"Wreck" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the most valiant strokes in our military annals, their commander was among the few who had the added misfortune of coming to earth within the Japanese lines. By fate's mercy, he just happened to escape by walking between the enemy outposts. Farther along, he saw the wreck of another of his planes. Then he came to a third; it was smashed beyond hope. But its crew had already heard from several other parties. They too had lost their B-25's to the fog, the night and the crags. Doolittle realized then that everything was gone, lives saved ...
— The Armed Forces Officer - Department of the Army Pamphlet 600-2 • U. S. Department of Defense
... which caused so much unmerited misfortune to English artists and their like, and which at one moment had threatened to wreck his own successful opening career, had brought to Shirley Sherston a piece of marvelous ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... reef which for the last five-and-twenty years has done so much to ruin and to wreck every artistic movement which the enthusiasm and intelligence of individuals have set on foot. The mere checking of the obstruction of the individual will not suffice; other aldermen will arise—equally ignorant, equally talkative, equally ...
— Modern Painting • George Moore
... the existing oceanic islands have any relation of any kind to continents, they are forming continents; and that by the time they could form a continent, the volcanoes would be denuded to their cores, leaving peaks of syenite, diorite, or porphyry. But have we nowhere any last wreck of a continent, in the midst of the ocean? St. Paul's Rock, and such old battered volcanic islands, as St. Helena, may be; but I think we can see some reason why we should have less evidence of sinking than of rising continents (if my view in my Coral volume has any truth in ...
— The Life and Letters of Charles Darwin, Volume I • Francis Darwin
... changed places several times, in one of which R. C. had a strike, but failed to hook the fish. Just opposite the old wreck on the shore I had another fish take hold, and, upon hooking him, had precisely the same thing happen as in the first instance. I think the bag of my line, which I could not avoid, allowed the lead to sag down and drag upon the bottom. Of course when it caught ...
— Tales of Fishes • Zane Grey
... log around the reef by canoes. The logs are very heavy, each one is worth between eighty and one hundred dollars, but the risk meant such a reward, in case of success, that they went at it. Of course the real danger is around the wreck. Once free from that point and the remainder of the voyage would be only subject ...
— The Bobbsey Twins at the Seashore • Laura Lee Hope
... pilot of the storm-tost bark! May I thy peril share? —O landsman, these are fearful seas The brave alone may dare! —Nay, ruler of the rebel deep, What matters wind or wave? The rocks that wreck your reeling deck Will leave ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IX., March, 1862., No. LIII. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics, • Various
... at least two or three days in order that the wrecked car might be repaired. It was found also that the passage of the highly electrified meteor had disarranged the electrical machinery in some of the other cars, so that there were many repairs to be made besides those needed to restore the wreck. ...
— Edison's Conquest of Mars • Garrett Putman Serviss
... the planters, and all the rollicking high spirits of that splendid book. Then there is Dana's "Two Years before the Mast." I should find room also for Stevenson's "Wrecker" and "Ebb Tide." Clark Russell deserves a whole shelf for himself, but anyhow you could not miss out "The Wreck of the Grosvenor." Marryat, of course, must be represented, and I should pick "Midshipman Easy" and "Peter Simple" as his samples. Then throw in one of Melville's Otaheite books—now far too completely forgotten—"Typee" ...
— Through the Magic Door • Arthur Conan Doyle
... Through our ports at every load, Till clear the blue beyond us through our yawning timbers showed. Yet with entrails torn we clung Like the Spartan to our fox, And on deck no coward tongue Wailed the enemy's hard knocks, Nor that all below us trembled like a wreck upon the rocks. ...
— Complete Poetical Works of Bret Harte • Bret Harte
... (I speak as a fool,) I am more: in labours more abundant; in stripes above measure; in prisons more frequent; in deaths oft. Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one; thrice was I beaten with rods; once was I stoned; thrice I suffered ship wreck; a night and a day I have been in the deep; in journeyings often; in perils of waters; in perils of robbers; in perils by mine own countrymen; in perils by the heathen; in perils in the city; in perils in the wilderness; in ...
— The Book of Common Prayer - and The Scottish Liturgy • Church of England
... of 'em, and half-way down, bang! the front wheel collapses, hind wheel flies up and hits you in the neck, handle-bar turns just in time to stab you in the chest; and there you are, miles from home, a physical, moral, bicycle wreck. But the Arena wheel is different. In fact, I may say that the only safe wheel is the Arena. That's the one I ride. However, at fifty dollars ...
— The Bicyclers and Three Other Farces • John Kendrick Bangs
... Clutching Hand himself was administering just enough ether to keep her under and prevent a struggle that would wreck all. The wounded man had not been anesthetized and seemed feebly conscious of what was ...
— The Exploits of Elaine • Arthur B. Reeve
... her midnight tower, Whose lamp burns brightest when the tempests lower. Oh, who can tell with what a leaden flight Drag the long watches of his weary night, While at his feet the hoarse and blinding gale Strews the torn wreck and bursts the fragile sail, When stars have faded, when the wave is dark, When rocks and sands embrace the foundering bark! But still he pleads with unavailing cry, Behold the light, O wanderer, ...
— The Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... of genius must be its own work, we may appeal to every one of the family. It is not always fortunate, for many die amidst a waste of talents and the wreck of mind. ...
— Literary Character of Men of Genius - Drawn from Their Own Feelings and Confessions • Isaac D'Israeli
... at the time of the disaster. As the tide fell the wreck ceased to heave. Then it became possible for the seamen to move about without clinging to shrouds and stanchions ...
— The Coxswain's Bride - also, Jack Frost and Sons; and, A Double Rescue • R.M. Ballantyne
... generally the vivid description of some amazing discovery (Poe's "Some Words with a Mummy," Hale's "The Spider's Eye"), impossible invention (Adee's "The Life Magnet," Mitchell's "The Ablest Man in the World"), astounding adventure (Stockton's "Wreck of the Thomas Hyde," Stevenson's "House with Green Blinds"), or a vivid description of what might be (Benjamin's "The End of New York," Poe's "The Domain of Arnheim"). It demands ...
— Short Story Writing - A Practical Treatise on the Art of The Short Story • Charles Raymond Barrett
... thousand dollars to Mortimer—I was going to drive you from the bank—I was going to let it be known that you had stolen the money, but now, I must think. You must have another chance. It's a dangerous thing to wreck lives—" ...
— Thoroughbreds • W. A. Fraser
... knew how it had happened. There was quite a group about the wreck, and two men were just lifting up the wounded officer to carry him to the other machine. A panic seized all of them, and they scattered in every direction, running in blind terror, the wounded officer, roughly dropped, being left behind. The cursing policeman alongside of me ...
— The Iron Heel • Jack London
... shadows the rushing water seemed to leap out of the darkness and to vanish again. Decayed drift-wood, trunks of trees, fragments of broken sluicing,—the wash and waste of many a mile,—swept into sight a moment, and were gone. All of decay, wreck, and foulness gathered in the long circuit of mining-camp and settlement, all the dregs and refuse of a crude and wanton civilization, reappeared for an instant, and then were hurried away in the darkness and lost. ...
