"Downfall" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... she passed: Persia came next, the silvern breast: whereto Joined brazen flank and belly—these are you, Ye men of Macedon! Now Rome's the last. Rome on two iron legs towered tall and vast; But at her feet were toes of clay, that drew Downfall: those scattered tribes erewhile she knew For lords; now 'neath her fatal sway they're cast. Ah thirsty soil! From your parched fallow fumes A smoke of pride, vain-glory, cruelty, That blinds, infects, and blackens, and ...
— Sonnets • Michael Angelo Buonarroti & Tommaso Campanella
... gave in and spoke in English, whispering it. 'Let me go, Jack, let me go.' There was the crowd about us. It was evident that Harry had some reason for secrecy; it might have been shame, for all I knew, shame at his downfall. I said, 'Come up to my quarters in Halfa as soon as you are free,' and I let him go. All that night I waited for him on the verandah, but he did not come. In the morning I had to start across the desert. I almost spoke of him to a friend who came ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... bear. But he is "true to himself" in the best meaning of that saying, rising above those who would pull him down, and, in the end, not only succeeds in making a place for himself in the world, but also scores a worthy triumph over those who had caused his parents' downfall. ...
— True to Himself • Edward Stratemeyer
... set up in 181 B.C. to guard the north-east gate of Italy, and was reinforced in 169. Its remains, so far as excavated, show a rectangular plan of oblong 'insulae'—some of 1-1/2 acres (74 by 94 yards), some larger—while, till its downfall, about A.D. 450, we hear no word of refoundation or wholesale rebuilding. But if its original area be the space of 70 acres which is usually assigned, that is not rectangular but a square somewhat askew, ...
— Ancient Town-Planning • F. Haverfield
... as the Greeks might, for a price.... And Napoleon, that solemn comedian, was making ready his expedition to Mexico, with fine words and a tradesman's cunning.... And the drums of Ulster roared for Garibaldi, rejoicing in the downfall of the harlot on seven hills, as Ulster pleasantly considered the papal states, while Victor Emmanuel, sly Latin that he was, thought little of liberty and much ...
— The Wind Bloweth • Brian Oswald Donn-Byrne
... said nothing in answer to this. Their faces, which had become impassive, seemed made of wax behind their long whiskers. Then, the Prussian officer began to laugh. And still, lolling back, he began to sneer. He sneered at the downfall of France, insulted the prostrate enemy; he sneered at Austria which had been recently conquered; he sneered at the furious but fruitless defense of the departments; he sneered at the Garde Mobile and at the useless artillery. He announced ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume VIII. • Guy de Maupassant
... reward of your villainy." And with that running him through and through, the monster sent forth a hideous groan, and yielded up his life, while the noble knight and virtuous lady were joyful spectators of his sudden downfall and their ...
— Children's Rhymes, Children's Games, Children's Songs, Children's Stories - A Book for Bairns and Big Folk • Robert Ford
... rejection of Frank, but since then much had happened. Bertha had shown that she would not marry for position only, and that she would be likely to take her own way entirely in the matter; and, although this was a downfall to the hopes that she had once entertained, Lady Greendale was herself very fond of Frank, and it was at any rate better than having Bertha marry a man of whose real means she was ignorant, and who, as everyone knew, bet heavily on the turf. These ideas flashed rapidly ...
— The Queen's Cup • G. A. Henty
... He tried Boerhave's Holland Bitters and the Retired Physician's Sands of Life, and got well. He then married the lovely Countess D'Smith, and lived to a green old age, being the triumph of virtue and downfall of vice. ...
— The Complete Works of Artemus Ward, Part 3 • Charles Farrar Browne
... surface of the great tragedy of human life. Hamlet, Lear, Macbeth, Faust, and Wilhelm Meister, Beatrice Cenci, the sad, sad story of Guinevere, and the awful shadows of the Ring and the Book—how luridly realistic are all these studies of the downfall of souls and the desolation of character! If they had expressed all there is of life it would be only a long, repulsive tragedy; but happily there is another side. To that brighter phase of the growth of the soul we turn ...
— The Ascent of the Soul • Amory H. Bradford
... cold Texas rain had begun to fall—an endless, lazy, unintermittent downfall that lowered the spirits of men and raised a reluctant steam from the warm stones of the streets and houses. Thus comes the "norther" dousing gentle spring and amiable autumn with the chilling salutes and adieux of coming ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry
... the politician's disillusions. Its physiognomy suggests the evolution of good and evil, battle and victory; the moral combat of '89, the clarion calls of which still re-echo in every corner of the world; and also the downfall of 1814. Thus this city can no more be moral, or cordial, or clean, than the engines which impel those proud leviathans which you admire when they cleave the waves! Is not Paris a sublime vessel laden with intelligence? Yes, her ...
— The Girl with the Golden Eyes • Honore de Balzac
... who are out of town in winter," cried Janey, with a laugh which echoed along the street. Ursula had not come home from London to be laughed at by her younger sister, she who had been petted by the Dorsets, and whose opinion even Sir Robert had asked on various occasions. She felt this downfall all the more deeply that she had been looking forward to so many long talks with Janey, and expected to live all her brief ten days' holiday over again, and to instruct her young sister's mind by the many ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... a man checks all a woman's finer sentiments towards him by marrying her, it is only natural that it should find a vent somewhere. However, she probably does not know of my downfall since father's death. I hardly think she would have cared to do it had she known that. (I am assuming that it is Ethelberta—Mrs. Petherwin—who sends it: of course I am not sure.) We must remember that when I knew her I was a gentleman at ease, who had not the least notion ...
— The Hand of Ethelberta • Thomas Hardy
... character, to leave behind it a file of heroes; if not heroes, then villains, but in any case strong men. On the 9th of April, 1861, three days before Fort Sumter was bombarded, he had spoken with equanimity of "the downfall of our character-destroying civilization.... We find that civilization crowed too soon, that our triumphs were treacheries; we had opened the wrong door and let the enemy into ...
— Emerson and Other Essays • John Jay Chapman
... the city and, selling what they had cut, spent the monies on their families. This they did on the next day and the third and ceased not for some time, till it chanced one day, a violent storm of rain broke over them, and they took refuge in a great cave till the downfall should pass away. Now Hasib Karim al-Din went apart from the rest into a corner of the cavern and sitting down, fell to smiting the floor with his axe. Presently he noted that the ground sounded hollow under the hatchet; so he dug ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 5 • Richard F. Burton
... hat-box! Its glory is departed, but I vow that a greater glory awaits it. Bleak, bare and prosaic it is now, but—ten years hence! Its career, like that of the Imperial statesman in the moment of his downfall, 'is only ...
— Yet Again • Max Beerbohm
... time when men like Ferdinand Foch (whose whole heart was in the army, making it such that nothing like the downfall of 1870 could ever again happen to France), were laboring under extreme difficulties. The ...
— Foch the Man - A Life of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armies • Clara E. Laughlin
... your faithful servants were shamefully slandered and calumniated in these letters. Your highness even was not spared, and the young gentleman expressly wrote that he would do all he possibly could to effect the downfall of the Elector Frederick William. Of the States, he said that they were almost all friends of the Swedes and foes of the Emperor, and, above all, he represented me, Conrad von Burgsdorf, as a bitter enemy to the Emperor, and said that on that account all orders ...
— The Youth of the Great Elector • L. Muhlbach
... culture of women, in the light and the open air, will doubtless solve many matters which now are dark to us. Morgan supposed that it was in some measure the failure of the Greeks and Romans to develop their womanhood which brought the speedy downfall of classic civilization. The women of the future will help to renew art and science as well as life. They will do more even than this, for the destiny of the race rests with women. "I have sometimes thought," Whitman wrote in his Democratic Vistas, "that the sole avenue and means to a reconstructed ...
