"Collapse" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... The collapse of Alencon was the precursor of a comprehensive conspiracy. Before the Raid of Ruthven (August 1582), the Guise faction in France had contemplated a descent on Scotland in conjunction with Lennox's friends there, with a view of course to raising England in favour of ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... said to himself, he would think no more; he would act. The long talk with Lord Evelyn had enabled him to pull himself together; there would be no repetition of that half-hysterical collapse. More than one of his officer-friends had confessed to him that they had spent the night before their first battle in abject terror, but that that had all gone off as soon as they were called into action. And as for ...
— Sunrise • William Black
... burden to carry with him — some of the cordials that had been found to give most relief in cases of utter collapse and exhaustion, a few simple medicaments and outward applications thought to be of some use in allaying the pain of those terrible black swellings from which the sickness took its significant name, and ...
— In the Days of Chivalry • Evelyn Everett-Green
... his lean figure from his chair and shook her hand, at first silently. He, too, was dazed by the collapse of Bruce's fortunes. ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... "saving civilization," first from Germans, and then from Bolsheviks, we have come near losing it ourselves. [Q] This disquieting truth has been borne in on them by various signs and portents, not least by the utter collapse of taste. At life's feast we are like people with colds in their heads: we have lost all power of discrimination. As ever, "Dido, Queen of Carthage," and better things than that, are caviare to the general: what is new, and worse, ...
— Since Cezanne • Clive Bell
... my life, but my friends all assured me that I looked ill. If I wasn't ill, I ought to be. I must be overworked and break down. I had "burnt the candle at both ends and in the middle as well," and it was a duty I owed to humanity to collapse. For years I had done the work of three men with the constitution of one, so one day it came to pass that I was forced by my friends into the consulting-room of a celebrated physician, labelled "Ill. To be returned to Dead ...
— The Confessions of a Caricaturist, Vol 2 (of 2) • Harry Furniss
... something of the old buoyant spirit of playfulness—that was my ordinary mood until my great trouble befell—had been revived by the absurdity of the situation. But his departure left me rather depressed, for his visit marked the final collapse of my scheme. Even if the criminal classes had been willing to continue the supply of anthropological material, my methods could not have been carried out under the watchful and disapproving eyes ...
— The Uttermost Farthing - A Savant's Vendetta • R. Austin Freeman
... followed in turn by another crisis and the ensuing years of exhaustion. As commerce developed, making the nations mutually dependent, these arises became world-wide, while the obstinacy of the ensuing state of collapse increased with the area affected by the convulsions, and the consequent lack of rallying centres. In proportion as the industries of the world multiplied and became complex, and the volume of capital involved was increased, these business cataclysms became ...
— Looking Backward - 2000-1887 • Edward Bellamy
... to see Rosie, but really to verify for herself Jim Breen's report of the collapse of Jasper Fay's little industry. She found it hard to believe that after Claude's conduct toward Rosie her father-in-law could have the heart to bring further woe upon a family that had already had enough. Nothing but seeing for herself ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... mere glance is enough to make despair pause. For in truth we who are creatures of impulse are not creatures of despair. Suicide, I suspect, is very often the outcome of mere mental weariness—not an act of savage energy but the final symptom of complete collapse. The quiet, matter-of-fact attentions of a ship's stewardess, who did not seem aware of other human agonies than seasickness, who talked of the probable weather of the passage—it would be a rough night, she thought—and ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... and captured the Island of Martin Garcia and blockaded Montevideo. On land General Alvear took charge of the investing patriot forces. Montevideo could now look for no assistance from the sea, and on June 20, 1814, after having suffered many hardships, the garrison capitulated, and with the collapse of its gallant defence ended the power of Spain in ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... place was a frozen desert, with no other sign of man. And she was alone—alone with him—and the fierce-looking dog was now running towards her. She leaned back against the tree, feeling that without some support she must collapse at its foot. ...
— The Peace of Roaring River • George van Schaick
... injecting Sweet Oil, assisting the bird with gentle pressure. In some cases it is well to puncture the egg and collapse the shell. If the bird is very fat, reduce by careful feeding. If the bird is of normal size, the trouble is probably due to the absence of lubricating secretions of the oviduct, in which case the following tonic should be given: Pulv. Ferri Sulphate, Pulv. Gentian Root, ...
— The Veterinarian • Chas. J. Korinek
... disappearance of her daughter had affected her, Mrs. Blackwell was facing it bravely. That was her nature. One could imagine that only when Betty was actually found would this plucky little woman collapse. Instinctively, one felt that she claimed his assistance in the unequal fight she was waging against the complexities of modern life for which she had been so ...
— The Ear in the Wall • Arthur B. Reeve
... keep you out so long! You must be exhausted, I am sure. I know how trying the first days of recovery from illness are, and how even a little exertion will produce absolute collapse. Now, will you have a little brandy in your tea, Mr. Vernon? A teaspoonful will sometimes produce a magical effect," she added, as if she were recommending a peculiarly startling firework. "No? You are quite sure? And what is this ...
— Nell, of Shorne Mills - or, One Heart's Burden • Charles Garvice
... an acre. For one or two picked city frontages as much as L7 10s. a foot was paid. The hanging up of the northern land claims, and the inability of the Government to buy native land while it refused to let private persons do so, joined, with a trade collapse in Australia, to make the condition of the Auckland settlers soon almost as unenviable as that of their fellow-colonists in the ...
— The Long White Cloud • William Pember Reeves
... Base Camp was reached at half-past twelve. One of the first things Tucker did on returning was to weigh all the packs. To my surprise and disgust I learned that on the way down Tucker, afraid that some of us would collapse, had carried sixty-one pounds, and Gamarra sixty-four, while he had given me only thirty-one pounds, and the same to Coello. This, of course, does not include the weight of our ice-creepers, ...
— Inca Land - Explorations in the Highlands of Peru • Hiram Bingham
... any undue length on this subject, but I think it right and only fair to tell you that owing to the actual noise of the cowl, and perhaps even more (as our doctor says) to the mental strain of listening to hear whether it is going to begin again, my wife is on the verge of a complete nervous collapse, which seems likely to necessitate some weeks' rest cure in a nursing home, and possibly a trip to the Canaries. I am advised by my lawyer that these are contingent liabilities, the burden of which would fall upon you as the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 146, April 15, 1914 • Various
... really mean to give it to me?" I said. "I should like to have it very much. I should set it up on my writing table and call it 'Disillusion.' But do you think it will collapse any more?" ...
— Gossamer - 1915 • George A. Birmingham
... "the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath" to open violation of the letter of the commandment (on this occasion or on that) there is but a single step. The whole structure of legalism would collapse if men were allowed to absolve themselves from obedience to the letter of the Law, out of regard for what they conceived to be its spirit. To interpret a commandment, in the sense of providing for its application to the fresh cases that may arise for treatment, is the work, not of poets and ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... the valley could not make me forget it. And the valley is very fair. Bench after bench of land, flat as a table against the flanks of the ringing hills, marks where the Salt Lake rested for awhile in its collapse from an inland sea to a lake fifty miles ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling
... and pains very young children suffer uncomplainingly, particularly in great cities and factory towns, is a pathetic enough demonstration of what the word means to them. Mere children by the hundreds support families terrified by the thought of their collapse. The orphan forever dreams of the day when a home will be found for him. The child whose parents seek freedom, leaving him to school or servants, never fails to nourish a sense of injustice. Whatever one generation may decide as to the futility or burdensomeness of ...
— The Business of Being a Woman • Ida M. Tarbell
... but I was coming in after lunch, and she staggered into the hall. I thought she was drunk at first, but it was collapse. I couldn't leave her as she was, so I brought her up here and gave her your lunch. She was fainting from want of food. She went fast asleep the ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... proportional representation. In every country in which the new methods have been introduced fears were expressed that it would be impossible for the average elector to fulfil the new duties required of him, and that returning officers would collapse under the weight of their new responsibilities. The same apprehension still exists in England, and it may therefore be desirable to refer in greater detail to the experience of those countries in ...
— Proportional Representation - A Study in Methods of Election • John H. Humphreys
... struck the sea beside us, sending a spout of water over our rail. Again Marah pulled his trigger-spring, the gun fell over on its side, and the cutter's mast seemed to collapse into itself as though it were wrapping itself up in its own canvas. A huge loose clue of sail—the foresail's starboard leach—flew up into the air; the boom swung after it; the gaff toppled over from above; we saw the topmast dive like a lunging rapier into the sea. We had torn the foresail ...
— Jim Davis • John Masefield
... drams of powder, has a striking energy of 3520 foot-pounds. This may be only theoretical measurement, but the approximate superiority of 3500 lbs. against the tiger's weight, 450 lbs., would be sufficient to ensure the stoppage of a charge, or the collapse of the animal in any position, provided that the bullet should be retained within the body, and thus bestow the whole force of ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... was lost in the realization of the collapse of all that he had laboriously planned. The destruction was absolute; not an inner desire nor need escaped; not a projection remained. The papers before him, so painfully comprehended, with such a determination of justice, were but the visible ...
— Mountain Blood - A Novel • Joseph Hergesheimer
... After the collapse of the Chester scheme, McCafferty and Flood made their way to Ireland to be ready for the Rising, but were arrested in Dublin, charged with being concerned in the raid on Chester. They were both in due course put upon their trials, and sent ...
— The Life Story of an Old Rebel • John Denvir
... of the one as in the other. He reserves judgment until sufficient evidence shall have been developed to establish which of the accused is telling the truth. For, he knows that while the guilty man's lie may sound entirely plausible, it will collapse like a perforated gas-bag in the end. Likewise, truth coming from the innocent man's lips may be utterly lacking in plausibility. Yet, it will establish itself by reason of ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... the brisk and significant air with which Griffin spoke roused her to herself again. She put Elinor's arms away, and going to the mirror, smoothed her tumbled hair, and whisked away the telltale traces of her collapse, while Elinor sat quietly on the edge of the couch ...
— Miss Pat at School • Pemberton Ginther
... slain on that field could never be replaced. Boyhood and old age, alone, were left to fill the vacant ranks. Settling slowly down, the gloomy days of collapse approach. ...
— The Little Lady of Lagunitas • Richard Henry Savage
... departure, at a critical moment the Institute was introduced as a side issue. It was dear to Ranald's heart. A most effective picture was drawn of the Institute deserted and falling into ruins, so to speak, with Kate heroically struggling to prevent utter collapse. Could this be allowed? No! a thousand times no! Some one would be found surely! Who would it be! At this juncture Kate, who had been maintaining a powerful silence, smiled upon Little Merrill, who being distinctly inflammable, ...
— The Man From Glengarry - A Tale Of The Ottawa • Ralph Connor
... step and fared forth to the killing of the French. Such an experience makes one chary about dispensing counsels of perfection to those fighting in the vortex of the world-storm. Whenever I begin to get shocked at the black crimes of the belligerents, my own collapse lies there ...
— In the Claws of the German Eagle • Albert Rhys Williams
... under investigation with "quite all right"—short of that glorious competence and pride of life, one might surely be an average man, who could walk from San Pietro to Florence without tumbling on the road at dawn. Peter sighed over it, rather crossly. The marvellous morning was insulted by his collapse; it became a remote thing, in which he might have no share. As always, the inexorable "Not for you" rose like a barred gate between him and the lucid ...
— The Lee Shore • Rose Macaulay
... which I have heard my father complain of as especially unfair—Lawrence being a younger son. The romantic story of Lord Grey was to be the subject of "Master Anthony's Record," but Master Anthony's sentimental autobiography went the way of all my earlier efforts. It was but a year or so after the collapse of Master Anthony, that a blindly-enterprising printer of Beverley, who had seen my poor little verses in the Beverley Recorder, made me the spirited offer of ten pounds for a serial story, to be set up and printed at Beverley, and published on commission by a London firm in Warwick Lane. ...
— The Idler, Volume III., Issue XIII., February 1893 - An Illustrated Monthly. Edited By Jerome K. Jerome & Robert Barr • Various
... steamers; which to attack availed themselves of a calm day, when the ships were unable to manoeuvre. An unsuccessful attempt was made after this to take Sabine Pass; but both that place and Galveston remained in the power of the enemy, and were not regained until the final collapse of the Confederacy. Farragut dispatched one of his most trusted and capable officers, Commodore Henry H. Bell, formerly his chief-of-staff, to re-establish the blockade of Galveston. Arriving off the port toward night, Bell sent ...
— Admiral Farragut • A. T. Mahan
... an insurrection in Piedmont, when the patriotic party hoped to throw all Northern Italy upon the rear of the Austrians, but which resulted, as will be treated elsewhere, in a sad collapse. The victory of absolutism in Italy was complete, and all people seeking their liberties became the object of attack from the three great Powers, who obeyed the suggestions of the Austrian chancellor,—now unquestionably the most prominent ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord
... possible; but finally found himself infected with the hopefulness of his following. Hard times became a powerful ally of the Liberals and the government suffered from the first shock of the impending railway collapse. The course of the party lay clear before it; it was to see that the conditions in Quebec remained favorable and to await, with patience, the coming of an election which would reopen the doors to office. But not too much patience, for the years were ...
— Laurier: A Study in Canadian Politics • J. W. Dafoe
... of bilious fever, and that with a day or two of treatment he should be entirely recovered. On his second visit he was much irritated, as the young man had not made the promised improvement, and assured us that there was no cause for his collapse. During our first visit to Merida, in hunting through the city for Protestants—a practice in which he invariably indulged whenever we reached a town of consequence—Ramon had happened on an interesting little man who ...
— In Indian Mexico (1908) • Frederick Starr
... that we, who have just seen the most cunningly organized and daintily bedizened specimen of a world, which ever flaunted on the earth since men began to build their towers of Babel, collapse and crumble at a single blow, may take God's hint, that the fashion of this world passeth away. Let the idle, the frivolous, the sensual, and those who, like Figaro's Marquis, have earned all earthly happiness by only taking the trouble to be born—let ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... sequestered lanes and broken-down barns out of bounds on the off-chance that he might catch some member of his house smoking there. As if the whole of the house, from the head to the smallest fag, were not on the field watching Day's best bats collapse before Henderson's bowling, and Moriarty hit up that marvellous and unexpected fifty-three at the end of ...
— The Gold Bat • P. G. Wodehouse
... phenomenon, and all the forces of parasitism and exploitation which had swept Europe into this tragedy were active here in America. The money-masters, the profit-seekers, would leap to take advantage of the collapse over the seas; there would be jealousies, disputes—let the audience understand, once for all, that if world-capitalism did not make this a world-war, it would be only because the workers of America took warning, and made their ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... slipshod metre, which seems now and then to hit by mere chance on some pure and tender note of simple and exquisite melody—the lazy vivacity and impulsive inconsequence of style—the fitful sort of slovenly inspiration, with interludes of absolute and headlong collapse—are qualities by which a very novice in the study of dramatic form may recognize the reckless and unmistakable presence of Dekker. The curt and grim precision of Webster's tone, his terse and pungent force of compressed rhetoric, will be found equally difficult ...
— The Age of Shakespeare • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... much as a year before—but at the end of that time it had ever been waking or a death; sometimes first one and then the other. Isbister noted the marks the physicians had made in injecting nourishment, for that device had been resorted to to postpone collapse; he pointed them out to Warming, who had been trying not to ...
— When the Sleeper Wakes • Herbert George Wells
... Suzanne," Kato began. "She had to clear out of France because of political activities, after the collapse of the Fourth Republic and the establishment of the Rightist Directoire in '57. And she worked with Joliot-Curie, and she was at the University of Louvain in the early '50s, when that place ...
— The Mercenaries • Henry Beam Piper
... breaks down and has bad moods so often that you never know where he may be when you most need his help,—he may be having one of his 'bad days.' We say that so many of our fellow-countrymen collapse, and have to be sent abroad to rest their nerves, because they work so hard. I suspect that this is an im- mense mistake. I suspect that neither the nature nor the amount of our work is accountable for the frequency and severity of ...
— Increasing Efficiency In Business • Walter Dill Scott
... to the dogs, there were six very miserable animals left. The best of them had been drafted into the rear team, as it was expected that if an accident happened through the collapse of a snow-bridge the first sledge would most probably suffer. For the same reason most of the food and other indispensable articles had been ...
— The Home of the Blizzard • Douglas Mawson
... maimed for life, and my condition had undergone a very considerable improvement. But of this I allowed no sign to show, no suspicion even. I continued to lie there day after day in a state of complete collapse, so that whilst I was quickly gathering strength it was believed by my gaolers that I was steadily sinking, and that I should ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... midst of this, the great stable of the convent, occupying the basement story and entered by the basement door, outside which all the disorder was, poured forth its contribution of cloud, as if the whole rugged edifice were filled with nothing else, and would collapse as soon as it had emptied itself, leaving the snow to fall upon ...
— Little Dorrit • Charles Dickens
... of these drugs for a while the body demands the continuation and if the victim is deprived of his accustomed portion there will be a collapse with intense suffering. Every tortured nerve in the body seems to call out for the drug. The victim will do anything to get his drug. He will lie, steal, and he may even attack those who are caring for him. For the time ...
— Maintaining Health • R. L. Alsaker
... yes. There was quite a collapse, wasn't there?' said some one blandly. 'However, you're all right now. Just open your mouth a little, please. That's right. Better? Ah! H'm! Yes, there's bound to be pain in the head; but we'll soon have that a ...
— The Record of Nicholas Freydon - An Autobiography • A. J. (Alec John) Dawson
... The collapse of the bridge at the close of the Glacial Epoch left the Atlantic abyss effectually dividing the two hemispheres. Its islands, few and far between, were helpless to maintain intercourse between the opposite shores; this is proven by the fact ...
— Influences of Geographic Environment - On the Basis of Ratzel's System of Anthropo-Geography • Ellen Churchill Semple
... Collapse of jury. Dashed in a moment from their height of fancied security, they lie helpless at the ...
— The Queen Against Owen • Allen Upward
... the confidence of sturdy health courts the sternest activities of life and rejoices in the hardihood of constant labor may still have lurking near his vitals the unheeded disease that dooms him to sudden collapse. ...
— United States Presidents' Inaugural Speeches - From Washington to George W. Bush • Various
... wanted him at once; he excused himself to the ladies and accompanied me in the carriage. The ride was long, so we visited in a friendly way, but finally he, too, remarked that the driver was going out of his way, and after protesting considerably, I informed him of his true status. He did not quite collapse. I assured him his years would earn him a gentleman's treatment. He was ...
— Between the Lines - Secret Service Stories Told Fifty Years After • Henry Bascom Smith
... Juan brought from Bodega Central the glad news of the revolution's utter collapse. The anticlerical element, scenting treachery in their own ranks, and realizing almost from the outset that the end was a matter of only a few weeks, offered to capitulate on terms which they felt would be less distressing to their pride than those which their victors might dictate after inflicting ...
— Carmen Ariza • Charles Francis Stocking
... stages of cramp and collapse, a nearly perished pulse, and the cadaverous look of one already dead, yet his intellect by the law of the disease, ...
— The Entailed Hat - Or, Patty Cannon's Times • George Alfred Townsend
... over the tasks they set him. His quickness would have delighted an English master; but at St Xavier's they know the first rush of minds developed by sun and surroundings, as they know the half-collapse that sets in at twenty-two ...
— Kim • Rudyard Kipling
... of the most vehement fever, from the rigor of the severest cold fit to the fiercest excitement which the heart and brain will bear, succeeded by a perspiration proportionately violent; and hence sometimes inadvertently they lose a patient by the production of a sudden sinking like the collapse of cholera. Some tact and skill, therefore, are requisite for the safe employment of such an ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various
... commanded Forbes. And as he spoke a sudden, powerful puff of warm air swept athwart the ship and was gone, causing the topsails to flap violently once, and collapse again. This was quickly followed by a second puff, heavier and rather less transient than the last; indeed, it continued long enough to give the ship steerage-way; for which I was deeply thankful, promptly availing myself of it to order the helm hard up and get our bows ...
— The Cruise of the "Esmeralda" • Harry Collingwood
... are almost invariably cylindrical, and are very commonly internally fired, either by one flue or by two; we owe it to the late Sir William Fairbairn, President of the British Association in 1861, that the danger, which at one time existed, of the collapse of these fire flues, has been entirely removed by his application of circumferential bands. Nowadays there are, as we know, modifications of Sir William Fairbairn's bands, but by means of his bands, or by modifications thereof, all internally flued boilers are so strengthened that ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 312, December 24, 1881 • Various
... a rude, choleric grunt, his disgust to see his splendid fabrication, so painfully concocted for the delusion and discomfiture of P. Sybarite, threatening to collapse of sheer intrinsic flimsiness. He had counted so confidently on the credulity of the little bookkeeper! And Violet had supported his confidence with so much assurance! Disgusting wasn't ...
— The Day of Days - An Extravaganza • Louis Joseph Vance
... I have a confession to make to you about that," his companion returned; "you were in such a state of collapse Tuesday night I felt you were unfit to decide any question for yourself, and, as I had no anaesthetics at hand, I asked Mrs. Minturn to give you a Christian Science treatment while I performed my duties, and since ...
— Katherine's Sheaves • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... thought holds to an entirely contrary opinion. The whole trouble, they say, comes from the sad collapse of Germany. These unhappy people, having been too busy for four years in destroying valuable property in France and Belgium to pay attention to their home affairs, now find themselves collapsed: it is our first duty to pick them up again. The English ...
— My Discovery of England • Stephen Leacock
... for Dawn blushingly avoided him. He had to fall back on such outside skirmishing as rowing me on the river, and though there was no longer an impending election to furnish him with excuse for loitering in Noonoon, he did not speak of deserting it in a hurry. He had reached that degree of amorous collapse when he could manage to shadow the haunts of his desired young lady regardless of circumstances, and grandma began to suspect that his attentions had a little more staying power than those of ...
— Some Everyday Folk and Dawn • Miles Franklin
... in a flash. So quickly did it collapse that, for a moment, I was startled, for the chair having tipped back, I had lost my balance, my head being lower than ...
— Hushed Up - A Mystery of London • William Le Queux
... philosophers should deny the existence of certain human faculties, because they don't happen to possess them themselves. I think I know a Rishi who can produce experiences which would scatter all their conclusions to the winds, when the whole system which is built upon them would collapse. ...
— Fashionable Philosophy - and Other Sketches • Laurence Oliphant
... arose late the next morning. The fatigues and excitements of the evening and the preparation for it were followed by a natural collapse, of which somnolence was a leading symptom. The sun shone into the window at a pretty well opened angle when the Colonel first found himself sufficiently awake to address his yet ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 31, May, 1860 • Various
... larger works that precede "The Tradespeople"—the novels "Foma Gordeyev" and "Three Men." But Gorki's new conception of life is less clearly and broadly formulated in these than in Nil, and other subsequent characters. These people rather collapse from the superabundance of their vigour and the ...
— Maxim Gorki • Hans Ostwald
... no longer existed, having evidently been consumed in the conflagration that followed the collapse of the flaming roof, and now only the charred and blackened remnants of the door and window frames remained; beyond them appeared a small heap of white ashes, among which could be detected here and there a few fragments of what had once been ...
— Through Veld and Forest - An African Story • Harry Collingwood
... gravely ill. There was organic disease, and there was what is vaguely called nervous breakdown; it was too clear that Mr. Newthorpe must count upon very moderate activity either of mind or body henceforth. He himself was not quite unprepared for this collapse; he accepted it with genial pessimism. Fate had said that his life was to result in nothing—nothing, that is, from the point of view of his early aspirations. Yet there was Annabel, and in her the memory of his life's passion. As he lay in silence through the days ...
— Thyrza • George Gissing
... stop must be put to all this. It would get about, into the papers even, by horrid possibility; even now a few intimates of the McNaughton family had been warned "not to kill the Governor's wife." He would surely tell the girl the next time he could find her alone, and then the absurdity would collapse. But the words would not come, or if he carefully framed them beforehand, this bold, aggressive leader of men, whose nickname was "Jack the Giant-killer," made a giant of Lindsay's displeasure, and was afraid of it. He ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews
... the immense simplicity of that Norman nave, with its huge crumpled arches crushed into curving waves by the long-ago collapse of the foundations and the strain of centuries on the masonry. It was a startling contrast to go from the Norman part into the choir, all a mass of carving and decoration, with its vast east window of jewel-like thirteenth-century glass, which Mr. Somerled pronounced finer even than the windows of ...
— The Heather-Moon • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... the most surprising features of the general election in Ireland is the complete collapse of the Liberal party. Not a single Liberal has returned for any constituency. Saturday's dispatches announced the defeat of Mr. Thomas Lea in West Donegal, and Mr. William Findlater in South Londonderry. That settles it. The ...
— Donahoe's Magazine, Volume 15, No. 1, January 1886 • Various
... rightly or wrongly, that some mediaeval custom, which they considered as their sacred privilege, had not been observed. During the last years of the Spanish regime, frequent riots broke out in Brussels because, after the accidental collapse of a tower containing old documents, the people had been able to read again the Grand Privilege of Mary of Burgundy, granted two centuries before. They had reprints made of it under the name Luyster van Brabant (Ornament of Brabant) and wanted to persuade Maximilian ...
— Belgium - From the Roman Invasion to the Present Day • Emile Cammaerts
... stop to the river trade of London. Their demands were more extensive than those of the Spithead Mutineers, but government firmly refused further concessions, and in June the want of union and resolution among the men brought about the collapse of the mutiny. Ship after ship deserted the red flag, until the last vessel was steered into Sheerness harbour, and given up to the authorities. Several of the leaders were tried by court-martial and hanged ; the rest ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madame D'Arblay Volume 3 • Madame D'Arblay
... in the defense of this last frontier. Their gallant stand on the West Branch and their earnestly successful support of Fort Augusta, the last frontier outpost in central Pennsylvania, protected the interior, enabled the Continental Congress "to function in safety at a period when its collapse would have meant total disaster to the American cause," and provided a vivid demonstration of what a later president of the United States would call "that last ...
— The Fair Play Settlers of the West Branch Valley, 1769-1784 - A Study of Frontier Ethnography • George D. Wolf
... With the collapse of the remaining section of barn wall the danger from sparks was past, and, emptying one final bucket, Mr. Brady, followed by a very wet, very tired and very warm Don, crept back through the skylight and joined ...
— Left Guard Gilbert • Ralph Henry Barbour
... 8, as early as the first hours of daylight, Mocha appeared before us: a town now in ruins, whose walls would collapse at the mere sound of a cannon, and which shelters a few leafy date trees here and there. This once-important city used to contain six public marketplaces plus twenty-six mosques, and its walls, protected ...
— 20000 Leagues Under the Seas • Jules Verne
... deck I was met by a steward who ministered to me until such a time as I was able to leave the rail and with his help to drag my exhausted frame to the privacy of my stateroom where I remained in a state of semi-collapse, and quite supine, for the greater part of the ...
— Fibble, D. D. • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... of the pitiful collapse of old Stoneman under his stroke of paralysis, his children still saw the unconquered soul shining in his colourless eyes. They had both been on the point of confessing their love affairs to him and joining in the inevitable struggle when ...
— The Clansman - An Historical Romance of the Ku Klux Klan • Thomas Dixon
... the attempt to build up a scheme of morals, without Christian grace to give the spiritual power to resist the evil forces which will try to frustrate the effort, can at best only bring about a superficial improvement, liable at any time to collapse. However, these indications of an improved type of schoolboy give hope for an improved type of man, which may mean much for the future ...
— India and the Indians • Edward F. Elwin
... hats mingling with the felts and caps of lower strata. Here and there a voice could be heard raised in anger, but the prevailing emotion seemed to be mere curiosity. The people who would suffer most from the collapse of this high-sounding enterprise could not reach the scene of calamity at half an hour's notice; they were dwellers in many parts of the British Isles, strangers most of them to London city, with but a vague mental picture of the local habitation of the Britannia Loan, Assurance, ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing
... England, above all others, was instrumental in preserving that precarious Balance, and England now must confess the utter failure of her policy there throughout a century. It is humiliating to acknowledge the complete collapse of that which for so many decades has been the keystone of our ruling with regard to our Eastern Empire, but the arch has collapsed; Germany pulled the keystone out, and all our efforts to exclude Russia from free access to the Mediterranean have only ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson
... collapse of all the enthusiasm. The questioner's earnestness chills at the touch of the test. What has become of the eagerness which brought him running to Jesus, and of the willingness to do any hard task ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... employment. What would these populations do in any case of national crisis—say in a case of serious war or famine or huge bankruptcy of trade or multitudinous invasion by Chinese or Japanese, or of total collapse of credit and industry? With a few brilliant exceptions they would collapse too. They could not feed themselves, clothe themselves, or defend themselves; they could not build shelters from the storm, or make tools or weapons of any kind for their own ...
— The Healing of Nations and the Hidden Sources of Their Strife • Edward Carpenter
... gleam rewarded him; no movement of limb or feature. Only the lids fell again; and Desmond knew that this was no fainting fit, but collapse from ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... out by the fatigue of having spoken these words, he seemed to collapse and sink down into the litter, which was saturated now with his blood. A moment later he began to pant for breath. Amedee knelt by his side, and tears fell upon his hands, while between the dying man's gasps he could hear in the distance, upon the battlefield, the uninterrupted rumbling ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... essence is not its existence. Therefore, as Augustine says (Gen. ad lit. iv, 12): "If the ruling power of God were withdrawn from His creatures, their nature would at once cease, and all nature would collapse." In the same work (Gen. ad lit. viii, 12) he says: "As the air becomes light by the presence of the sun, so is man enlightened by the presence of God, and in His absence returns at ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I (Prima Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... balls. Our very shops and counting-houses must resemble the palaces of the Venetian nobility, and our dwellings be more royally arrayed than the dwellings of the mightiest monarchs. When the time comes—as come it will—for paying for all this glorious frippery, we collapse, we wither, we fleet, we sink into the sand.—A third Diogenes, of a more practical turn of mind, vociferates, that the whole thing comes from the want of a high protective tariff. These subtle and malignant foreigners, who are so jealous of our progress, who are ever ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... unexpectedness. Sourdough mechanically regained his footing, and then with low-hung head, inward-curling tail, and crouching shoulders he slunk away at the heel of his bitterly disappointed master. The collapse of this old invincible within a few seconds was a rather horrid sight and a ...
— Jan - A Dog and a Romance • A. J. Dawson
... night before the Allied fleet withdrew he was lying beside a short, thickset and dark-haired Associated Press reporter with a German name and tortoise-shell eyeglass and was telling that same reporter that unless REINFORCEMENTS arrived AT ONCE the defenses would collapse!... The next day he was at Headquarters informing the General in command that BUT FOR HIM the Turkish forces would have surrendered!... He is NOW wearing a number of decorations for his military skill and bravery.... Such are ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... the captain's movements. As he paced the bridge, backwards and forwards, he halted each time just for a moment when he came to where John had propped his back against the binnacle and tilted his stool at an angle that threatened collapse. Syd and I sat quite apart, and left them alone to their semi-private conversation. We noticed, however, that the captain appeared to be uneasy about the vessel's course and progress; he glanced more than once at the compass-card, and several times, in his perambulations, he lingered ...
— Adventures in Many Lands • Various
... warning Mr. Tarbill seemed to collapse. However, with Bob's help he donned one of the cork jackets, and the boy did likewise. Captain Spark would not allow them on deck, but promised to give them timely warning if the ...
— Bob the Castaway • Frank V. Webster
... the financial world. If the reform party cannot borrow money the movement will collapse. At any rate that is what the Manchus believe, and they will strain every nerve ...
— Number Seventeen • Louis Tracy
... a collection of miscellaneous nails and screws out to a bare patch of earth in front of the chicken-yard. They were the Nail People, the most reckless band of mercenaries the world has ever known, led by old General Door-Hinge, who was somewhat inclined to collapse in the middle, but possessed of the unusual virtue of eyes in both ends of him. He had explored the deepest canyons of the woodshed, and victoriously led his ten-penny warriors against the sumacs in the vacant lot beyond Irving ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... has been modified again and again since that, and the tariff existing when South Carolina seceded in 1860 had been carried by votes from South Carolina. The absurd Morrill tariff could not have caused secession, for it was passed, without a struggle, in the collapse ...
— Volume 2 • Anthony Trollope
... of a whipped child, of a poor creature terrified and in despair, and expressed not anger but entire collapse. She was so wan, so sad-looking, that neither Lissac nor Vaudrey dared speak. A chill silence fell upon these ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie
... her eyes to the ceiling. Whether she expected our old friend "the recording angel" to take down the questions and answers that had just passed, or whether she was only waiting to see the hotel that held her daughter collapse under a sense of moral responsibility, it is not possible to decide. After an awful pause, the old lady remembered that she had something ...
— The Evil Genius • Wilkie Collins
... bedside, and she was enabled, as much perhaps by the necessity incumbent upon her of attending to the wretched woman as by her own superior strength of character, to save herself from that prostration and collapse of power which a great and sudden blow is apt to produce. She stared at the woman who first conveyed to her tidings of the tragedy, and then for a moment seated herself at the bedside. But the violent sobbings and hysterical screams of Madame Melmotte soon brought her again to her ...
— The Way We Live Now • Anthony Trollope
... daily bidding (pounds)167 for spot, while we were selling futures far below that figure. They did not know that at four o'clock London time, when the official market closed on the thirtieth day of April, the syndicate would cease buying and that a collapse would then be inevitable. It was not our business to enlighten them, and strange to relate, not one man asked us our opinion of the market. They bought of us day after day and apparently believed that when the time for delivery came we would be unable to make it and would ...
— The Romance and Tragedy • William Ingraham Russell
... the ebb came, and men began to count their losses, there were but few to record. The embankment at the south end of the village had been beaten flat, and the road behind it buried under a silt of shingle; the nearest houses to it had been flooded and threatened with collapse, so that the owners were offering them next day on easy terms; from our hospital, which stood in this quarter, the one patient and his nurse were rescued on the backs of waders; the foundations of a chapel, which was building on lower ground, were reported sapped, and a ...
— Uppingham by the Sea - a Narrative of the Year at Borth • John Henry Skrine
... conditions existing in other lands, is closely allied also to the unusual staying powers of the race, to the persistence of purpose, the endurance, and the vitality characteristic of its units. To ambition for individual material improvement they are not insensible. The collapse of the Chinese organization in all its branches during the late war with Japan, though greater than was expected, was not unforeseen. It has not altered the fact that the raw material so miserably utilized is, in point of strength, of the best; that it is abundant, racially homogeneous, ...
— The Interest of America in Sea Power, Present and Future • A. T. Mahan |