— Mrs. Skaggs's Husbands and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... storm had passed away, leaving wreck and ruin in its wake. The river banks were dotted, here and there, with burning steamers, and a large portion of the U. S. fleet had succeeded in getting beyond the forts. A few vessels of the attacking force had failed to pass the obstructions ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... "There was a terrible wreck here a long time ago—before they built the lighthouse. But Uncle Tom says no one will ever know just how many lives have been saved because of the good old light. To hear him talk to it you ...
— Billie Bradley on Lighthouse Island - The Mystery of the Wreck • Janet D. Wheeler
... The bubbling water in the radiator steamed about the cap. Claire was conscious of tautness of the cords of her neck in front; of a pain at the base of her brain. Her father glanced at her curiously. "I must be a wreck. I'm sure my hair is frightful," she thought, but forgot it as she looked at him. His face was unusually pale. In the tumult of activity he had been betrayed into letting the old despondent look blur his eyes and sag his mouth. ...
— Free Air • Sinclair Lewis
... officer asked me if I ever done anything besides pitch so I told him about the day I played the outfield in Terre Haute when Burns and Stewart shut their eyes going after a fly ball and their skulls come together and it sounded like a freight wreck and they was both layed out so I and Lefty Danvers took their place and in the 8th. inning I come up with 2 on and hit a curve ball off big Jack Rowan and only for the fence that ball wouldn't of made no stops this side ...
— Treat 'em Rough - Letters from Jack the Kaiser Killer • Ring W. Lardner
... certain somber obstinacy, a kind of primitive ferocity, a foundation of savage harshness which, under the influence of circumstances, might become implacable and pitiless; a cold strength, an indomitable power of resolution which would rather wreck the whole world than yield, the indestructible instinct of the barbarian tribe, perceptible in the half-civilized nation, all these traits are visible to an attentive eye, even in the harmless extravagances ...
— Amiel's Journal • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... mention is the case," said the Doctor. "Down the coast here, under a hopeless, black basaltic cliff, is to be seen the wreck of a very, very old ship, now covered with coral and seaweed. I waited down there for a spring tide, to examine her, but could determine nothing, save that she was very old; whether Dutch or Spanish I know not. You English should never sneer at those two nations: ...
— The Recollections of Geoffrey Hamlyn • Henry Kingsley
... verse about which Edward Alden inquired in your issue of July 26. and which is quoted in Stevenson's "Treasure Island," is the opening stanza of an old song or chantey of West Indian piracy, which is believed to have originated from the wreck of an English buccaneer on a cay in the Caribbean Sea known as "The Dead Man's Chest." The cay was so named from its fancied resemblance to the old sailors' sea chest which held his scanty belongings. The song or chantey was familiar to deep-sea sailors many ...
— The Dead Men's Song - Being the Story of a Poem and a Reminiscent Sketch of its - Author Young Ewing Allison • Champion Ingraham Hitchcock
... arrived from my New York man this morning. O, what a pitiable wreck of high hopes! The "almost daily" assaults, for two months, consist of—1. Adverse criticism of P. & P. from an enraged idiot in the London Atheneum; 2. Paragraph from some indignant Englishman in the Pall Mall Gazette who pays me the vast compliment of gravely rebuking ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... once knobs attached to chests, (Handled when ancient dames chose forth brocade) Modern chalk drawings, studies from the nude, Samples of stone, jet, breccia, porphyry Polished and rough, sundry amazing busts In baked earth, (broken, Providence be praised!) A wreck of tapestry proudly-purposed web When reds and blues were indeed red and blue, Now offer'd as a mat to save bare feet (Since carpets constitute a cruel cost). * * * * * Vulgarised Horace for the use of schools, 'The Life, Death, ...
— Robert Browning • G. K. Chesterton
... decided Parr, half to himself. "Down where the Martians planted the artificial gravity-machinery. Having been there, they fixed things so nobody will follow them. Only blasting rays could open up a way, and those would probably wreck the mechanism and send air, water and exiles all flying into space. All this she ...
— The Devil's Asteroid • Manly Wade Wellman
... having run into shoal water, which we have reason to believe was nearer than our reckoning gave us. Had we taken such a step our success would have been very doubtful, although we might previously have cut away our masts, and made the ship a complete wreck for that purpose, as we had only two bower anchors and two cables on each, (the bower cables in each being half worn,) no spare anchor to trust to, the sheet anchor being broken in the shank, and only an old worn-out bower cable (kept to be surveyed) which was bent to it. The Defence, I believe, ...
— Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez. Vol II • Sir John Ross
... back, which tradition, and something more to be trusted than tradition, declared to have been matters of scandal, proved no more than that the great Abbey could live through evil times, outride the storms which would wreck weaker vessels, and right itself, though overloaded with abuses which timid pilots would have shrunk from throwing overboard: and now that 400 years had passed since Offa, the Saxon king—(stirred thereto by Karl, the Emperor)—had ...
— The Quarterly Review, Volume 162, No. 324, April, 1886 • Various
... him curiously. "The boy's a wreck," he said. "Simply gone to pieces; nerves like fiddle-strings. He drinks like hell, but it's my belief he'd die ...
— The Top of the World • Ethel M. Dell
... wreck, as he paused at the curve, was the helpful young man perched on the rear heap of wreckage which had been the observation car, peering anxiously into its depths ("Looking for I. O. W. probably," surmised the agent), and two commercial gentlemen from the smoker whiling away ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... such velocity as to suck up a column of water from the sea to a height of one or two hundred feet. This column of water appears to be largest at the top and bottom and visibly contracted at the middle. If it were to fall foul of a ship and break, it would wreck and submerge her as surely as though she were run down by an iceberg. Modern science shows that all storms are cyclonic, that is, are circular eddies of wind of greater ...
— Due West - or Round the World in Ten Months • Maturin Murray Ballou
... the fireman examines the rods, cranks, and all the different joints, nuts, and screws; oiling or "packing," "easing off," or "tightening up" the various parts, so that the machinery may run easily and without heating. One tiny bit of grit may wreck ...
— Little Folks (December 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... who do not know Dorothy Camerden, to me, who realised fully both her delicacy and pride, it was a sign that my long, if secret, devotion was about to be rewarded, and that at last I was free to cherish hopes whose alternative had once bid fair to wreck the happiness ...
— Room Number 3 - and Other Detective Stories • Anna Katharine Green
... the mountains. Two such equipages! and he never uses either himself, since he never stirs out of the house; and coachmen and lacquies always on their legs to wait on some beggarly strangers, who don't even thank him when his carriages and horses go to wreck, and new ones are to be bought at the end ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck
... sailor; was with the Hamburg people until he had a wreck. The Creole Broussard is second, and the two of them together could tame a cargo of wild-cats. Is that ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish
... nursing while Mr. Carter hung between life and death, and his son, strong and gentle, made himself most useful in the sick-room. When at last the once sturdy, ambitious man struggled back to life he was only the wreck of ...
— The Story of the Big Front Door • Mary Finley Leonard
... wrecked my life, (with special acrimony) chum! Oh, won't I wreck that woman's! I'd rather die a dog's death than not get even with her! Can it really be you don't know whom to think loyal to you, whom ...
— Amphitryo, Asinaria, Aulularia, Bacchides, Captivi • Plautus Titus Maccius
... its red gates abutting to the road? — A palace, though its outer wings are shorn, And domes of glittering tiles. The wall without Has tottered into ruin, yet remain The straggling fragments of some seven courts, The wreck of seven fortunes: roof and eaves Still hang together. From this chamber cool The dense blue smoke arose. Nor heat nor cold Now dwells therein. A tall pavilion stands Empty beside the empty rooms that face The pine-browed southern hills. Long ...
— A Lute of Jade/Being Selections from the Classical Poets of China • L. Cranmer-Byng
... discovered that he was not in a region fitted for such display, and his travelling chariot was abandoned at Fort Cumberland; otherwise it would soon have become a wreck ...
— The Life of George Washington, Volume I • Washington Irving
... He doesn't care. He pretended to listen. He was looking at that girl. She's a strange girl. I don't trust her. She believes in myths. Oh, yes, I know. She did not say so, but I can smell out an enemy. She will try to wreck everything. So it is in life. We give everything—sacrifice everything—to pass on our knowledge, our experience, and in the end they break away from us—they ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... in her dreamy fashion; and he noticed that she seemed to be in poorer health than usual. Her mouth twitched strangely; she was a nervous wreck. ...
— The Yellow Claw • Sax Rohmer
... Greece in all ages should be scourged by this intestine enemy, it was provided that a twofold specific should travel concurrently with the evil. And because the vegetable specific, in the shape of oaken cudgels, was liable to local failure, (at this moment, in fact, from the wreck of her woods by means of incendiary armies, Greece is, for a season, disafforested,) there exists a second specific of a mineral character, which (please Heaven?) shall never fail, so long as Greece is Greece. 'The usual weapons of defence, employed in such cases by the natives, are the large ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... vindication of what he deemed right: the cross actually laid upon him was to fill his house with inimical and uncongenial dependants on his bounty and protection. The overthrow of the Royalist cause was utterly ruinous to the Powells. All went to wreck on the surrender of Oxford in June, 1646. The family estate was only saved from sequestration by a friendly neighbour taking possession of it under cover of his rights as creditor; the family mansion was occupied by the Parliamentarians, and the household stuff sold to the harpies that followed ...
— Life of John Milton • Richard Garnett
... self-gratification at the expense of something else that God has made. It is a failure to see that we only obtain life by giving life. When an engine goes off the line there is a smash, as a rule, and the greater the power that was driving the engine, the worse is the wreck when it leaves the line. The lightning directed rightly becomes the luminant by which we look on each other's faces to-night. That same power might have brought havoc and destruction if it had not been harnessed in the service ...
— The New Theology • R. J. Campbell
... of life is betrayed by the metallic, brassy skin, discolored as if with verdigris. Such tints are seen on the faces of debauched gamblers who spend their nights in play: the eyes are sunken in a dusky circle, the lids are reddened rather than red, the brow is menacing from the wreck and ruin it reveals. Philippe's cheeks, which were sunken and wrinkled, showed signs of the illness from which he had scarcely recovered. His head was bald, except for a fringe of hair at the back which ended at the ears. The pure blue of his brilliant ...
— The Celibates - Includes: Pierrette, The Vicar of Tours, and The Two Brothers • Honore de Balzac
... stores issued from the rents which the men attempted to repair by stuffing dirty rags into the holes. These thorns were shaped like fishhooks; thus it appeared that the perishable baggage must soon become an utter wreck, as the great strength and weight of the camels bore all before them, and sometimes tore the branches from the trees, the thorns becoming fixed in the leather bags. Meanwhile the donkeys walked along in comfort, being so short that they and their ...
— In the Heart of Africa • Samuel White Baker
... Solomon Islands, in the "fifties." The captain, after beating off the savages, who, having killed poor Boyd on shore, made a determined attempt to capture the ship, set sail for Australia, and in endeavouring to cross in over the bar went ashore and became a total wreck. Here is a description written by Judge McFarland of the Wanderer as she was in those days when Boyd dreamed a dream of founding a Republic in the South Sea Islands with his wild crew of Polynesians and ...
— By Rock and Pool on an Austral Shore, and Other Stories • Louis Becke
... secondly, in believing that his own life, root and branch, had been withered by opium? For it will not follow, because, with a relation to happiness and tranquillity, a man may have found opium his curse, that therefore, as a creature of energies and great purposes, he must have been the wreck which he seems to suppose. Opium gives and takes away. It defeats the steady habit of exertion, but it creates spasms of irregular exertion; it ruins the natural power of life, but it developes ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... that.—As for me, if suffering be an expiation, then at this moment I have expiated all my faults, whatever they have been; for to- night you have made a heart in one who had it not, made it and broken it.—But let that pass. I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours. You—why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost. You haven't got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back. You have neither the wit nor the courage. You couldn't stand dishonour! No! Go back, Lady Windermere, ...
— Selected Prose of Oscar Wilde - with a Preface by Robert Ross • Oscar Wilde
... farther edge, a quarter of a mile away, there suddenly darted out from the dense rim of balsam forest a jumble of dogs and sledge and man. For a few moments the mass of animals seemed entangled in some kind of wreck or engaged in one of those fierce battles in which the half-wild sledge-dogs of the North frequently engage, even on the trail. Then there came the sharp, commanding cries of a human voice, the cracking of a whip, the yelping of the huskies, and the disordered team ...
— The Gold Hunters - A Story of Life and Adventure in the Hudson Bay Wilds • James Oliver Curwood
... day for the industrious. My villagers were early astir. Their muddy shore was strewed with fragments of the wreck; and when the tide went down, and the gale moderated, half imbedded in the Jibber Sand was found 'goodly spoil.' Packages of costly shawls, hampers of Dutch liqueurs, bales of linen, several kegs of brandy, and ...
— International Miscellany of Literature, Art and Science, Vol. 1, - No. 3, Oct. 1, 1850 • Various
... this peculiarly a debt of honour. He lent it me when he could ill spare it; yet he is the only one of all my creditors who has not in one way or other persecuted me to the present hour. When he first knew of my wreck, he called upon me—not to reproach but to encourage me—and he would not leave me till he felt sure that he had changed the moody current of my thoughts. If there be any change in him since then, it is in his increased kindness of manner and his assiduity ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 49, Saturday, Oct. 5, 1850 • Various
... a pity," I asked, "to wreck a pleasant party for the sake of a fine distinction? The presence of Mlle. de Berensac would have infinitely increased our pleasure; but how would it have diminished ...
— The Indiscretion of the Duchess • Anthony Hope
... go on bravely; the cottage will be very pretty, and the bridge sublime, composed of loose rocks, that will appear to have been tumbled together there the very wreck of the deluge. One stone is of fourteen hundred weight. It will be worth a hundred of Palladio's brigades, that are only fit to be used in ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... inquiry was his method of dismissing his employer. But Kars did not respond. His keen eyes had been searching the crowd. Now they came back to the plain face of Abe, whose jaws were working busily on the wreck of the end of a cigar. He lowered his voice to ...
— The Triumph of John Kars - A Story of the Yukon • Ridgwell Cullum
... written ballads, among the best of which may be mentioned Longfellow's "Skeleton in Armor" and "Wreck of the Hesperus," Tennyson's "Edward Gray" and "Lady Clare," and Goldsmith's "Hermit." These are all ballads of ...