— The Task of Social Hygiene • Havelock Ellis
... Congress a shallow mockery, and the shadow only of a legislative body. Our nationality becomes a word, and nothing more. Our place among the nations becomes vacant, and the great Republic, our pride and the world's wonder, crumbles into fragments, and with its downfall perishes the hope of the oppressed of every clime. I wonder, Beverly, that you can coldly argue against the very life of your country, and not feel the parricide's remorse! Have you no lingering affection for ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood
... our encampment," says Colonel Collins, "was at the head of the cove near the run of fresh water which stole silently along through a very thick wood, the stillness of which had then, for the first time since the creation, been interrupted by the rude sound of the labourer's axe, and the downfall of its ancient inhabitants; a stillness and tranquillity which from that day were to give place to the voice of labour, the confusion of camps, and the busy ...
— Narrative Of The Voyage Of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By The Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During The Years 1846-1850. Including Discoveries And Surveys In New Guinea, The Louisiade • John MacGillivray
... before and after, considered so essential to the glory of the Roman state, and which has immortalized so many heroes as the authors and projectors of that destruction, I believe no historian has told us that the disease, decay and downfall of Rome itself were occasioned by that measure, and must be dated from that epoch; and that the actions of Regulus and Scipio, the themes of universal applause, were really more injurious to their country than those of ...
— The Columbiad • Joel Barlow
... The campaign was virtually over when Napoleon secured his retreat by the victory of Hanau on October 30; but it is impossible to sever it from the events outside Germany which were directly occasioned by the downfall of Napoleon's German domination. These are the revolt of Holland in November, that of Switzerland in December, and the Austrian attack on Northern Italy ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... Vincennes, they were not permitted to set foot out of the palace. This misunderstanding was so far from being mitigated by time, that the mistrust and discontent were continually increasing, owing to the insinuations and bad advice offered to the King by those who wished the ruin and downfall of our house. To such a height had these jealousies risen that the Marechaux de Montmorency and de Cosse were put under a close arrest, and La Mole and the Comte de Donas executed. Matters were now arrived at such a pitch that commissioners were appointed from the Court of ...
— Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois, Complete • Marguerite de Valois, Queen of Navarre
... up, staring. "Gentlemen of the jury," he said, "I stand before you a ruined man. Drink has been my downfall, as the dear old judge remarked. I did kill Wilfred Morgan, and I plead the unwritten law." He saluted stiffly, collapsed on to his pillow, and fell instantly ...
— The Keepers of the King's Peace • Edgar Wallace
... time played an important part in securing legislation to better the condition of the workingman and to secure education for his children. In continental Europe, the reactionary governments following the downfall of Napoleon forbade assemblies of workingmen or their organization, as dangerous to government. In consequence, labor organizations in France were not permitted until 1848, and in Germany and Austria not until after the middle of the ...
— THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION • ELLWOOD P. CUBBERLEY
... Reverend Poltimore, "has been the salvation of Art, just as the lack of it is proving the downfall of religion. My colleagues of the cloth go about zealously proclaiming the fact that Christianity, in some form or other, is attracting shoals of converts among all sorts of races and tribes, that one had scarcely ever ...
— The Unbearable Bassington • Saki
... find one of the most potent agents in effecting the downfall of the nations. Licentiousness sapped their vitality and weakened their prowess. The men who conquered the world were led captive by their own beastly passions. Thus the Assyrians, the Medes, the Grecians, the ...
— Plain Facts for Old and Young • John Harvey Kellogg
... hue, one eye was almost entirely closed, and to a superficial observer she perhaps did look—what Madame always pronounced her—sulky. Then, no matter how fully any lesson was at her fingers' ends, she stumbled through a series of childish blunders to utter downfall; and Madame's wrath was only equalled by her irony. To do Matilda justice, she often used almost incredible courage in her efforts to learn a task in spite of herself. Now and then she was successful in defying pain; but by some odd ...
— Six to Sixteen - A Story for Girls • Juliana Horatia Ewing
... do? We have nothing to give: we did not throw the god out, etcetera, etcetera."'" Mr Male adds, "The remarks of the Brahman were very true, for the people did not do anything to reinstate the idol. I spoke to them several times about the downfall of their god, but they made very light of the matter. However, after the idol had been thus degraded for many weeks, some villagers, out of pity to the poor old priest, promised that they would reinstate the ...
— Old Daniel • Thomas Hodson
... would have discouraged his coming again. He couldn't have been drinking to any extent since enlistment or he could not be where she said he was, and knew he was, on daily duty as clerk in the office of the adjutant at the barracks. So far from its indicating downfall, degradation, it was the one ray of hope of better days. She looked at him, joy and incredulity mingling in her swimming eyes. "Then why does everybody I've consulted, even our rector, urge me to leave no stone unturned to get him out of it, even if we have to buy him a place at West Point?" was ...
— Under Fire • Charles King
... thousands of pounds! Why, great Heavens! if she used her recent windfall to pay her debts, she would have nothing left worth mentioning. And Bullard was going to give her a hundred thousand—if—if ... Oh, but he must not fail! It was her final chance, her final hope, of averting downfall into sordid obscurity. ...
— Till the Clock Stops • John Joy Bell
... were admitted, their sole hope of redress lay in a change of government, and added the dead weight of their resentment to the forces making for revolution. It was the union of the agrarian with the nationalist movements that made the downfall ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 3, Part 1, Slice 1 - "Austria, Lower" to "Bacon" • Various
... the vulgarity, ignorance, cowardice, foolishness, that became "feminine" in the estimation of a later age; that is, in the character of women succeeding her, and in the estimation of men succeeding her lord. The noble graces of Lucy Hutchinson, I say, may well make us marvel at the downfall following—at Goldsmith's invention of the women of "The Vicar or Wakefield" in one age, and at Thackeray's invention of the women ...
— Essays • Alice Meynell
... said the other. "But this monarchy fell, and every day we compose beautiful dissertations in order to find the cause of its decadence and downfall." ...
— Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary • Voltaire
... upon the downfall of those cities of the nations, that great Babylon came into remembrance before God, to give unto her the cup of the wine of the fierceness of his wrath. Now then, strike at great Babylon. Great Babylon! What is that? Why, I take it to be the mother, the metropolitan, the great ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... covered with morsels of bride's cake was flung from a window of the second story upon the heads of the crowd congregated in the street below; and the divination, I was told, consists in observing the fate which attends its downfall. If it reach the ground in safety, without being broken, the omen is a most unfavourable one. If on the other hand, the plate be shattered to pieces (and the more the better), the auspices are ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 188, June 4, 1853 • Various
... of the coming spring. Even the spire of a church helped her, although it could only point a very little way up into the far heaven. She stood quite still, wrestling silently with that fierce temptation to rejoice over her enemy's downfall. ...
— A Vanished Hand • Sarah Doudney
... break into a house? I am sorry that the world should be so much imposed upon by the dreams of a false prophet, as to imagine the Millennium is at hand. O Grub Street! thou fruitful nursery of towering geniuses! How do I lament thy downfall? Thy ruin could never be meditated by any who meant well to English liberty. No modern lyceum will ever equal thy glory: whether in soft pastorals thou didst sing the flames of pampered apprentices and coy cook-maids; or mournful ditties of departing lovers; or if ...
— English Satires • Various
... footing then established. This, however, was probably an exaggeration, for the royal account books showed a less formidable sum, although a sufficiently large one to appal a less obstinate bigot than Philip. But what to him were the, ruin of the Netherlands; the impoverishment of Spain, and the downfall of her ancient grandeur compared to the glory of establishing the ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... boys in the Illinois State Reformatory, 4000 used tobacco, and over 3000 were cigarette smokers. Dr. Hutchison, of the Kansas State Reformatory, says: "Using cigarettes is the cause of the downfall of more of the inmates of this institution than all ...
— Physiology and Hygiene for Secondary Schools • Francis M. Walters, A.M.
... against him as a fugitive from justice. Then followed those dreadful attendant penalties; confiscation of his estate and the terrible 'attainder and corruption of blood.' His only son was in America at the time, and, disgraced and with prospects blighted by the news of his father's downfall, he resolved never to return. Twelve years ago this son's youngest daughter, my beloved mother, died, leaving me with little else than barely means enough to finish my education, and a ...
— The Bay State Monthly, Volume 3, No. 4 • Various
... speak. That is why the archbishop has dismissed the cabinet. While he could speak, his Majesty refused to listen to the downfall of his enemies. Why? Look to heaven; heaven only can answer. How many men of the native troops are quartered in these buildings? Not one—which is bad. Formerly they were in the majority. Extraordinary. ...
— The Puppet Crown • Harold MacGrath
... repairing a fine edifice which time had damaged. Henceforth, the most that will be done will be to see after repairing a few of its cracks. I no longer indulge in hopes of its restoration; I cannot but apprehend its downfall sooner or later." "O, what news I hear!" writes Voltaire to D'Alembert; "France would have been too fortunate. What will become of us? I am quite upset. I see nothing but death for me to look forward to, now that M. Turgot ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... the means of subsistence, hindered them from continuing the species. Barbarism sprang up again, in a hideous form, from this mass of corruption, and spread like a devouring leprosy over the depopulated provinces. The wise foresaw the downfall of the empire, but could devise no remedy. What could they think indeed? To save this old society it would have been necessary to change the objects of public esteem and veneration, and to abolish the rights ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... glasses, and the other paraphernalia of the table suffered considerable diminution in the descent of these modern Ciceros, and a variety of speakers arising upon their downfall, created so much confusion, that our Heroes, fearing it would be some time before harmony could be restored, took up their ...
— Real Life In London, Volumes I. and II. • Pierce Egan
... say: God hoards punishment for the children. Let him rather requite the wicked himself that he may feel it! His own eyes should behold his downfall, And he himself should drain the Almighty's wrath. If his sons are honoured, he will not know it; And if dishonoured, he will not perceive it. Only in his own flesh doth he feel pain, And for his own soul ...
— The Sceptics of the Old Testament: Job - Koheleth - Agur • Emile Joseph Dillon
... Nothing could be more natural, for instance, than the buttoning up of his pocket over his uncle's gift. But neither that, nor the other strong point, where he exulted in the finest tragedy tones over the anticipated downfall of Fate and Rodicaso, produced the slightest sensation among his hearers. Matthew Maltboy paid the penalty of his intimate relations with Overtop, by an equal unpopularity. His fine rendition of the character ...
— Round the Block • John Bell Bouton
... the policy of Thorough. We have adopted the selfsame principle. Nobody and nothing must stand in the way of our ends. We stand up for humanity in the mass. Bourgeois society is bound to go under. And to hasten its downfall any one of our members is proud to offer himself as a sufferer, or as even a martyr to death, for the Cause. We aim at producing a state of society in which men may live together in harmony without laws. You ...
— The Recipe for Diamonds • Charles John Cutcliffe Wright Hyne
... disaster than they turned to fly: the rout was as fatal as it was sudden. The Christian reserve, just brought into the field, poured down upon them with a simultaneous charge. Boabdil, too much engaged to be the first to learn the downfall of the sacred insignia, suddenly saw himself almost alone, with his diminished Ethiopians and ...
— Leila, Complete - The Siege of Granada • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... did not dare to accept so bold a proposition; the general council, composing the more popular branch of the municipal government, were comparatively inclined to favor Nassau, and many of its members voted for the downfall of the tyrant. Nevertheless the demands of Count Louis were rejected. His position thus became critical. The civic authorities refused to, pay for his troops, who were, moreover, too few, in number to resist the inevitable siege. The patriotism of the citizens was not ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... out by Louis XIV. The grandson of this Jacques is the present Gustav Toutant Beauregard. At the early age of eleven years he was taken to New York and placed under a private tutor, an exile from France, and who had fled the Empire on the downfall of Napoleon. At sixteen he entered West Point as a cadet, and graduated July 1st, 1838, being second in a class of forty-five. He entered the service of the United States as Second Lieutenant of Engineers. He served with distinction through the Mexican ...
— History of Kershaw's Brigade • D. Augustus Dickert
... she seeketh the destruction of her enemies!' Then spake the dove, saying: 'Yea, O hated king who sheddeth the blood of the innocent and exalteth the guilty. The sacrifice of victims to the fetish shall not avail thee, for I, Naya of Mo, tell thee that thy downfall is at hand, and thine enemies the English will press their way from the great sea, bridge the Prah, and cut a road across the great forest to this thy capital, where thou shalt make abject submission to their head-man and shall be carried into degrading captivity ...
— The Great White Queen - A Tale of Treasure and Treason • William Le Queux
... measure he believes so vitally necessary to the Nation. It is a pity that for Americans his greatness is tarnished and belief in the infallibility of his judgment shaken, by the memory that he upheld the attack upon our National life in 1860; and that he, seemingly without regret, prophesied our downfall. ...
— The Evolution of an Empire • Mary Parmele
... possible, the clean chips would fly in all directions until the necessary notch was cut and the basal outgrowths, close to the ground around the sturdy column, were reduced, so that the cross-cut saw could complete its downfall with a mighty crash. There is always something sad about the felling of an ancient tree; one feels it is a venerable creature that has passed long years of unchallenged dominion on the spot occupied, and one can scarcely avoid an idea of its intelligence and its silent record ...
— Grain and Chaff from an English Manor • Arthur H. Savory
... of romance—goes almost uncensured. Malory's Arthur is by no means "the blameless king" of Tennyson, who makes of him a nineteenth-century ideal of royal knighthood, and finally an allegorical type of Soul at war with Sense. The downfall of the Round Table, that order of spiritual knight-errantry through which the king hopes to regenerate society, happens through the failure of his knights to rise to his own high level of character; in a degree, also, because the emprise is diverted from attainable practical ...
— A History of English Romanticism in the Nineteenth Century • Henry A. Beers
... humour's sake has brought about the downfall of every comic paper that has tried it. Punch has been saved from it by the wilful seriousness of some of its contributors. Every now and then, with something like "The Song of the Shirt" or, in another vein, a cartoon of Tenniel's, Punch has been brought back to Reality ...
— George Du Maurier, the Satirist of the Victorians • T. Martin Wood
... his bunk, Damase crept up softly behind him, and springing upon his shoulders, brought him sprawling to the floor. In an instant Frank was on his feet, and when the others saw his flashing and indignant countenance and noticed his tight-clinched fists, the roar of laughter that greeted his downfall was checked half way, and a sudden silence fell upon them. They all expected him to fly at his tormentor like a young tiger, and Damase evidently expected it too, for he stepped back a little, and his grinning face sobered as ...
— The Young Woodsman - Life in the Forests of Canada • J. McDonald Oxley
... blame Somers and Burnet as contemners of the legitimate authority of Sovereigns. Lochiel would undoubtedly have laughed the doctrine of nonresistance to scorn. But scarcely any chief in Invernessshire had gained more than he by the downfall of the House of Argyle, or had more reason than he to dread the restoration of that House. Scarcely any chief in Invernessshire, therefore, was more alarmed and disgusted by the proceedings of ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 3 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... This was his little kingdom; the Wild Geese had brought him here, as the Seagulls had brought Columbus to a new world—where he could lead, for brief spells, the woodland life that was his ideal. He was tender enough to weep over the downfall of a lot of fine Elm trees in town, when their field was sold for building purposes, and he used to suffer a sort of hungry regret when old settlers told how plentiful the Deer used to be. But now he had a relief from these sorrows, for surely there was one place where ...
— Two Little Savages • Ernest Thompson Seton
... his foot slipped upon the lead; and but for Somerset's quickness, he had been instantly precipitated into space. Pale as a sheet, and limp as a pocket-handkerchief, he was dragged from the edge of downfall by one arm; helped, or rather carried, down the ladder; and deposited in safety on the attic landing. Here he began to come to himself, wiped his brow, and at length, seizing Somerset's hand in both of his, began ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 5 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... death of Romulus there was darkness for six hours. In the history of the Caesars occur portents of all three kinds; for at the death of Julius the earth was shrouded in darkness, the birth of Augustus was heralded by a star, and the downfall of Nero by a comet. So, too, in one of the Christian legends clustering about the crucifixion, darkness overspread the earth from the sixth to the ninth hour. Neither the silence regarding it of the only evangelist who claims to have been ...
— History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom • Andrew Dickson White
... was called on with his companions to write a thesis on the downfall of Marius. Nothing more congenial to his convictions or more encouraging to the deep resolution growing in his heart could be selected. The picture he drew from the sad history of the conqueror of the Cimbri was long remembered among ...
— Alvira: the Heroine of Vesuvius • A. J. O'Reilly
... prejudice, and of his extreme cruelty. His conduct at the trial of Jesus was remarkably gentle and judicial in comparison with other acts recorded of his government; yet the fear of trial at Rome, which finally induced him to give Jesus over to be crucified, was thoroughly characteristic; in fact, his downfall resulted from a complaint lodged against him by certain Samaritans whom he had cruelly punished ...
— The Life of Jesus of Nazareth • Rush Rhees
... narrated to a contributor of the Australian Review of Reviews his recollections of Moonlight and his end: 'Among other horses he stole was a mare called Locket, with a white patch on her neck. We had all seen her. This was the horse that brought about his downfall, and he was actually killed on the Queensland border in the way I have described in Robbery under Arms. Before that, Moonlight had had some encounters with Sergeant Wallings (Goring); and this day, ...
— Australian Writers • Desmond Byrne
... former were very likely introduced by the Jews and Arabs, whose descendants form no inconsiderable part of the present population, but the Roman emperors must have gained a foothold in Caucasian traditional lore before the downfall of the Byzantine Empire, and may have done so as long ago as the reign of Augustus, when the lowlands of the ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 22, November, 1878 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... pupil of Smith's, Professor Richardson of the Humanity chair in Glasgow—a minor poet of considerable acceptance in his day—also speaks with lively gratitude, particularly of those "on the nature of those political institutions that succeeded the downfall of the Roman Empire, and which included an historical account of the rise and progress of the most conspicuous ...
— Life of Adam Smith • John Rae
... to be pitied than censured, She is more to be helped than despised. She is only a lassie who ventured On life's stormy path ill-advised. Do not scorn her with words fierce and bitter, Do not laugh at her shame and downfall, For a moment just stop to consider That a man was the cause ...
— The Magnificent Montez - From Courtesan to Convert • Horace Wyndham
... willing! I think a good downfall plump would be the most wholesome thing that could happen to her; and besides, I never told her to take the man for her almoner and counsellor! I may have pointed to the gulf, but I never bade Curtia leap ...
— The Clever Woman of the Family • Charlotte M. Yonge
... lease of life wouldn't be long, and that it was bad work my hands had left after them; to be committing sins since I was a child, swearing big oaths and blaspheming. I never think to go to Mass. Confession at Christmas I wouldn't ask to go to. I would laugh at my neighbour's downfall, and I'd make nothing of breaking the Ten Commandments. Gambling and drinking and all sorts of pleasures that would come across me, I'd ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... becoming mutinous at being thus kept, for months, away from their country, and receiving no pay. That feeling will grow rapidly, unless their demands are conceded. As to Ghatgay, the soldiers hold him in abhorrence, and his arrest and downfall would cause the most lively satisfaction among them. Your men are soldiers and not assassins, and the tortures and executions that daily take place fill them with horror; so that your order for his arrest will ...
— At the Point of the Bayonet - A Tale of the Mahratta War • G. A. Henty
... and the heartbreaks of mothers, wives and children. This, the greatest tragedy the world has ever seen, will call for a fearful atonement. I foresee, in this war, with its daily expense of three million pounds, and the additional waste, a general bankruptcy of the world, the downfall of classes, of wealth, the wrecking of privilege. I foresee, when peace is declared, the fruitless return of millions of men to jobs that have vanished, and to employers shorn of all power to employ ...
— The Sequel - What the Great War will mean to Australia • George A. Taylor
... my hopes! for you do but augment The burning accents of my deep despair; Disdain and scorn your downfall do consent; Tell to the world she is unkind yet fair! O eyes, close up those ever-running fountains, For pitiless are all the tears you shed Wherewith you watered have both dales and mountains! I see, I see, remorse from her is fled. Pack hence, ye sighs, into the empty air, Into the air that none ...
— Elizabethan Sonnet Cycles - Idea, by Michael Drayton; Fidessa, by Bartholomew Griffin; Chloris, by William Smith • Michael Drayton, Bartholomew Griffin, and William Smith
... History part includes the books from Genesis to Esther, and relates the progress of the people of God from its separation as a family and its growth to be an important nation, to the downfall of its independence, and its partial recovery. The writers were a succession of prophets, who continually point to the hand of God in the events ...
— The Prayer Book Explained • Percival Jackson
... my downfall, scheming every step and covering his trail, so did I plan to bring about his death that no suspicion should ...
— The Clue of the Twisted Candle • Edgar Wallace
... person for whose coming all these plans had been made, had not yet arrived. There was no telling, however, how long the respite might last. At any moment might commence this conference, whose avowed purpose was to break at a single blow, a single treacherous but deadly blow, the Empire whose downfall Selingman had once publicly declared was the one great necessity ...
— Mr. Grex of Monte Carlo • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... a possibly meager and somewhat puritanical nature; that Dwight's heart was a well-trained organ which would never commit an indiscretion, and that young Gathbroke would have sold the world for her if she had been a flower girl, or the downfall of her fortunes had sent her clerking, she was far too inexperienced to guess; and it is doubtful if the knowledge would have affected her had she possessed it. She was in the obstinate phase of first youth, common enough in girls of her sheltered class, where ...
— The Sisters-In-Law • Gertrude Atherton
... causes of the downfall of the Maccabean state, dynastic quarrels, are well known. Much less light has been thrown upon the inner, deeper-lying causes of the catastrophe. These are possibly to be sought in the priestly-political dualism of ...
— Jewish History • S. M. Dubnow
... 2: This vainglory which preceded man's downfall, was his first mortal sin, for it is stated to have preceded his downfall into the outward act of sin. This vainglory was followed, in the man, by the desire to make and experiment, and in the woman, by doubt, for she gave way to vainglory, merely through hearing the serpent mention the precept, ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... hearer. Waymark had often busied himself with inventing all manner of excuses for her, had exerted his imagination to the utmost to hit upon some most irresistible climax of dolorous circumstances to account for her downfall. He had yet to realise that circumstances are as relative in their importance as everything else in this world, and that ofttimes the greatest tragedies revolve on apparently the most insignificant outward events—personality ...
— The Unclassed • George Gissing
... hopes meet with no downfall," said Gaston, walking away, and muttering to himself. "A plague upon it! To train two boys is more than I bargained for, and over and above to hinder this wiseacre Ashton from ruining himself, or being ruined by le Borgne Basque! ...
— The Lances of Lynwood • Charlotte M. Yonge
... The downfall of the house of cards took place a few months after George's return to its business. Not initiated to the mysteries of his father's transactions, ignorant of what had long been threatening, it was a terrible blow to him. ...
— The Elect Lady • George MacDonald
... but which was filled with colonization schemes and visions of an El Dorado to fill the eyes and ears of the credulous; and the History of the World, written to occupy his prison hours. The history is a wholly untrustworthy account of events from creation to the downfall of the Macedonian Empire. It is interesting chiefly for its style, which is simple and dignified, and for the flashes of wit and poetry that break into the fantastic combination of miracles, traditions, hearsay, and state records which he called history. In the ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... which should tell her to act. But for the staying of that man at the entrance, I have no doubt that by this time her men had been warned to fall on us. The gathering of the Welsh, and the open passage into the heart of the palace, might be seeming proof that we had planned the downfall of Offa, and so ...
— A King's Comrade - A Story of Old Hereford • Charles Whistler
... top of the column stood a colossal statue of Buonaparte; this, like the other statues of that modern Sejanus, has disappeared since the downfall of his empire, and the return of the ancient dynasty has caused to be placed on its summit the white flag, formerly so ...
— A tour through some parts of France, Switzerland, Savoy, Germany and Belgium • Richard Boyle Bernard
... had always attributed her lack of success to the fact that she had had no one to second her. It was strange that Elmer Moffatt, a shiftless out-cast from even the small world she despised, should give her, in the very moment of his downfall, the sense of being able to succeed where she had failed. It was a feeling she never had in his absence, but that his nearness always instantly revived; and he seemed nearer to her now than he had ever been. They wandered on to the edge of the vague park, and sat ...
— The Custom of the Country • Edith Wharton
... was at Nismes, and remained there some time; but even his influence was insufficient to bring about a reconciliation between the catholics and the protestants of that city. During the hundred days betwixt Napoleon's return from the Isle of Elba, and his final downfall, not a single life was lost in Nismes, not a single house was pillaged; only four of the most notorious disturbers of the peace were punished, or rather prevented from doing mischief, and even this was not an act of the protestant but the arrete of the catholic prefect, announced every where with ...
— Fox's Book of Martyrs - Or A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant - Deaths of the Primitive Protestant Martyrs • John Fox
... puritanical dread of impropriety, is worn to a shadow. It rests with you whether this state of things is to continue or not. You and, so far as I can see at present, you alone, are in a position to arrange for the downfall of Simpkins. Is it or is it not your duty, your simple duty, to do what you can, even at the cost of some little ...
— The Simpkins Plot • George A. Birmingham
... and most of my relations and friends have cut me for the last ten years because I got into trouble over a few accounts at the bank—and considering the sorry figure I cut now in consequence—I don't know why you should be so careless of the possibility of partaking my downfall! I should say that it would be rather worse for you than it has been for me; and it hasn't been very nice for me, I can ...
— Brooke's Daughter - A Novel • Adeline Sergeant
... of such common peril was well calculated to arouse the inherent religious fanaticism and fear of these primitive peoples. Let us review the principal points of the creed. The ancient deities had abandoned the world in disgust and decreed its downfall. The great Magbabya of Libagnon had gone down to the pillars of the world and was prepared to shake the earth to its very foundations until it toppled over. He and the spirits with whom he communicated were powerful deities, able and disposed to ...
— The Manbos of Mindano - Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences, Volume XXIII, First Memoir • John M. Garvan
... would assist him to return to his diocese. I asked a member of another Balkan nationality whether he knew this ancient cleric of the extremely venerable aspect, and whether he knew what kind of political and religious propaganda had brought about his downfall. "I know all about that old ruffian," he replied. "He stole over fifty pigs and one hundred sheep, and about twenty-five cows and 200 lb. of fat." Anyhow, if his lordship had heard that these accusations had been repeated in many places, he would have been far less indignant than if ...
— The Birth of Yugoslavia, Volume 1 • Henry Baerlein
... as you said you would. No matter—I know the news, and I write to tell you so. Did you see anything particular in my face when you left me? I was wondering, in my own mind, whether the day of his downfall had come at last, and whether you were the chosen instrument for working it. You were, and you HAVE ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... reclined his head on folded arms. Shirley was preparing to leave. "We are broke, Carson. I haven't a dime and you have less. But I am not going to stay in Bransford and be a party to your downfall. My word alone would prove your guilt. I don't know where I am going, but I intend hiding out until this thing blows over. But before I go, Carson, I want an interview with your criminal friends to tell 'em what a set of dirty, crooks ...
— David Lannarck, Midget - An Adventure Story • George S. Harney
... theatre of the Porte St. Martin a piece was performed, called Misery, founded on incidents in the Irish famine, when the curtain went down at the end of the first act, the beholders spontaneously set up this song. So in the same theatre, when the piece representing the downfall of Rome was performed (this piece afterwards became famous through its prohibition by the Government), one of the spectators in the pit began the chorus of ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... earthly pride is like the passing flower, That springs to fall, and blossoms but to die. 'T is as the tower erected on a cloud, Baseless and silly as the schoolboy's dream. Ages and epochs that destroy our pride, And then record its downfall, what are they But the poor creatures of man's teeming brain? Hath Heaven its ages? or doth Heaven preserve Its stated eras? Doth the Omnipotent Hear of to-morrows or of yesterdays? There is to God nor future nor a past; Throned in his might, all times ...
— The Poetical Works of Henry Kirke White - With a Memoir by Sir Harris Nicolas • Henry Kirke White
... regards all sensational excitement of every kind. When people are tearing their hair, and the welkin rings with such affrighting cries as Downfall and Crisis, the Archbishop's rather solemn and alarmed countenance breaks up into a genial smile. It is when people are immovable in otiose self-satisfaction, when the air is still and when lethargy creeps over the whole body of humanity, that ...
— Painted Windows - Studies in Religious Personality • Harold Begbie
... had another result: it divided the Conservative party, and, as a necessary consequence, led to the downfall of the ministry. The same session which witnessed its success in carrying that repeal witnessed also its defeat on a coercion bill, which they regarded as indispensable for the "protection of life in Ireland," where actual murders ...
— The Constitutional History of England From 1760 to 1860 • Charles Duke Yonge
... a king who was forced upon them by the Allies, and not the people of France. This is a strange travesty of "Liberty loving" government. Had the great Quaker been kept in power, instead of Pitt, who was always in a chronic state of scare and whining that he could never survive the downfall of his country, the rivers of British blood that were shed and the eight hundred million pounds sterling of debt need not have been squandered. All this was done at the bidding of a few men who were entrusted with the government ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... not afraid of what people think. I don't care what the Kennedys may say if I leave the ship at Brindisi and go with you. Of course it will be a sad downfall for me. They would look on me as a lost woman from that moment. But I care nothing about that. I have long been cured of the foolish idea that we must sacrifice our happiness to what the world ...
— The Coming Conquest of England • August Niemann
... indeed, as also milk and meat; but here is neither paint to adorn thy wrinkled face, nor crutch to uphold or undershore thy shaking, tottering, staggering kingdom of Rome; but rather a certain presage of thy sudden and fearful final downfall, and of the exaltation of that holy matron, whose chastity thou dost abhor, because by it she reproveth and condemneth thy lewd and stubborn life. Wherefore, lady, smell thou mayest of this, but taste thou wilt ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... the great Peddlers' Guild carried word of me, of my comings and goings and doings, to Chong Mong-ju at Keijo. Only twice, in all the days after my downfall, did I meet Chong Mong-ju face to face. The first time was a wild winter night of storm in the high mountains of Kang-wun. A few hoarded coppers had bought for the Lady Om and me sleeping space in the dirtiest and coldest corner of the one large room of the inn. We were just about to begin ...
— The Jacket (The Star-Rover) • Jack London
... slaveholders of the border States who had for a number of years felt that slavery was an economic evil of which the country should rid itself gradually by systematic efforts. Feeling that they contributed in the end a great deal to the downfall of the regime and in some respects exercised as much influence as the abolitionists, he has undertaken to set their story ...
— The Journal of Negro History, Volume 4, 1919 • Various
... most genial rule and almost an excess of liberty and privileges, Bond artifice could succeed in conjuring up contrary notions, and to poison them into the monstrous belief that they, the Boers, were an oppressed people, whose downfall was designed by rapacious England, and that no other remedy existed for preserving independence, religion and homes than to expel that wicked English people from African soil. This is, then, what Bond artifice effected in the absence ...
— Origin of the Anglo-Boer War Revealed (2nd ed.) - The Conspiracy of the 19th Century Unmasked • C. H. Thomas
... expected these succours with impatience; and the very night on which he had been assured of his brother's arrival, Nero ordered As'drubal's head to be cut off, and thrown into his brother's camp. 13. The Carthaginian general now began to perceive the downfall of Carthage; and, with a sigh, observed to those about him, that fortune seemed fatigued with ...
— Pinnock's Improved Edition of Dr. Goldsmith's History of Rome • Oliver Goldsmith
... she spoke, and the man dropped back unseen into the shadows as she went smilingly forward to meet the lover, whose downfall she was debating with such ...
— The Bondwoman • Marah Ellis Ryan
... Providence, it has been said, left childless, that his country might call him father, will all unite in making that allegiance a pleasure as well as a duty. To be false to such a Government, to palter even with the treason that seeks its downfall, to associate with the wicked men or the madmen who are in arms against it, would be as vile a dishonor and as base a crime as ...
— The American Union Speaker • John D. Philbrick
... however, the book will be less popular, and fewer persons will admire it wholly; but, as thoughtful readers draw near to the end of the narrative, and anxiously hasten on past trial, temptation, and conflict, to the dreaded and yet inevitable downfall, muse mournfully over the agony and remorse that follow, and slowly close the volume upon tender forgiveness and final joy, they will be thankful for the far-seeing genius which, by this gradual process of education, ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 32, June, 1860 • Various
... in selecting the more important pleasures and their skill in attaining what they aim for. This assertion, easily refuted, has seemed to some opponents of the eudemonistic account of morality so bound up with it as to involve its downfall. ...
— Problems of Conduct • Durant Drake
... occupied windows of the houses opposite. A distinguished member of the Cabinet drove down in a motor-car, and directed operations in a top-hat. It was the introduction of poison-gas which was the ultimate cause of the downfall of the citadel. The body of Ben Orming was never found, but that of Toller was discovered near the front door with a bullet through his heart. The medical officer to the Court pronounced that the man had been dead three days, but whether killed by a chance bullet from a sniper ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... girl hated him heartily, and that she was in possession of a certain secret of his—one which might easily result in his downfall. He feared to tell the truth to this woman before him, for if he did so she would certainly withdraw from all association with him in order ...
— The House of Whispers • William Le Queux
... sober talk, but not all sad, for Mr. Shaw felt inexpressibly comforted by his children's unexpected sympathy, and they, trying to take the downfall cheerfully for his sake, found it easier to bear themselves. They even laughed occasionally, for the girls, in their ignorance, asked queer questions; Tom made ludicrously unbusiness-like propositions; and Maud ...
— An Old-fashioned Girl • Louisa May Alcott
... was highly competitive. Each business man's hand was raised against his neighbor and the downfall of one was a matter of rejoicing for all. The bitter experience of the nineties drove home some lessons; the struggles with labor brought some more; the efforts at government regulations had their effect; but most of all, the experience of meeting with men in various lines of business ...
— The American Empire • Scott Nearing
... refused to sustain the managers. The acquittal of Chase was, therefore, a judgment against Randolph. He never recovered his lost prestige as the leader of his party in the House. Jefferson could accept Randolph's downfall with equanimity, but not the failure of the impeachment. Years afterward he wrote, bitterly that impeachment was "an impracticable thing, a mere scarecrow." From this time on, said he, the judges held office without any sense of responsibility, led "by a crafty chief-judge who ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... letters addressed by the Irish leaders to Philip II and Philip III we find the constantly recurring note of warning that to leave England in possession of Ireland meant the downfall of Spain. The Irish princes knew that in fighting England they were in truth fighting the battle ...
— The Crime Against Europe - A Possible Outcome of the War of 1914 • Roger Casement
... can tell," said Kenneth quickly. "Your environments no doubt were responsible for your downfall. You have been a victim ...
— The Mask - A Story of Love and Adventure • Arthur Hornblow
... and thrill, after the exacting labor of a long day, all contribute to the welcome of an opportunity for an indulgence that brings money in return. The agency of the dance-hall and the saloon has also an important place in the downfall of the tempted. Intemperance and prostitution go together, and places where they can be enjoyed are factories of vice and crime. Many so-called hotels with bar attachment are little more than houses of evil resort. Especially notorious for a time were the Raines ...
— Society - Its Origin and Development • Henry Kalloch Rowe
... beard as he listened without comment to the old man's hesitating words—a tremulous suggestion for a conference that evening—and he said again, "to-morrow," and left him there alone, groping with uncertain hands toward the door of the hired coupe which had brought him to the place of his earthly downfall; the place where he had met his own weird face to face—the wraith that bore ...
— The Fighting Chance • Robert W. Chambers
... awake once more for hours together, tossing and turning, and reflecting bitterly on his own baseness and his final moral downfall. Herbert was right, after all. The environment was beginning to conquer. He could hold out no longer. Herr Max was in prison; the world was profoundly indifferent; he himself had fallen away like Peter; and there was nothing left for him now but to ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... alone, and the movements there which menaced his life and the liberty and purity of the Church. Dalmatia, Poland, and England claimed his constant attention. With the most powerful monarch in Europe plotting his downfall, he contrived to win the love and obedience of Zwonomir, to force the rebellious Boleslaus from his throne, and to purify England still more from simony ...
— The Truce of God - A Tale of the Eleventh Century • George Henry Miles
... that her abilities and services, which were eminent and various, secured Napoleon's advancement at every step of his rapid career from obscurity to the imperial throne; and that the loss of her influence and counsels was the necessary harbinger of his downfall. ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various
... another, and rather avoided slip for the future. So that Riddell had a quiet time of it, fielding the few balls that came to him steadily and promptly, but otherwise not figuring prominently in the downfall ...
— The Willoughby Captains • Talbot Baines Reed
... she used the story of her daughter's downfall with telling effect upon the police justices. Finally one of them said to her, peering down over his spectacles: "Mary, the records of this and other courts show that you are the mother of forty-two daughters who have been ...
— Maggie: A Girl of the Streets • Stephen Crane
... towards the close of their empire, in all the ordinary arts and appliances of life, very nearly on a par with ourselves; and thus their history furnishes a warning—which the records of nations constantly repeat—that the greatest material prosperity may co-exist with the decline—and herald the downfall—of a kingdom. ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 2. (of 7): Assyria • George Rawlinson
... Swartwout, one of the Tammany leaders, was appointed Collector of the Port of New York. His downfall came in 1838, and he fled to Europe. His defalcations in the Custom House were found to be over $1,222,700; and "to Swartwout" became a useful phrase until Tweed's day. He was succeeded by Jesse Hoyt, another sachem and notorious politician, against whom several ...
— The Boss and the Machine • Samuel P. Orth
... N. {ant. 161} destruction; waste, dissolution, breaking up; diruption[obs3], disruption; consumption; disorganization. fall, downfall, devastation, ruin, perdition, crash; eboulement[French], smash, havoc, delabrement[French], debacle; break down, break up, fall apart; prostration; desolation, bouleversement[Fr], wreck, wrack, shipwreck, cataclysm; washout. extinction, annihilation; destruction of life &c. 361; knock-down blow; ...
— Roget's Thesaurus
... modified and expounded this by a Gnostic doctrine of aeons, which was intended to harmonize the goodness of God and the existence of evil, and it added the figure of the highest aeon, Christ, the savior of men. On the other hand, its involved and fantastic machinery led to its downfall. ...
— Introduction to the History of Religions - Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV • Crawford Howell Toy
... He felt her beat him. He heard her talking in a furious voice, a flood of words; but he could distinguish nothing. His little enemies had come back to see his shame, and screamed shrilly. There were servants—a babel of voices. To complete his downfall, Louisa, who had been summoned, appeared, and, instead of defending him, she began to scold him—she, too, without knowing anything—and bade him beg pardon. He refused angrily. She shook him, and dragged him by the hand to the lady and the children, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... I have noticed (vol. ii. 1) how loosely the title Malik (King) is applied in Arabic and in mediaeval Europe. But it is ultra-Shakespearean to place a Badawi King in Baghdad, the capital founded by the Abbasides and ruled by those Caliphs till their downfall. ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Seraphina, in his rage against myself, he did not know how to act. No doubt he had been deceiving himself as to his position with Seraphina. He was a man who in his wishes. His desire of revenge on me, the downfall of his hopes (he could no longer deceive himself), a desperate striving of thought for their regaining, his impulse towards the impossible—all these ...
— Romance • Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer
... class-prejudices to mislead them. And have not the last few years given us all light enough to see that abstractly, as statesmen, the Federal leaders were right? As politicians, in the degraded American sense of the word, they were unskilful; they accelerated the downfall of their party by injudicious measures and by petty rivalries. But although their ruin might have been adjourned, it could not have been avoided; we now know that their fate was inevitable. The democracy must have run ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Duchess of Marlborough, and by her introduced to a subordinate place about the person of Queen Anne. She rapidly acquired sufficient influence to supplant her benefactress. The intrigues of the Tory party received sufficient furtherance from this bedchamber official to effect ultimately the downfall of the Whig ministry; and the use of the term by Dean Swift, of which your original Querist MR. WARDEN speaks, would suffice to give currency and to associate the name of so famous an intriguante with the office which ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 218, December 31, 1853 • Various
... duty assigned Captain Barry to get Colonel Laurens to France is thus made manifest. Well performed, its results brought the downfall of British supremacy in America. Failure to safely convey Laurens would have brought untold disaster upon the cause of Independence and Liberty and, mayhap, long have delayed the winning and ...
— The Story of Commodore John Barry • Martin Griffin
... of rubbish, were still obstinately defended by the unconquerable bravery of the besieged. Pieces of both the outer and inner walls, twenty and thirty ells in length, had been destroyed by mines and artillery-fire, and their downfall had in many places choked up the moat. Some of the barbicans before the gates were in the enemy's possession, and even the Peter Gate itself. The towers that guarded the town resembled ancient ruins; and the defensive works were now chiefly represented by ...
— The Young Carpenters of Freiberg - A Tale of the Thirty Years' War • Anonymous
... Even if the usurper had succeeded in his purposes, in despite of the constitution of the Republic and the rights of its people, he would have set up nothing but a precarious and hateful power, which could have lasted but a little while, and whose eventual downfall would have left the country in a more deplorable condition than ever. But he has not succeeded. He has forfeited the respect and the moral support even of those who were at one time willing to see him succeed. Little by little he has been completely isolated. By a little every ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... upon the price she pays, is a very mistaken one. Without informing herself she may very naturally conclude that Russian or Caravan tea is cultivated, buds and blossoms in the land of the Czar, until later on, when her ignorance meets a downfall ...
— Breakfasts and Teas - Novel Suggestions for Social Occasions • Paul Pierce
... scene with breathless interest. While Ben was making his mount, she observed him doubtfully. While he retained his seat, she clapped her hands in glee. Then, with his downfall, a great lump came chokingly into her throat, and, without waiting to see the outcome, she ran sobbing to the house. A moment later she rushed into the little parlor where her father and Rankin, their cigars ...
— Ben Blair - The Story of a Plainsman • Will Lillibridge
... through the mouth of one among His chosen insane. In their estimation a madman's utterance is pregnant, oracular, a subject worthy of most grave consideration and appraisement. And after Gray Michael's mental downfall many humble folks, incited by the remarkable religious fame of his past life, begged permission to approach within sound of his voice at those moments when the desire for utterance was upon him. This, indeed, came to be a privilege not a little ...
— Lying Prophets • Eden Phillpotts
... Port Arthur was taken in hand, and a beginning was made in the construction of forts at Wei-hai-wei as a second naval base. A new department was created for the control of naval affairs, at the head of which was placed Prince Chun, father of the emperor, who since the downfall of Prince Kung in 1884 had been taking a more and more prominent ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 6, Slice 2 - "Chicago, University of" to "Chiton" • Various
... rest of us implied. Assuredly there was strong reason why he should be an especial object of Itzacoatl's fear and hatred. He and El Sabio together were the visible sign which told that the prophecy touching the Priest Captain's downfall was about to be fulfilled; and, more than this, Pablo's simple statement of the condition of affairs among the modern Mexicans—showing that the crisis in their fate that Chaltzantzin had foretold, and for which he had so well prepared, ...
— The Aztec Treasure-House • Thomas Allibone Janvier
... worked with Titian—beautiful attenuations three times reduced. We only know their names now because they raised a pretty chorus of protest when Velasquez appeared at the palace. They worked all the wires they knew to bring about his downfall, and then dwindled away into chronic Artistic Jealousy, which finally struck in; and they were buried. That the plots, challenges and constant knockings of these underling court painters ever affected Velasquez, we can not see. He swung right along at prodigious strides, living his ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 6 - Subtitle: Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Artists • Elbert Hubbard
... at this time, he might be either a hunted murderer or a victim himself of Storch's desperation. In any case, he would be furnishing the text for many a newspaper sermon. How eagerly they would trace his downfall, sniffing out the salacious bits for the furtive enjoyment of the chemically pure! For there would be salacious bits. Had he not spent the preceding night in the company of a fallen woman? One by one the facts would be brought out, added to and subtracted from, ...
— Broken to the Plow • Charles Caldwell Dobie
... inveterate hernia, the effect, he said, of riding his violent little beast; and a sound ague and fever, which continued three days, obliterated in my own case the last evils of Karlsbad. We had one night of rain (January 15), beginning gently at 2.30 a.m., and ending in a heavy downfall—unfortunately a pluviometer was one of the forgotten articles. Before the shower, earth was dry as a bone; shortly after it, sprouts of the greenest grass began to appear in the low places, and under the shadow of the perennial shrubs. ...
— The Land of Midian, Vol. 1 • Richard Burton
... together with the Thirteenth Legion of cavalry and two battalions of the Banlieu, were drawn up from the Church of the Madeleine to the Column of July. And, there, at the base of that column erected in commemoration of the Revolution which had made Louis Philippe King of the French, his downfall was commemorated, and on the ruins of the throne then established was now inaugurated ...
— Edmond Dantes • Edmund Flagg
... the history of Perkinism in its days of prosperity; having seen how it sprung into being, and by what means it maintained its influence, it only remains to tell the brief story of its discomfiture and final downfall. The vast majority of the sensible part of the medical profession were contented, so far as we can judge, to let it die out of itself. It was in vain that the advocates of this invaluable discovery exclaimed over their perverse and interested obstinacy,—in vain that they called ...
— Medical Essays • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... to his task, "it leaves something untouched, which is better than these,—I mean our feelings, Miss Whittaker." And the Major paused until he had caught Gertrude's eyes, when, having engaged them with his own, he proceeded. "I think they are the stronger for the downfall of so much else, and, upon my soul, I think it's in them we ought to take refuge. ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 118, August, 1867 • Various
... honor, and whose services no error of judgment or feeling or conduct can ever induce us to forget. If he confessed him, self-liable, like the rest of us, to mistakes and shortcomings, we must remember that the great officers of the government who decreed his downfall were not less the subjects ...
— Memoir of John Lothrop Motley, Complete • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.
... Manitou, to their home in the beautiful Lake of the Thousand Islands. The pair were welcomed with songs and rejoicings to the spirit shores, and loud were the revels, and boisterous the mirth, of its little inhabitants. Triumphs were made for them, mingled with rejoicings, at the downfall of their long-feared and much hated foe. And when they had displayed their love for the pair, by all the means within their power—dancing, feasting, and kind speech—they dismissed them to their homes, with many blessings upon their ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 3 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones
... ever after. In fancy I saw the envious Bannerman shaking his fist at his thriftier, happier brothers. Should I denounce the banding together of men for the promotion of fun and good fellowship? Were these men hastening the downfall of America as the communist predicted? Is not good fellowship a necessary feeling in the hearts of ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis
... Unto a foolish man shall be compar'd; Who his foundation on the sand prepar'd: The rain descended and the floods were great, The winds did blow, and vehemently beat Against that house; and down the building came, And mighty was the downfall of the same. And now when Jesus thus had finished His sayings, the people were astonished Thereat: for not as do the scribes taught he Them, but as one that ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... can't have the faith over again. I should always be expecting another humiliating downfall of my prophetess." ...
— The Puritans • Arlo Bates
... Burleigh knew and feared Bull. His ferocity was famous through the countryside, or at least, had been until he had met his downfall a few ...
— Lucile Triumphant • Elizabeth M. Duffield
... beneath his standard, but also had a tendency to restrict the simplicity and the piety so characteristic of their forefathers to those who from sex or age were left outside of that turbid wave which swept others into the current of its power. In 1815 came the downfall of the proud empire erected by the military prowess and boundless ambition of the first Napoleon. How this affected the Vaudois we will consider ...
— The Vaudois of Piedmont - A Visit to their Valleys • John Napper Worsfold
... immediately to the island of Jersey, where he arrived on the fifth of August, 1852. In 1855 residence in Jersey was forbidden him and he removed to Guernsey, where he continued to reside till the downfall of Napoleon I. ...
— French Lyrics • Arthur Graves Canfield
... attractive little person—of the same type of brown-eyed, vivacious youth which must have been Virginie's five-and-thirty years ago—and her prettiness had caused her downfall. Magda glanced towards the mirror. It was through her beauty she herself had sinned. It had given her so much power, that exquisite, perfect body of hers, and she had pitifully misused the power it had bestowed. The real difference between herself and Suzette lay in the fact that the little ...
— The Lamp of Fate • Margaret Pedler
... three sections,—the Old Empire, having its seat at Memphis; the Middle Empire, following upon a period of strife and division, and embracing the rule of foreign invaders, the Hyksos; and the New Empire, the era of conquest, by foreign power, and of downfall. ...
— Outline of Universal History • George Park Fisher
... proved abortive. Even Bute considered many of the proposals of the French if not insulting to the majesty of the British nation, at least inadmissible. Yet these negociations resulted in the downfall of Pitt. At the council-table, that great minister represented that Spain was only waiting for the arrival of her annual plate-fleet from America, and then she would declare war. He proposed, therefore, that her declaration should ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... Islamism does not imply the downfall of Turkish rule. The one is religious, the other a civil power; the one may wane, the ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... success for granted. If they had been wavering before, which seems possible—for they must have been, to a considerable extent, new levies, the campaigners of the Loire having accomplished their period of feudal service,—this sudden downfall must have strengthened every doubt and damped every enthusiasm. The Maid of whom such wonderful tales had been told, she who had been the angel of triumph, the irresistible, before whom the English ...
— Jeanne d'Arc - Her Life And Death • Mrs.(Margaret) Oliphant
... blood caused their downfall in the long run. Their craving for sweets could only be satisfied by sugar and molasses in large quantities, for what is a flower to an insect with a ten-gallon stomach? One day the whole tribe flew across ...
— The Marvelous Exploits of Paul Bunyan • W.B. Laughead
... beginning of the war, but he refused to take "greenback money" for his corn. In a town in the western part of the State I found a merchant who prided himself on the fact that he had always prophesied the downfall of the so-called Confederacy and had always desired the success of the Union arms; yet when I asked him why he did not vote in the election for delegates to the Convention, he answered, sneeringly—"I shall not vote till you take away the military." ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 100, February, 1866 • Various
... himself from the entangling mass of cloth that seemed to be smothering and weighing him down, the lad presently found an opening, through which he thrust his head. Blinking rapidly as he cleared his eyes from the dust that had arisen because of the sudden downfall of the tent, the ...
— Boy Scouts Mysterious Signal - or Perils of the Black Bear Patrol • G. Harvey Ralphson
... of the mother," and it is certain that he had ample reason in his own remarkable career for making this important admission. He inherited from his mother all those attributes which made him great, and owed his sudden downfall to none of her teachings. She was noted for her sagacity and prudence, but possibly it required more than human sagacity and prudence to balance the mighty impulses which moved Napoleon Bonaparte. "A father may turn his back on his child," says Washington Irving, "brothers and sisters may become ...
— The Golden Censer - The duties of to-day, the hopes of the future • John McGovern
... next moment, a shot from the interior of the hovel, heralded by a quavering cry from the faithful Emperor,—"Lorra-gor! nebber harm an Injun in my life!" struck the hatchet from the shattered hand of a foeman, who had taken advantage of his downfall to aim a fatal blow at him while rising. A yell of pain came from the maimed and baffled warrior, who, springing over the blackened ruins before the door, escaped the stroke of the clubbed rifle which the soldier ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird
... reversion to the policy of Abdul Hamid, than this formal resolution, passed within three years of the time when the Young Turks deposed him? The conviction begins to dawn on one—as it began to dawn on the Balancers of Power—that he owed his downfall not to his illiberal and butcherous policy, but because he was not ...
— Crescent and Iron Cross • E. F. Benson |
