Soul • Kathlyn Rhodes
... and sat down. At the table where he had been wont to work, a young clerk was writing. If only all the events of the last few years could be undone, and he, with no soul dependent upon him, be once more earning his pound a week in this room! What a happy man ...
— New Grub Street • George Gissing
... whom, girl as she was, either Bellona or Diana, or both, had entered, was now thoroughly excited by the conflict she ruled, although she had not wasted a moment in watching it. Having just undone the collar of the fourth dog, she was hounding him on with a cry, little needed, as she flew to let go the fifth, a small bull-terrier, mad with rage and jealousy, when the crowd swept between her and her game. The beast was captured, and the dogs taken off ...
— St. George and St. Michael • George MacDonald
... open well That washed sinful soul out of his guilt; Therefore this lesson out I will to tell, That, n'ere* thy tender hearte, we were spilt.** *were it not for Now, Lady brighte! since thou canst and wilt, *destroyed, undone* Be to the seed of Adam merciable;* *merciful Bring us unto that palace that is built To penitents that be *to mercy ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... Stern faces, old heroic souls unblest, Eye me with scorn, as they my grief would gage, A mere child, schooled to weep upon the stage, Tricked for a part of woe and somber-drest. "Lo, who art thou," they ask, "that thou shouldst fret To find, forsooth, one single heart undone? The page thou turnest there is purple-wet With blood that gushed from Caesar overthrown! Lo, who art thou to prate of sorrow?" Yet, This little woe, it is ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... with which he is able to despatch the most entertaining Pieces of this nature. This good office he performed with such force of Genius, Humour, Wit, and Learning, that I fared like a distressed Prince who calls in a powerful neighbour to his aid; I was undone by my auxiliary! When I had once called him in, I could not subsist without ...
— An English Garner - Critical Essays & Literary Fragments • Edited by Professor Arber and Thomas Seccombe
... seen by persons in the house, or in the neighbourhood, when the thought of the dying has been strongly turned to some one left behind, when some anxiety has been in the mind at the last, something left undone which needed doing, or when some local disturbance has shaken the tranquillity of the passing entity. Under these conditions, or others of a similar nature, the double may be seen or heard; when seen, it shows the dreamy, hazy ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... homes to save up bits of dripping, crusts of bread, broken cigarettes, and what not, in order that these should reach son or brother or sweetheart in Germany, yet packed so badly albeit by loving hands, that in the first rough and tumble of the post the paper burst, the string came undone, and the contents of a dozen parcels fell in an ...
— The Better Germany in War Time - Being some Facts towards Fellowship • Harold Picton
... up," said Uncle Pentstemon. "Prize packets they are, and you can't tell what's in 'em till you took 'em 'ome and undone 'em. Never was a bachelor married yet that didn't buy a pig in a poke. Never. Marriage seems to change the very natures in 'em through and through. You can't tell what they won't ...
— The History of Mr. Polly • H. G. Wells
... see. But there's the orchestra and here's your box! You're wonderful, my dear! Already you've undone the mischief he did you, and one half of your task is accomplished. Diplomatists! Pshaw! We'll all have to go to school to ...
— The Eternal City • Hall Caine
... regarded the excitability of her spirits. She would be excessively depressed at one time, at another in such high spirits as were much more alarming. Sometimes she would talk about their being all ruined and undone, and go on rapidly to say they must give up the house in London, retrench, live on nothing; at others she anticipated Mr. Lyddell's bringing Elliot back, all his debts paid, to live at home and be a comfort, ...
— The Two Guardians • Charlotte Mary Yonge
... Masque begins? Eust. Tis done alreadie, All, all, is broken off, I am undone friend, My brother's wise againe, and has spoil'd all, Will not release the land, has ...
— The Works of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher - Vol. 2 of 10: Introduction to The Elder Brother • Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher
... passionate emotion, a lifelong superstition and mistaken sense of duty, and now this endless misery, this terrible atonement of a wrong that could never be undone. ...
— I Will Repay • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... said last night that it was not true to say, as some do, "that a man may be in Christ to-day, and go to the Devil to-morrow." Then if anybody is converted, how can he, as Angus said, "come undone"? I only see one explanation, and it is rather a terrible one: namely, that the conversion was not real, but only looked like it. And I am afraid that must be the truth. But what a pity it is that Mr Whitefield did not find ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... to him I looked at] I take to be the honor of our house. Sir Humphrey de Coverley; he was in his dealings as punctual as a tradesman, and as generous as a gentleman. He would have thought himself as much undone by breaking his word, as if it were to be followed by bankruptcy. He served his country as a knight of the shire to his dying day. He found it no easy matter to maintain an integrity in his words and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IV (of X)—Great Britain and Ireland II • Various
... disappeared. "What's done can't be undone." Then, with a sudden burst of anguish, "Oh, get me out ...
— Northern Lights • Gilbert Parker
... surviving in later Roman practice and belief, of earlier stages of rudimentary religious experience. In these days of anthropological and sociological research, it is possible to do this without great difficulty; and if I left it undone, our story of the development of religion at Rome would be mutilated at the beginning. Also we should be at a disadvantage in trying to realise the wonderful work done by the early authorities of the State in eliminating from their rule of ...
— The Religious Experience of the Roman People - From the Earliest Times to the Age of Augustus • W. Warde Fowler
... this opinion we agree of our own accord. But since the issue remains doubtful, we must pay some regard to gentle dealing, and must not give way so far to our inclinations as to leave the last offices undone. Hatred is in our hearts; yet let piety be there also, which in its due time may take the place of rigour. For the rights of nature reconcile us, though we are parted by differences of purpose; they link us together, howsoever ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... a traitor, and tied him to a tree, and then Fly found him crying, and would have let him out; but she couldn't get the knots undone; and what do you think? She made Wilfred cut the string himself with his own knife! I never knew such a girl for making every one do as she pleases. Then, when it got dark, we came in, and had a sort of a kind of a rehearsal, only that nobody ...
— The Two Sides of the Shield • Charlotte M. Yonge
... we had eaten, doctors came and examined us. New clothes were given us—German uniforms of khaki, and khaki cotton cloth from which to bind new turbans. Nothing was left undone to make us feel well received, except that a barbed-wire fence was all about the camp and armed guards marched up and ...
— Hira Singh - When India came to fight in Flanders • Talbot Mundy
... provinces still heathen. Then we should have said, not merely that Rome had not done what she might have done, but that she had not done what she was actually doing. And that is very much the truth in the matter of the medieval civilisation. It was not merely that the medievals left undone what they might have done, but they left undone what they were doing. This potential promise is proved not only in their successes but in their failures. It is shown, for instance, in the very defects of their art. All the crafts of ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... I do or leave undone. And—God help me—whatever you do or leave undone, I'll love you! There shall never be a cloud between us for a day; no, sir, not for an hour. We're imperfect enough, all of us, we needn't be so bitter; and life is uncertain ...
— Jackanapes, Daddy Darwin's Dovecot and Other Stories • Juliana Horatio Ewing
... I'm undone! How imprudent in you not to burn them. But men are so careless, there's no trusting anything to them! However, I must try to brazen it out.—Give me the letters, my love," she added aloud, and in her most winning accents; "they're ...
— Jack Sheppard - A Romance • William Harrison Ainsworth
... they may be allowed to stand for a few minutes in a wire basket or a colander. Care should be taken, however, not to allow them to stand until the good that has been accomplished by making them crisp in cold water is undone. ...
— Woman's Institute Library of Cookery, Vol. 4 • Woman's Institute of Domestic Arts and Sciences
... repentance. It was either the continuance of her old life in her father's house, which was the ignominious and harmful one of the scapegoat, or this. She at last reveled in this. Here she was mistress. Here what she did, she did, and what she did not do remained undone. Here her silence was her invincible weapon. Here ...
— The Copy-Cat and Other Stories • Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
... still the more we give, the more requir'd; Whose fame with pains we guard, but lose with ease, Sure some to vex, but never all to please; 505 'Tis what the vicious fear, the virtuous shun, By fools't is hated, and by knaves undone! ...
— The Rape of the Lock and Other Poems • Alexander Pope
... was very kind to her, leaving nothing undone for her comfort, sitting most of the while beside her, and prattling of her own youth and the Fatherland. And so, sure of the woman's growing interest and affection, she slowly revealed the story of Konopisht Garden, her share in it, ...
— The Secret Witness • George Gibbs
... not seem to relieve him, as he sat, gnawing his mustache, in the chair he had brought down with him. Now the deed was being accomplished, even his craven heart awoke to a kind of criminal remorse. Now anxiety for the issue made him wish the act undone, or frustrated; now he asked himself if there were no more certain and less perilous way. So intent was his eagerness that a strange kind of lucidity possessed him. He felt as if he beheld and heard what was passing in the chamber of sickness, which he ...
— The Mark Of Cain • Andrew Lang
... mistress. The important fact is that for the man the act is eternal, and that for the brief space he has to live, he is already dead. He is already in a different world from ours. He has crossed the frontier. The important fact is that something is done which can not be undone—a possibility which none of us realize until we face it ourselves. For the man's neighbors the important fact is what the man killed her with? And at precisely what time? And who found the body? For the 'enlightened ...
— Eeldrop and Appleplex • T.S. Eliot
... Herod was under immediate concern about a most important affair, on account of his friendship with Antony, who was already overcome at Actium by Caesar; yet he was more afraid than hurt; for Caesar did not think he had quite undone Antony, while Herod continued his assistance to him. However, the king resolved to expose himself to dangers: accordingly he sailed to Rhodes, where Caesar then abode, and came to him without his diadem, and in the habit and appearance of a private person, ...
— The Wars of the Jews or History of the Destruction of Jerusalem • Flavius Josephus
... the kind, Rem. Go away as soon as you can. I don't want to know where you go just yet. New York is impossible, and Boston is impossible. Father says go to the frontier, I say go South. What you have done, you have done; and it cannot be undone; so don't carry it about with you. And I would let women alone—they are beyond you—go in ...
— The Maid of Maiden Lane • Amelia E. Barr
... long, by Gad!" agrees Captain Bingo with fervour, "to do any of the things that can't be undone again." ...
