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Crumble   Listen
verb
Crumble  v. t.  (past & past part. crumbled; pres. part. crumbling)  To break into small pieces; to cause to fall in pieces. "He with his bare wand can unthread thy joints, And crumble all thy sinews."






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Crumble" Quotes from Famous Books



... of these expedients is to exasperate on the one hand or to give confidence on the other, and will add to their numbers, for, like snowballs, such bodies increase by every movement, unless there is something in the way to obstruct and crumble them before their weight is too ...
— Life And Times Of Washington, Volume 2 • John Frederick Schroeder and Benson John Lossing

... walls will crumble; the busts of kings and heroes and poets will lose their contours, the lovely Roman ladies also grow old and fade, and vanish from sight and from memory; but still these two, hopeless yet happy, will dance in these wild glades immortally beyond the ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting

... gashed ground: the lane itself, now entirely grassless, is a deep-rutted, heavy-hillocked cart-road, diverging gatelessly into various brickfields or pieces of waste; and bordered on each side by heaps of—Hades only knows what!—mixed dust of every unclean thing that can crumble in drought, and mildew of every unclean thing that can rot or rust in damp: ashes and rags, beer-bottles and old shoes, battered pans, smashed crockery, shreds of nameless clothes, door-sweepings, floor-sweepings, ...
— On the Old Road, Vol. 2 (of 2) - A Collection of Miscellaneous Essays and Articles on Art and Literature • John Ruskin

... insolvable difficulties which attended the discussion of the Eastern question,—whether Turkey should be suffered to crumble away without the assistance of the Western Powers; whether Russia should be driven back from the Black Sea or not,—the affairs of Africa excited great interest in the Chambers. Algiers had been taken by French ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... and ever watchful, now rushed in a brigade of Tennessee mountaineers, and as they struck with all their weight, the new line of the South was compelled to give way. Success seen and felt filled the veins of the soldiers with fresh fire. Dick and the men about him saw the whole Southern line crumble up before them. The triumphant Union army rushed forward shouting, and the Confederates were forced to ...
— The Guns of Shiloh • Joseph A. Altsheler

... soon decided, for a loud crackling sound came from the place he had so lately left, and, to his horror, he saw the wreck crumble away and begin to sink steadily beneath the surface, long rafters raising their ends in the air and then diving down out of sight, while several shot by him, one of which he seized and held on ...
— The Queen's Scarlet - The Adventures and Misadventures of Sir Richard Frayne • George Manville Fenn

... of tragical power. It revealed the mother capable of doing anything to defend the happiness of the child whom she adored. Serge had calculated well. Between Jeanne and Micheline, Madame Desvarennes would not hesitate. She would have allowed the world to crumble away to make of its ruins a shelter where her daughter would be joyous ...
— Serge Panine, Complete • Georges Ohnet

... of the sea. For whoso is minded to make him a house must repair to the King and say to him, 'I wish to make me a house in such a place.' Whereupon the King sends with him a band of the fish called 'Peckers,'[FN270] which have beaks that crumble the hardest rock, appointing for their wage a certain quantum of fish. They betake themselves to the mountain chosen by the intended owner and therein pierce the house, whilst the owner catcheth fish ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton

... their attitude towards Aristotle. At first their opinion was condemnatory. Luther regarded him as a very devil; he was "a godless bulwark of the Papists". Melancthon was also hostile; but he soon perceived that Theology would crumble into fanatical dissolution without the co-operation of some philosophy. As yet there was nothing to fall back upon except the pagan systems. Of these, Melancthon was obliged to confess that Aristotle ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain

... can be utterly ruined by lack of care—or too much fussing. The creme marquise is especially difficult for the woman who tumbles things together in a haphazard fashion. Unless compounded just so carefully, it will be likely to crumble, but when done according to directions it makes a cosmetic that is absolutely unrivaled. The other creams which follow this formula are more easily made for the reason that they contain less fats and are therefore less apt to separate from the rose-water. The creme marquise is a whiter, harder ...
— The Woman Beautiful - or, The Art of Beauty Culture • Helen Follett Stevans

... worshipped with men's hands, as though He needed anything, seeing that He giveth to all life, and breath, and all things.' That one truth, Paul felt on Mars Hill, was sure enough to make all the temples and statues by which he was surrounded crumble into nothingness. But it does not merely destroy idolatry. It cuts up by the root much of what we call Christian worship. How many people worship because they think they ought? How many people talk about Christian worship as being ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren

... Shall the land that bears you be cursed; the young around you be sporting with hell; the awakened sinner be drowning conviction at his bottle; the once fair communicant be disgraced; the once happy congregation be rent; its ministry be driven from the altar, and its sanctuary crumble to ruin? Shall our benevolent institutions fail, and our liberties be sacrificed? Shall God be grieved? Shall wailings from the bottomless pit hereafter reproach and agonize you as the cause of the ruin, perhaps of your children and children's children? Methinks ...
— Select Temperance Tracts • American Tract Society

... To rot and perish like a beast; Who dost, of punishment afraid, And by thy crimes a coward made, To every generous soul a curse Than Hell and all her torments worse, When crawling to thy latter end, Call on Destruction as a friend, Choosing to crumble into dust Rather than rise, though rise you must: 110 Thou hypocrite! who dost profane, And take the patriot's name in vain; Then most thy country's foe, when most Of love and loyalty you boast; Who, for the love ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill

... erected by the Ts'ins and consolidated by the Hans began to crumble at the beginning of its fifth century of existence. In 221 A. D. its fragments were removed to three cities, each of which claimed to be the seat of empire. The state of Wei was founded by Tsao Tsao, with its capital at Lo-yang, the seat of the ...
— The Awakening of China • W.A.P. Martin

... white quartz was visible, Fleming attacked the bank with the pick. After one or two blows it began to yield and crumble away at his feet. He washed out a panful perfunctorily, more intent on the girl than his work; she, eager, alert, and breathless, had changed places with him, and become the anxious prospector! But the result was the same. He threw away the ...
— From Sand Hill to Pine • Bret Harte

... too, Moab! hide thyself in the midst of the cypress, like the sparrow; in caverns, like the wild hare! The gates of the fortress shall be crushed more easily than nut-shells; the walls shall crumble; cities shall burn; and the scourge of God shall not cease! He shall cause your bodies to be bathed in your own blood, like wool in the dyer's vat. He shall rend you, as with a harrow; He shall scatter the remains of your bodies from the tops of ...
— Herodias • Gustave Flaubert

... to her another shaft. 'What happiness!' said she to herself. 'Can I overthrow it? Bah! it will crumble of its own accord, even if I did nothing! And my ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge

... education to ideas of organisation and discipline. Military and educational discipline go hand in hand.... Both are preserved and fortified by law and custom, and by administrative arrangements skilfully devised to attain that end. But behind all the forms of organisation (which would quickly crumble away unless upheld by and expressing some spiritual force), behind both military and educational discipline, lies the fundamental principle adopted by Scharnhorst's Committee on Military organisation in Prussia ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,

... in de field de second year of de war, 1862. It sho' made me hungry. I 'members now, how I'd git a big tin cupful of pot liquor from de greens, crumble corn bread in it at dinner time and 'joy it as de bestest part of de dinner. Us no suffer for sumpin' to eat. I go all summer in my shirt-tail and in de winter I have to do de best I can, widout any shoes. Ever since then, I just lak to go barefooted ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves • Works Projects Administration

... this edifice of happiness, so carefully erected by Felix de Vandenesse, began to crumble, weakened at its base without his knowledge. The heart of a woman of twenty-five is no longer that of a girl of eighteen, any more than the heart of a woman of forty is that of a woman of thirty. There are four ages in the life of woman; each age creates a new woman. Vandenesse knew, no doubt, ...
— A Daughter of Eve • Honore de Balzac

... lived," Mercedes said complacently. "And it's a fine bride old Barry'll have to come and lie beside him." She closed the lid and sighed. "Though I wish it were Bruce Anstey, or any of the pick of my young men to lie with me in the great dark and to crumble with me to the dust that ...
— The Valley of the Moon • Jack London

... oppressive priesthood must perish, for false prophets in the present as in the past stumble onward to their doom; while their tabernacles crumble with dry rot. "God is not mocked," and "the word of the ...
— Pulpit and Press • Mary Baker Eddy

... thirst for souvenirs was unquenchable yet, and the masses of struggling humanity that seemed to drop from the clouds simultaneously with every missile to be in at its dismemberment, were as fierce as and more reckless than before in the fight for fragments. When the shells had been wont to crumble accommodatingly, as would a clay pipe, the winning of a curio had—I mix the metaphor advisedly—merely involved participation in a football scrimmage. But since the ball had, as it were, begun to turn "rusty" the popularity of the game, so far from ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan

... these achievements, though the highest and the fairest in all the departments of art, in comparison with the great vocation of human mothers! They work, not upon the canvas that shall perish, or the marble that shall crumble into dust, but upon mind, upon spirit, which is to last for ever, and which is to bear, for good or evil, throughout its duration, the impress ...
— The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster • Daniel Webster

... friends, but after that? Does the grave show any more respect to these remnants of dainty humanity stowed away in the stillness of an artistic vault, than to the handful of pauper human bones that crumble to their final dust under the unmarked, ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"

... Crumble cold corn muffins, or corn cake, a quantity sufficient to fill two cups. Soak in 1 quart of sweet milk three or four hours, then add 3 well-beaten eggs, 3 tablespoonfuls of sugar and a pinch of salt. Beat all well together. Place in a pan and bake 1 hour in a moderately hot ...
— Mary at the Farm and Book of Recipes Compiled during Her Visit - among the "Pennsylvania Germans" • Edith M. Thomas

... doomed," asserted Stanton, "unless something happens. They can crumble our cities with heat and bury us under the ruins ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various

... oilsoaked rags in the cellar we seize in triumph. He did it. Him we can hang. "The soul that sinneth it shall die." But if the fire is "an accident," owing to "a defective flue," if the fire-escape breaks, the stairs give away under a little extra weight, or ill-built walls crumble prematurely—who can we lay hands on? Where is ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... theology, the priesthoods have builded round about it, which for centuries they made the world believe was the true temple, and which, after incalculable mischiefs wrought, immeasurable blood spilled in its extension and consolidation, is only now beginning to crumble at the touch of reason. There is the same difference between the laws and the law—the naked statutes (bad enough, God knows) and the incomputable additions made to them by lawyers. This immense body of superingenious writings it is that we ...
— The Shadow On The Dial, and Other Essays - 1909 • Ambrose Bierce

... brilliancy, and never seems to cease for a moment. Zigzag streams of bluish white fire dash down upon the sea and rebound, and then take an upward flight till they strike the granite vault that overarches our heads. Suppose that solid roof should crumble down upon our heads! Other flashes with incessant play cross their vivid fires, while others again roll themselves into balls of living fire which explode like bombshells, but the music of which scarcely-adds to the din of the battle strife that almost deprives us of our senses ...
— A Journey to the Interior of the Earth • Jules Verne

... faintest chance of success. According to Wagner's own account he made a handsome bid for success; for nearly all the dramatis-personae came to an untimely end, and a spectre told one, not yet finished off, that if he moved another step his nose would then and there crumble ...
— Richard Wagner - Composer of Operas • John F. Runciman

... prospered. Our title to God's acres will be safe and sound—when we can "read our title clear" to heavenly mansions. Built on the rock, our church will stand the storms of ages: though the material super- structure should crumble into dust, the fittest would sur- [30] vive,—the spiritual idea would live, a perpetual type of the divine ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy

... your goose, dry it, and rub the inside with pepper and salt. Crumble some bread, but not too fine; take a piece of butter and make it hot; cut a middle-sized onion and stew in the butter. Cut the liver very small, and put that also in the butter for about a minute just to ...
— The Lady's Own Cookery Book, and New Dinner-Table Directory; • Charlotte Campbell Bury

... white flowers on the top of the wall, out of reach, and lichen grows against it dried by the sun till it looks ready to crumble. By the gateway grows a thick bunch of meadow geranium, soon to flower; over the gate is the dusty highway road, quiet but dusty, dotted with the innumerable footmarks of a flock of sheep that has passed. The sound of their bleating still comes ...
— The Life of the Fields • Richard Jefferies

... the iron curtain, but in addition to give expression and opportunity to the forces of growth and progress in the free world, to so organize and unify the cooperative community of free men that we will not crumble but grow stronger over the years, and the Soviet empire, not the free world, will eventually have to ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various

... stood looking after her, fists clenched and his face very gray in the morning light. Some small inner voice told him that his new plan, and the others which he had built upon it, must crumble and fall as a castle of sand. He groaned and, turning aside, made his way through the shrubbery ...
— Fire-Tongue • Sax Rohmer

... yet separated them, when not one of them had thought of keeping his part of glory to himself? Nowadays the battle was beginning. Each hungry one was eagerly biting. And a fissure was there, a scarcely perceptible crack that had rent the old, sworn friendships, and some day would make them crumble into a ...
— His Masterpiece • Emile Zola

... the depths of the forest, she led him to a fair-seeming castle, and, bidding him enter its portals, offered to show him a realization of his dream. But, lo! even as he entered the stately corridor it seemed to crumble away before him, and disclosed a hideous abyss beyond, in which the whole of that goodly palace lay in heaped and tangled ruins—the fitting symbol of his wrecked ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte

... where legal ghouls grow fat; Where buried papers, fold on fold, Crumble to dust, that 'thwart the sun Floats dim, a pallid ghost of gold. The day is dying. All about, Dark, threat'ning shadows lurk; but still I ponder o'er a dead girl's name Fast fading from ...
— Point Lace and Diamonds • George A. Baker, Jr.

... that you and I could carry it so far. Halloa, Watson, what's this? It's the man himself, by all that's wonderful and audacious! Not a word to show your suspicions—not a word, or my plans crumble to the ground." ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle

... sand on the beach of the mighty ocean. But then you cry, 'But what am I—poor mortal thing—lost among all this inconceivable greatness?' The answer comes that You are that most precious thing—a living soul. And if you were destroyed the whole system of universes would crumble, for you are as necessary as the greatest part of it—it cannot do without you—you cannot be lost or destroyed—you are a part of it all, and are eternal. 'But,' you ask, 'beyond all of this of which you have told me, what is there—what ...
— A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka

... statues time will eat away; And tombs, like their inhabitants, decay: But here Palm non lives, and so he must When marbles crumble ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger

... Actual: this is what World-History, if it teach any thing, has to teach us, How they grow; and, after long stormy growth, bloom out mature, supreme; then quickly (for the blossom is brief) fall into decay; sorrowfully dwindle; and crumble down, or rush down, noisily or noiselessly disappearing. The blossom is so brief; as of some centennial Cactus-flower, which after a century of waiting shines out for hours! Thus from the day when rough Clovis, in the Champ de Mars, in sight ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle

... as he ordained, for we in Tiverton are cheerfully willing to give the dead their way. Lax enough is the helpless hand in the fictitious stiffness of its grasp; and we are not the people to deny it holding, by courtesy at least. Soon enough does the sceptre of mortality crumble and fall. So Abe was buried according to his wish. But when necessity commanded us to add unto ourselves another acre, we took in his grave with it, and the fence, falling into decay, was never renewed. ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown

... fight, this Tartar-power withstand, Let sweeping Vengeance lift her flickering brand; Rustem alone may stem the roaring wave, And, prompt as bold, his groaning country save. Meanwhile in flight we place our only trust, Ere the proud ramparts crumble in ...
— Persian Literature, Volume 1,Comprising The Shah Nameh, The - Rubaiyat, The Divan, and The Gulistan • Anonymous

... be brought, and while the children, after their manner, struck an acquaintance, the mothers indulged in the talk of mothers and drank tea from cups so fragile that Jees Uck feared lest hers should crumble to pieces beneath her fingers. Never had she seen such cups, so delicate and dainty. In her mind she compared them with the woman who poured the tea, and there uprose in contrast the gourds and pannikins of the Toyaat village and the clumsy mugs of Twenty Mile, to which she likened ...
— The Faith of Men • Jack London

... the Romagna, the empire of Alexander's son at once began to crumble away. The tyrants he had expelled returned to their cities. Guidobaldo and Elisabetta hastened from Venice to Urbino and were received with open arms. Still more promptly Giovanni Sforza had returned from Mantua to Pesaro. The Marquis Gonzaga had sent him ...
— Lucretia Borgia - According to Original Documents and Correspondence of Her Day • Ferdinand Gregorovius

... trinity of points upon which this Orientalist stands to deliver his oracles. Moreover, his arguments are double-edged, as shown. If the citadel of Buddhism can be undermined by Professor Max Muller's critical engineering, then pari passu that of Christianity must crumble in the same ruins. Or have the Christians alone the monopoly of absurd religious "inventions" and the right of being jealous of any infringement ...
— Five Years Of Theosophy • Various

... the pyramid," said Phorenice contemptuously. "I myself have some knowledge of the earth forces, as I have shown this night. But though you crumble every stone above us now and grind it into grit and dust, I shall still be Empress. What force can you crazy priests bring against me that I ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne

... minds receive new ideas, laying aside the old and effete, the world advances. Society rests upon them; mighty revolutions spring from them; institutions crumble before their ...
— New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments • John Morrison

... horn Through darkening deeps beneath the covering cloud, 260 Till all the wild beasts of the darkness hear; Till the Czar quake, till Austria cower for fear, Till the king breathe not, till the priest wax pale, Till spies and slayers on seats of judgment quail, Till mitre and cowl bow down And crumble as a crown, Till Caesar driven to lair and hounded Pope Reel breathless and drop heartless out of hope, And one the uncleanest kinless beast of all Lower than his fortune fall; 270 The wolfish waif of casual empire, born To turn all hate ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne

... this the first and last sundering came; on Paulina of Ravenna, holy of life and blameless, the young bride of the physician whose skill could not save her, but whose last testimony to her virtues has survived the wreck of the centuries that have made the city crumble and the very sea retire.[13] The tender feeling for children mingles with the bitter grief at their loss, a touch of fancy, as though they were flowers plucked by Persephone to be worn by her and light up the greyness of the underworld. Cleodicus, ...
— Select Epigrams from the Greek Anthology • J. W. Mackail

... people as our Hero and Leander find no cases under the sun where something is to be done, yet where little can be said. And these wretched wranglings, this interminable labyrinth of petty disputes, waste and crumble away that high ideal of truth and tenderness, which the real, deep sympathies and actual worth of their characters entitled them to form. Their married life is not what they expected; at times they are startled by the reflection that they nave somehow grown unlovely ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 91, May, 1865 • Various

... misery and anger and such revolt as is, I hope, rarely found in the heart of a child. I had sat down outside the rails at this most dangerous point along the cliff, wondering whether or not it would crumble beneath me. For this lameness coming to me, who had been so active, who had been, indeed, the little athlete and pugilist of the sands, seemed to have isolated me from my fellow-creatures to a degree that is inconceivable to me now. A stubborn will and masterful pride made me ...
— Aylwin • Theodore Watts-Dunton

... disturbing his brother, he rose, dressed himself, and took a survey of his chamber by daylight. It was a large, gloomy-looking room, unceiled and unpainted, and the rough beams and rafters looked like the ponderous ribs of some antediluvian monster, which might crumble in at any time, and bury all beneath them. The windows were large, but dingy and begrimed with the unmoved dust of years; and spiders' webs hung in profuse festoons from the dirty sashes. A quantity of old ...
— The Brother Clerks - A Tale of New-Orleans • Xariffa

... pine-wood, From the dwellings of the fir-glen? Quick retrace thine evil footsteps To the dwellings of thy master, To the thickets of thy kindred; There thou mayest dwell at pleasure, Till thy house decays about thee, Till thy walls shall mould and crumble. Evil genius, thee I banish, Got thee hence, thou horrid monster, To the caverns of the white-bear, To the deep abysm of serpents, To the vales, and swamps, and fenlands, To the ever-silent waters, To the hot-springs of the mountains, To the dead-seas of the Northland, To ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.

... city should have remained; but a column should arise in its place, bearing the inscription, 'Here once stood Pavia!' There spoke the man who held the ages in his hand, ready to roll them over the civilised world—to crumble cities, and overthrow nations, in case of resistance to his will! How Paris rang with acclamations when these words passed from mouth to mouth! He was ...
— The Hour and the Man - An Historical Romance • Harriet Martineau

... the mutterings and low murmurings and whisperings died out. The crowd began to crumble apart. By ones and twos the fragments drifted to the breakfast table. Barrow tried to bring Tracy in; but ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... trade or property at such a crisis?" interrupted an enthusiast, in figured trowsers and a gay cravat. "Our beloved Union must and shall be preserved. The fabric that our fathers reared for us must not be allowed to crumble. We will prop it with our mangled bodies," and he brushed a speck of dust from the fine ...
— Fort Lafayette or, Love and Secession • Benjamin Wood

... Ohio Synod, May 12, 1917: "The great and glorious work of Dr. Krauth in the Council has been nullified. The General Synod's practise of fraternizing with the sects will prevail. What is sound and good in the Council will crumble; the proposed union is a great victory for the lax portion of the General Synod and a pitiable defeat for the Council. Indeed, we shall be told about the 'salt' that the Council may be in the new body, but that is an old, old game, which cannot fool people any more. ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 2: The United Lutheran Church (General Synod, General - Council, United Synod in the South) • Friedrich Bente

... were filling and sealing small test-tubes with the contents of dishes. These tubes were extraordinarily delicate of structure, and Beale saw at least three crumble and shiver in ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace

... Lucifer; though every one in the abyss would be glad to obtain thee, yet they never, never shall. For the rocks of steel and eternal adamant, which form the roof of Hell, are too strong for anything to crumble them." Whereupon, Death, considerably startled, called to one of his train, to write ...
— The Sleeping Bard - or, Visions of the World, Death, and Hell • Ellis Wynne

... it, and roll it out the thickness of a half-crown, and divide it into pieces about an inch square; lay them in a Dutch oven, where they will dry so gently as not to get burnt: turn them every half hour, and when they begin to dry, crumble them; they will take about four hours to dry; then pound them fine, sift them, and put them into ...
— The Cook's Oracle; and Housekeeper's Manual • William Kitchiner

... the leading men in Exeter sent to offer unconditional submission and to give hostages. But the commonalty disowned the agreement; notwithstanding the blinding of one of the hostages before the walls, they defended the city valiantly for eighteen days. It was only when the walls began to crumble away beneath William's mining- engines that the men of Exeter at last submitted to his mercy. And William's mercy could be trusted. No man was harmed in life, limb, or goods. But, to hinder further revolts, a castle was at once begun, and the ...
— William the Conqueror • E. A. Freeman

... come to spiritual majority prior to the Siecle de Louis Quinze, and not being born purely a Loghead (Dummkopf), thou hadst no other outlook. The whole world is, like thee, sold to Unbelief; their old Temples of the Godhead, which for long have not been rainproof, crumble down; and men ask now: Where is the Godhead; our eyes never ...
— Sartor Resartus, and On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History • Thomas Carlyle

... gradually and quietly reorganized the army, the bureaucracy, the very palace Guard. We have undermined the government's power, until when the word is passed to strike the blow, a honey-combed system will crumble under its own weight. When Karyl calls on his troops, not one man will respond. Well—" Jusseret smiled dryly—"perhaps I overstate the case. Possibly one man will. I think we will hardly ...
— The Lighted Match • Charles Neville Buck

... color; are they light or dark, are they moist or not? Test the soils for comparative size of particles by rubbing between the fingers (Fig. 19), noticing if they are coarse or fine, and for stickiness by squeezing in the hand and noting whether or not they easily crumble afterwards. ...
— The First Book of Farming • Charles L. Goodrich

... soon despatched; and my bones left to whiten on the sand. This was long ago; and, one by one, all my relics have been carried off or washed away. My jaw-bone has been used as a seat here, till it's worn out; but I couldn't crumble away till I'd told some one my story. Remember, child, pride goeth before ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott

... the head of her stick against her heart as she stood looking at the table; she in her once white dress, all yellow and withered; the once white cloth all yellow and withered; everything around in a state to crumble under a touch. ...
— Great Expectations • Charles Dickens

... grace give them life and sustain them in life. And as the tree must die, or the rock fall, before a dissolution can be effected between them, so either the believer must lose his spiritual life, or the Rock must crumble, ere their ...
— The Way to God and How to Find It • Dwight Moody

... not annihilated into nothingness. Suns and worlds also die, after performing their allotted revolutions in the cycle of the universe. Suns glow for a time, and planets bear their fruitage of plants and animals and men, then turn for aeons into a dreary, icy listlessness and finally crumble to dust, their atoms joining other worlds in the indestructibility ...
— Marvels of Modern Science • Paul Severing

... the early days of the Roman Empire," the guide continued. "The first and greatest of the Roman emperors was Augustus, for whom our month of August was named. During his reign many buildings were repaired which had begun to crumble to ruins in the days of the republic, when the Romans had devoted most of their time and money to wars, and many other beautiful buildings were erected. It was said of this emperor that he found Rome brick and ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald

... immortals have survived the shadows of oblivion only because of precious deeds they wrought for fellow men. The rags of yesterday are exchanged for purple robes as the centuries pass, while the crowns of today fade and crumble into forgetfulness. No man succeeds because he becomes a king or fails because ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller

... comfort me on my entablature Whereon I am to lie till I must ask "Do I live, am I dead?" There, leave me, there! For ye have stabbed me with ingratitude To death: ye wish it—God, ye wish it! Stone— Gritstone, a-crumble! Clammy squares which sweat As if the corpse they keep were oozing through— And no more lapis to delight the world! Well go! I bless ye. Fewer tapers there, But in a row: and, going, turn your backs {120} —Ay, like departing altar-ministrants, ...
— Introduction to Robert Browning • Hiram Corson

... solely by its strong appeal to the individual conscience. St Simonian institutions, or delightful phalansteres, will in vain flatter every passion and indulge every sense; if they leave the conscience inert, if nothing is built on the sense of duty, they will no sooner rise but they will crumble back again ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 56, Number 349, November, 1844 • Various

... he could do to keep his face judicially grave and unmirthful. Brannhard was almost purring, like a big tiger that had just gotten the better of a young goat; Leslie Coombes's suavity was beginning to crumble ...
— Little Fuzzy • Henry Beam Piper

... verbs at the same time. If you and A.O. will come up to the Dom. Sci. this afternoon at four thirty, and not let any of the other girls know, I'll let you scrape the kettle and eat the scraps that crumble from the corners when I cut the squares. But I can not let any one in while I'm measuring and boiling. I couldn't ...
— The Little Colonel's Chum: Mary Ware • Annie Fellows Johnston

... so much as the precious remains and specimens of an extinct planet; things transfixed in cold eternal night, icy and phosphorescent of hue. No atmosphere bathes them. Sap does not mount in them. Should we touch them, they would crumble. This, might have been a flower. But now it glistens with crystals of mica and quartz. These, are jewels. But their fires are quenched. These candied petals are the passage from "Music for Four Stringed Instruments" ...
— Musical Portraits - Interpretations of Twenty Modern Composers • Paul Rosenfeld

... our reliance and our hope, and against it all the powers of earth shall not prevail. It is just as certain that Virginia would come back to the unchallenged control of her white race—that before the moral and material power of her people once more unified, opposition would crumble until its last desperate leader was left alone, vainly striving to rally his disordered hosts—as that night should fade in the kindling glory of the sun. You may pass force bills, but they will not avail. You may surrender your own liberties ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein

... attested that the conflict was a close one. The seminary itself was in a falling state; the roof, from which Paget had given his orders, and where he was wounded, had fallen in. The French cannon had fissured the building from top to bottom, and it seemed only awaiting the slightest impulse to crumble into ruin. When we regarded the spot, and examined the narrow doorway which opening upon a flight of a few steps to the river, admitted our first party, we could not help feeling struck anew with the gallantry of that ...
— Charles O'Malley, The Irish Dragoon, Volume 1 (of 2) • Charles Lever

... Nur-el-Din was there. He took a quick decision and pitched the whole lot into the fire, retaining only the annotated list of Mr. Bellward's friends. This he placed in his pocket-book and, after watching the rest of the papers crumble away into ashes, went downstairs ...
— Okewood of the Secret Service • Valentine Williams

... that he could see nothing ahead, but Hamlin, lashing the rear animal with his quirt, still faced the mound, a mere dim shadow through the mists of snow. He saw the flash of yellow flame that leaped from its summit, heard the sharp report of a gun, and saw Wasson crumble up, and go down, still clinging to his horse's rein. It came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that the single living man left scarcely realized what had happened. Yet dazed as he was, some swift impulse flung him, headlong, into the snow behind his pony, and even as he fell, his numbed fingers gripped ...
— Molly McDonald - A Tale of the Old Frontier • Randall Parrish

... Numbers! All things change and glide, Corrupt and crumble, suffer wreck and decay, But, obstinate dark Integrities, you abide, And obey but them who obey. All things else are dyed In the colours of man's desire: But you no bribe nor prayer Avails to soften or sway. Nothing of me you share, Yet I cannot think you away. And if I seek to escape ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various

... danger; and a nation which aims only at perfecting its own culture is not dangerous to its neighbours. It is probable that without the supposed menace of another military Power on its eastern flank German militarism would have begun to crumble. ...
— Outspoken Essays • William Ralph Inge

... ourselves opposite the Davidson glacier. It passes out of a broad ravine and spreads fanlike upon the shore under the neighboring cliffs. It is three miles in breadth along the front, and is twelve hundred feet in height when it begins to crumble and slope toward the shore. A terminal moraine, a mile and a half in depth, separates it from the sea. A forest, or the remnant of a forest, stands between it and the water it is slowly but surely approaching. The fate of this solemn wood is sealed. Anon ...
— Over the Rocky Mountains to Alaska • Charles Warren Stoddard

... orchards reek with rain; And woodlands crumble, leaf and log; And in the drizzling yard again The gourd is tagged with ...
— The Little Book of Modern Verse • Jessie B. Rittenhouse

... and chaff and amurca, for amurca will serve to keep out mice and weevil and will make the grain solid and heavy. Some men even sprinkle their grain with amurca in the proportion of a quadrantal to every thousand modii of grain: others crumble or scatter over it, for the same purpose, other vermifuges like Chalcidian or Carian chalk or wormwood, and other things of that kind. Some farmers have their granaries under ground, like caverns, ...
— Roman Farm Management - The Treatises Of Cato And Varro • Marcus Porcius Cato

... on his return to Camford, "that fellow Hazlet isn't worth making an experiment upon—in corpore vili truly; but the creature is so wicked at heart, that even his cherished traditions crumble at a touch. He's no game; he ...
— Julian Home • Dean Frederic W. Farrar

... in shape, and more like a hallway than a room. At one end it merged into an incline that became a stairwell. At the other it ended in a hole that vanished in darkness below. Light of sorts filtered in through slots and holes drilled into the thick stone wall. Everything was built of the same crumble-textured but strong rock. Brion took the stairs. After a number of blind passages and wrong turns he saw a stronger light ahead, and went on. There was food, metal, even artifacts of the unusual Disan design in the different rooms he passed ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison

... and discolour, the writing blackly distinct, and crumble into ashes. Then from force of habit she searched for a cigarette in a box on the mantelpiece, but as she lit it a sudden thought arrested her and after a moment's hesitation the cigarette followed the half—written letter ...
— The Shadow of the East • E. M. Hull

... attempt to estimate the thickness of the strata in the gypseous formation hitherto described, but it must certainly be very many hundred feet. Bed 11 is at least 800 feet in thickness: it consists of thin layers of whitish, greenish, or more commonly brown, fine-grained, indurated tuffs, which crumble into angular fragments: some of the layers are semi-porcellanic, many of them highly ferruginous, and some are almost composed of carbonate of lime and iron with drusy cavities lined with quartzf-crystals. Bed 12, dull purplish or greenish or dark-grey, very compact and much ...
— South American Geology - also: - Title: Geological Observations On South America • Charles Darwin

... world happy but equality, and the rights of man being duly observed—in short, that everything and everybody should be reduced to one level. Do we not observe that it is the law of nature— do not brooks run into rivers—rivers into seas—mountains crumble down upon the plains?—are not the seasons contented to equalise the parts of the earth? Why does the sun run round the ecliptic, instead of the equator, but to give an equal share of his heat to both sides of the world? Are we not all equally born in misery? does not death level ...
— Mr. Midshipman Easy • Captain Frederick Marryat

... hard-boiled egg, a bit of bread the same size, and crumble them together; rub in some chopped parsley and onion and moisten it with gravy or with milk; season highly with salt, cayenne, and a little vinegar or mustard. Take your liver, if possible in one rather large flat slice. Make deep ...
— The Belgian Cookbook • various various

... ground they are encircled by a wooden platform. Their windows are hung with white curtains, their doors are painted green, and on each door is written the use which it serves. Besides drawing water, the windmills do a little of everything: they grind grain, pound rags, crumble lime, crush stones, saw wood, press olives, and pulverize tobacco. A windmill is as valuable as a farm, and it takes a considerable fortune to build one and provide it with colza, grain, flour, and oil to keep it working, and ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis

... b rr rr rr rr rr r r r r of the small arms plying on the shore; still see, through some break in the acrid smoke, the profile of the castle and houses; nay, of the very earth itself and the rocky cliff; see them all, change, break, dissolve into dust; crumble as if by enchantment into strange new outlines, under the enormous explosions of our 15-in. lyddite shells. Buildings gutted: walls and trenches turned inside out and upside down: friend and foe surely must be wiped out together under such a fire: at least ...
— Gallipoli Diary, Volume I • Ian Hamilton

... blue lightning divided Down the hillside scatters its course, So in twain their army is parted By the sabres sabring in force: They have striven enough for honour! . . . and now Crumble and shatter, and sheer o'er the bank Where torrent Danube hisses and swirls Slant and hurry in rankless rank:— There are sixty thousand the morn 'Gainst the Lions marching in scorn; But twenty, when even is here, Broken and brave and ...
— The Visions of England - Lyrics on leading men and events in English History • Francis T. Palgrave

... angry desire of "Progress," that no harm had been done by the creation of the reservoir, but that, on the contrary, it had benefited the temple. The action of the water upon the stone, they said with vehement voices, instead of loosening it and causing it to crumble untimely away, had tended to harden and consolidate it. Here I should like to lie, but I resist the temptation. Monsieur Naville has stated that possibly the English engineers have helped to prolong the lives of the buildings of Philae, and Monsieur Maspero has declared ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens

... statue and make it live.... You've heard these literary men and artists talk about putting their souls into their work, Duckford?" Duckford pursed his lips. "Everything lives—even a bronze statue," he said seriously. "If it was not so it would atrophy, it would crumble and disappear. ...
— War and the Weird • Forbes Phillips

... on each side of him and patted him on the shoulders and glared across at me. I felt that if I was a rock, Jim's ship had struck on me and was sinking, as he said, because of me. I began to crumble. ...
— When a Man Marries • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... era to era. The paths trodden by the footsteps of ages were broken up; old things were passing away, and the faith and the life of ten centuries were dissolving like a dream. Chivalry was dying; the abbey and the castle were soon together to crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of the old world were passing away, never to return. A new continent had risen up beyond the western sea. The floor of heaven, inlaid with stars, had sunk back into an infinite abyss of immeasurable ...
— The Life of Froude • Herbert Paul

... declared that men sat in the cafes coldly discussing an entire reconstruction of Europe—two empires, and seventeen new kingdoms with new sovereigns either from or in the interest of the imperial houses! "Rhapsodies," he said, "which proved that all Europe might crumble without exciting a single emotion of sorrow, astonishment, or satisfaction in a people degraded beneath all others, beneath all imagination, and which, worn out, demoralized to the point where every trace of even national feeling is wiped out, by nineteen years of revolution and crimes, ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane

... charge is ordered, the final assault is given; and if God does not perform a real miracle to save that soul, the last walls crumble, the doors are beaten down! Then the confessor makes a triumphant entry into the place; the very heart, soul, conscience, and intelligence, ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy

... honeycombed with tunnels of natural formation running into the recesses of the limestone. I wondered that the whole structure, undermined thus and pressed down by the weight of millions of tons of ice above where the glacier lay, did not collapse and crumble ...
— Jacqueline of Golden River • H. M. Egbert

... ascribed to the wishes, the joy, and the speeches of the opposition. O, miserable and unfortunate ministers! Blind and incapable men!—whose measures are framed with so little foresight, and executed with so little firmness, that they crumble to pieces, and bring ruin on the country merely because a rash, weak, or wicked man in the house of commons makes a speech against them! Retrospective measures are deprecated; but ministers must bear to hear them ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan

... himself rapidly. His clothes were quite dry; indeed the very atmosphere of this strange beautiful place was so dry that it seemed to crumble in the nostrils. As he finished dressing Adan reached him. The horses' heads were hanging listlessly. Adan's face ...
— The Valiant Runaways • Gertrude Atherton

... be of religion, for my mother's faith was no dead thing that must be kept ever sheltered from the air, lest it crumble. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome

... was not crumbling bread in her nervous excitement. The company did not seem to remember Sydney Smith's remark to the young lady next him at a dinner-party: "My dear, I see you are nervous, by your crumbling your bread as you do. I always crumble bread when I sit by a bishop, and when I sit by an archbishop I crumble bread with both hands." That evening I had the pleasure of dining with the distinguished Mr. Bryce, whose acquaintance I made in our own country, through my son, ...
— Our Hundred Days in Europe • Oliver Wendell Holmes

... the sand falling through between the logs, displaced by shot and shells, choked the embrasures, and blocked up the guns. In the fort, the light wooden buildings were in flames at an early hour; then the walls began to crumble before the balls which came from every quarter, front, flank, and rear; and as the guns were disabled successively, the return became feeble, until few were in condition to be fired, the central redoubt alone discharging single guns at long intervals. The Russian ...
— Elements of Military Art and Science • Henry Wager Halleck

... he would find the money. You see, the message has arrived. After all these years the sea has given up its secret. Marsine will return to Spain with an unlimited credit behind him. The House of Brangaza will crumble up like a pack ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim

... while it should be firm and preserve a certain amount of moisture, will, when cold, crumble easily when rubbed between the fingers. If, instead, it forms a close, soggy mass, it may be regarded as indigestible. This is one reason why hot, new yeast bread and biscuit are so indigestible. In demonstration of this, take a small lump of new bread, gently roll it into a ball, ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg

... pillar and descended to that dark chamber where she lay alone. Then there came a time when I could not endure the thought of her lying there alone. I had never dared to touch her. Horror of what might happen had held me aloof lest she crumble at my touch to that awful powder which I had ...
— The Tracer of Lost Persons • Robert W. Chambers

... proper stimulus. Then again, the period in which the particles of this human frame should naturally cling together has long since expired, and should I but expose myself to the elements now existing on the exterior of this place, I should no doubt, crumble into dust and be blown away with the winds. Notwithstanding nature compels the mutability of all things, its laws however remain unchangeable, and as the time has passed and the conditions altered since I should have lived ...
— Born Again • Alfred Lawson

... fragments of snow began to crumble down more rapidly; and, in spite of Melchior's efforts to keep the way clear, the snow rose about Saxe's face, so that very little more of it would have meant suffocation. The boy fought hard with his left hand to keep the snow clear, but there was no space sufficient ...
— The Crystal Hunters - A Boy's Adventures in the Higher Alps • George Manville Fenn

... awe-stricken, expecting the cliff to crumble away beneath them, but save that a stream of fire roared out of the opening, all ...
— Cutlass and Cudgel • George Manville Fenn

... is brief, Do thy part, Have thy pleasure! How perplexed Grows belief! Well, this cold clay clod Was man's heart: Crumble it, and what comes next? Is ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 6 • Various

... that it might help to call the attention of wiser and better men than I am, to the questions which are now agitating the minds of the rising generation, and to the absolute necessity of solving them at once and earnestly, unless we would see the faith of our forefathers crumble away beneath the combined influence of new truths which are fancied to be incompatible with it, and new mistakes as to its real essence. That this can be done I believe and know: if I had not believed it, I would never have put pen to paper ...
— Yeast: A Problem • Charles Kingsley

... unspeakable agony. "And what, Alas! he again exclaimed, now remains for me? Existence and unparalleled misery. The consolation even of death is denied me. But Melissa! she—ah, where is she! Oh, reflection insupportable! insufferable consideration! Must that heavenly frame putrify, moulder, and crumble into dust? Must the loathsome spider nestle on her lily bosom? the odious reptile riot on her delicate limbs? the worm revel amid the roses of her cheek, fatten on her temples, and bask in the ...
— Alonzo and Melissa - The Unfeeling Father • Daniel Jackson, Jr.

... Dead roses crumble to ashes in the gentle fingers that open the long folded pages—the violets of a forgotten spring impart a delicate fragrance to the yellowed spot on which they lay. The ink is faded and the letter much worn, as though it had lain next to some youthful breast, to be read ...
— The Spinster Book • Myrtle Reed

... half-landing he stopped before the case of stuffed humming-birds which had delighted his childhood. They looked not a day older, suspended on wires above pampas-grass. If the case were opened the birds would not begin to hum, but the whole thing would crumble, he suspected. It wouldn't be worth putting that into the sale! And suddenly he was caught by a memory of Aunt Ann—dear old Aunt Ann—holding him by the hand in front of that case and saying: "Look, Soamey! Aren't ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy

... of a coat and other things that he could not name. On the table there were rusty pans, a tin pail, an iron kettle, and the remains of old knives, forks and spoons. On one end of this table there was an unusual-looking object, and he touched it. Unlike the other rags it did not crumble, and when he lifted it he found that it was a small bag, made of buckskin, tied at the end—and heavy! With trembling fingers he tore away the rotted string and out upon the table there rattled a handful of greenish-black, ...
— The Wolf Hunters - A Tale of Adventure in the Wilderness • James Oliver Curwood

... institution,' but we will not defend it; if you cannot keep your slaves in subjection, you must expect no aid from us." Let them only say this, and do nothing, and the whole fabric of slavery would instantly crumble and fall. The edifice is rotten, and is propped up only by the buttresses of the North. The South retains the slave, because the free States ...
— American Scenes, and Christian Slavery - A Recent Tour of Four Thousand Miles in the United States • Ebenezer Davies

... conduct of the negroes everywhere is an everlasting refutation of much of the bitter stuff which is said by the other side. This war would crumble like that, if, with all the white men gone, there were on the plantations faithlessness to trust, hatred, violence, outrage—if there were among us, in Virginia alone, half a million incendiaries! There ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... perished, but the papyrus remained. Its nature was about the same as the nature of a scroll of paper manuscript would be after passing through the fire. Each thin filament, as it was unrolled, would crumble into dust. Now, this crumbling was arrested by putting over it a coating of tough, gelatinous substance, over which a sheet of muslin was placed, the gelatinous substance acting also upon the charred sheet in such a way as to detach it from the rest of the scroll. ...
— Among the Brigands • James de Mille

... be lasting, 'Twould crumble in your hand; When fairies would be coming here To turn the meal to sand— But what will keep them dancing In their own green dell? O it's Finlay's little bannock ...
— Elves and Heroes • Donald A. MacKenzie

... trifle clumsily to Phobos. Miran radio-beams were forcing their way out toward the Miran station on Europa, to be relayed to the headquarters on Jupiter, just as Solarian radio beams were thrusting through space toward Luna. Said the Miran messages: "Their ships no longer crumble." Said the Solarian messages: "The ships no longer crumble—but ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell

... without so much as a glance at the enemy with whom he was contending. Else, while his arm was lifted to strike, he would stiffen into stone, and stand with that uplifted arm for centuries, until time, and the wind and weather, should crumble him quite away. This would be a very sad thing to befall a young mail who wanted to perform a great many brave deeds, and to enjoy a great deal of happiness, in this bright and ...
— The Gorgon's Head - (From: "A Wonder-Book For Girls and Boys") • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... builds tow'er and wall, to crumble at a touch of Time; How Earth on Earth from Shinar-plain the heights of Heaven ...
— The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi • Richard F. Burton

... sat talking until a very late hour, for he was taken by surprise at the novelty and artistic perfection of the performance. His usual calm had quite broken down under it; he had laughed as if he might crumble to pieces, his face wearing an expression of absolute pain; indeed, the scene was so strange that it was mirth-provoking to those who were near. But when we returned home he questioned and pondered much upon Dickens himself. Finally ...
— Authors and Friends • Annie Fields

... decorations, and removed the useless number of forks from beside his plate. If the way he ate his soup and drank his wine annoyed her, there was no hint of it in her kind eyes and her untroubled smile. She, who was sensitive to the point of delicacy, I knew, watched him crumble his bread into his green turtle, and gulp down his sherry, with a glance which apparently was oblivious of the thing at which it looked. Jessy shrank gradually away, confessing presently that she had a headache and would like to go upstairs to bed; and when she kissed President's cheek, I saw aversion ...
— The Romance of a Plain Man • Ellen Glasgow

... instinctively, within the natural sphere of woman, and to be forced, on the spur of the moment, to decide a delicate question of manners, awoke in him the dismay of one who sees his accustomed prop of authority beginning to crumble. Surely Pussy knew best about things like that! He would as soon have thought of interfering with her housekeeping as of instructing her in the details of ladylike conduct. And, indeed, he had not observed that Gabriella was in the room until his wife, for her own purpose, had adroitly ...
— Life and Gabriella - The Story of a Woman's Courage • Ellen Glasgow

... read in the strange sadness of his face. She dared not let him see how desperately sorry for him she felt; the most perfunctory phrase might betray her. Her knowledge of his falseness stood between them like a wall; blindly she struggled to keep it staunch, not letting her rushing pity undermine and crumble it. He had been false to her, like his father. Father and son, they had deceived and betrayed her; honor and truth ...
— Queed • Henry Sydnor Harrison

... away By myriads, when they dare to pave their way With human hearts—to what?—a dream alone. Can despots compass aught that hails their sway? Or call with truth one span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone? ...
— Childe Harold's Pilgrimage • Lord Byron

... precipitating house. The guhr and nitro-glycerine are mixed in lead tanks (about 1-1/2 foot deep, and 2 to 3 feet long), in the proportions of 75 of the nitro-glycerine to 25 of the guhr, unless the guhr is found to be too absorbent, which will cause the dynamite to be too dry and to crumble. In this case a small quantity of barium sulphate, say about 1 per cent., should be added to the guhr. This will lessen its absorbing powers, or a highly absorptive sample of guhr may be mixed with one of less absorptive power, in the proportions found by experiment ...
— Nitro-Explosives: A Practical Treatise • P. Gerald Sanford

... than I can tell. It's beyond me. Only there was laughter here once—and now there's silence. There was life—and now there's death. Men cut these little steps, made these arrow-heads and mealing-stones, plaited the ropes we found, and left their bones to crumble in our fingers. As far as time is concerned it might all have been yesterday. We're here to-day. Maybe we're higher in the scale of human beings—in intelligence. But who knows? We can't be any higher in the things for which ...
— Riders of the Purple Sage • Zane Grey

... admiration of the world, more venerable and majestic, and Bolvar, higher and brighter. Washington established a republic which later became one of the greatest countries on earth; Bolvar founded also a great country, but, less happy than his elder brother, saw it crumble down; and though he did not see his work destroyed, he saw it disfigured and diminished. The successors of Washington, great citizens, philosophers and statesmen, never dreamed of tearing up the sacred mantle of their mother in order to cover their scars ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell

... grotesque animals to slaughter them for a dubious food. True, he had the compensation of believing invincibly that the Arrowhead Ranch and all its concerns lay upon his own slightly bowed shoulders; that the thing would fast crumble upon his severance from it. But I questioned whether this were adequate. I felt him to be a man of sorrow if not of tragedy. Vaguely he reached me as one who had ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson

... of good Tobacco, and spread them open; then dry them gently in the Sun, or before the Fire, and strip them from the Stalks; when the leafy part will crumble, between the Fingers; then put it into a Mill, and with a Pestle rolling about it, the Tobacco will presently be ground, as fine as Snuff; or else, if you have never a Mill, when your Tobacco will break between the Fingers, lay it on ...
— The Country Housewife and Lady's Director - In the Management of a House, and the Delights and Profits of a Farm • Richard Bradley

... hearth. And he lost himself in a profound reverie, the while he built a castle in the air of his own designing, in which Self had no part. How many airy fabrics of beauty and joy had he not raised one after the other in his mind, only to see them crumble into dust!—but this one, as he planned it in his thoughts, nobly uplifted above all petty limits, with all the light of a broad beneficence shining upon it, and a grand obliteration of his own personality serving as the very cornerstone of its foundation, seemed ...
— The Treasure of Heaven - A Romance of Riches • Marie Corelli

... anxious for Joiwind than for himself. She was evidently tiring, but she refused all help, and was in fact still the nimbler of the two. She made a mocking face at him. Panawe seemed lost in quiet thoughts. The rock was sound, and did not crumble under their weight. The heat of Branchspell, however, was by this time almost killing, the radiance was shocking in its white intensity, and Maskull's pain steadily ...
— A Voyage to Arcturus • David Lindsay

... I walked in the old garden, I simply rejoiced that I had a share in the place which could not be gainsaid; and that, even if the high towers themselves, with their melodious bells, should crumble into dust, I still had my dear memory of it all: the old life, the old voices, looks, embraces, came back in little glimpses; yet it was far away, long past, and I did not wish it back; the present ...
— Joyous Gard • Arthur Christopher Benson

... to wait for an order, when anything was going to destruction without benefiting anyone. As the chateau is fast approaching the condition of the furniture, and my fortune does not permit me to repair it, I will sell it before the walls crumble away." ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau

... indistinct; on and up and into the presence of the most mighty Face he had ever looked into. It was the Face of Eternity. On its brow was written in words of blazing light the one word "Now." And as he looked into that calm, awful Face and read that word, Mr. Hardy felt his soul crumble within him. When the Face spoke it was the speech of a thousand oceans heaved by a million tempests, yet through the terror of it ran a thread of music—a still, sweet sound like everlasting love—as if angels sang somewhere a divine accompaniment. ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon

... law with me. I protest! The country will go to ruin if a father's rights are trampled under foot. That is easy to see. The whole world turns on fatherly love; fatherly love is the foundation of society; it will crumble into ruin when children do not love their fathers. Oh! if I could only see them, and hear them, no matter what they said; if I could simply hear their voices, it would soothe the pain. Delphine! Delphine most of all. But tell them when they come not to look so coldly at me as they do. Oh! ...
— Father Goriot • Honore de Balzac

... he escape his fate," went on Babalatchi. "He shall come back, and the power of men we always hated, you and I, shall crumble into dust in our hand." Then he added with enthusiasm, "They shall fight amongst ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad

... inadaptability. The old code fails under the new needs. The only alternative to this profound reconstruction is a decay in human quality and social collapse. Either this unprecedented rearrangement must be achieved by our civilisation, or it must presently come upon a phase of disorder and crumble and perish, as Rome perished, as France declines, as the strain of the Pilgrim Fathers dwindles out of America. Whatever hope there may be in the attempt therefore, there is no ...
— The New Machiavelli • Herbert George Wells

... home-feeling there, as nowhere else in the world,—though afterwards I came to have a somewhat similar sentiment in regard to Rome; and as long as either of those two great cities shall exist, the cities of the Past and of the Present, a man's native soil may crumble beneath his feet without leaving ...
— Our Old Home - A Series of English Sketches • Nathaniel Hawthorne

... his thought. "But your mind has bounded to the confines of the matter, sire; we must return upon our steps. If you do not know the ground on which our edifice is built, you may well think it doomed to crumble with our lives, and so judge the Science cultivated from century to century by the greatest among men, as the ...
— Catherine de' Medici • Honore de Balzac

... solemn warnings, that all might become our zealous fellow laborers for the accomplishment of the glorious promises, and that especially President Buchanan might give to others good example and come from patching the old house which must crumble to pieces, in our peace union and give powerful assistance for the introduction of the promised New Era. Great mercy was shown through him to the country while he is yet in Babylon, but was quenching the fire which would have consumed the country, if his antagonist had been elected President. ...
— Secret Enemies of True Republicanism • Andrew B. Smolnikar

... he saw that all was in readiness. "Lively now! I can see the top of the dam beginning to crumble," and he laid aside the telescope he ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton

... seems proper and fit. The spirit of the place requires them, as much as the captives who came in the triumphs, as the Goths and Huns, as the pilgrims of the Mediaeval Jubilees, and it subdues them: subdues them, as it subdues with the chemistry of this odd climate of crumble and decay, the new dreadful houses; as it has made, with the marvellous rank Roman vegetation, a sort of Forum or Palatine of the knocked-down modern houses, the empty unfinished basements behind the ...
— The Spirit of Rome • Vernon Lee

... a hellish picture; it remained indelibly fixed upon Allie Briskow's mind. As she looked on in horrid fascination, she saw the derrick change into a latticelike tower of flame, saw its upper part begin slowly to crumble and disintegrate. The force with which the gas issued blew the blaze high and held it dancing, tumbling in mid-air, a phenomenon indescribably weird and impressive. The men who stood nearest bent their heads and shielded their ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach

... as this spectacle was, it proved merely the first of a series of calamities which were to overshadow the later years of the Liberator. His grandiose political structure began to crumble, for it was built on the shifting sands of a fickle popularity. The more he urged a general acceptance of the principles of his autocratic constitution, the surer were his followers that he coveted royal honors. In December he imposed his instrument upon Peru. Then he learned that a meeting ...
— The Hispanic Nations of the New World - Volume 50 in The Chronicles Of America Series • William R. Shepherd



Words linked to "Crumble" :   wear, bust, rust, tumble, break, decay, wear out, weather, change, dilapidate, collapse, gnaw at, crumple, break down, erode, wear away, change integrity, eat at, ruin, gnaw



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