— Elementary Guide to Literary Criticism • F. V. N. Painter
... deadlier arts shall die, And deeper darkness blot the sky Above the thundering fray; And realms, that hear the battle-cry, Shall sicken with dismay; And chieftains to the war shall lead Whole nations, with the tempest's speed, To perish in a day;— Till man, by love and mercy taught, Shall rue the wreck his fury wrought, And lay the sword away! Oh strew, with pausing, shuddering hand, The seed upon the helpless land, As if, at every step, ye cast The ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... thought, to prove herself incapable, if not criminal, in the performance of the most important duty of her life. Mrs. Barton trembled when she thought of the sending of the letter: if the story were to get wind in Dublin, it might wreck her hopes of the marquis. Therefore, to tell Barnes to leave the house would be fatal. Things must be managed gently, very gently. Olive must be talked to, how far her heart was engaged in the matter must be ...
— Muslin • George Moore
... the walking delegate came to encourage them to hold out. Mounted on an empty coal car, he made an inflammatory speech to the men, advising them not only to hold out against the owner, but also to prevent the employment of any other help. If this should not prove sufficient, he advised them to wreck the mining property and to fire the mine,—anything to bring ...
— The Fat of the Land - The Story of an American Farm • John Williams Streeter
... bloom avails not in the grave, Youth's lofty mien, nor age's awful grace: Moulder unknown the monarch and the slave, Whelm'd in the enormous wreck of ...
— The Poetical Works of Beattie, Blair, and Falconer - With Lives, Critical Dissertations, and Explanatory Notes • Rev. George Gilfillan [Ed.]
... of the wreck, I went inland at once," remarked John, "and I never saw the sea again. When you related your story about seeing a certain tribe offering up victims you must have been on the western ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay
... hands that made 'em honor him as if he'd been a admiral—that lad, alone with the second mate and one seaman, was left, of all the beatin' hearts that went aboard that ship, the only living creeturs—lashed to a fragment of the wreck, and drifting on the ...
— Ten Girls from Dickens • Kate Dickinson Sweetser
... was all this, my dear Toby, to the injuries done us by my child's coming head foremost into the world, when all I wished, in this general wreck of his frame, was to have saved this little casket ...
— The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman • Laurence Sterne
... last autumn, a little before the wreck of your great English steamship the Rougemont Castle. Days after, the tides carried some of the bodies even here, to Ile Lezan; but not many— four or five at the most—and we, cut off from shore around this corner of the coast, were long in hearing the terrible news. Even the lighthouse-keepers ...
— News from the Duchy • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... mariners! Ye shall not suffer wreck, While up to God the freedman's prayers Are rising from ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... in thunder falls! An awful pause succeeds the stroke, And o'er the ruins volumed smoke, Rolling around its pitchy shroud, Conceal'd them from th' astonish'd crowd. At length the mist awhile was clear'd, When lo! amid the wreck uprear'd, Gradual a moving head appear'd, And Eagle firemen knew 'Twas Joseph Muggins, name revered, The foreman of their crew. Loud shouted all in signs of woe, "A Muggins! to the rescue, ho!" And pour'd the hissing tide: Meanwhile the Muggins fought amain, ...
— Rejected Addresses: or, The New Theatrum Poetarum • James and Horace Smith
... It assumes numerous disguises. It appears in many phases of our daily lives. It has done more to wreck careers and ruin happiness than all the wars of history. Hordes of earth toilers believe themselves beyond its influence—while all the time it is riding their backs and ...
— Mastery of Self • Frank Channing Haddock
... to me!" he cried 'Mid life's wild wreck as close he grasped The scattered fragments to his side Of millions lost that once he clasped: And with a peace and thankfulness He never knew when Fortune smiled, He put behind him all distress And laughed ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... sea,' said the old man; 'so near that sometimes our thatch is wet with the spray; and it may now be a year ago that there was a fearful storm, and a ship was driven ashore during the night, and ere the morn was a complete wreck. When we got up at daylight, there were the poor shivering crew at our door; they were foreigners, red-haired men, whose speech we did not understand; but we took them in, and warmed them, and they remained with us three days; ...
— Lavengro - The Scholar, The Gypsy, The Priest • George Borrow
... shimmer and shine Over the rocks and the seething brine, They burned the wreck of ...
— The Complete Works of Whittier - The Standard Library Edition with a linked Index • John Greenleaf Whittier
... was born at Aberdeen in Scotland, and, along with her parents, emigrated to New South Wales. About four years and a half ago she left Moreton Bay with her husband in a small cutter, called the America, of which he was the owner, for the purpose of picking up some of the oil from the wreck of a whaler, lost on the Bampton shoal, to which place one of her late crew undertook to guide them; their ultimate intention was to go on to Port Essington. The man who acted as pilot was unable to find the wreck, and after much quarreling on board ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... this we passed the wreck of what had once been a fine ship. She lay crushed and dismasted among the rocks and lumps of ice which lined the desolate shore, her decks and the stumps of her masts drifted over with snow. Six short months before, she had bounded over the Atlantic ...
— Hudson Bay • R.M. Ballantyne
... Harold wanders forth again, With naught of hope left, but with less of gloom; The very knowledge that he lived in vain, That all was over on this side the tomb, Had made Despair a smilingness assume, Which, though 'twere wild—as on the plundered wreck When mariners would madly meet their doom With draughts intemperate on the sinking deck - Did yet inspire a cheer, which ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron
... galleys ride, Pine-forest like, on every main? Ruin and wreck are at our side, Grim warders of ...
— The World's Best Poetry, Volume 8 • Various
... causeway, meanwhile, was filled up with the wreck of matter which had been forced into it, ammunition wagons, heavy guns, bales of rich stuffs scattered over the waters, chests of solid ingots, and bodies of men and horses, till over this dismal ruin a passage was gradually formed, ...
— Journeys Through Bookland, Vol. 8 • Charles H. Sylvester
... replied, "I would have all the troops leave the train. Then I would have the engineers take the train forward slowly, while the troops marched on either side of it, but at a sufficient distance to be hidden in the darkness. Then, sir, our men could not be caught in a wreck, but with their feet on solid earth they would be ready, if need be, for a fight, which ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler
... taking some grapes and roses to Dick Peet,' continued Mademoiselle. 'He seemed very weak and poorly when we passed yesterday, and she has so wanted to do something for him. He's a sad wreck, ...
— Chatterbox, 1906 • Various
... through this little wreck of fame, Cypher and syllable, thine eye Has travell'd down to Matthew's name, Pause with ...
— Lyrical Ballads with Other Poems, 1800, Vol. 2 • William Wordsworth
... solution of its Southern problem, which the nation was in morals, economics and humanity precluded absolutely from adopting, for three simple and sufficient reasons: First, for the sake of the South, which, wasted and bewildered, lay sullen and prostrate amidst the wreck and chaos of civil strife and at its lowest ebb of productive energy and wealth, its sole recuperative chance depending on the labor of its former slaves. To deport this labor, under the circumstances, would have been cruelly to deprive that section of its last vital resource, ...
— Modern Industrialism and the Negroes of the United States - The American Negro Academy, Occasional Papers No. 12 • Archibald H. Grimke
... this introduction, it will not be improper to say a word or two about Brotier's Supplement. In the wreck of ancient literature a considerable part of this Dialogue has perished, and, by consequence, a chasm is left, much to be lamented by every reader of taste. To avoid the inconvenience of a broken context, ...