— The Dop Doctor • Clotilde Inez Mary Graves
... God, who can alone forgive sins, as a lost, undone sinner, though washed in the precious blood of Jesus, and redeemed through faith in His perfect and complete sacrifice. I have, therefore, become one of the Church of the first-born. I am reconciled to God, from whom I was once ...
— The Last Look - A Tale of the Spanish Inquisition • W.H.G. Kingston
... will not suffer that a single one Of His own creatures, in His image made, Should die, and in irrevocable shade Lie evermore—neglected and undone. It is not thus a father treats his son, And those whose folly credits it, degrade God's love and fatherhood, that never fade, By lies as base as devils ever spun. Man's love is but a pale reflex of God's, And God is love, and never will condemn Beyond remission—though ...
— Literary Tours in The Highlands and Islands of Scotland • Daniel Turner Holmes
... down the street in a whirl of conflicting emotions. At the very moment when he seemed to have prevailed over Miss Parkinson's machinations, his evil fate had stepped in and undone him for ever! What would become of him without Matilda? As he was thinking of his gloomy prospects, he noticed, for the first time, that the statue was keeping step by his side, and he turned on her with smothered rage. "Well," he began, "I ...
— The Tinted Venus - A Farcical Romance • F. Anstey
... into a London chapel I saw a dowdy little woman of this type kneeling in a pew, chanting the responses to the service. Her blouse gaped open all the way down her back and she was saying with much fervor, "We have left undone those things which we ought to have done." She had too, but she didn't know it, as she knelt there unconsciously supplying a personal illustration for the ...
— Europe Revised • Irvin S. Cobb
... to earth, to do the work you left undone, to gather up, with patience and with toil, the ...
— The Silver Crown - Another Book of Fables • Laura E. Richards
... prolixly set forth. So that it will be seen that, if the Jesuits did ill, as usual, any ill they did was carefully perpetuated by their successors, and, quite as naturally, all that they strove to do in favour of the Indians was most carefully undone. ...
— A Vanished Arcadia, • R. B. Cunninghame Graham
... Not a word as to who I am, or what is common knowledge to us both. It is done. That cannot be undone. Be brave, resolute; admit nothing. Stick to it that you know nothing, heard nothing. Deny that you knew him, or me. Swear you slept soundly the night through, make some excuse, say you were drugged, anything, ...
— The Rome Express • Arthur Griffiths
... mean to be bad," remarked Uncle Billy soothingly. "It's jus' 'cause he's so young an' onthinkin'. An' aftah all, it ain't what he does. It's mo' like what the white folks say in they church up on the hill. 'I have lef' undone the things what I ought to ...
— Ole Mammy's Torment • Annie Fellows Johnston
... a slut sleeping in the chimney-corner, when she should be washing of her dishes, or doing something else which she hath left undone: her I pinch about the arms, for not laying her arms to her labour. Some I find in their bed snorting and sleeping, and their houses lying as clean as a nasty dog's kennel; in one corner bones, in another egg-shells, behind the door a heap of dust, the dishes under feet, and the cat in the ...
— The Sources and Analogues of 'A Midsummer-night's Dream' • Compiled by Frank Sidgwick
... collar, tie and shoes, was seated in an arm chair, his feet reposing upon the mantel-piece. At his elbow was a glass of whiskey and water with a slice of lemon floating on the surface. His waistcoat was undone and the white of his shirt emphasised the enormous girth of his corporation. His legs were short, his hands fat, his face round and margined with a half circle of hair beneath the chin. At the first ...
— Men of Affairs • Roland Pertwee
... send anybody yet; I must get out of this beastly skirt before anyone comes. . . . Look here, you're a very decent chap and I'm sorry I rotted you—will you play the game when you go home and hide these beastly clothes before anyone comes? The blessed thing hooks at the side, see; it's coming undone now; if you'll just give a pull I can wriggle out without getting up. . . . Oh, confound . . . I'm Buz, you know, I dressed up on purpose to rot you . . . but if you could not mention it . ...
— The Ffolliots of Redmarley • L. Allen Harker
... my power to like people that were good to me and faithful to my interests. I found that I was beginning to hate everybody and everything in the world and the world itself. Meanwhile, Miss Barbara, I did things that can never be undone." ...
— The Penalty • Gouverneur Morris
... room she flitted, in her mind, trying to recall the exquisite things they meant to her when she had planned them; and each one now opened glaring and blank, as a place to work in—and the work undone. ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... administrators of which were no longer ermined pedants leisurely weighing the pros and contras in their Gothic balances, but good sansculottes judging by inspiration and seeing the whole truth in a flash. When guarantees and precautions would have undone everything, the impulses of an upright heart saved the situation. We must follow the promptings of Nature, the good mother who never deceives; the heart must teach us to do judgment, and Gamelin made invocation to the ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... seer Hath died and left the land all desolate? For now, when sudden ills befall the state, There will be none to warn or prophesy As he, but when calamities are nigh No man will know till they be come and we Be all undone together, ...
— The Poems of William Watson • William Watson
... if he is a good Hypocrite, may pretend to as much Superstition and hold Fear, as the most timorous Bigot can be really possess'd with; and the First often gains his Point by making use of the Religion of others, where the Latter is undone by ...
