"Tearing down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Sometimes there was long, ugly grass, a brownish green, coarse and tufty, for a mile or more. Sometimes clumps of wintry-looking, dead trees, sometimes clumps of attenuated living ones; but nothing to please the eye. We saw neither man nor beast the whole way, except a wild bull, which, tearing down the mountain side, crossed the trail just in front of us, causing a stampede among the mules, and it was fully an hour before they were all ...
— The Hawaiian Archipelago • Isabella L. Bird
... brought out, and this concession, so significant on the part of a general commanding in the emperor's name, convinced the crowd that his cause was lost. The fury of the populace grew greater now that they felt that they could indulge it with impunity; they ran to the Town Hall, and tearing down and burning the tricoloured, raised the white flag. The roll of the generale, the clang of the tocsin were heard, the neighbouring villages poured in their populations and increased the throng in the streets; single acts of violence began to occur, ...
— Massacres Of The South (1551-1815) - Celebrated Crimes • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... Carter. "The other man, the Mr. Wiggins, is Bonnie Connaught's cousin; and he told her about some young man who came out in the car with him, and asked for Miss Pond at the door, and then all of a sudden seemed to change his mind, and went tearing down the corridor after the maid, yelling, 'Hi, there! Hi, there!' at the top of his voice; but he couldn't catch her, and when Miss Pond came he pretended he had asked for some ...
— When Patty Went to College • Jean Webster
... be so bad if he could control himself. At the minute when he's tearing down the house he wants you to tell ...
— The Dust Flower • Basil King
... children. Physical culture, along with many other things intended for sedentary adults, should never be forced upon little folks who get all of the exercise they need in the many journeys they take building their blocks, sailing their boats, tearing down imaginary houses, making imaginary journeys—from morning until night the little feet are kept busy—never stopping until the sandman comes at sleepy time. Do not yourself attempt to stimulate a child who seems backward. Consult your physician. You had much better ...
— The Mother and Her Child • William S. Sadler
... was that of a distant relative incidentally staying with the family, the house is destroyed, or the cave permanently abandoned; and many other superstitious apprehensions of one kind or another may thus influence the people. Very often a man moves for the sake of benefiting the land, and after tearing down his house he immediately plants corn on the spot on which the house stood. A family may thus change its abode several times a year, or once a year, or every other year. The richest man in the Tarahumare country, now ...
— Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) • Carl Lumholtz
... had been adopted, all serious trouble was at an end. He slept soundly, and did not rise until eleven o'clock, when he came down to the breakfast-room in morning-gown and slippers, and with a smiling countenance. Here appalling tidings met him. The exasperated populace were tearing down and trampling under foot the conciliatory proclamation of M. Thiers. The national troops, disgusted with the contradictory orders which had been issued, were loud in their clamor against the king. The National Guard was everywhere fraternizing with the people. The frenzy of insurrection ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... to get settled for their voyage, and went up stairs for a smoke and to keep his eye upon the shore, for he fully expected to see Louis Hamblin come tearing down to the boat at any moment. The reader has, of course, recognized in Justin Cutler the gentleman who, at the opening of our story, was made the victim of the accomplished sharper, Mrs. Bently, in the diamond crescent affair. It will be remembered also that he came on to New York at the time ...
— True Love's Reward • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... presented to view. Away to the right he beheld Giant Gorge, a narrow gash in the rocks, through which the waters were seething and boiling in wildest commotion. On the hither side a flood of logs was sweeping and tearing down, like a mighty breastwork suddenly loosened. Dan started back in terror at the sight, and was about to spring up the bank to a place of safety, when his eyes rested upon the form of a man out in the midst of that rush of destruction, vainly trying to free himself from the watery ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... humanity, and with apparent self-convinced sincerity. He was unwilling to acknowledge that he was governed or influenced by personal resentments in his revolutionary plans to degrade the intelligent white and exalt the ignorant black population by tearing down the constitutional edifice. In frequent interviews which I held with him then and at later periods, when he found it impossible to hold his positions under the Constitution, he claimed that he occupied higher ground, and that his authority for these violent measures ...
— The Galaxy - Vol. 23, No. 1 • Various
... pity," said her companion; "but, you know, if we once let people know what this water will do, we should be overrun with creatures bathing themselves beautiful, and trampling our moss and tearing down our rose-trees, and we ...
— Little Saint Elizabeth and Other Stories • Frances Hodgson Burnett
... answers and was able to understand them more intelligently. I not only learned prices but where to get authoritative prices. As far as possible I made myself acquainted with the men working for the building constructors and for those working for firms whose specialty was the tearing down of buildings. I used my note-book as usual and entered the names of every man who, in his line, seemed to ...
— One Way Out - A Middle-class New-Englander Emigrates to America • William Carleton
... bees, ye say? Air they loose too?" screamed Bridget, jerking off her sunbonnet and tearing down her hair. "Is it bees as well as cows in me hid, an' ye standin' laffin loike ter kill yersilf at the very idee of me bein' murdered in ...
— The Gentle Art of Cooking Wives • Elizabeth Strong Worthington
... "But it's different with me, an' you know it. My people take to it naturally. I am a po' white, an underling by breedin' an' birth, an' if my people build, they must build up. But you—you are tearing down when you do that. Po' as I am, I'd rather starve than to see little children worked to death in that trap, but Tabitha sees it different, and she is the one bein' in the world I don't cross—the General"—he smiled—"she don't understand, ...