— A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, Or The Causes Of Corrupt Eloquence • Cornelius Tacitus
... the matter again. Now, my dear Captain Ringgold," continued his lordship, taking what looked like a picture-frame from a table near him, "I ask the privilege of presenting to you this testimonial of the gratitude of the three cabin survivors of the wreck of the Travancore, which I will ask you to hang up in the cabin ...
— Across India - Or, Live Boys in the Far East • Oliver Optic
... hears our feet on the side planks, she starts up an' begins to beller like a week-old calf; an' that fetches Jud outer his trance for a while, an' he puts his arm aroun' her an' he helps her back along the walk till we comes to a place where we gits down an' goes over to view the wreck. ...
— The Spinner's Book of Fiction • Various
... wreck of the milk-saucer of the household cat, which sagacious creature had wisely taken to flight at the ...
— Gascoyne, The Sandal Wood Trader - A Tale of the Pacific • R. M. Ballantyne
... that the entire Pindaric ode, instead of being the loose and lawless out-burst which so many have fancied, is, without any exception, the most artificial and highly wrought composition which Time has spared to us from the wreck of the Greek Muse. So I can well remember occasions, in which, after listening to Mr. Coleridge for several delightful hours, I have gone away with divers splendid masses of reasoning in my head, the separate beauty and coherency of which I deeply felt, but how they had produced, or how ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... destruction, because the courage which it had displayed at the time resulted in its being chosen to carry out a mission which was virtually impossible, which I shall describe shortly. Let us now return to Wilna, where the Emperor was beginning to meet with some of the difficulties which were to wreck his whole gigantic undertaking. ...
— The Memoirs of General the Baron de Marbot, Translated by - Oliver C. Colt • Baron de Marbot
... running along the coast, and the peasants on the distant hills must have watched with astonishment the unequal fight as the vessels pressed on past them. By half past three the Resolution was little more than a wreck. Her sails were riddled with holes, many of her spars shot away, her sides ragged and torn, and many of her crew killed, but the remainder of the crew ...
— The Bravest of the Brave - or, with Peterborough in Spain • G. A. Henty
... dare make for the rigging, for without my bag I would have been worse off than on deck, and at such a move he would have jumped on me. But in the morning he had his first convulsion, and it left him a wreck. While he lay gasping and choking on the deck, with equally afflicted rats crawling over him and nipping where they felt flesh, I managed to get a bite from the steward's storeroom, and it roused me up and strengthened ...
— The Grain Ship • Morgan Robertson
... agreed, slowly; "I am bound hand and foot. It isn't only what Alice—as a wife—claims from me. But there are Acton and Leslie; there is hardly a month that my brother doesn't propose some plan that would utterly wreck their affairs if I didn't put my foot down. They're both absolute children in money matters; Judge Lee is getting old—there's no one to take my place. Your Aunt Marianna, too; I've always managed everything for ...
— The Beloved Woman • Kathleen Norris
... seeking it from within. He lived in externals, he was dependent on a multitude of things, the breakdown of any one of which was sufficient to cause him the acutest misery. The howl of a dog, the smell of a cigar, any trifle was sufficient to wreck his happiness. He had taught her to live in external things, to place her faith in the world instead of in her own conscience. How unhappy she had been; she had been driven to the brink of suicide. Ah, if it had not been for Monsignor. She bent her face ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... exceptionally well-to-do family of tenement-farmers, but a few generations of prolific birth rate, with the help of successive famines and successful landlordism, reduced us to the point of eviction. Enough was saved from the wreck to pay for our passage in a sailing vessel to America. After being successfully landed, or stranded, on New York, my father, with the true instinct of the peasant, became a squatter on the prairies of Goose Island. Here we put up, in the year 1864, a frame shanty of one room, in which the ...
— An Anarchist Woman • Hutchins Hapgood
... sitting position. There was one wooden building constructed for drying and smoking venison in, still perfect; also a small log-house, in a dilapidated condition, which we took to have been once a store-house. The wreck of a large handsome birch-rind canoe, about twenty-two feet in length, comparatively new, and certainly very little used, lay thrown up among the bushes at the beach. We supposed that the violence of ...
— Report of Mr. W. E. Cormack's journey in search of the Red Indians - in Newfoundland • W. E. Cormack
... depot. The auctioneer was offering a "solid gold, Swiss movement, eighteen jeweled watch" to the highest bidder. "This watch belongs to my friend Joe Coupling," he said, "a brakeman on the B. & O. He was in a wreck and is now in the hospital. Everybody knows that one of the best things a railroader has is his watch. He only parts with it as a matter of life and death. Joe has got to sell his watch and somebody is going to get a bargain. This watch cost eighty-five dollars and you couldn't buy the like ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... from the wreck of their churches and homes. There were forty persons in that band of fugitives, missionaries and their friends, who spent a week of horrors—never-to-be-forgotten—in their passage over the prairies to St. Paul and Minneapolis. By day they ...
— Among the Sioux - A Story of the Twin Cities and the Two Dakotas • R. J. Creswell
... the writer does not tell, To guess the themes which prompt the brightest sallies; Louvain; the Lusitania; Nurse CAVELL— With these Hun wit most delicately dallies; The wreck of Reims; the Prussic acid shell; The desolation of Armenia's valleys; The toll of Belgian infants slain ere birth— All these excite ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 152, January 24, 1917 • Various
... looked at my tongue, and he shook his head— This was Doctor Wise— "Your liver's a total wreck," he said, "You must take more exercise! You mustn't eat sweets. You mustn't eat meats, You must walk and leap, you must also run; You mustn't sit down in the dull old way; Get out with the boys and have some fun— And take three doses of this ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume IX (of X) • Various
... and a few hundred dollars, saved from the wreck of her mother's estate, and the household furniture in storage, represented Elaine's worldly goods. As too often happens in a material world, she had been trained to do nothing but sing a little, play a little, and paint ...
— At the Sign of the Jack O'Lantern • Myrtle Reed
... into the store to fetch some meal, and when I came out he had shuffled close to the door. He had kept his eyes on the ground, but now he looked up at me, and I thought he had very bright eyes for such an old wreck. ...
— Prester John • John Buchan
... bonny thing, but ye ken she is a wee bit daft, puir lassie!" cried Madge Wildfire, smirking and bowing, to catch the eye of Jeanie Deans, who, leaning on the arm of her betrothed, Reuben Butler, stood gazing with tearful eyes upon that wreck of hope and love exhibited in the person of the ill-fated Lucy ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various
... here. The man who saved the wreck of Braddock's army is just the one to build a nation. I nominate George Washington as the commander-in-chief of the army ...
— The Hero of Ticonderoga - or Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys • John de Morgan
... fly of civilization. That a small minority of Southern men may make money without earning it,—that a few thousand individuals may monopolize the cotton-market of the world,—what a suppression and destruction of intelligence it perpetrates I what consuming of spiritual possibilities! what mental wreck and waste! Whites, too, suffer equally with blacks. Less oppressed, they are perhaps even more demoralized. No parallel example does the earth exhibit of the sacrifice of transcendent ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... the sea The wreck looms up; Then Memory comes, and touches me. I see a pitiful white face Break through the mould Decaying at the pillar's base, And hands that beckon me to prayer. But I still curse, And wake ...