— An Enquiry into the Origin of Honour, and the Usefulness of Christianity in War • Bernard Mandeville
... It beats, though but feebly. All our work is undone. We must begin again. There is no young Arthur here now. I have to call on you yourself this time, friend John." As he spoke, he was dipping into his bag, and producing the instruments of transfusion. I had taken off my coat and rolled up my shirt sleeve. There was no possibility of an ...
— Dracula • Bram Stoker
... add that the gentleman in charge of these noble visitors did his best to prevent the outrage, but it had occurred suddenly, in the exuberance of "Jack's" spirits, was over in a few seconds, and could not be undone. ...
— Six Months at the Cape • R.M. Ballantyne
... honour than I could look for: I dined with him to-day, and he has prompted numbers of great people to carry me to dine with them—he has given me an order for the liberty of his boxes, and of every part of his house, for the whole season; and indeed leaves nothing undone that can do me either service or credit. He has undertaken the whole management of the booksellers, and will procure me a great price—but more of ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... this be next?" soliloquised the Major, untwisting the paper with tenderest fingers and an air of absorption seldom seen on his merry features. When wrapping number two was undone, and the stud was disclosed in all its glory, he appeared almost dizzy with rapture, holding it out on an outstretched palm, and gazing at it with incredulous joy. "Did ever anything fall out so lucky as that? The very thing ...
— Pixie O'Shaughnessy • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... animal nature having all the appetites and passions that sustain the physical organization; but super-imposed thereon, is a spiritual man, with reason and moral sentiment, with affection and faith. The union of the two means strife and conflict; the doing what one would not do and the leaving undone what one would do. The poet describes the condition by saying: "The devil squatted early on human territory, and God sent an angel to dispossess him." The animal nature foams out all manner of passions and lusts. From thence issue also lurid lights and murky streams. But the under man is not the ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... great book which lay open before her. Her cheeks were flushed with excitement. And even as he looked Captain Plum saw her head fall suddenly forward upon the table, encircled by her arms. The heavy braid of her hair, partly undone, glistened like red gold in the lamplight. Her slender body was convulsed with sobs. The woman nearest her reached over and laid a caressing hand on the bowed head, but drew it quickly away as ...
— The Courage of Captain Plum • James Oliver Curwood
... what shall I do? Thou hast said thou lovest me; now make it manifest by granting this my small request—Do not still remain in thine integrity. Next to this come the children, which are like to come to poverty, to beggary, to be undone, for want of wherewithal to feed, and clothe, and provide for them for time to come. Now also come kindred, and relations, and acquaintance; some chide, some cry, some argue, some threaten, some promise, some flatter, and some ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the stranger answered, "but you must do to-night as I say. There is no time to argue here, and if I miss the tide I am undone, for loyal captains are rare birds, I promise you. There may be not another safe ...
— The Slowcoach • E. V. Lucas
... plight and proved that what she had conceived in an hour of discontent and executed on the spur of an envious instant could nevermore be undone. What had been planned to be mere temporary appropriation of an outfit of clothing—"to be returned in good order, reasonable wear and tear excepted"—was one thing; safe-breaking, with the theft of Heaven only knew what treasure, was quite another. As to that, had she not been guilty of active ...
— Nobody • Louis Joseph Vance
... hitherto the Apostles themselves (so deep set is our Natural Pride) any other than hopes of worldly Power, Preferment, Riches and Pomp: For Peter, who it seems ever since he left his Net and his Skiff, Dreamt of nothing but being a great Man, was utterly undone to hear our Saviour explain to em that his Kingdom was not of this World; ...
— The Spectator, Volumes 1, 2 and 3 - With Translations and Index for the Series • Joseph Addison and Richard Steele
... duty oftentimes to do what thou wouldst not; thy duty, too, to leave undone that thou wouldst ...
— Many Thoughts of Many Minds - A Treasury of Quotations from the Literature of Every Land and Every Age • Various
... rocks, the mutineers get intoxicated, and lie down and sleep. Passion fulfils itself, and expires. The desire is satisfied, and it turns into a loathing. The tempter draws us to him, and then unveils the horrid face that lies beneath the mask. When the deed is done and cannot be undone, then comes satiety; then comes the reaction of the fierce excitement, the hot blood begins to flow more slowly; then rises up in the heart conscience; then rises up in majesty in the soul reason; then flashes and flares before the eye the vivid picture of the consequences. ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... can be said for either tradition; perhaps some editor will yet imagine a return to the earlier method. In the mean time we must deal with the thing that is, and submit to it until it is changed. The moral to the young contributor is to be better than ever, to leave nothing undone that shall enhance his small chances of acceptance. If he takes care to be so good that the editor must accept him in spite of all the pressure upon his pages, he will not only be serving-himself best, but may be helping ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... strong, sweet scent of the jessamine blooming on the columns of the piazza; and I heard, now and then, as if from a great distance, the harsh, frightened cry of a swallow as it flew out from its nest under the roof. A sudden, sharp realisation of imperative duties left undone awoke in my mind; and I felt impelled, as if by some outward pressure, to rise and go back again down the long, hot hill into the city. "There's something important I meant to do, and did not," I thought; "as soon as this pain stops, I suppose I shall remember ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow
... very difficult business. He was paid so much by Messer Simone; it only remained for Monna Vittoria to pay him more to secure at least a careful consideration of her wishes. She pointed out to the condottiere that all the advantage lay for him in doing what she desired and leaving undone what was desired by Messer Simone. Messer Griffo would serve Florence by preserving the lives of so many of her best citizens; he would serve Florence by aiding those citizens in that raid upon Arezzo, from which ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... matrimony was not suicide, it was ruin. Old Sir Thomas More had said of a student who had married that 'in knitting of himself so fast, himself he had undone.' And a later rhymer, contrasting wedding with hanging, had ...