— The Bishop of Cottontown - A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills • John Trotwood Moore
... animals listening, he continued, “We will all have this man for our brother, but I found him, so I think he ought to live with us big wolves.” All the others said that this was well; so the wolf went into the hole, and, tearing down the rest of the dirt, dragged out the almost dead man. They gave him a kidney to eat, and when he was able to walk a little, the big wolves took him to their home. Here there was a very old blind wolf, who had powerful medicine. He cured the man, and ...
— The Great Salt Lake Trail • Colonel Henry Inman
... bas-relief. These were the keys which unlocked the treasures of the antediluvian world for me. With trembling fingers I listened to Miss Sullivan's descriptions of the terrible beasts, with uncouth, unpronounceable names, which once went tramping through the primeval forests, tearing down the branches of gigantic trees for food, and died in the dismal swamps of an unknown age. For a long time these strange creatures haunted my dreams, and this gloomy period formed a somber background to the joyous Now, filled with sunshine and roses and echoing with the gentle beat ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller
... falling with a heavy crash against the kerb with my arm under me, and of seeing the dogcart tearing down the street. Then everything seemed dark, ...
— My Friend Smith - A Story of School and City Life • Talbot Baines Reed
... morning, with Leopold Ballman, were tiresome unmusical periods of diaphragm exercises and an entire tearing down and reconstruction process of the previous methods taught her. It was tedious, standing before the long gold-and-black pier glass in the front parlor, watching the tendinous rise and fall of her lower thorax when her forbidden ...
— Star-Dust • Fannie Hurst
... went along the rails as smooth as oil. Well, at one part o' the line, there is a gradual long incline, and one day we were just putting on more steam to run up, when we sees at the top two or three coaches coming tearing down straight upon us. We knew there was a heavy excursion train on ahead, and we had been going rather slow on that account, and this was some of the coaches that had got uncoupled from the rest. Well, Bill, my mate, no sooner saw it coming, than says he, 'Jump for your life!' and out he went. ...
— Happy Days for Boys and Girls • Various
... announced that though they much preferred the Americans, yet it would be folly to oppose armed resistance to the British; and one or two of their number were found to be in communication with Hamilton and the Detroit authorities. Clark promptly made ready for resistance, tearing down the buildings near the fort at Kaskaskia—his head-quarters—and sending out scouts and runners; but he knew that it was hopeless to try to withstand such a force as Hamilton could gather. He narrowly escaped being ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Two - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1777-1783 • Theodore Roosevelt
... in a succession of single sharp explosions without any roll between. The mountain shook with the windy shocks, but the first of the thunder-storm was the worst, and it soon passed. The wind and the rain continued, and the darkness was filled with the rush of the water everywhere wildly tearing down the sides of the mountain. Thus heaven and earth held communication in torrents all the night. Down the steeps of the limpid air they ran to the hard sides of the hills, where at once, as if they were no longer at home, and did not like the change, they ...
— Sir Gibbie • George MacDonald
... Richelieu the model statesman! Their ideals were the same. The minister intended that everything in France should lie helpless at the feet of royalty; that kingship should absorb into itself every source of power. While Cromwell was tearing down a throne in England and leading a king to a scaffold, Richelieu, facing every class, current, and force, was making the throne impregnable in France, and preparing a magnificent inheritance for the infant Louis XIV., then ...
— A Short History of France • Mary Platt Parmele
... to be found exposed in the open after dawn of day. It roams over the country in all directions during night, and seeks the shelter of a forest about an hour before the sun rises. It feeds heartily, but wastefully, tearing down branches, half of which it leaves untouched; it strips the bark off those trees which it selects as tasteful, but throws wilfully away a considerable portion. Throughout the entire night the elephant is feeding, and it is curious to observe how particular this animal is in the choice of food. Most ...
— Wild Beasts and their Ways • Sir Samuel W. Baker
... forty-five days, although his men several times penetrated to the great square. He now resolved to enter by gradual advances, and destroy every thing as he went. This he did, burning what was combustible, and tearing down most of the edifices built of stone; nevertheless, thirty or forty days more passed before this work of destruction was complete. The inhabitants of the city ...
— Ancient America, in Notes on American Archaeology • John D. Baldwin
... remarkable cures have been accomplished through the principles it advocates. These cures alone indicate clearly that the mind is a dominating force that works for good or for evil. They prove that your thoughts are building up or tearing down your vital forces; that to a certain extent "Thoughts are things," that good thoughts are a real tangible influence for developing mental or physical force, and-that bad thoughts have an opposite influence. It is well for each one ...
— Vitality Supreme • Bernarr Macfadden
... she could run. She never knew how impotent human fleetness is till she saw that lumbering coach go plunging swiftly and more swiftly away from her, across B Street, and tearing down the next hill with a speed that made her ...
— The Madigans • Miriam Michelson
... regular seepage. They have now become broad, shallow stream beds, in which muddy water trickles in slender currents during the dry seasons, while when it rains there are freshets, and roaring muddy torrents come tearing down, bringing disaster and destruction everywhere. Moreover, these floods and freshets, which diversify the general dryness, wash away from the mountain sides, and either wash away or cover in the valleys, the rich fertile soil which it took tens of thousands of years for Nature ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... crazy-pated, man-woman?" exclaimed the deacon, vehemently; "pray, don't mention her. The wrath of God will fall upon her and all the guilty brood who have desecrated His sanctuary, by tearing down its curtains and converting them into garments to serve Satan in." The excitable deacon was waxing warm, when his wife gave him a conjugal nudge, ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... speak out. It was in the end of March or the first days of April 1660, when the elections had begun, that the hesitation suddenly ceased everywhere, and the torrent was at its full. They were drinking Charles's health openly in taverns; they were singing songs about him everywhere; they were tearing down the Arms of the Commonwealth in public buildings, and putting up ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... 1851 will long be remembered in the foothills. The snow lay deep on the Sierras, and every mountain creek became a river, and every river a lake. Each gorge and gulch was transformed into a tumultuous watercourse that descended the hillsides, tearing down giant trees and scattering its drift and debris along the plain. Red Dog had been twice under water, and Roaring Camp had been forewarned. "Water put the gold into them gulches," said Stumpy. "It's been here once and ...