— Poems • Elizabeth Stoddard
... the moment when the policy of Cromwell crushed the Church as a political power and freed the growing Monarchy from the constitutional check which its independence furnished, a new check offered itself in the very enthusiasm which sprang out of the wreck of the great religious body. Men stirred with a new sense of righteousness and of a divine government of the world, men too whose natural boldness was quickened and fired by daily contact with the older seers who rebuked David or Jezebel, could ...
— History of the English People - Volume 4 (of 8) • John Richard Green
... there prevail, Despotic on that sea, Trade-winds which cross it from eternity. Awhile he holds some false way, undebarr'd By thwarting signs, and braves The freshening wind and blackening waves. And then the tempest strikes him; and between The lightning-bursts is seen Only a driving wreck, And the pale master on his spar-strewn deck With anguish'd face and flying hair Grasping the rudder hard, Still bent to make some port he knows not where, Still standing for some false, impossible shore. And sterner comes the roar Of sea and wind, and through the deepening gloom Fainter ...
— Poetical Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... lieutenant in the Confederate army, and served under General Price and the outlaw Quantrell. He was a man originally of fine education, plausible manners and good family, but strong drink seems early in life to have overmastered him, and left him but a wreck of himself. But he was not incapable of generous or, rather, romantic acts; for, during the burning of the Putnam House in this town last summer, he rescued two ladies from the flames. In so doing he scorched his left hand ...
— The Case of Summerfield • William Henry Rhodes
... for twenty years his favorite seat. It was his attitude and gesture of deepest abstraction. Many a time, sitting thus, and gazing with intent eyes on nothing at all, had he found light on difficult cases. And many a nervous wreck among his patients had marched back to health and vigor to the rhythmic ...
— The Fate of Felix Brand • Florence Finch Kelly
... you I'm just going to be a complete nervous wreck before we get done with this fool race," he complained when he had finally succeeded in donning the wide trousers, the legs of which ...
— Motor Boat Boys Mississippi Cruise - or, The Dash for Dixie • Louis Arundel
... several occasions in the days of almost constant war, and during the French Revolution it was concealed for some years in the house of a private citizen. The Chapel of St. Basil suffered from the disturbed condition of the country, and when Napoleon came to Bruges in 1810 it was such a complete wreck that the magistrates were on the point of sweeping it away altogether. But Napoleon saved it, declaring that when he looked on the ruins he fancied himself once more amongst the antiquities of Egypt, and that to destroy them would be a crime. Four years after the Battle of Waterloo the ...
— Bruges and West Flanders • George W. T. Omond
... Bancroft, describing the "sad condition" of La Salle's colony at Matagorda after the wreck of his richly laden store-ship, adds that "even now this colony possessed, from the bounty of Louis XIV., more than was contributed by all the English monarchs together for the twelve English colonies on the Atlantic. Its number still exceeded that of the colony of ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... was a flash which lit up the dark face of Dost and his white turban; then the match began to burn, and we could see his fingers look transparent as he sheltered the flame and held it to a piece of candle, which directly after lit up the mess-room, one wreck now of broken glass, shattered chairs, and ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... matter of observation, and simple measurement. The place, however, I need scarcely say, was not as we see it now, with its foundations of gigantic ruin, affording ample space for conjecture; yet, even then, a wreck as of Titans, its date and purpose were ...
— Harold, Complete - The Last Of The Saxon Kings • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... she had just passed, all helped to break her down. Running downstairs into the dining-room, she threw herself on a sofa, and gave full passage to her grief. Presently she became aware that she was not alone. Philip stood before her, or, rather, the wreck of him whom she knew as Philip. Indeed, it was hard to recognize in this scared man, with dishevelled hair, white and trembling lips, and eyes ringed round with black, the bold, handsome youth whom she had loved. The sight of him stayed her sorrow, and a sense of her bitter ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... said D'Effiat impatiently, and wrapping himself in a cloak which was thrown over him. "Remember the lines we formerly so frequently quoted, 'Justum et tenacem Propositi viruna'; these iron words are stamped upon my brain. Yes; let the universe crumble around me, its wreck shall carry me away ...
— Cinq Mars, Complete • Alfred de Vigny
... with certainty of the life of Anacreon. Chamaeleon Heracleotes, who wrote upon the subject, has been lost in the general wreck of ancient literature. The editors of the poet have collected the few trifling anecdotes which are scattered through the extant authors of antiquity, and, supplying the deficiency of materials by fictions of their own imagination, have arranged what they call a life of Anacreon. These ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al
... cry, "A wreck! a wreck! Pull mates, and waste no breath!"— They knew it, though 'twas but a speck Upon ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 1 • Charles Dudley Warner
... cries for help near him, and as he sank into the trough of a sea, a black mass swept by him. He groped wildly to reach it and his hand touched a dangling rope. He seized it with the frenzy of a drowning man and the next instant had pulled himself alongside of what proved to be the wreck of the yacht. He dragged himself up and threw his arms over the keel and for the first time since he had been swept under the surface of the water drew a long breath. The touch of something solid in that angry sea put new life into him and he ...
— A Voyage with Captain Dynamite • Charles Edward Rich
... has upset the coffee which she was going to bring in. Some of it is saved from the wreck, though the "boys" have to go without. As they file past, back to their work, Edmund follows last and snatches a tartlet while his mother's back is turned, winking at you as he does it. Mr. Humphrey immediately bolts another rather guiltily, so one, looking ...
— Round the Wonderful World • G. E. Mitton
... a house," said the Master, "But not on the shifting sand, Mid the wreck and roar of tempests, A house that will ...
— Poems • Frances E. W. Harper
... the compass to the mariner Wast thou, Felipa, to his dauntless soul. Through adverse winds that threatened wreck, and nights Of rayless gloom, thou pointed ever to The north star of his great ambition. He Who once has lost an Eden, or has gained A paradise by Eve's sweet influence, Alone can know how strong a spell lies in The witchery of ...
— Christopher Columbus and His Monument Columbia • Various
... combined endlessly, like the pieces of a kaleidoscope, to confuse him in his search. Tonty was not at hand to take care of the colony while he groped for the lost river. He moved his wretched people from their camp, with all goods saved off the wreck in the bay, to a better site for a temporary fort, on rising ground. The carpenters proved good for nothing. La Salle himself planned buildings and marked out mortises on the logs. First a large house ...
— Heroes of the Middle West - The French • Mary Hartwell Catherwood
... cut his cables and drifted ashore. The Essex, 64 guns, was ordered to pursue her, and her captain, an impetuous Irishman, obeyed his orders so literally that he too ran ashore, and the Essex became a total wreck. ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... method it is absolutely necessary to have a flash back tank (Fig. 79) in the gas line to prevent the oxygen from backing up into the gas line and making a highly explosive mixture which will cause a violent explosion that may wreck the entire shop. ...
— The Automobile Storage Battery - Its Care And Repair • O. A. Witte
... know I'd be welcome, but I prefer to strike bottom like Beelzebub rather than hang around like the Peri listening to the music from the side entrance. I'm going to earn my own living. There's nothing else to do. I'm a—Oh, oh, oh!—I had forgotten. There's one thing saved from the wreck. It's a corral—no, a ranch in—let me see—Texas: an asset, dear old Mr. Bannister called it. How pleased he was to show me something he could describe as unencumbered! I've a description of it among those stupid papers he made me ...
— Whirligigs • O. Henry
... went up: the portcullis went down; The chaplain was ready with bell, book, and gown: The wreck of the bride-train arrived at the gate, The bride showed the ring, and they muttered ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... not heard? Poor father has never been strong for years back, but this has broken him down completely. He has taken to his bed, and Dr. Willows says that he is a wreck and that his nervous system is shattered. Mr. McCarthy was the only man alive who had known dad in the old days ...
— The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
... started on foot to reach the valley. Others began to despair of ever reaching the promised land. If those who cross the continent now in palace cars and complain of the tediousness of the journey could take one look at the wreck and desolation that lined the poisoned banks of Snake river, they would hide their heads ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... of the Court. The Queen's party, the Duke Humphrey's party, and Cardinal Beaufort's party, make a welter of hate and greed, against which the Duke of York's cool purpose stands out, as Augustus stands out against the wreck of old Rome. The action is interrupted and lightened by the cheat of Simpcox and by the rebellion of Jack Cade. In modern theatres the passage of time is indicated by the dropping of a curtain and by a few words printed on a programme. The Elizabethan theatre had neither curtain nor programme. ...
— William Shakespeare • John Masefield
... which we have to deal with," says Walter Lippmann, "have done more than anything else, I imagine, to wreck the simple generalizations of ...
— A Librarian's Open Shelf • Arthur E. Bostwick
... his ministrations, and recognized the blind man she had observed on the boat. She could furnish the eyes for an investigation of their situation inland, but her ankle had been sprained in the wreck and she was unable ...
— Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author • Leslie Burton Blades
... water ran over it; the same green branches dipped in the water, the same trees shaded it. She sat down in the same spot where she had last sat with him. She remembered how the ring had fallen into the little clear pool and he had found it. The same, and yet how different. And sitting there, with the wreck of her life round her, she sung in a low voice the words that to her had been so ...
— A Mad Love • Bertha M. Clay
... again and go on. It never occurred to him that as he was in shelter he'd better stay there till a pilot arrived, because getting out of that was exactly when he'd want one. He put her ashore. That was like Purdy, to play for safety and make a wreck. When he got over the fuss Lloyd's raised about it he refused to take command again for some time. He couldn't even make up his mind whether he wanted a ship ...
— London River • H. M. Tomlinson
... fox from Springfield drove them to taking refuge under the wreck of a barbed-wire hog-pen by the spring. But once there they could look calmly at him while he spiked his legs in vain ...
— Lobo, Rag and Vixen - Being The Personal Histories Of Lobo, Redruff, Raggylug & Vixen • Ernest Seton-Thompson
... no sign. His very breath seems to have left him. Gathering him tenderly in her arms, Florence presses his worn and wasted face against her bosom, and pushes back the hair from his forehead. He is so completely altered, so thorough a wreck has he become, that it is indeed only the eyes of love that could recognize him. His cheeks have fallen in, and deep hollows show themselves. His beard has grown, and is now rough and stubbly; his hair is uncombed, the lines ...
— The Haunted Chamber - A Novel • "The Duchess"
... the frame building in which he was housed, bursting with a roar that brought the flimsy structure crashing down upon the head of the imprisoned boy. Blinded by the dust and splinters, he fought his way madly through the mass of debris until he emerged clear of the wreck. The first thing he stumbled upon was the body of the German sentry who had been posted outside the guardhouse. He had been struck down by a fragment of the shell and blood flowed from an ugly wound in ...
— The Brighton Boys with the Submarine Fleet • James R. Driscoll
... clean life. He holds an unblemished record. He is in your hands. You can do what you like with him—whatever your love inspires you to do. You can pull him back into a straight course, or you can wreck him for good and all. Which is it going to be, I wonder? It's a sacrifice either way,—a sacrifice to Love or a sacrifice to devils. You can make it which you will. But if it is to be the last, never talk of Love again. For Love—real Love—is the safeguard from all ...
— The Way of an Eagle • Ethel M. Dell
... sits down.] But we won't talk about me, see? You tell me about yourself and about the wreck. ...
— Anna Christie • Eugene O'Neill
... round, and see the wreck of play,— Estate and honour thrown away: Their one time owner, unconfined, Wanders in equal wreck of mind, Or tries to learn the trade by which He ruined fell, and so grow rich: But failing there, for want of cunning, Subsists on charity by dunning. Ah! you will find this ...
— Fables of John Gay - (Somewhat Altered) • John Gay
... ashore; and he was right, for when the fog lifted we saw the masts of a three-master sticking out of water, close on shore, and about a mile from where we lay. We up sail and ran down as close as we dared to see if there was anybody living on the wreck. We couldn't see anybody, but I sent out Jim Brown with a boat to make a thorough search. In about an hour he came back, bringing a half-drowned woman and just the nicest, chubbiest, little black-eyed girl baby that you ever saw ...
— Quincy Adams Sawyer and Mason's Corner Folks - A Picture of New England Home Life • Charles Felton Pidgin
... And, as they pass'd, beneath their feet they felt the timbers crack. But when they turn'd their faces, and on the farther shore Saw brave Horatius stand alone, they would have cross'd once more. But with a crash like thunder fell every loosen'd beam, And, like a dam, the mighty wreck lay right athwart the stream: And a long shout of triumph rose from the walls of Rome, As to the highest turret-tops was splash'd the yellow foam. And, like a horse unbroken when first he feels the rein, The furious river struggled hard, ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... c'n watch all you're a mind to, Giraffe," jeered Step-hen; "the rest of us want some sleep. Be sure and shoo him away if he does break loose, and try to wreck our cooking department. I'm going to hunt for a soft spot right now inside this tent. Don't anybody dare to wake me up before the ...
— The Boy Scouts' First Camp Fire - or, Scouting with the Silver Fox Patrol • Herbert Carter
... the burning deck, Whence all but 'e 'ad fled; The flame that lit the battle's wreck, Shone ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... did I do my duty?" With tears coursing their manly cheeks, they replied: "You did, Colonel." "Then," said he, "I DIE HAPPY." Major Concklin, of the 71st, whom I reported wounded, died shortly afterward. Coming from Shelbyville, I passed more than one hundred wagons, all heavily loaded with the wreck of the late battles, many of the wounded being ...
— Incidents of the War: Humorous, Pathetic, and Descriptive • Alf Burnett
... Lopez was smelted the iron ore of San Miguel. Before the war this foundry was a small model establishment with a handsome tile-covered roof, and was thoroughly equipped for the purpose to which it was devoted. All the machinery was destroyed by the Brazilians, and the foundry was left a wreck. Near by is the estancia of Margarita Rivarola, where our traveler and his companion stop to breakfast. Margarita is a poor widow with a beautiful daughter. She is a cousin of a former president of the republic, but so destitute did ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 15, - No. 90, June, 1875 • Various
... They are outcasts from society, unfortunately exerting a most harmful influence on all those who come into relation with them. Furthermore, they are centers for the dissemination of venereal diseases which wreck the health of all those who become infected. But for the uncontrolled passions of men, there would be no such women. So while we, individually, as men, may not be responsible for the ruin of any one woman, we must ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... a good look at our cave under the logs. It was about ten feet long and probably half as high. The logs had crashed through the side of the house in one or two places, and its roof was a wreck. ...
— D'Ri and I • Irving Bacheller
... intricate way through snags and blind reefs, and then shave the head of the island so closely as to brush the overhanging foliage with her stern, but at one place she must pass almost within arm's reach of a sunken and visible wreck that would snatch the hull timbers from under her if she should strike it, and destroy a quarter of a million dollars' worth of steamboat and cargo in five minutes, and maybe a hundred and fifty human lives into ...
— American Sketches - 1908 • Charles Whibley
... had left nothing in order. When I returned home his rage fell on me in all its violence. They would hear none of my reasons, but said, "they were all a pack of lies." My mother-in-law persuaded my husband that I let everything go to wreck. If she did not take the care of things he would be ruined. He believed it, and I bore all with patience, endeavoring, as well as I could, to do my duty. What gave most trouble was the not knowing what course to take; for when I ordered anything without her, she complained that I showed her no respect, ...
— The Autobiography of Madame Guyon • Jeanne Marie Bouvier de La Motte Guyon
... with a choking in my throat, and helpless, cruel rage in my soul. Never mind that I am going to be free—the wrong is that it should ever have been—it will stay with me all my days and turn all my life to gall! It will wreck all my visions, all my aspirations, my faith, my eagerness; the memory of it will sound like a mocking voice in my ears, ...
— The Journal of Arthur Stirling - "The Valley of the Shadow" • Upton Sinclair
... Moreover, let the twain themselves be my witnesses before the face of the blessed gods and mortal men, yea and of him, that king untoward, against the day when there cometh need of me hereafter to save them all from shameful wreck. Of a truth he raveth with baleful mind, and hath not knowledge to look before and after, that so his Achaians might battle ...
— The Iliad of Homer • Homer (Lang, Leaf, Myers trans.)
... thought seriously of learning the blacksmith's trade, but an opportunity was offered him to buy a store, which he did, giving his notes for the purchase money. He was unfortunate in his selection of a partner, and the business soon went to wreck, leaving him burdened with a heavy debt, which he finally paid in full. He then applied himself earnestly to the study of the law. Was appointed postmaster of New Salem in 1833, and filled the office for three years. At the same time was appointed deputy county ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents: Lincoln - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 6: Abraham Lincoln • Compiled by James D. Richardson
... vexations; and the sensibility of her heart would not suffer her to rest in solitary gratifications. The derangement of her father's affairs daily became more and more glaring; and a small independent provision made for herself and her sisters, appears to have been sacrificed in the wreck. For ten years, from 1782 to 1792, she may be said to have been, in a great degree, the victim of a desire to promote the benefit of others. She did not foresee the severe disappointment with which an exclusive purpose of this sort is ...
— Memoirs of the Author of a Vindication of the Rights of Woman • William Godwin
... gold lost from some wreck," they cried. Both Travelers rushed to the beach, but there they found nothing ...
— The AEsop for Children - With pictures by Milo Winter • AEsop
... desire to give the Elizabethan Church a basis in the past, as much as any pure zeal for letters, which induced Archbishop Parker to lead the way in the first of these labours. The collection of historical manuscripts which, following in the track of Leland, he rescued from the wreck of the monastic libraries created a school of antiquarian imitators, whose research and industry have preserved for us almost every work of permanent historical value which existed before the Dissolution of the Monasteries. To his publication of some of our earlier chronicles ...
— History of the English People, Volume V (of 8) - Puritan England, 1603-1660 • John Richard Green
... impression I think I had yet received, for a child is somewhat deaf to the sentimental. In the last, a poet, who had been tragically wrangling with his wife, walked forth on the sea-beach on a tempestuous night and witnessed the horrors of a wreck.[7] Different as they are, all these early favourites have a common note—they have all ...
— Essays of Robert Louis Stevenson • Robert Louis Stevenson
... only for its usefulness in general, but especially for its value in leading to true decision of character. I mean, the habit of doing every thing which it devolves upon us to do at all, precisely at the time when it ought to be done. Every thing in human character goes to wreck, under the reign of procrastination, while prompt action gives to all things a corresponding and proportional life and energy. Above all, every thing in the shape of decision of character is lost by delay. It should be a sacred rule with every individual who lives in the world for any higher ...
— The Young Woman's Guide • William A. Alcott
... the masquerade ball we each wore special clothing. The mariner who had swum from the wreck to the desert shore had not ...
— The Century Vocabulary Builder • Creever & Bachelor
... to repulse a heavy attack of the enemy, and immediately assuming the offensive, he attacked in turn with great vigor. The enemy was defeated with great slaughter, and the loss of most of his artillery and trains, and the trophies he had captured in the morning. The wreck of his army escaped during the night, and fled in the direction of Staunton and Lynchburg. Pursuit was made to Mount Jackson. Thus ended this, the enemy's last attempt to invade the North via the Shenandoah ...
— Memoirs of Three Civil War Generals, Complete • U. S. Grant, W. T. Sherman, P. H. Sheridan
... in our present situation. Some precaution, in this respect, is not without its motives. That very estimation for which you have sacrificed everything else is in some danger of suffering in the general wreck; and perhaps it is likely to suffer the more, because you have hitherto confided more than was quite prudent in the clearness of your intentions, and in the solidity of the popular judgment upon them. The former, indeed, is out of the power of events; ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... coral-insect of the South," said the voice within; "insignificant in himself, he rears a giant structure—which will yet cause the wreck of the ship of state, should its keel grate too closely on that adamantine wall. 'L'etat c'est moi,' said Louis XIV., and that 'slavery is the South' is as true an utterance. Our staple—our patriarchal institution—our prosperity—are one and indissoluble, ...
— Sea and Shore - A Sequel to "Miriam's Memoirs" • Mrs. Catharine A. Warfield
... wood, a rending of iron and steel, and then with one terrible smash, with one final roar, the runaway freight piled itself up in a mass of shattered cars against the sand hill, at the base of which the rails came to an end. It was a fearful wreck. ...
— Through the Air to the North Pole - or The Wonderful Cruise of the Electric Monarch • Roy Rockwood
... at the top of his voice, for the wind rattled and tore at the old building with the noise of a cannonade, as if determined to wreck even this shelter. It was not possible to see one's hand in the darkness, for when the door had been pulled shut after the young couple, the last ray of light was shut out. Besides, night had fallen now, and the darkness outside was ...
— The Wind Before the Dawn • Dell H. Munger
... wish for "stimulants" in the most literal sense of the word. Exhausting and multifarious parochial work, and the lonely bachelor quarters at the day's end, have brought to many a young man sore temptations of that sort, and sometimes they have won the battle, to the wreck and ruin of the work and ...
— To My Younger Brethren - Chapters on Pastoral Life and Work • Handley C. G. Moule
... But out of the wreck the four bronze horses were saved and carried in triumph to Venice, where they were placed over the central porch of St. Mark's Cathedral. There they stood until Napoleon Bonaparte in 1797 removed them with other trophies to Paris; but after his downfall they were restored, and, as Byron ...
— St. Nicholas, Vol. 5, No. 2, December, 1877 • Various |