— By-ways in Book-land - Short Essays on Literary Subjects • William Davenport Adams
... copy of which I sent to your Majesty. The whole city is very apprehensive of this, and chiefly the archbishop and the orders, particularly the Dominicans. Although, as I have said, I have left nothing undone in any way which could provide for the defense and protection of this land, yet it would be of much importance to obtain definite knowledge beforehand. This despatch is directed to Malan [sic; sc. Macan] which is a settlement of Portuguese in the land of China itself. I wrote ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XII, 1601-1604 • Edited by Blair and Robertson
... eighteenth century the Courts of Justice (Chancery and King's Bench) were held here, and as the hall was also lined with shops, and the babble and walking to and fro were incessant, it is not wonderful that justice was sometimes left undone. It would be difficult—nay, impossible—to tell in detail all the strange historic scenes enacted in Westminster Hall in the limited space at disposal, and as they are all concerned rather with the nation than with Westminster, mere mention of the principal ones ...
— Westminster - The Fascination of London • Sir Walter Besant
... and of all the confidence of my heart, I am Sechele. I am undone by the Boers, who attacked me, though I had no guilt with them. They demanded that I should be in their kingdom, and I refused. They demanded that I should prevent the English and Griquas from passing. I replied, These are my ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... and the final, mysterious emotion which had shown itself in her face as he had last looked upon it? A thousand times had he pondered over that startled look and the signs of agitation. Was it fear? Was it dismay? Was it renunciation? Whatever it was, it sorely disturbed him; it had partly undone the charm of the moment before—the charm that could not and would not ...
— Graustark • George Barr McCutcheon
... wringing her hands. "Oh! why didn't you give some directions to James? Oh, Margaret! Oh! what shall I do? If I go out there I shall meet him face to face. Oh! why do people build rooms with only one door in them? I'm undone." She glances wildly round her, and in the far distance of this big drawing-room espies a screen. "That," gasps she, "that will do! I'll hide myself behind that. Don't keep him long, Meg darling! Hurry him ...
— The Hoyden • Mrs. Hungerford
... The youth drew back in astonishment. "And I struck thee with my sword? O chivalry! I am undone! ...
— In Doublet and Hose - A Story for Girls • Lucy Foster Madison
... boxes in the house an' on the po'ch. I done split up enough kindlin' ter las' a week. I done scrubbed the kitchen an' cleaned out the cow shed an' put fresh straw in Cupid and Puck's stalls. I done pick a tu'key fer Miss Judy an' blacked the stove. I ain't lef nothin' undone, an' she ain't gonter have no trouble till ol' Billy gits back. I done already ax her what she thinks 'bout my goin' on a trip an' she say fer me ter git a move on me 'kase I needs it an' what's mo' she done ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson
... with a sure hand had undone the collar, the cravat of the mysterious sufferer, half opened his overcoat, put his ear to the patient's heart, then, straightening himself, considered the face attentively, not without a ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... belongs to him only who does not know, the Prvapakshin holds. For Scripture declares that for him who knows there is no departure, and that hence he becomes immortal then and there (irrespective of any departure of the soul to another place), 'when all desires which once dwelt in his heart are undone, then the mortal becomes immortal, then he obtains Brahman' (Bri. Up. IV, 4, 7). This view the Stra sets aside. For him also who knows there is the same way of passing out up to the beginning of the path, i.e. previously to the soul's entering the veins. For another text expressly ...
— The Vedanta-Sutras with the Commentary by Ramanuja - Sacred Books of the East, Volume 48 • Trans. George Thibaut
... produced a something, which, favored by providence, and pursued with ardor, has accomplished in an instant the business of a campaign. We have never deliberately sought victory, but snatched it; and bravely undone in an hour the blotted operations of ...
— The Writings Of Thomas Paine, Complete - With Index to Volumes I - IV • Thomas Paine
... development of her multiform physical resources. The judges were as much pioneers of law as the people of settlement. To be sure something had been done, but much had yet to be accomplished; and something, too, had to be undone of that which had been done in the feverish and anomalous period that had preceded. It is safe to say that, even in the experience of new countries hastily settled by heterogeneous crowds of strangers from all countries, no such example of legal or judicial difficulties ...
— Personal Reminiscences of Early Days in California with Other Sketches; To Which Is Added the Story of His Attempted Assassination by a Former Associate on the Supreme Bench of the State • Stephen Field; George C. Gorham
... I dressed so slowly that it was nine o'clock before I was buttoned into my dress and felt that I could go over and help Roxanne bear the calamity. It was Saturday, so I knew she would need help in doing all the things she leaves undone until this blessed day of relief from school cares and ...
— Phyllis • Maria Thompson Daviess
... might have excepted me, But I will bring May Margret to a Laidly Worm's degree; I'll bring her low as a Laidly Worm That warps about a stone, And not till the Childe of Wynde come back Will the witching be undone." ...
— English Fairy Tales • Flora Annie Steel
... as patient and as fine a man as breathed. Your husband, I don't know him, but life is so short. So terribly short. So full of pain and regrets for what can't be undone. That's why I cannot go and leave my boy behind—to suffer alone. I want him to go first. He's not strong. What is life, except doing for those we love? Don't you ever feel that about them out there, Lilly? Life is ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... incomprehensible acquiescence of the only honest man [the president] who has assented to it. I wish that his honesty and his political errors may not furnish a second occasion to exclaim—'curse on his virtues, they have undone his country.'"[98] ...
— Washington and the American Republic, Vol. 3. • Benson J. Lossing
... conducted us a little inland, behind the downs where there were some tents inhabited by a pretty considerable number of Moors. Many persons in our caravan cried out, that they were going to be led to death. But we did not listen to them, persuaded that in every way we were undone, if the Moors were resolved on our destruction, that besides, it was their true interest to conduct us to Senegal, and that in short, confidence was the ...
— Narrative of a Voyage to Senegal in 1816 • J. B. Henry Savigny and Alexander Correard
... it with your best patience, not leaving the most minute spot of white; and do not fill in the large pieces first and then go to the small, but quietly and steadily cover in the whole up to a marked limit; then advance a little farther, and so on; thus always seeing distinctly what is done and what undone. ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin
... he had bent over her asking her to forgive him; that had seemed to her then the hour of her triumph—but now she saw that it was the premonition of defeat. How she had worked for him, loved him, spoilt him; and now, in these weeks, her lifework was utterly undone. And then, in the terrible loneliness of her room, with the darkness on the world and round her bed and at her heart, she wept—terrible, tearless sobbing that left her in the morning weak, unstrung, ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... been so voted by universal consent through the ages. It was not specially to their credit that they successfully commanded armies, but it was to the unutterable shame of the men of their period that they had to, or let it go undone. No thanks to Betsey for killing the bear. She had to, or the bear would have killed the baby, but everlasting shame upon her worthless husband for making it necessary for her to do what he ought to have done. Betsey was out of her sphere when ...
— The Heroic Women of Early Indiana Methodism: An Address Delivered Before the Indiana Methodist Historical Society • Thomas Aiken Goodwin
... or thought, or recognized that that one party had forever undone this young man; and yet so it was. From that night his struggle of moral resistance was fatally impaired; not that he yielded at once and without desperate efforts and struggles, but gradually each struggle grew weaker, each reform shorter, ...
— The May Flower, and Miscellaneous Writings • Harriet Beecher Stowe
... intelligence would give them, and their indignation towards me, when their brother first made his appearance at his father's house, mutilated; and were he to die—good God! I was maddened at the idea. I had now undone the little good I had been able to do. If I had made Fleta and her mother happy, had I not plunged another family ...
— Japhet, In Search Of A Father • Frederick Marryat
... The astonished guests marvelled at the magnificence of these garments, and wondered what their hosts would next show them; then the coarse rough clothes that they had worn on the voyage were brought in, and when the linings and seams were undone, rubies, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, and carbuncles of great value were poured forth from them; great riches had been hidden in these rags. This unexpected sight cleared away all doubt; the three travellers were ...
— Celebrated Travels and Travellers - Part I. The Exploration of the World • Jules Verne
... increased. The occasion had made us serious, and reminded us of our duties. I wish that it had been always so, that it were still always so; but even now as I write, I feel how much day after day I have left undone of what I ought to have done. Is it not so with all of us? Then what necessity is there for prayer for strength from above to enable us to do our duty. I say again, don't be ashamed. Pray always; and if it is for your good, what you ask with faith ...
— A Voyage round the World - A book for boys • W.H.G. Kingston
... vanished. I was in the midst of a nation in a ferment. The war was the universal topic; party was in full life. From the inn at Dover up to the waiting-room at the Horse-Guards, I heard nothing but politics. The conduct of our army—the absurdity of every thing that had been done, or left undone—the failures of the Allies—the fanaticism of the French—the hopes of popular liberty on one side, and the indignation of established power on the other—came rushing round me in a chaos of discordant conceptions, that for the time bewildered me. How simple ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... one year, by giving him his note of hand of ten dollars. He immediately became a calm and peaceable man. His health, and appetite, and business returned to him. And he would tell you that the innkeeper had done him the greatest kindness he had ever received. "I was undone," said he. "Now I enjoy myself and my family, and the best farm in the town would not tempt me to return to the use of ardent spirits." The poor man kept his resolution till the end of the eleventh month, which it seems he had mistaken for ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society
... said, "Let the members of the Churches do this." I grant that the open field for this kind of labor is inviting to the Church members, but suppose they do not enter it, what then? Shall the work be left undone? Besides, the work can be done effectively only, through systematic arrangement, and this feature can only be given to it through the supervision of the Pastor. He only can know the entire ground, and become the nucleus around which the membership ...
— Thirty Years in the Itinerancy • Wesson Gage Miller
... risky thing to try, for we might be disturbed at any minute. Still we thought it were our only chance, so Jack set to work with his teeth at my knots and in a quarter of an hour had loosened them; then I undone his. We unbound our thongs and then fastened 'em up again so that to the eye they looked jest the same as before but really with ...
— True to the Old Flag - A Tale of the American War of Independence • G. A. Henty
... excitement produced by these plans for rapidly gaining fortunes, have pawned the last blanket from their beds, to obtain the means of purchasing a ticket. At every drawing of these "Imperial" lotteries, there is nothing left undone by Royalty to strike the people with a sense of their importance, and the honesty with which they are conducted. In an open square is erected a kind of stage large enough to be occupied by some twenty persons. Rich canopies of scarlet and gold ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... streets I ken No such helpmates, only men; And these are not in plight to bear, If they would, another's care. They have enough as 'tis: I see In many an eye that measures me The mortal sickness of a mind Too unhappy to be kind. Undone with misery, all they can Is to hate their fellow man; And till they drop they needs must still Look at you and wish ...
— A Shropshire Lad • A. E. Housman
... genius and acquired experience, Grouvelle unites impudence and immorality; and those on whom he fixes for his prey are, therefore, easily duped, and irremediably undone. He has furnished disciples to all factions, and to all sects, assassins to the revolutionary tribunals, as well as victims for the revolutionary guillotine; sans-culottes to Robespierre, Septembrizers to Marat, republicans to the Directory, spies ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... road in front of the little hall. But she had been a laundress best part of a lifetime—before she discovered herself as the mother of a genius—and it had bit into her bone: she could not get finished, and she could not leave the work undone. ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Various
... required in a bride? I appeal, whether my Lord Philautus or myself be the advocate of nobility; against which, in the case proposed by me, there would be nothing to hold the balance. And why is a woman, if she may have but L1,500, undone? If she be unmarried, what nobleman allows his daughter in that case a greater revenue than so much money may command? And if she marry, no nobleman can give his daughter a greater portion than she has. Who is hurt in this case?—nay, who is not benefited? If the agrarian gives us the sweat ...
— The Commonwealth of Oceana • James Harrington
... murmur.... The stir of this London life, somehow or other," he adds in the same letter, "has done me a wonderful deal of good, and I feel better than for months past. This is strange, for if I had my choice I should leave undone almost all the things I do." "When he found himself once more on the old ground," writes Mr. Lathrop, "with the old struggle for subsistence staring him in the face again, it is not difficult to conceive how a certain degree of depression would follow." There is indeed not ...
— Hawthorne - (English Men of Letters Series) • Henry James, Junr.
... of this fact that not one of the eligible young men already in the neighborhood had made Gwendolen an offer, why should Mr. Grandcourt be thought of as likely to do what they had left undone? ...
— Daniel Deronda • George Eliot
... up some odds and ends of work which I had left undone, and finally bade Mr. Graham good-by, and started for my rooms. My packing was soon finished, and I sat down for a final smoke and ...
— The Holladay Case - A Tale • Burton E. Stevenson
... 60 Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many, I had not thought death had undone so many. Sighs, short and infrequent, were exhaled, And each man fixed his eyes before his feet. Flowed up the hill and down King William Street, To where Saint Mary Woolnoth kept the hours With a dead sound on the final stroke of nine. There I saw ...
— The Waste Land • T. S. Eliot
... am undone. For I am a man of unclean lips. And I am dwelling among a people of unclean lips; Yet mine eyes have seen the King, ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... joys of life are as old as Adam. But man's capacities have never been measured; nor are we to judge of what he can do by any precedents, so little has been tried. Whatever have been thy failures hitherto, "be not afflicted, my child, for who shall assign to thee what thou hast left undone?" ...
— Walden, and On The Duty Of Civil Disobedience • Henry David Thoreau
... undone labour; Not for one who grieves O'er his task waits wealth or glory; He who smiles achieves. Though you meet with loss and sorrow In the passing years, Smile a little, smile a little, ...
— Poems of Power • Ella Wheeler Wilcox
... Anderson? Will he be all right?" Beryl was sitting on the arm of the chair next to Schaughtowl, and she was looking at Clyde almost as adoringly as the Martian. A few hours had undone all that Stern had managed to do in ...
— Martians Never Die • Lucius Daniel
... to evade the invitation. If the active part of me had not been stunned on the night when Helen threw me over, I believe I should have kept bright the jewel of consistency. But the kindness of Molly in circumstances the opposite of kind, had undone me. Here I was, pledged to get myself up like a figure of Fun, and sit glued for days to the seat of a noisy, jolting, ill-smelling machine which I hated, feeling (and looking), in my goggles and hairy coat, like a circus monkey or ...
— The Princess Passes • Alice Muriel Williamson and Charles Norris Williamson
... from without in the shape of food, and therefore they cut them up. But as life advances, the triangles wear out and are no longer able to assimilate food; and at length, when the bonds which unite the triangles of the marrow become undone, they in turn unloose the bonds of the soul; and if the release be according to nature, she then flies away with joy. For the death which is natural is pleasant, but that which is caused ...
— Timaeus • Plato
... for Bowdoin College to accomplish the work left undone by Mr. Holme, to do honor to herself and her country by not only discovering, measuring, and photographing the falls, but making known the general features of the inland plateau, the geological structure of the continent, and the course ...
— Scientific American Supplement No. 822 - Volume XXXII, Number 822. Issue Date October 3, 1891 • Various
... father's heart to give him a princess of the Hyksos for a mother, the Hyksos, whom the Egyptians loathed, when he had the fairest women of the world from whom to choose? Well, it was done and could not be undone, though because of it he might lose his heritage of the greatest throne in all the earth. Also was it not to this fierce Hyksos blood that he ...
— Morning Star • H. Rider Haggard
... take a recent and memorable instance, would have been the fate of any scheme of Indian legislation which was at its parliamentary crisis when the murder of Gen. Canby occurred? The work of years might well have been undone under the popular excitement attendant upon that atrocious deed. Yet it would be quite as rational to denounce the established systems for the care and control of the insane, and to turn all the inmates of our asylums loose upon the community because one maniac had in an access ...
— The Indian Question (1874) • Francis A. Walker
... worse when a man cares about it as you seem to care," replied the Abbe. "Everything that is not done, can be undone. Do not stake your fortune and your prospects on a woman's liking, any more than a wise man counts on a dead man's shoes ...
— Albert Savarus • Honore de Balzac
... Mecklenburg—had the kindness to affix to my passport a document entitled, "Ordinance concerning the Wandering of Working-men." I will briefly translate its contents. The "Verordnung" commences with a preamble, to the effect that, notwithstanding the various things that have been done and undone with respect to the aforesaid journeymen, it still happens that numbers of them wander purposeless about the land, to the great burden of their particular trades and the public in general, and to the imminent danger of the common safety. Therefore, be it enacted, that ...
— A Tramp's Wallet - stored by an English goldsmith during his wanderings in Germany and France • William Duthie
... the ill manners of the omission. Again he looked sharply at this man who was scanning him with such interest, but he detected in the calm, high-bred face nothing to suggest that any mockery was intended. Belatedly he fell to doing the very thing that Mr. Caryll had begged him to leave undone: he fell to thanking him. As for Mr. Caryll himself, not even the queer position into which he had been thrust could repress his characteristics. What time his lordship thanked him, he looked about him at the other occupants of the room, and found ...
— The Lion's Skin • Rafael Sabatini
... cantata style of that day. He subsequently determined to re-write them; but "when about to begin," he says, "it seemed to me as though I could no longer enter into the spirit of the subject, and so it remained undone. To publish the work as it was, I could not make up my mind. Thus in later years it has lain by without any use being made ...
— The Standard Oratorios - Their Stories, Their Music, And Their Composers • George P. Upton
... meaning by that not myself, because, though certainly a better man than D'Arc, I protest against doing anything of the kind. If I lived even with Friday in Juan Fernandez, either Friday must do all the darning, or else it must go undone. The better men that I meant were the sailors in the British navy, every man of whom mends his own stockings. Who else is to do it? Do you suppose, reader, that the junior lords of the admiralty are under articles to darn ...
— Miscellaneous Essays • Thomas de Quincey
... turned her head and looked at Rachel. This, then, was the love of that dear, dead artist, for whom Memphis mourned and had ceased to wait. How doubly grievous his loss, for Rachel was undone thereby! How heart-breaking to see her wait for him who would come no more! Masanath choked back her tears and said, ...
— The Yoke - A Romance of the Days when the Lord Redeemed the Children - of Israel from the Bondage of Egypt • Elizabeth Miller
... regular tenor, whereas the common people were continually shifting from the extremes of fury to the extremes of cowardice; but when they were enabled to invest their favorites with a formidable exterior authority, the whole wisdom of the Senate was baffled, and the commonwealth was undone. ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. VII (of X)—Continental Europe I • Various
... my purpose, by the grace of God, to leave nothing undone, within my power, which is suitable to be done, that this school of the prophets may be and long continue to be a ...
— The History of Dartmouth College • Baxter Perry Smith
... friends and allies, we are striving to build a world in which peoples with diverse interests can live freely and prosper. But all that humankind has achieved to date, all that we are seeking to accomplish, and human existence itself can be undone in an instant—in the catastrophe of a ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... warning him that if he voted against the bill it would be the mistake of his life. The telegram reached him after the roll had been called. He said excitedly, "The mistake has been made. I would give all I possess if it were undone." He was still further disturbed by imputations upon his integrity in connection with some transactions of the Indian Bureau—imputations which were pronounced baseless by the two senators from Indiana (Thomas A. Hendricks and Henry S. Lane), ...
— Twenty Years of Congress, Volume 2 (of 2) • James Gillespie Blaine
... James Oliver was undone. He hesitated, stammered and then exclaimed in flat contradiction, "Madam, you never ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 11 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Great Businessmen • Elbert Hubbard
... Then, untying the fagot, he gave them the sticks to break one by one. This they did with the greatest ease. Then said the father: "Thus, my sons, as long as you remain united, you are a match for all your enemies; but differ and separate, and you are undone." AEsop's Fables. ...
— Practical Grammar and Composition • Thomas Wood |