— The Luck of Roaring Camp and Other Tales • Bret Harte
... the door an inch and told him he must come at once. I whispered in his ear that I would go back to Berlin tomorrow and be near him. He went out so quickly that by the time I got into the hall after him the car was tearing down the avenue, and I only caught a flash of the sun on his helmet as he disappeared round ...
— Christine • Alice Cholmondeley
... "to throw upon the rock that is standing there. You hide yourself behind the rock, and when the bull comes tearing down, he will dash at the cloak, and blind himself with the crash against the rock. Then you jump on the bull's back and fight for life. If, after the fight, you are living, come back and see me; and if you are dead, I'll ...
— Tales of Wonder Every Child Should Know • Various
... never sell the shops; Bennington or nothing. If you have difficulties with the men, weigh them on the smallest scales. You will be master there—you alone. It is a big responsibility, but I have the greatest confidence in you. When the time comes, show that you are master, even to the tearing down of every brick and stone that took me so long to erect. I shall be where such disasters will not ...
— Half a Rogue • Harold MacGrath
... the first no mind to plunder, stood watching Raphael with dumb wonder; and a shudder of regret, he knew not why, passed through him, as he Saw the mob tearing down pictures, and dashing statues to the ground. Heathen they were, doubtless; but still, the Nymphs and Venuses looked too lovely to be so brutally destroyed... There was something almost humanly pitiful ...
— Hypatia - or, New Foes with an Old Face • Charles Kingsley
... when promised. I got in a corner of a printing-office and read proof just as fast as it came off the press, while Carl worked at home, under you can guess what pressure, to complete his manuscript—tearing down with new batches for me to get in shape for the type-setter, and then racing home to do more writing. We finished the thesis about one o'clock one morning, proof-reading and all; and the next day—or that same ...
— An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker • Cornelia Stratton Parker
... in our day is the thing called the humility of the man of science; and certainly it is a good instance as well as a modern one. Men find it extremely difficult to believe that a man who is obviously uprooting mountains and dividing seas, tearing down temples and stretching out hands to the stars, is really a quiet old gentleman who only asks to be allowed to indulge his harmless old hobby and follow his harmless old nose. When a man splits ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... details we have of other histories. How can I tell the feelings in a young lady's mind; the thoughts in a young gentleman's bosom?—As Professor Owen or Professor Agassiz takes a fragment of a bone, and builds an enormous forgotten monster out of it, wallowing in primeval quagmires, tearing down leaves and branches of plants that flourished thousands of years ago, and perhaps may be coal by this time—so the novelist puts this and that together: from the footprint finds the foot; from the foot, the brute who trod on it; from the brute, the plant he browsed on, the marsh in which ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... department was stored. They were there long before any of the older Volunteers, and had a long, impatient wait. Then there were all manner of delays; breakages had to be repaired and axles greased before a start could be properly made. But at last they were off, tearing down the rough roads at a speed that made the ...
— The Dozen from Lakerim • Rupert Hughes
... But when America was started, no one had more than the vaguest idea of what the finished result was to be; indeed, many questioned whether any enduring structure could be reared on a foundation such as ours. So there was much useless labor, one workman tearing down what another had built, and only a few of them working with any clear vision ...
— American Men of Mind • Burton E. Stevenson
... the town, and the most superb mountain panorama beyond. I never saw a view within miles of it for beauty and grandeur. Far down, a fussy English steamer came puffing and popping into the deep blue bay, and the 'Hansom's' cabs went tearing down to the landing place; and round me sat a crowd of grave brown men chanting 'Allah il Allah' to the most monotonous but musical air, and with the most perfect voices. The chant seemed to swell, and then fade, like ...
— Letters from the Cape • Lady Duff Gordon
... started the Aquitania; but he did navigate the ark pretty successfully, and nobody denies that he was the first admiral that ever sailed the seas. Admiral Nelson and Commodore Paul Jones got there, somehow, but if they had seen a motor launch tearing down on them at twenty miles an hour, I can imagine both of ...
— Mixed Faces • Roy Norton
... disappearing when he was wanted, especially when he was wanted by the police. It may be added that his disappearances were more dangerous than his appearances. In the latter he seldom went beyond the sensational—pasting up seditious placards, tearing down official placards, making flamboyant speeches, or unfurling forbidden flags. But in order to effect the former he would sometimes fight for his freedom with startling energy, from which men were sometimes lucky to escape with a broken head instead of a broken ...
— The Man Who Knew Too Much • G.K. Chesterton
... he had so far succeeded in business as to warrant his tearing down the old store and building in its stead a store and dwelling combined. Great was the admiration of the people at this building and it was considered a just source of pride by the people of Cleveland, for to the store was an open front, the first seen in the place, ...
— Cleveland Past and Present - Its Representative Men, etc. • Maurice Joblin
... as free and joyous again. But it can't be helped; it's the destiny of women, and I only hope this Warner is worthy of her. But he aint. He's too wild—too full of what Hagar Warren calls bedevilment. And Maggie does everything he tells her to do. Not content with tearing down his bed-curtains, which have hung there full twenty years, she's set things all cornerwise, because the folks do so in Worcester, and has turned the parlor into a smoking-room, till all the air of Hillsdale can't take away that tobacco scent. ...
— Maggie Miller • Mary J. Holmes
... will always be an unvarying round of tearing down and upbuilding in the whole wide realm of nature. Nothing, not the tiniest grain or the most ponderous production of skilled hands, ever stands still. All things are in vibration, and their permanency depends wholly upon the rate of vibratory motion. Here ...
— Insights and Heresies Pertaining to the Evolution of the Soul • Anna Bishop Scofield
... suddenly falling into space. Then the light dropped to the floor. I could see the outlines of his figure and a weird, single string of incandescence. Hobart turned and I leaped. It was a blur, the form of a man melting into nothing. I sprang into the room, tearing down the curtains. Hobart was on top of me. But we were too late. I could feel the vibrancy of something uncanny as I rushed across the space intervening. Through my mind darted the thrill of terror. It had come suddenly, and in climax. It was over before it had commenced. The light had gone out. ...
— The Blind Spot • Austin Hall and Homer Eon Flint
... to him as to this hatred against him was that he had caused it by tearing down the pontifical decrees. He climbed into the pulpit, expecting to convert it into a seat of justice, and in the voice of a man who not only does not blame himself, but who is even ready to repeat his action, ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... a child as for building bonfires. And after securing possession, as he did in middle age, of the house where he was born and of a great acreage around about, he had one of the most enjoyable times of his life in tearing down old buildings that needed to be destroyed and in heaping up fallen trees and rubbish and in piling great heaps of wood and setting the great piles ablaze. You see, there is one of the secrets of his strength—he has never lost the capacity ...
— Acres of Diamonds • Russell H. Conwell
... leave her child, and go and be happy in France, which has been the notion running in his head all this time. To buy her off, in fact. But that one night, when I was very uncertain whether I could bring him through, they took to crying together, and condoling with each other; and it was just like tearing down a curtain that had been between them; they have been rather friends than otherwise ever since. Still Roger'—(Molly's cheeks grew warm and her eyes soft and bright; it was such a pleasure to hear his name)—'and I both agree that his mother knows ...
— Wives and Daughters • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell
... In fact, a goodly proportion of our so-called slang is drawn from the same high source, being vinegar to the teeth of pietistical purists, but quite good enough for God. Some complain that I should build instead of tearing down, should preserve and not destroy. The complaint is well founded if it be wrong to attack falsehood, to exterminate the industrial wolves and social rottenness, to destroy the tares sown by the devil and give dollar wheat a chance to arise ...
— Volume 12 of Brann The Iconoclast • William Cowper Brann
... whose resentment toward the village improvements of a paleface civilization found vigorous expression in kicking down the wall. It was at last decided to replace the retaining wall with one of heavier proportions and more solid masonry. On tearing down the wall the tradition of former years was recalled, for there sat the grim skeleton of an Indian, fully armed for war! The new wall included him as before, but to this day there is a point in the wall where stone and mortar cannot long contain the ...
— The Story of Cooperstown • Ralph Birdsall
... pitched their camp at a little distance from the river, and surveyed the passage, they began to pile it up, giant-like, tearing down the neighboring hills; and brought trees pulled up by the roots, and heaps of earth to the river, damming up its course; and with great heavy materials which they rolled down the stream and dashed against the bridge, they forced away the beams which supported it; in consequence of which the ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... admit, and the election day itself is positively exciting. You cannot help catching the malady at times. I remember once, when I was very little, and walking out with my governess, tearing down a Liberal bill, in spite of all she said to the contrary. True, it was on what she considered her own side, though I don't think she knew enough to distinguish between the two; still her real annoyance was occasioned more by the look of the thing. That a pupil ...
— Lazy Thoughts of a Lazy Girl - Sister of that "Idle Fellow." • Jenny Wren
... cheering in a foreign tongue reached us. "Hurrah! Hurrah! For the Admiral!" and a troop of horse came tearing down. It was the band of gallant Englishmen, and I recognized Roger Braund still bearing the captured trophy. Fearing they might mistake us for royalists I rode forward hastily, crying in English, ...
— For The Admiral • W.J. Marx
... coffee came inspiration. She began to plan ... half listening to the Captain's amiable efforts to entertain her with an account of the palace, and of its history under Ismail, the Mad Khedive, who had occupied it for some months, tearing down and building in his feverish way, only to weary at the first hint of completion. She was wondering why in the world the inspiration had not arrived at once. Perhaps something in this fatalistic air, this stupid acceptance of authority ...
— The Palace of Darkened Windows • Mary Hastings Bradley
... tearing down of the temporary bridge of wood and the opening of the beautiful stone structure that arched the stream. Ah, what a holiday that was! The mills were closed, there was a band concert in the little park, dedication exercises, and fireworks in the evening. And great was ...
— Ted and the Telephone • Sara Ware Bassett
... be seen when the smoke cleared off. But in a few minutes those remaining gathered into a body again, and immediately two more shells exploded in their midst. The few remaining could now be seen coming out of the smoke and tearing down a slope to a nullah a short way off, and they were not seen again. Major —— was here called away to interpret to three Turkish prisoners who had come in, but I have heard no particulars of their examination.... ...
— The Incomparable 29th and the "River Clyde" • George Davidson
... especially among those advanced lovers of art who are beginning to realize that the old impressionistic school lacked emphasis and individuality in its work. But I expect to stand firm, and when everybody else nearly is a Futurist and is tearing down Sargent's pictures and Abbey's and Whistler's to make room for immortal Young Messers, I and a few others will still be holding out resolutely ...
— Cobb's Bill-of-Fare • Irvin Shrewsbury Cobb
... one of his neighbors who had persecuted Captain Egydio violently many times thought he would correct him in his grave, and so he set up a large cross over him. One night soon after, this cross was cut down. The violent neighbor instituted a suit for the violation of the law in tearing down a symbol of the Roman Catholic church. He also came with great pomp, accompanied by soldiers, and set up another cross. The law suit finally wore itself out and both parties were glad to drop it, each party sharing an equal amount of ...
— Brazilian Sketches • T. B. Ray
... real cause of their visitor's departure appeared. A plane with engine wide open came tearing down through the clouds. It swung in a great spiral down over the field and dropped a white flare as it straightened away; then returned for the landing. It taxied at reckless speed toward the hangars and stopped a short ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, November, 1930 • Various
... corps sprang to its feet and went forward, tearing down the fences in its path and trampling the long grass in the fields. A mile away the long, flowery slopes ended in a knobbed hill revealed through smoke. That was Little Round Top, and its possession meant victory or defeat. The corps was halted and two regiments were sent forward up the long slope. ...
— Aladdin O'Brien • Gouverneur Morris
... down on a milestone to rest. Back of us lay the busy past—busy with trivial things, it seemed to me, but full of varied activity nevertheless. A boy will desire mightily to finish a cob-house; and when it is done he will smilingly knock it about the barn floor. So I was tearing down and leaving the fabric of relationship which I had once ...
— Aladdin & Co. - A Romance of Yankee Magic • Herbert Quick
... the dreadful anxiety returned when, after some hours, the moon again appeared, a little tardy this time, but nearer and more threatening than ever. The news was afterwards brought that it had struck the high mountain peaks of Central Asia, tearing down their sides with the power of a thousand glaciers and filling ...
— Daybreak: A Romance of an Old World • James Cowan
... helping to build by entertaining its builders and aiding them about subscriptions, it and they were a part of a great man-thieving machine. I had been false to every principle of justice; had been decorating parlors when I should have been tearing down prisons! I, helping ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... the table, when on Sundays he ate the mid-day meal with them; his thin hatchet face, his prominent epiglottis. He wore a fresh cotton shirt then, with a flaming necktie, but he did not clean his fingernails. And his talk was always of tearing down, never of building up. ...
— Dangerous Days • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... further explanation. That could wait. Thor was out of the house, tearing down the empty street, while she followed scarcely less swiftly. At that time of night they were almost sure to have the ...
— The Side Of The Angels - A Novel • Basil King
... to the row of cottages so perilously near? No earthly power could have kept the mite out of the fray. Before the old dame knew where he was, his little hands were clenched round the handle of a heavy iron pail, and he was struggling up the yard to where the men were tearing down the connecting fences, in a desperate endeavour to stay the onrush, of the flames. To and fro, to and fro, the child toiled, begrimed by falling blacks, scorched by the blaze, his whole mind intent on one thing—to stop the burning of that charred ...
— A Loose End and Other Stories • S. Elizabeth Hall
... return trip we passed a large number of London busses loaded with wounded; they were all sitting-up cases and were a very happy looking lot. It was an odd sight to see bus after bus tearing down that long, straight road, with the tall trees on either hand, each bus with rows of soldiers seated on the upper deck, with heads and arms bandaged, looking about at everything with the greatest interest,—like tourists rather than men who ...
— On the Fringe of the Great Fight • George G. Nasmith
... Hugo, that prince of Romanticists; their object being—revolt from conventional standards and a complete expression of their own personalities. Hugo, as he says in the famous preface to Cromwell, was tearing down the plaster which hides the facade of the fair temple of art; Dumas had just demolished Racine; Gericault and Delacroix, by their daring conceptions, were founding our modern school of painting. Into this maelstrom of revolution, Berlioz—he of the flaming locks, "that hairy Romantic" ...
— Music: An Art and a Language • Walter Raymond Spalding
... to mind when on the night of the dance information came to his ear that she had sold her pearls to lift the lien on Cap'n Sam Dreed's ship, with her own hands tearing down the libel from the mast and grinding ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1921 and the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various
... shake hands with the hall porter, and the boots who took our luggage, and ask after their sisters and their mothers, and their sweethearts—the man knew them all. And when he heard from his boy, Willie Quarrie, that the cook was a person from Michael, it was as much as I could do to keep him from tearing down to the kitchen to ...
— Capt'n Davy's Honeymoon - 1893 • Hall Caine
... characteristic which is unsound. We know what lies in that direction. You are like the railway-train which, with breaks unapplied, is stealing the first yard down the incline at the rale of a mile in two hours; but if that train be not pulled up, in ten minutes it may be tearing down to destruction at sixty ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... the trading-shop was quickly cleared out, and in the highest spirits, laughing loudly at the glorious fun they were having, the braves commenced to enter the houses, ripping up the feather beds to look for guns and tearing down calico curtains for finery. The men of the fort were nearly all away in the plains, and the women and children were in a high state of alarm. Sometimes the Indians would point their guns at the women, then drag them off the beds on which they were sitting and rip open bedding and mattress, ...
— The Great Lone Land - A Narrative of Travel and Adventure in the North-West of America • W. F. Butler
... shrubbery, and he wheeled his horses to the left, lashing them into a rapid run. It was all over in a moment—a sputtering of rifles, a wild medley of cries, a glimpse of savage figures, and the two were tearing down the rocks, the din of pursuit dying away behind them. The band were evidently all on foot, yet Hampton continued to press his mount at a swift pace, taking turn after turn about the sharp hills, confident that the hard earth would leave no trace ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish
... heard the Racket, and saw Women and Children fleeing to Places of Safety, so he gripped his Club and ran Ponderously, overtaking the three Well-Bred Young Men in a dark part of the Street, where they were Engaged in tearing down a Fence. ...
— Fables in Slang • George Ade
... cattle, and frightening the creatures so that they rushed about the field in great consternation; and finally, as he grew bolder and more frequent in his descents, the whole herd broke over the fence and came tearing down to the house "like mad." It did not seem to be an assault with intent to kill, but was perhaps a stratagem resorted to in order to separate the herd and expose the lambs, which hugged the cattle very closely. When he occasionally alighted upon the oaks that stood near, ...
— Wake-Robin • John Burroughs
... several others, drew up a remonstrance against "the desecration by officious restoration, and the tearing down of time-mellowed structures to make room for the unsightly brick piles of ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 5 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard
... the embankment to get out of the raking fire that was ripping through the bushes, and tearing up the ground. Here I felt safe. The firing raged in front; we could hear the shout of the charge and the clash of battle. While I was sitting here, a cannon ball came tearing down the works, cutting a soldier's head off, spattering his brains all over my face and bosom, and mangling and tearing four or five others to shreds. As a wounded horse was being led off, a cannon ball struck him, and he was literally ripped open, falling in the very place I ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins
... horses or oxen or mules for his ploughing, engaged his sister to direct the plough, while he yoked himself to a steer for the pulling. The steer promptly ran away, and the lad had no choice but to run too. They came shortly into the village and went tearing down the street. And as he raced wildly, ...
— Jokes For All Occasions - Selected and Edited by One of America's Foremost Public Speakers • Anonymous
... he made his way down, the light snow flying before him. Rounding the rocks he could see down into the main canon; see the pony-soldiers and their Indian allies tearing down and burning the lodges. The yellow glare of many fires burned brightly in contrast with the cold blue of the snow. He scanned narrowly the place where his own lodge had been and saw it fall before many hands to be taken to their fires. With raised shoulders ...
— The Way of an Indian • Frederic Remington
... at home was thus tearing down the old framework of state, the Iwakura Embassy in foreign lands was gathering materials for the new. This was significant, inasmuch as five of the best statesmen of the time, with their staff of forty-four able men, came into association ...
— The Constitutional Development of Japan 1863-1881 • Toyokichi Iyenaga
... allowed the girls to go out except very neatly dressed; but on this occasion they were seen tearing down the road with their garden hats on and minus their gloves. Had anyone from The Laurels observed them, good-by to Molly's liberty for many a long day. No one did, however. Linda during the critical moment ...
— Light O' The Morning • L. T. Meade
... not lose a single instant, and five minutes later I was tearing down the Morskaya in a drosky along the canal and across the Nicholas Bridge to ...
— The Czar's Spy - The Mystery of a Silent Love • William Le Queux
... sitting down, peaceful, to eat, and not harming no one at all and minding our own business," came a fragment of one man's oration, above the clamor of the others, "that big dark-sable collie of yours came tearing down on us and—" ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... day when you have lived here longer, you will know what I mean—the bondage will fall upon you, too. The mountains with their tops hidden in soft blue mist, the winds blowing across the waste places, the wild flowers springing up in unexpected corners, the little streams tearing down the hillside to flow smoothly like a belt of beautiful ribbon through the pasture land below. The love which comes for these things, Cicely, is a strange, haunting thing. You cannot escape from it. It is a sort of bondage. The winds seem to tune themselves ...
— The Survivor • E.Phillips Oppenheim
... deeply upon the subject, even if they did refuse to put their forebodings into speech. They were not children; neither were they to any degree lacking in intelligence. Swearing, about herders and at them, was all very well; bluffing, threatening, pummeling even with willing fists, tearing down tents and binding men with ropes might serve to relieve the emotions upon occasion. But there was the grim economic problem which faced squarely the Flying U as a "cow outfit"—the problem of range and water; the Happy Family did not call it by name, ...
— Flying U Ranch • B. M. Bower
... tearing down with a spirited bay, a magnificent stepper. As he drew along so that Bert could catch a glimpse of the mare's neck, he thrilled with delight. There was the thoroughbred's lacing of veins; the proud fling of her knees and the swell of her neck showed ...
— Other Main-Travelled Roads • Hamlin Garland
... The wind came tearing down the valley that lay between the mountains, driving shreds of storm-clouds before it. Gusts of rain dashed against Jim's face as he peered and poked about the stubborn engine, but still the obstinate machine ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... first alarm, had leaped from his carriage, and, thrusting a rider from his mount, sprang into the saddle and came tearing down the line in a cloud of dust. He was bearing down on the scene ...
— The Circus Boys on the Flying Rings • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... his friend answered. "I said it was during a drill, not at one. It was in Central Pennsylvania. The contest was going ahead in good shape, when a chap came tearing down the road in a wagon, his horses ...
— The Boy With the U. S. Life-Savers • Francis Rolt-Wheeler
... what Mrs. Temperley passionately described as its brutal vulgarity. The library alone had been subjected to peine forte et dure. Mrs. Temperley said that it had been purified by suffering. By dint of tearing down and dragging out offending objects ("such a pity!" cried the neighbours) its prosperous and complacent absurdity had been humbled. Mrs. Temperley retired to this refuge after her encounter with Sophia. That perennially aggrieved young person entered almost ...
— The Daughters of Danaus • Mona Caird
... driver removed himself from the roadster, assisted her to a seat, covered her with a rug—for early June evenings can be rather sharp—and the next moment Patsy found herself tearing down a stretch of country road with the purr of a motor as ...
— Seven Miles to Arden • Ruth Sawyer
... tearing down a cloth from off a peg in the wall as she passed, and then, wearing a resolute air of authority, knelt beside me, and with rapid fingers flung back my jacket, unfastening the rough army shirt, and laid bare, so far as was possible, ...
— My Lady of the North • Randall Parrish
... existence of our cherished Union? Should this question be answered in the affirmative, then, by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the power; and this upon the very same principle that would justify an individual in tearing down the burning house of his neighbor if there were no other means of preventing the flame from destroying his own home." It is evident that Soule dominated the meeting, and only less evident that he, in some way, cajoled his associates into signing the report. No action ...
— Cuba, Old and New • Albert Gardner Robinson
... the mirage, blind sensuality, savage invective, nervous disorder only a hair's-breadth away from epilepsy, a destructive frenzy—Samson, suddenly rising like a lion—after ages of squatting in the shade—and savagely tearing down the columns of the Temple, which comes crashing down on himself and on ...
— Jean Christophe: In Paris - The Market-Place, Antoinette, The House • Romain Rolland
... each other quite aghast as the boat was literally snatched away out of the boatmen's control and went tearing down the river. For, beside the alteration in their plans, there was the fire waiting, all glowing embers, that would cook to perfection; there were wild fruits which the two lads had noted from the boat; and there was the puma, whose society Rob felt a ...
— Rob Harlow's Adventures - A Story of the Grand Chaco • George Manville Fenn
... Jews. The measures which Antiochus employed to crush the faith of Judaism were relentlessly thorough. He began with the seizure of Jerusalem, the tearing down of its walls, the fortifying and garrisoning of its citadel with Syrian soldiers and apostate Jews, and the slaughter of all who refused to accede to his demands. Not only was the temple service stopped, but the altar ...
— The Makers and Teachers of Judaism • Charles Foster Kent
... be allowed license for Sunday work. But swing out your signs, oh ye traffickers in the peace of families, and in the souls of immortal men! Let the corks fly, and the beer foam, and the rum go tearing down the half-consumed throat of the inebriate. God does not see, does he? Judgment will never ...
— The Abominations of Modern Society • Rev. T. De Witt Talmage
... of the rifles. The raiders were caught in an ambuscade. The Emir fell, but was up again and waving. There was a splotch of blood upon his long white beard. He kept pointing and gesticulating, but his scattered followers could not understand what he wanted. Some of them came tearing down the pass, and some from behind were pushing to the front. A few dismounted and tried to climb up sword in hand to that deadly line of muzzles, but one by one they were hit, and came rolling from rock to rock to the ...
— The Tragedy of The Korosko • Arthur Conan Doyle
... duck and dive to tie the vines and creepers to the stakes close down to the sandy bottom. Though armfuls of leafage floated to the surface and rolled out to sea, George worked with joyful desperation. Presently the fish began to make determined rushes. Shouting and splashing, tearing down branches, capturing driftwood, diving and gasping, his efforts were unceasing. Understanding the guile of the fish, he sought to make the deeper part of the weir secure, and for an hour or so he laboured in the water with head, hands, and feet. ...
— My Tropic Isle • E J Banfield
... may never be able to detect their precise differences. These differences are due to the fact that the stuff is alive, and within it are constantly going on those changes accompanying metabolism, or the building up and tearing down processes that always accompany life. All separate masses of protoplasm, such as the one-celled amoeba or the individual cells of our own bodies, are constantly taking in food and as constantly throwing ...
— Q. E. D., or New Light on the Doctrine of Creation • George McCready Price
... people leave their children about for other people to tumble over. Halloa! did all those things come out? You couldn't have packed them very carefully; you should see to a thing like that. You did not dream of my tearing down the hill twenty miles an hour? Surely, you knew me better than to expect I'd let that old Schneider's dog pass me without an effort. But there, you never think. You're sure you've got them all? You believe so? I shouldn't 'believe' if I were you; I ...
— Three Men on the Bummel • Jerome K. Jerome
... the artistic standpoint, but is justified on practical grounds as well. It is cheaper than to create parks, when necessity and demand can no longer be resisted, by buying property and occasionally tearing down buildings and constructing de novo. That this work is now being done in Washington, even after construction, is certainly a recognition of the advisability of original efforts ...
— Transactions of the American Society of Civil Engineers, vol. LXXII, June, 1911 • E. D. Hardy
... see, I was undoubtedly quite well, my boy. However, to get on with the tale. As soon as I came in sight of our meeting-place I looked up to see if girlie had got there before me. She was not there. I looked further up stream, and saw Sholto come tearing down over the rocks. I knew that he had seen me, and that she was following him. I naturally strolled on to go to the rock—I say I went——" He broke off, and passed his hands ...
— The Mystery of the Green Ray • William Le Queux
... sued for his coat. Little acumen is required to see that no society could protect itself against the depredations of the lawless under such a system of non-resistance; and we may be sure that Jesus had no intention of tearing down the social structure or destroying vested rights. Those who demand a literal construction of the parable of Dives and Lazarus must look for it in the Bowery melodrama, wherein the wealthy only are vicious and ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... the tenth and last. Richard wondered why she did not turn and come back. At the highest point of the hill she stood as if transfixed, a slim little silhouette against the darkening sky, her hands clasped in amazement. Suddenly she turned and came tearing down the hill, floundering through sand, falling and picking herself up, only to flounder and fall again, finally rolling down the last few yards of ...
— Georgina of the Rainbows • Annie Fellows Johnston
... congratulating themselves on their escape; but fancy their consternation when they found themselves once more, and for the third time, exposed to the very same danger! Again came a set of bundles rolling and tearing down the slope, the billets rattling and crackling as they rolled; again they went swishing by; again, by the merest accident, did they miss the travellers, as they stood ...
— Bruin - The Grand Bear Hunt • Mayne Reid
... poles and any iron tools which came to hand, the workmen rushed forward to the gates of the inner town. In one district they found the town gates closed against them, and cannon placed on the bastion near; but in others the authorities were unprepared; and the workmen burst into the inner town, tearing down stones and plaster ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 17 • Charles Francis Horne
... night a councillor of the Parliament was surprised on horseback in the streets tearing down and disfiguring the decree of the Regency Council, which abrogated that of the Parliament. He ...
— Marguerite de Navarre - Memoirs of Marguerite de Valois Queen of Navarre • Marguerite de Navarre
... jealous eyes watching himself and the child with almost an expression of hate. She was jealous of the little girl's evident preference for the father, and Almayer felt he was not safe with that woman in the house. While she was burning the furniture, and tearing down the pretty curtains in her unreasoning hate of those signs of civilisation, Almayer, cowed by these outbursts of savage nature, meditated in silence on the best way of getting rid of her. He thought of everything; even planned murder in an undecided ...
— Almayer's Folly - A Story of an Eastern River • Joseph Conrad
... wind came tearing down the street, stinging his face and piercing through his thin garments. Shivering, he turned up the collar of his worn and ragged coat and thrust his hands deep into the pockets. Then he hastened on with eyes on the ground and bent down head, for ...
— The Alchemist's Secret • Isabel Cecilia Williams
... Winn to follow them. They imagined that after he escaped from the island, which they hoped he would not do for several days, he would be glad enough to make the best of his way home. Still, they had taken the precaution of disguising the Venture by throwing the wheat overboard, tearing down the buildings in which it had been stowed, and erecting a tent in place of one of them. As they were well provided with various changes of wigs and beards, they felt quite safe until Billy Brackett boarded the raft for the second time, and ...
— Raftmates - A Story of the Great River • Kirk Munroe
... below. In the shadowed depths, they could see the River tearing down a white fume, a pantherine thing leaping—leaping—; and the hollow roar of water filled the canyon with a quiver that was tangible. Far below, the eagle flew lazily, lifting and falling to the throb of the ...
— The Freebooters of the Wilderness • Agnes C. Laut
... back in a twist of the road we saw a horseman approaching at such a reckless pace that I thought he was on a runaway. We stopped instinctively, and waited for him, and twice he disappeared in hollows of the road, and then was suddenly tearing down upon us. I recognised in him young Mr. McKenzie, a relative of Rintoul, and I stretched out my arms to compel him to draw up. He misunderstood my motive, and was raising his whip threateningly, when he saw the Egyptian, It is not too much to say that he swayed in the saddle. The ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie
... as he, too, came out. The carriage was tearing down the hill towards them in the moonlight, and Stafford saw that the horses were rushing along with lowered heads and that the driver had ...
— At Love's Cost • Charles Garvice
... trying to make their way through the thicket which was now much denser because the bushes and the trees were covered with wild hop vines. Zbyszko walked first, tearing down the green vines, and breaking the branches here and there; Jagienka followed him with a crossbow on her shoulder, looking ...
— The Knights of the Cross • Henryk Sienkiewicz
... Charbash fled wounded from the servants of Mar Shimon to the mission premises. Scarcely had he entered, when his brother came in, having escaped from similar violence. The Moslem owner of the village had to put a stop to the tearing down of their house. ...
— Woman And Her Saviour In Persia • A Returned Missionary
... returned, coolly, "what else can the people think when they see him going there so often; when they see the two together, wandering about the Flats; when they hear his car tearing down the street late in the evening; when they see her every morning at the gate watching for him to pass on his way to work? Your brother is not a saint, Helen. He is no different, in some ways, from other men. I always did feel that there was ...
— Helen of the Old House • Harold Bell Wright
... conversation, will blush at the stare of petulant incredulity, and suffer himself to be driven by a burst of laughter, from the fortresses of demonstration. The mechanist will be afraid to assert before hardy contradiction, the possibility of tearing down bulwarks with a silk-worm's thread; and the astronomer of relating the rapidity of light, the distance of the fixed stars, and the ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D, In Nine Volumes - Volume the Third: The Rambler, Vol. II • Samuel Johnson
... one of the shacks which he had secured the privilege of tearing down and it was apparent to the scouts that his knowledge of camping was primitive. But Pee-wee, out of the greatness of his scout heart, volunteered to be his guide, philosopher, ...
— Roy Blakeley in the Haunted Camp • Percy Keese Fitzhugh
... hurried off, towards his cornfield. When he arrived there, he found four large hogs tearing down the stalks, and pulling off and eating the ripe ears of corn. They had already destroyed a good deal. But he drove them out very calmly, and put up the bars through which they had entered, and then commenced gathering ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous |
