"Break down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... up, and that Mr. Gladstone had been beaten by the sheer brutality of Obstruction. But still hope springs eternal in the Irish breast, and there was still the lingering feeling that Mr. Gladstone would make a further and more desperate effort to break down one of the most shameless crusades of Obstruction on which a great party had ever entered. Indeed, Mr. Gladstone himself was responsible for a rise in the temperature of his own party on the very evening of that fateful and fatal Friday morning, ...
— Sketches In The House (1893) • T. P. O'Connor
... and my son swim in his own blood! You infect me like an incurable pest in which I shall groan away the rest of my life. I will cure myself! Do you understand? (Pressing the revolver on her.) This is your physic. Don't break down; don't kneel! You yourself shall apply it. You or I—which is the weaker? (Lulu, her strength threatening to desert her, has sunk down on the couch. Turning the revolver ...
— Erdgeist (Earth-Spirit) - A Tragedy in Four Acts • Frank Wedekind
... lectures must be incorrect, because I have been attempting to prove that they do exist, and I take it that there is abundant evidence that they do exist; so far, therefore, the hypothesis does not break down. ...
— A Critical Examination Of The Position Of Mr. Darwin's Work, "On The Origin Of Species," In Relation To The Complete Theory Of The Causes Of The Phenomena Of Organic Nature • Thomas H. Huxley
... did not break down Mr. Slope's spirit, because he had other hopes. But, alas, at last there came to him a note from his friend Sir Nicholas, informing him that the deanship was disposed of. Let us give Mr. Slope his due. He did not lie prostrate under ...
— Barchester Towers • Anthony Trollope
... now saw that her second fire was beginning to catch. She must burn away this inside door, or else Jimmy Lawton would be caught in a trap. The door was chained and would not be easy to break down. ...
— Madge Morton's Secret • Amy D. V. Chalmers
... repeating that Lord M. would not set out the day he had intended: that nobody, since the creation of the world, ever set out upon a long journey the day he first appointed: besides, there were at least a hundred chances in my favour that his lordship would break down on his way to Portsmouth; that the wind would not be fair when he arrived there; that half the people in his suite would not be more ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... of march it is hardly an exaggeration to say that travel would be practically impossible without the rhino trails wherewith to cross. Sometimes the perpendicular banks will extend for miles without offering any natural break down to the stream-bed. Since this is so I respectfully submit to ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... join the gangs of exiles on their way to Siberia, to note their treatment, to halt at their halting-stages, and see if it be true that there is an utter absence of all sanitary appliances; that filth and cruelty are in evidence; and that the strongest constitutions break down under conditions unfit for brute beasts. She will investigate the assertions that delicate innocent women and children are chained to vile criminals, and so made to take their way on foot thousands of miles ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 1, January, 1891 • Various
... hardly realize that her own team had dealt this cruel blow. For the first time in her life she had received a real shock. She took a long deep breath and clenched her hands. She did not wish to break down before she had spoken ...
— Grace Harlowe's Sophomore Year at High School • Jessie Graham Flower
... took possession, and set John Paston's own tenants to work, very much against their wills, to destroy the mansion and break down the walls of the lodge, while they themselves ransacked the church, turned out the parson, and spoiled the images. They also pillaged very completely every house in the village. As for John Paston's own place, they stripped it completely bare; and ...
— Landholding In England • Joseph Fisher
... too,' she said. 'Nixon was sent to me just before the sports; and I don't think he will break down to-day, and I am so thankful.' And ...
— Black Rock • Ralph Connor
... roasted alive," Harry cried. "Get ladders as quickly as possible, with crowbars, and break down the wall." ...
— Friends, though divided - A Tale of the Civil War • G. A. Henty
... overawed and afraid. As she went out of the house, she said to Reuben: "Mis' Kinney ain't no mortal woman. She hain't shed a tear yet, and she jest looks as glorified as the Elder can this minute in sight o' God's very throne itself. O Mr. Miller, I'm afraid she'll break down. This kind o' ...
— Saxe Holm's Stories • Helen Hunt Jackson
... had come, or their immediate forebears had come, almost entirely from Virginia, so that the English service was as much a part of their traditions as of Mrs. Leigh's. The building of the first Episcopal church in that country did more to break down the enmity toward Basil Kildare's young widow than any of her patient efforts to win their friendship; and this despite the fact that ...
— Kildares of Storm • Eleanor Mercein Kelly
... to have them brought here. We could not have done otherwise, with propriety, for that was the regular mode provided for conveying the baggage; and if there is a failure to get it here, we are not to fret about it, but to take it as we would a storm, or a break down, or any other ...
— Rollo in Paris • Jacob Abbott
... was meditating. Heron's precautions for the safe-guarding of the most precious life in Europe were more complete than he had anticipated. What lavish liberality would be required! what superhuman ingenuity and boundless courage in order to break down all the barriers that had been set up round that young life that flickered inside this ...
— El Dorado • Baroness Orczy
... good-tempered, mocking tone of voice annoyed him, yet he had no answer ready. He was not fond of arguing with Sanine, for his usual vocabulary proved useless in such an encounter. Every time it seemed as if he were trying to break down a wall while ...
— Sanine • Michael Artzibashef
... a painful one to contemplate. Could he, or could he not endure the strain that he had put upon himself within the last eight-and-forty hours? In desperate straits men can do desperate things—there was always that fact to be remembered; but still John Saltram might break down under the burden he had taken upon himself; and when Gilbert went back to London that afternoon he was sorely ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon
... mind seizes a great principle and resolves to carry it into execution, it becomes impatient of the restraints imposed by existing laws, and in its haste to break down the barriers which stand in the way of its darling object, becomes regardless of all law, and anarchy is the result. This is our difficulty here. The people will have freedom for the slave. No law of the United States nor of Missouri, ...
— Forty-Six Years in the Army • John M. Schofield
... independence and coincidence. This he generally succeeds in doing by constantly renewing the vain threat of dissolving partnership between the two coinciding series. Every moment the whole thing threatens to break down, but manages to get patched up again; it is this diversion that excites laughter, far more than the oscillation of the mind between two contradictory ideas. It makes us laugh because it reveals to us the reciprocal ...
— Laughter: An Essay on the Meaning of the Comic • Henri Bergson
... something that he had not seen before. He had not seen it literally because it was too large to see. At the nearest end of the balcony, blocking up a great part of the perspective, was the back of a great mountain of a man. When Syme had seen him, his first thought was that the weight of him must break down the balcony of stone. His vastness did not lie only in the fact that he was abnormally tall and quite incredibly fat. This man was planned enormously in his original proportions, like a statue carved deliberately as colossal. His head, ...
— The Man Who Was Thursday - A Nightmare • G. K. Chesterton
... with the blockaded ports, she encouraged and aided them in every way in her power. And aside from her mere sympathy with the struggles of the young Confederacy, England had a most powerful incentive to break down the blockade. In Manchester the huge cotton-mills, employing thousands of hands, were shut down for lack of cotton, and the mill-hands were starving for lack of work; while shut up in the blockaded ports of the South were tons upon tons of the fleecy staple, that, once in England, ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 2 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... surprised, Mr. PUNCHINELLO, but we are here for the public good. We have reason to suspect, that, following the example of the Chinese Opium-smugglers, the vile traitors who are trying to break down our iron interests have smuggled quantities of scrap—iron into this country, and it is our belief that these sunken logs have been bored ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 17, July 23, 1870 • Various
... if I attended to business so closely, I should break down altogether," he continued, rising ...
— Desk and Debit - or, The Catastrophes of a Clerk • Oliver Optic
... break down all the seats, stalls and wainscots that was behind them, being adorned with several historical passages out of the old testament, a latin distich being in each seat to declare the story. Whilst they were thus employed, they happened to find a great parchment book, behind the ceiling, with ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... "as long as she remains in the house, she must have frequent opportunity of repeating her attempt at revenge; and to live in constant fear of assassination would break down the strongest nerves." ...
— Across the Zodiac • Percy Greg
... to stir her, to break down her courage. "How unfortunate it is that you have no prince to aid in this good work," he taunted. "Such a prince as Radiance, perhaps—he, whom you ran such risks to aid. But he has returned to the Land of Fire with his pale princess and will hardly trouble himself now to release you ...
— The Shadow Witch • Gertrude Crownfield
... soul is too gallant to break down in company. She hurries into the pantry and shuts ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... not, could not spy, Of desperate courage showed he tokens true, Where'er he joined, or stayed, or passed by, And cried to the Duke as near he drew, "Behold of thy strong hand I come to die, Yet trust to overthrow thee with my fall, My castle's ruins shall break down thy wall." ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... the credit of being the pioneer car in the Bristol Post Office Service. During its trials the car did really useful service, and did not once break down. ...
— The King's Post • R. C. Tombs
... give him away! Ain't anybody livin' 'at can give dat goat away! He'd come back just as fast as you'd give him away! 'At ol' Kaiser's a mighty foxy goat. Ain't no door bin invented 'at he can't break down!" ...
— The Camp Fire Girls Do Their Bit - Or, Over the Top with the Winnebagos • Hildegard G. Frey
... his feet. "Then Lerton has something to do with this!" he cried. "He tried to get me to leave town, and he tried to break down my alibi. How did he know I was going to ...
— The Brand of Silence - A Detective Story • Harrington Strong
... first love, once the love is established. He may leave his first attempt at love. Once a man establishes a full dynamic communication at the deeper and the higher centers, with a woman, this can never be broken. But sex in the head breaks down, and half circuits break down. Once the full circuit is established, however, this can never ...
— Fantasia of the Unconscious • D. H. Lawrence
... the blinds on the only window also fastened on the inside; and Mademoiselle still calling for help!—No! she had ceased to call. She was dead, perhaps. But I still heard her father, in the pavilion, trying to break down the door. ...
— The Mystery of the Yellow Room • Gaston Leroux
... to," said Mrs. Fenelby. "It was the only way I could prevent him from doing it. He said you told him to carry them up, and that up they must go, if he had to break down the front door to do it. I think he must have been drinking, Tom, he used such awful language, and at last he got quite maudlin about it and sat down on one of the trunks and cried, actually cried! He said that for years and years he had refused to carry trunks upstairs, and that now, ...
— The Cheerful Smugglers • Ellis Parker Butler
... that whatever the organic is the inorganic is also. Deny it in theory as much as we please, we shall still always feel that an organic body, unless dead, is living and conscious to a greater or less degree. Therefore, if we once break down the wall of partition between the organic and inorganic, the inorganic must be living and conscious also, up to ...
— Unconscious Memory • Samuel Butler
... they get on without me?" asked Lily eagerly, not wishing to break down and cry before Jimmy. "Poor Pa! Yes, he was fond of me. He never let me fall on purpose. He did not force me to work ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... with the helpless horror of all this monstrous mystery. Siegfried, who stands nearest, receives her as she totters, near to falling. As she lies for a moment in the well-known arms, it seems impossible, beyond everything impossible, that his unimaginable purpose should not break down, that he should not be forced to drop this incomprehensible feint of strangeness. But her dying eyes searching the face close to them discover in it no glimmer of feeling. Her heart-broken murmur: "Siegfried.... ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... person would have gone to Rossland with the deliberate and businesslike intention of sifting the matter to the bottom that he might disprove his own responsibility and set himself right in his own eyes. In self-defense he would have given Rossland an opportunity to break down with cold facts the disturbing something which his mind had unconsciously built up. But the new Alan revolted. He wanted to carry the thing away with him, he wanted it to live, and so it went with him, uncontaminated by any truths or lies which ...
— The Alaskan • James Oliver Curwood
... "What! Break down a fence, and then be afraid to enter! That is the style of your race, friend Daniel. That is why you never get your rights, even when you dare to talk of them. I thought you were made of different stuff. Go home and boast that ...
— Springhaven - A Tale of the Great War • R. D. Blackmore
... did not break down, but his voice was very unsteady as he replied, "You over-rate my powers, my Lord, it would be impossible ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... army, and the indefinite prospect of its continuance, raised a natural apprehension in many of the officers, that, if it did not provoke some open act of mutiny, would in all probability break down the spirits and constitution of the soldiers. Several of them, therefore, among the rest Mendoza and the two Colonnas, waited on the commander-in-chief, and, after stating their fears without reserve, besought him to remove the ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V3 • William H. Prescott
... sixth day the power would have fallen off by half. Besides, no one would dare to serve as engineer, for the radiation will rot away the flesh of a living man who comes near it, causing gnawing ulcers or curing them. It will not only break down the complex and delicate molecules of organic matter but will attack the atom itself, changing, it is believed, one element into another, again the fulfilment of a dream of the alchemists. And its rays, unseen and unfelt by us, are yet strong enough ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... I had never spoken in public, I would break down in the delivery, anyhow. I was disconsolate now. But at last an editor slapped me on the back and told me to "go ahead." He said, "Take the largest house in town, and charge a dollar a ticket." The audacity of the proposition was charming; it seemed fraught with practical worldly wisdom, however. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... this part there was a low and narrow gate, opening into a street which was little frequented, and which led through a deserted part of the city. He ordered them, after scaling the wall, to proceed to this gate, and break down the bars on the inside by force, and when they were in possession of that part of the city, to give a signal with a cornet, that the rest of the troops might be brought up, observing that he would have every thing prepared and ready. These orders were ...
— The History of Rome; Books Nine to Twenty-Six • Titus Livius
... was determined in London to stop this, and appropriate to English factors whatever of profit might be realized. The old English Navigation Act, passed under Cromwell, to break down the Dutch trade, was revived against the Boston skippers. Governor Stephens accordingly told the colonists they must exchange the products of their farms with none but English traders, but he quickly found that the people were resolute in refusing ...
— School History of North Carolina • John W. Moore
... without compromise as she could, might be defeated. What if the very act should lead to the belief that she no longer wished to have any part in his life? A girl cannot feel that same toward a man who has told her openly of his love, for such words break down the barriers of maidenly reserve even in her own self-communings. Since he had spoken so plainly she could think more plainly. She knew well how mistaken Aun' Sheba was in her judgment, but could not explain that Clancy ...
— The Earth Trembled • E.P. Roe
... intestinal tract before it finds conditions suitable to colonization. It does not seem to multiply in the stomach or in the blood, but once injected into the duodenum develops with astonishing rapidity, and the delicate epithelial cells of the villi become swollen, soften and break down, exposing the mucosa. ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 787, January 31, 1891 • Various
... worked himself into a frightful rage, but all to no avail; and at last he became convinced that he must turn back. But when he would have done so, what was his chagrin to discover that another barrier had dropped behind him while he fought to break down the one before him! Taug was trapped. Until exhaustion overcame him he fought frantically for his freedom; but ...
— Jungle Tales of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... conditions manufacture defectives, and foster their fertility. The strain and stress of modern competition excite an anxiety and nervous tension under which many break down, and much of the insanity that exists to-day is attributable to nervous strain in the ...
— The Fertility of the Unfit • William Allan Chapple
... never seen her break down, and I was proportionately moved; she sobbed, like a frightened child, over the extinction of her vogue and the exhaustion of her vein. Her little workroom seemed indeed a barren place to grow flowers, and I wondered, in the after years (for she ...
— Greville Fane • Henry James
... the weaker for it? Not a bit. It is simply a difference of temperament: that is all. It involves no inferiority. If you think that this habit necessarily means weakness, wait and see! Who has not seen women break down in tears during some domestic calamity, while the "stronger sex" were calm; and who has not seen those same women, that temporary excitement being over, rise up and dry their eyes, and be thenceforth the support and stay ...
— Women and the Alphabet • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... we do? How can we live without you! And oh, my son, you are too young to go to the war. You will break down. You can't manage a—a musket, and the—the heavy load the soldiers carry. My son, don't break your mother's heart. Don't go—don't, Jack, Jack! What shall I do?—O Polly, what ...
— The Iron Game - A Tale of the War • Henry Francis Keenan
... chance of protesting he left the room. I felt that I was going to break down again; but I restrained myself and told the nurse plainly ...
— Lalage's Lovers - 1911 • George A. Birmingham
... melted away, and with jest and brilliant repartee, alternating with song, there gathered around Miss Winthrop's piano such a group as could never grace the parlors of Miss Brown. Sometimes they would carry a new and difficult piece triumphantly through; again they would break down, with ...
— Barriers Burned Away • E. P. Roe
... daughter home, at once, and put her to bed for the rest of the day, to spare her any nervous reaction. Then, if she is all right tomorrow, you may allow her to receive a caller, or two—no more for the time being, or you will have her break down." ...
— Polly's Business Venture • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... room at night, she is always finishing off some piece of work; and no matter how early I get up in the morning, she has already begun something new. If I had not positively forbidden it, she would keep at it even on a Sunday. It is a real source of anxiety to me, lest she should over-work and break down." ...
— Veronica And Other Friends - Two Stories For Children • Johanna (Heusser) Spyri
... particular—especially that species with the orange-bar across the wings. These birds alight on the Indian corn crops and oats in such numbers, that they do a great deal of damage, particularly the oats, which they break down by their weight. ...
— Twenty-Seven Years in Canada West - The Experience of an Early Settler (Volume I) • Samuel Strickland
... never said a word to any living soul, not even to her children. Naturally cold and reserved, she was very uncommunicative—a fact that pained Hulda and Joel not a little. But with that respect for the head of the family innate in Northern lands, they made no attempt to break down a reserve which was eminently distasteful to them. Besides, Dame Hansen never asked aid or counsel, being firmly convinced of the infallibility of her own judgment, for she was a true Norwegian ...
— Ticket No. "9672" • Jules Verne
... mountains break down into Chinlee valley by a gradual slope—near the summit quite steep, then running out into table-lands and long foothills. This region is perhaps the most desirable on the reservation, and is thickly inhabited. On the east the mountains descend ...
— Navaho Houses, pages 469-518 • Cosmos Mindeleff
... neighbors and friends from boyhood. In this method party compels dishonesty in politics, and is eminently demoralizing, for it is impossible to familiarize the conscience with political dishonesty without tainting the moral man in ordinary matters pertaining to life. Once break down the barrier which separates the right from the wrong, that success may come of it, and every principle of restraint to immoral or dishonest conduct is swept away. For this reason men of stern integrity never make good politicians. They are very often the reliable Statesmen, ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... will suddenly let fall on them anguish and terrors; He will take His fan and winnow them out in the gates of the land and as the passing chaff strew them on the wind of the desert; the garden-land withers to wilderness and its cities break down at His presence and before His fierce anger; He will make Jerusalem heaps and cast out the people before His face. He will give them to be tossed among the nations for a consternation, a reproach and a proverb, ...
— Jeremiah • George Adam Smith
... won't get away from me," rejoined John. "Lannes and I in the Arrow will watch over you all the way, and, if we can, rescue you, should your plane break down." ...
— The Forest of Swords - A Story of Paris and the Marne • Joseph A. Altsheler
... to which civilized man is subject are undoubtedly caused by this common habit of mouth-breathing. Children permitted to breathe in this way grow up with impaired vitality and weakened constitutions, and in manhood and womanhood break down and become chronic invalids. The mother of the savage race does better, being evidently guided by her intuition. She seems to instinctively recognize that the nostrils are the proper channels for the ...
— The Hindu-Yogi Science Of Breath • Yogi Ramacharaka
... have fair luck," he announced, confidently, "we ought to fetch our Tampa dock, where all prizes are tied-up, before morning comes along. On the other hand, if we break down we'll either hang on to the sloop, or if luck runs against us, sink her, after ...
— Eagles of the Sky - With Jack Ralston Along the Air Lanes • Ambrose Newcomb
... her fingers. "I wasn't," she told him in a voice that quivered between laughter and tears, "I wasn't worrying. I was ... You wouldn't understand. Don't be afraid I shall break down or—or anything." ...
— The Black Bag • Louis Joseph Vance
... answer, and Peter hung up, and rushed off to the appointed rendezvous. He was so nervous that he had to sit on the steps of a building. As time passed and McGivney didn't appear, wild imaginings began to torment him. Maybe McGivney hadn't understood him correctly! Or maybe his automobile might break down! Or his telephone might have got out of order at precisely the critical moment! He and his men would arrive too late, they would find the trap sprung, and ...
— 100%: The Story of a Patriot • Upton Sinclair
... down! That crash was like the felling of great trees. Now they are pouring through. They will break down the mill doors as they have broken the gate. What can Robert do against so many? Would to God I were a little nearer him—could hear him speak—could speak to him! With my will—my longing to serve him—I could not be a useless burden in his way; I could ...
— Shirley • Charlotte Bronte
... almost with a cry. "No. I have thought it over, and Charlie must not see me. It will do him harm and I shall break down. I shall have to see him at the trial—of course he must be there—that will ...
— Through the Fray - A Tale of the Luddite Riots • G. A. Henty
... necessity of all labor but that of supervision. There is nowhere to go, nothing to do, nothing to read, nothing to talk about. She has nothing to do but to lie in a steamer chair and to think of home. Most women break down under it very quickly; they lose appetite and flesh and grow fretful or melancholy. But to a woman who loves her home and is employed, provincial life here is a boon. Remember that for an expenditure of forty or fifty dollars a month the single woman can maintain an establishment ...
— A Woman's Impression of the Philippines • Mary Helen Fee
... poison a whole soul, a single involuntary thought is sufficient to corrupt and break down the force of will. ...
— The Child of Pleasure • Gabriele D'Annunzio
... all the country east of Lake Baikal is open to free trade. This result has been secured by the efforts of the present governor general of Eastern Siberia. Under his liberal and enlightened policy he has done much to break down the old restrictions and develop the resources of a country over which he holds almost autocratic power. It was about three in the morning when we started over the frozen earth. Two miles from the landing we reached the custom house barrier where a pole painted with the government colors ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... Ubiquitus" of Islam in the age of the Crusades, gives us a picture of another Massoudy. The friend of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus, the "first man among Christians," Heravy seems able in his own person to break down the partition wall of religious feud by the common interest of science. In 1192 he was offered the patronage of the Crusading princes, and Richard Coeur de Lion begged for the favour of an interview, and begged in vain. Heravy, who ...
— Prince Henry the Navigator, the Hero of Portugal and of Modern Discovery, 1394-1460 A.D. • C. Raymond Beazley
... draughts of water to weaken the acid with carbonate of soda, potass, or magnesia, to neutralize it; thick soap-suds made with common soap; chalk, or in default of the alkalies and chalk, break down the plaster of the wall or ceiling, mix in water, and give the sufferer. Excite vomiting, and repeat the remedies till all the ...
— Enquire Within Upon Everything - The Great Victorian Domestic Standby • Anonymous
... of that part of the Ordinance relating to slavery. These reports were not acted on in the House. Subsequently, Governor Harrison and his Legislature appealed to the Senate and a special committee to suspend the article, but when the committee reported adversely, all efforts to break down the legal barrier to slavery in the ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... it would be very desirable if, by the employment of the powerful means of every kind at our disposal, we could completely discredit and break down the house of M. Francois Hardy, already shaken by M. Tripeaud's violent opposition. In that case, the latter would soon regain all he has lost; the ruin of his rival would insure his prosperity, and our ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... of the verses?" asked Billy. "Some of the lines want endings, and some of the verses want lines and rhymes. My ideas are very grand, but I am apt to break down for want of ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... to break down," she apologised, drawing me even closer to her, as though appealing for my forgiveness, "but, oh! I couldn't help it. I've never loved you so desperately as ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... establish a true Republic on a broad liberal basis. The report of recent discussions in the Volksraad on his finances and their mismanagement fill one with apprehension. Such a state of affairs cannot last, it must break down from inherent rottenness, and it will be well if the fall does not sweep away the freedom of ...
— Boer Politics • Yves Guyot
... most frequently the effect of some conflict that has arisen in the depths of the forest. The jaguars, for instance, pursue the peccaries and the tapirs, which, having no defence, flee in close troops, and break down the bushes they find in their way. Terrified at this struggle, the timid and distrustful monkeys answer, from the tops of the trees, the cries of the large animals. They awaken the birds that live in society, and by degrees the whole assembly is in commotion. ...
— The Beauties of Nature - and the Wonders of the World We Live In • Sir John Lubbock
... what she called her illegal detention in a lunatic asylum, and that of the two young ladies in St. Mary's Convent. Thank heaven, we have friends everywhere! I know from good authority, that the case will break down from want of evidence, in spite of the animosity of certain parliamentary magistrates, who shall ...
— The Wandering Jew, Complete • Eugene Sue
... spirit is broken by hope deferred. Brooding over their melancholy condition, in a foreign land, away from the comforts of home, without the solace and cheering influence of friends and relations, they soon break down and perish.' M. Carriere and Sir James Clark consider the climate of Rome adapted only for consumptive patients in the first stage of the complaint; but Dr Burgess, after a train of reasoning founded on scientific facts, comes to a conclusion consonant with his own theory, that it is ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 444 - Volume 18, New Series, July 3, 1852 • Various
... and Lyman Abbott, who conceived their duty as that of mediators between the business class and the wage earning class, exhorting the former to deal with their employes according to the Golden Rule and the latter to moderation in their demands. Together with the economists they helped to break down the prejudice against labor unionism in so far as the latter was non-revolutionary. And though their influence was large, they understood that their maximum usefulness would be realized by remaining sympathetic outsiders ...
— A History of Trade Unionism in the United States • Selig Perlman
... philosophy of biology be, as we know it is, true, then it must be very strong evidence indeed that would lead us to conclude that the laws seen to be universal break down and cease accurately to operate where the objects become microscopic, and our knowledge of them is by no ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 643, April 28, 1888 • Various
... when the larva of the Chalicodoma is attacked by that lethargy which precedes metamorphosis, and which renders it insensible, and during which the substance of the grub about to be transfigured into a bee commences to break down and resolve itself into a liquid pulp, for the processes of life always liquefy the grub before achieving ...
— Fabre, Poet of Science • Dr. G.V. (C.V.) Legros
... no longer leading a hermit's life, no longer clinging to her solitude, grave and quiet, but not wholly unhappy. Those few words Capper had spoken on the day of Lucas's operation had made a marvellous difference to her outlook. They had made it possible for her to break down the prison-walls that surrounded her. They had given her strength to leave the past behind her, all vain regrets and cruel disillusionments, to put away despair and rise above depression. They had given her ...
— The Knave of Diamonds • Ethel May Dell
... even if it were possible to preserve the lands of private owners from forcible intrusion. The "squatting" question had demonstrated that, beyond a certain point, the theory of Crown occupation of waste lands was liable to break down. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... certain advantage always lies with the offensive. Defenders haven't the power of attackers. The Texan decided to risk a counter-charge. He knew that it might break down the courage of the bandit band. At least it would be a surprise. He called ...
— Kid Wolf of Texas - A Western Story • Ward M. Stevens
... I know that thou dost know That I am here more near to thee to be, And knowest that I know thou knowest me: What means it then that we are sundered so? If they are true, these hopes that from thee flow, If it is real, this sweet expectancy, Break down the wall that stands 'twixt me and thee; For pain in prison pent hath double woe. Because in thee I love, O my loved lord, What thou best lovest, be not therefore stern: Souls burn for souls, spirits to spirits cry! I seek the splendour in thy fair face stored; Yet living man that beauty scarce ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... talk that it is said there is at this hour, in the Exchequer, as much money as is ready to break down the floor. This arises, I believe, from Sir G. Downing's late talk of the greatness of the sum lying there of people's money, that they would not fetch away, which he shewed me and a great many others. Most people that I speak with are in doubt how we ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... principle of political freedom. The Church was the schoolmaster of the Middle Ages. Culture was the humanizing and refining influence of the Renaissance. The problem for the present and the future is how, through education, to render culture accessible to all—to break down that barrier which in the Middle Ages was set between clerk and layman, and which in the intermediate period has arisen between the intelligent and ignorant classes. Whether the Utopia of a modern world in which all men shall enjoy the ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... is not allayed. The Sun goddess judges that since female Kami were produced from the fragments of Susanoo's sword and male Kami from her own string of jewels, the test which he himself proposed has resulted in his conviction; but he, repudiating that verdict, proceeds to break down the divisions of the rice-fields laid out by the goddess, to fill up the ditches, and to defile the palace—details which suggest either that, according to Japanese tradition, heaven has its agriculture and architecture just as earth ...
— A History of the Japanese People - From the Earliest Times to the End of the Meiji Era • Frank Brinkley and Dairoku Kikuchi
... If I put it on the forefinger of my left hand, then I can with its help produce whatever I wish. I can in a single moment build houses or anything I desire. Finally, as long as I wear the ring on the thumb of my left hand, that hand is so strong that it can break down rocks and walls. Besides these, the ring has other secret signs which, as I said, no one can understand. No doubt it contains secrets of great importance. The ring formerly belonged to King Solomon, the wisest of kings, during whose reign the wisest men ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... not reply, and for a moment he believed that she was about to break down completely. He aimlessly brushed the cigar ashes from the tablecloth. He hated a scene in public. In the theater it was different; it was a part of the petty round of business to have the leading lady burst ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... right. And Mrs. Cosby, who was really a great woman at a crisis, suggested suddenly and with brilliance that there was a train from the main station ten miles off at eight o'clock, and that the motor, if it did not break down, might take them there in half an hour. She provided warm wraps for the lady, and Nigel found rugs for her; and when all had been arranged, and she who got so little pleasure started for a moonlight drive in the cold crisp air, with Nigel taking care of her and wrapping her up warmly in ...
— Peter and Jane - or The Missing Heir • S. (Sarah) Macnaughtan
... to call it a godsend," said Mrs Martin. "You see it was gettin' so bad, what wi' standin' so long at the tub, an' goin' about wi' the clo'es, that I felt as if I should break down altogether, I really did; but now I've been able to rest it I feel as if it was going to get quite strong again, and that makes me fit to look after mother far better. Have some more ...
— The Lively Poll - A Tale of the North Sea • R.M. Ballantyne
... the food. The value of both labour and land would thus be greatly diminished. Admitting, for a moment, that such a system existed, what would be the remedy? Would it not be found in an effort to break down the monopoly, and thus to establish among the people the power to trade among themselves without paying, toll to the millers of Rochester? Assuredly it would; and to that end they would be seen uniting ...
— The trade, domestic and foreign • Henry Charles Carey
... the occasion was scenically sustained. But, in England, the vast intricacy and complex interweaving of property, of commerce, of commercial interests, of details infinite in number, and infinite in littleness, break down and fritter away into fractions and petty minutiae, the whole huge labyrinth of our public affairs. It is scarcely necessary to explain my meaning. In Athens, the question before the public assembly was, peace or war—before our House of Commons, perhaps the Exchequer Bills' Bill; at Athens, a ...
— The Uncollected Writings of Thomas de Quincey—Vol. 1 - With a Preface and Annotations by James Hogg • Thomas de Quincey
... length found the caravan waiting for us to come up. The Germans and all others were well, except the Sfaxee, troubled with a little fever. Mourzuk is a bad place to break down the health and spirits, and those that became faint-hearted there would probably have persevered had they got out into the bracing air of the desert. The Tuaricks are very quiet. I sent word to Hateetah that it was ...
— Narrative of a Mission to Central Africa Performed in the Years 1850-51, Volume 1 • James Richardson
... rocks break down to produce the surficial rocks, and by anamorphism the surficial rocks are again consolidated and altered to produce highly crystalline rocks, which are not dissimilar in many of their characteristics to the igneous rocks from which ...
— The Economic Aspect of Geology • C. K. Leith
... to change environments for the worse. It is more dangerous still to break down the moral barrier, however frail it may be, which our conscience has built between the good and the evil in us. Some, reared under laws that are loose, may withstand this barrier breaking and be no worse for the change; but in the case of those with whom this barrier of their moral belief ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... sacrifice? Will they complete it in a day? Will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish, although they are burned? Now Tobiah the Ammonite was with him, and he said, 'Even that which they are building, if a fox should go up on it, he would break down their stone wall!' Hear, O our God—for we are despised—and turn back their reproach upon their own head and give them up as an object of spoil in a land of captivity, and cover not their iniquity and let not their sin be blotted out ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... a flask of brandy, which I mean to delay using until we break down and cannot get on without it. Whenever you begin to get chilled I must give you brandy. Not till then, however; spirits are hurtful when there is hard toil before you, but when you break down there is no resource left. Rest, food, sleep, would be better; but these we have no chance ...
— Freaks on the Fells - Three Months' Rustication • R.M. Ballantyne
... concert in the evening. Keene and Cele sung now i lay me down to sleep. they was a lot of people sung together and Mister Gale beat time. Charlie Gerish played the violin and Miss Packerd sung. i was scart when Keene and Cele sung for i was afraid they would break down, but they dident, and people said they sung like night horks. i gess if they knowed how night horks sung they woodent say much. father felt pretty big and to hear him talk you wood think he did the singing. he give them ten cents apeace. i dident get ...
— The Real Diary of a Real Boy • Henry A. Shute
... are highly prized; and they could never do it, did they not bind hard the stomach, chest and head with strong bands. And each of them carries with him a gerfalcon tablet, in sign that he is bound on an urgent express; so that if perchance his horse break down, or he meet with other mishap, whomsoever he may fall in with on the road, he is empowered to make him dismount and give up his horse. Nobody dares refuse in such a case; so that the courier hath always a good fresh nag to carry ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... interest and curiosity and people thronged the court room when she pleaded. They saw a quiet woman, dressed in black, but when she began speaking you could hear a pin drop. There was a thrilling quality in her voice, much remarked by the press, and big lawyers pitted against her had been known to break down and weep, to the confusion of their clients. The judge—it was always the same one—had a big bushy beard, and, though of fierce and impartial mien at the beginning of the proceedings, he had been known time and again, as her address ...
— Tutors' Lane • Wilmarth Lewis
... retorted the other. "And when you know Old Peter! Don't you know he'll get at him, if he has to break down the door of the house? He'll throw the burden of his rage on that poor old man! You've been warned about it clearly; you know it may be a matter of life and death to keep Dad from getting excited. I don't know what he'd do; maybe he'd fly into a rage with you, maybe ...
— King Coal - A Novel • Upton Sinclair
... through it all, and are true to the end. There are many pseudo-heroines who intend to do so, but break down. The pseudo-heroine generally breaks down when young Smith,—not so very young,—has been taken in as a partner by Messrs. Smith and Walker, and comes in her way, in want of a wife. The persecution is, at any rate, so often efficacious as to make fathers and mothers feel it to be ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... hypothesis seems to break down under the keen criticism to which it has been subjected, yet astronomers have not relinquished the idea that our solar system has probably had its origin from a nebulous mass. But the apparent failure of the Laplacian theory is emphasised by the fact, that ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... sympathy in the daily paths of life. Not only those whom you like, but those you care not for as well; not with those who love you only, but with those who dislike you also. Remember that you have to break down barriers—barriers of the bodies that bar you out from your fellow Selves in the worlds around you, and that breaking down of the barriers is part of the training in the spiritual life. Only as barrier after barrier is broken down, only as wall after wall is levelled to ...
— London Lectures of 1907 • Annie Besant
... feller isn't in here!" protested the farmer violently, and in a tone loud enough for Somers to hear him on the roof. "Be keerful there, or you'll break down the plastering." ...
— The Young Lieutenant - or, The Adventures of an Army Officer • Oliver Optic
... her, at least for a while, and her beauty was refined rather than marred by a little bodily weariness. The splendid blush of pleasure rarely rose in her cheeks now, but the clear pallor of her matchless complexion was quite as lovely. The constitution of a healthy Roman peasant girl does not break down easily under a course of pleasure and amusement, and it might never have occurred to Regina that Marcello was almost exhausted already, if her eyes had not been opened to his condition by some ...
— Whosoever Shall Offend • F. Marion Crawford
... taste the grass at the root; he liveth on the tree! He doth not stoop to feed on that which he treadeth under foot! Does the hawk look for the musketoe? His eye is too big. He can see a bird. Go—when the deer have been killed the Wampanoags will break down the fence with their own hands. The arm of a hungry man is strong. A cunning Pale-face hath made that fence—it shutteth out the colt, and it shutteth in the Indian But the mind of a warrior is too big; it will not be kept at grass with ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... adjoining house. The women are especially "enraged at not finding anything," and wish to renew the attempt, swearing that they will discover where things are hidden in ten minutes. The nightmare is evidently too much for these unballasted minds. They break down under the weight of their accidental kingship, their inflamed pride, extravagant desires, and intense and silent fears which form in them that morbid and evil concoction which, in democracy as well as in a ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 3 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 2 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... well pleased; she had never forgotten her impression of Leah when she met her in the park with Ida and me a year back, and we all walked by the Serpentine together—a certain kind of beauty seems to break down all barriers of rank; and she knew Leah's character both from Barty and me, and from her own native shrewdness of observation. She had been delighted to hear from Barty of Leah's resolute participation in her father's troubles, and in his attempt—so ...
— The Martian • George Du Maurier
... now he felt as if he were torn away from his chief support. He reasoned with himself that he had been letting affection for his friend come between him and Heaven; he tried to feel that Providence had interfered to break down his idol; yet to all this he could not but answer that Maurice had been always a help, and that it was impossible to believe that Providence would accomplish his good by the hurt of his benefactor. He did assure ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... poor mother; and Mr. Legrange, not daring to trust himself to look at her again, lest he also should break down, hastened ...
— Outpost • J.G. Austin
... he tossed ... in scorn: This is the turning-point of the moral movement of the story. Sir Launfal at the very beginning makes his fatal mistake; his noble spirit and lofty purposes break down with the first test. He refuses to see a brother in the loathsome leper; the light and warmth of human brotherhood had not yet entered his soul, just as the summer sunshine had not entered the frowning castle. The ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... three miles only from Rome on the other side of the river Anio. A certain Quinctius Pennus, being made dictator, gathered a great army and encamped on the near side of the river. Now between the two armies there was a bridge, which neither the one nor the other would break down, lest they should seem to fear the enemy. For this bridge many battles were fought; and it could not be told, so equal was the strength on either side, to whom it belonged. At a certain day there came forth a Gaul of exceeding great stature and stood upon the ...
— Stories From Livy • Alfred Church
... ships; but when they perceived the Trojans rushing against the wall, and confusion and flight of the Greeks arose, both darting out, fought before the gates, like unto wild boars, which await the approaching tumult of men and dogs in the mountains, and, advancing obliquely to the attack, break down the wood around them, cutting it to the root; and a gnashing of teeth arises from beneath, till some one, having taken aim, deprive them of life. So resounded the shining brass upon their breasts, smitten in front, for very valiantly they fought, trusting to the troops ...
— The Iliad of Homer (1873) • Homer
... manifest description of the Great Day of Judgment: and the prophecy goes on to add: "Verily I say unto you, This generation shall not pass, till all these things be fulfilled." When we thus find a prediction to break down suddenly in the middle, we have the well-known mark of its earlier part being written after the event: and it becomes unreasonable to doubt that the detailed annunciations of this 24th chapter of Matthew, were first composed very ...
— Phases of Faith - Passages from the History of My Creed • Francis William Newman
... me that so zealous a man—though he is already beginning to break down under his heavy duties—should be so late. However, he here spends his evenings and nights in special occupations, which must of course be far from beneficial to the health and peace of ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... engineers by the creation of drains and sea defences. To this day part of the county is called Holland. After the draining the land was leased by the King to various settlers from overseas, among whom were the Linacres, the hero-family of this book. The King's enemies break down the sea defences, and the land is flooded, with haystacks, mills and barns floating away, farm animals drowning, and everyone in great peril. By various mishaps the three Linacre children and a boy from a roguish nomadic family, are deprived of the ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau |
