"Ruin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... misfortune in itself," she retorted with some little petulance. "It is simply the accident which has happened since that has been the cause of my ruin. I have certainly got thistles for figs in a worldly sense, but how could I tell what time ...
— The Return of the Native • Thomas Hardy
... affairs, a singular influence over his countrymen. His character has been written with a pen that could scarcely find sufficient invectives for those politicians who, in the opinion of the writer, were the ruin of their country. The Duke of Queensbury falls under the heaviest censures. "To outward appearance," says Lockhart, "he was of a gentle and good disposition, but inwardly a very devil, standing ...
— Memoirs of the Jacobites of 1715 and 1745. - Volume I. • Mrs. Thomson
... of the spirit having become enfeebled or obscured, the people are left in darkness and given over to sin and wickedness. Moral ruin seems inevitable unless there is a divine influx, a new Avatar, or Buddha, or Advent ...
— The New Avatar and The Destiny of the Soul - The Findings of Natural Science Reduced to Practical Studies - in Psychology • Jirah D. Buck
... to the castle of Tanlay, belonging to his brother D'Andelot, situated within a few miles of Noyers. D'Andelot himself had gone to Brittany, after writing a remonstrance to Catharine de Medici upon the ruin and desolation that the breaches of the treaty, and the persecution of a section of the population, were bringing ...
— Saint Bartholomew's Eve - A Tale of the Huguenot WarS • G. A. Henty
... that could not speak to him, patiently examining the tattered clothing, cutting off buttons, hair, marks from linen, anything that might lead to subsequent identification, studying faces, looking for a scar, a bent finger, a crooked toe, comparing letters sent to him with the ruin about him. 'My dearest brother had bright grey eyes and a pleasant smile,' one sister wrote. O poor sister! well for you to be far from here, and keep that as ...
— The Uncommercial Traveller • Charles Dickens
... "you have been too busy making money. You have left them to me. It is my task to see that the money they are to inherit doesn't ruin them." ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... so," replied Mr Ogilvie, nodding his head impressively. "And that, my dear lady, under circumstances in which disguise was absolutely imperative. The most serious results would have followed if I hadn't done so; not death, perhaps, but utter and irretrievable ruin. However, here I am, you see, safe and sound, and none the worse for it after all. What delicious cream-tarts these are, to be sure! They remind one of the Arabian Nights. In Persia, by the way, they put ...
— Austin and His Friends • Frederic H. Balfour
... line that runs up from Totnes, skirting Dartmoor, to Ashburton. All around is some of the most glorious scenery in Devon. Buckfast Abbey, founded in 1148 and for centuries a ruin, was purchased by French Benedictines in 1882, and is now a live and busy monastery ...
— Legend Land, Volume 2 • Various
... must admit this, I did not feel very sure of it; I did think there might be a doubt. But what could I do? I could not let poor Wilkinson ruin himself because you would not pay ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... transports of Frederick and his wife on seeing the abyss that was about to engulf them so easily closed; these sweet images alone did not cause my wild delight; would you believe it, the thought of my ruin and poverty intoxicated me more. I had suffered for a long time from an unoccupied youth, and was indignant at my uneventful life. At twenty I quietly assumed a position prepared for me; to play this part ...
— The Cross of Berny • Emile de Girardin
... stout. Old foundations had crumbled, old institutions perished, the walls of Time itself lay wrecked. They stared across the appalling desolation with frightened eyes. What next? In a world to be ruined at a touch, like a house of cards, what vaster ruin would ensue? ...
— The Wrong Twin • Harry Leon Wilson
... given up the search for the escaped spy. He feared what the fellow might yet do to weaken or utterly ruin the hopes of the American troops. Halpen was not armed, so the youth had no fear of being attacked by him; but he spent his time creeping through the brushwood up and down the lake shore, hoping to stumble upon the Yorker. He did not believe that Halpen had gone far from the encampment. Finally, ...
— With Ethan Allen at Ticonderoga • W. Bert Foster
... vehemence, the principles and conduct of the French Revolution, which he contrasted, much to its disadvantage, with the English Revolution of 1688. "The French," he said, "had shown themselves the ablest architects of ruin that had hitherto appeared in the world." The sentiments uttered by Burke on this occasion delighted the ministerialists and friends of the Court as much as they dismayed his own party. As the debate proceeded he found himself in the strange position of a ...
— The Diary and Letters of Madam D'Arblay Volume 2 • Madame D'Arblay
... in a similar dilemma? How many houses and husbands are rendered uncomfortable by the constant dissatisfaction of a wife with present comforts and present provisions! How many bright prospects for business have ended in bankruptcy and ruin in order to satisfy this secret hankering after fashionable superfluities! Could the real cause of many failures be known, it would be found to result from useless expenditures at home—expenses to answer the demands of fashion ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous
... the use of the weapons each man bore, and all of them perfect in obedience and discipline, the desire grew in his heart to be up and doing and achieve something against the foe. He knew well how often a general has found delay ruin his fairest armament. [10] He noticed, moreover, that in the eagerness of rivalry and the strain of competition many of the soldiers grew jealous of each other; and for this, if for no other reason, he desired to lead them into the enemy's country ...
— Cyropaedia - The Education Of Cyrus • Xenophon
... who regards it merely as evidence for the necessity of divorce law reform. Bistwick is classed among the unhappily married. But what Bistwick feels when he wakes up in the morning, which is the great important fact, no detached outsider conceives. The awful importance of the ruin of a life is overlooked. Men are only allowed to be happy or miserable in classes. In Gopsum Street a man murders his mistress. The important fact is that for the man the act is eternal, and that for the brief ...
— Eeldrop and Appleplex • T.S. Eliot
... thus,—her lacerated veil; "The ivory scabbard empty'd of its sword; "She saw,—at once the truth upon her mind "Flash'd quick. Alas! thy hand, by love impell'd, "Has wrought thy ruin: but to me the hand, "In this, at least, shall equal force display, "For equal was my love; and love will grant "Sufficient strength the deadly wound to give. "In death I'll follow thee; with justice ...
— The Metamorphoses of Publius Ovidus Naso in English blank verse Vols. I & II • Ovid
... Vincent "To condemn Louis to death is to provoke a civil. "war, to ruin the nation, to overturn the state, "and to destroy liberty altogether. I am for ...
— Historical Epochs of the French Revolution • H. Goudemetz
... world. It stood for purity, which alone could hold the human family together. If all women who had made unhappy marriages were to do as I was thinking of doing (no matter under what temptation) the world would fall to wreck and ruin. ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... glow, through lemon to amber and to rose. The angels swam in it, and then the huge stairway leading up to heaven shone with the violence of a gigantic star. Faust fell in repentance before the girl he had ruined and failed to ruin, the girl who bent as if to bless him upon this fiery ascent to heaven. And Julian, absorbed, devoured the wide and glowing scene with his eyes, which were attracted especially by the living flames that were half veiled ...
— Flames • Robert Smythe Hichens
... three have led a generation out of the country to perish in the wilderness. For only a pitiful few of those who leave the country come to prominence in the city. The most gain but a poor living there, and very many go to ruin. The church should be the savior of the community, as her Master is ...
— The Evolution of the Country Community - A Study in Religious Sociology • Warren H. Wilson
... and then some man like McGaw. But this stab from out the dark was a danger to which she was unused. She saw in this last move of McGaw's, aided as he was by the Union, not only a determination to ruin her, but a plan to divide her business among a set of men who hated her as much on account of her success as for anything else. A few more horses and carts and another barn or two, and she herself would become a ...
— Tom Grogan • F. Hopkinson Smith
... upon me, or thought of me, but as the murderer of his little cousin—as a wretch whom nothing but his forbearance could keep in the house, from which she ought to have been turned out with horror and execration. He had, however, forborne to ruin, to destroy me; and a feeling of tenderness stole over my heart at the thought. But that paper—that dreadful paper; was that his last farewell to me? Did he wish to make me feel that I was in his power?—that he held the sword of vengeance ...
— Ellen Middleton—A Tale • Georgiana Fullerton
... President Monroe, Vice-President of the United States under President John Quincy Adams, for many years United States Senator from South Carolina, and the radical champion of States Rights, Nullification, and Slavery, his brilliant fame was the pride, but his false theories became the ruin, ...
— Abraham Lincoln, A History, Volume 2 • John George Nicolay and John Hay
... a golden curtain tossing and streaming in the gale, and there she stood with her lips half open, drinking, and her eyes half closed, gazing straight away over the Seven Brothers, and her shoulders swaying, as if in tune with the wind and water and all the ruin. And when I looked at her hands over the rail, sir, they were moving in each other as if they bathed, and then I ...
— Famous Modern Ghost Stories • Various
... before. The girl nearly always tries to shield the guilty man. But why should she? It may seem generous, but it is really wicked. It is a direct means of increasing immorality. The girl who protects the author of her downfall is really promoting the ruin of another woman, and ...
— The Woman Thou Gavest Me - Being the Story of Mary O'Neill • Hall Caine
... corruption of the doctrine of justification, concerning which he declared in the Smalcald Articles: "Of this article nothing can be yielded or surrendered, even though heaven and earth, and whatever will not abide, should sink to ruin.... And upon this article all things depend which we teach and practise in opposition to the Pope, the devil, and the world. Therefore we must be sure concerning this doctrine, and not doubt, for ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... a drinking cup, And unguents, crowns and garlands. All in vain, Since from amid the well-spring of delights Bubbles some drop of bitter to torment Among the very flowers—when haply mind Gnaws into self, now stricken with remorse For slothful years and ruin in baudels, Or else because she's left him all in doubt By launching some sly word, which still like fire Lives wildly, cleaving to his eager heart; Or else because he thinks she darts her eyes Too much about and gazes at another,— And in her ...
— Of The Nature of Things • [Titus Lucretius Carus] Lucretius
... were leaning against it at the time, were sent, in a shower of woodwork, burst bags, and letters, into the air. The rest of the van did not leave the rails, and the train shot out of sight in a few seconds, like a giant war-rocket, leaving wreck and ruin behind! ...
— Post Haste • R.M. Ballantyne
... Sar, (Jazer?) whence the Dead Sea was again visible. Our Arabs declared that they could distinguish the Frank mountain, and see into the streets of Bethlehem. Here there is a mere heap of ruin, with cisterns, and fragments of arches, large columns, and capitals; also a very rough cyclopean square building of brown ...
— Byeways in Palestine • James Finn
... than his own, she might seem to be a fitting personification of his beloved Erin; and by her he was loved and trusted in return. Who is it that has not heard her name?—who has not mourned over the story of Sarah Curran! In the ruin that had fallen on the hopes and fortunes of the patriot chief, the happiness of this amiable lady was involved. He would not leave without an interview with her—no! though a thousand deaths should be the penalty. ...
— Speeches from the Dock, Part I • Various
... Tlascalans got from the Emperor was that, when the other Mexicans were made slaves, they were left at least nominally free, but their republic soon fell into decay and the city in which they had so proudly maintained themselves in their independence, became a desolate ruin. A dirty and squalid village to-day ...
— South American Fights and Fighters - And Other Tales of Adventure • Cyrus Townsend Brady
... ruin them," said Frank. "Too many innocent people would have suffered. I only wished to alarm them. I rather think, from what I hear, that they were a little disturbed on that day when they had to pay four millions. Yet I could have crushed ...
— Cord and Creese • James de Mille
... so beautiful, so true, should slowly but surely be passing away? A feeling akin to pity is conjured up at the sight of the helpless wreck, abandoned amid the treacherous materials employed, and sinking deeper and deeper. Mournful, indeed, is that mighty ruin of mind amid matter; mournful the thought that in years to come, the monument sought for will not ...
— Field's Chromatography - or Treatise on Colours and Pigments as Used by Artists • George Field
... it recuperated, and rose, like a Phoenix, from the rejuvenating fire. The plague and other dread epidemics have devastated towns and countries, wars have destroyed peoples and their culture. Final ruin we see, only in cases, where discord and lack of reason have permanently ...
— Bremen Cotton Exchange - 1872/1922 • Andreas Wilhelm Cramer
... they were babies, except William, the eldest,—wilful Will, they call him, and I don't know but he'd have better died too, for as sure as the deacon don't change his course with him, he'll drive him right straight to ruin, and break his mother's heart to boot. Now, what I want to know is—if religion is the powerful thing it is called, why don't it keep folks that have it, from making ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... Samarkand was in part destroyed by Genghis Khan, about 1219. When it had become the capital of Tamerlane, its position, which certainly could not be improved upon, did not prevent its being ravaged by the nomads of the eighteenth century. Such alternations of grandeur and ruin have been the fate of all the important towns ...
— The Adventures of a Special Correspondent • Jules Verne
... her grave citizens with ill-disguised obscenity. Lorenzo took part in them himself, and composed several choruses of high literary merit to be sung by the masqueraders. One of these carries a refrain which might be chosen as a motto for the spirit of that age upon the brink of ruin:— ...
— The Life of Michelangelo Buonarroti • John Addington Symonds
... he squeaked, tottering about the room on his short weak legs and wringing his hands, so that he looked like a fat dog walking on his hind feet. "Fifty thousand piasters! O Madre de Dios! It is nothing. It is nothing. It will not save me from ruin. It will not cover my debts. I shall be sold out. I am ruined. Fifty thousand piasters! ...
— Overland • John William De Forest
... Christian era, when faith was failing and the world seemed reeling to its ruin, there was a great revival of the Mystery-religions. Imperial edict was powerless to stay it, much less stop it. From Egypt, from the far East, they came rushing in like a tide, Isis "of the myriad names" vieing with ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... who threatened to make the world chaste and temperate to so intolerable a degree that there would soon be no reason for living, except the extreme unpleasantness of the alternative. Up to this very morning he had been loudly declaring that Florence was given up to famine and ruin entirely through its blind adherence to the advice of the Frate, and that there could be no salvation for Florence but in joining the League and driving the Frate out of the city—sending him to Rome, in fact, whither he ...
— Romola • George Eliot
... gave to her all the satisfaction she could legitimately claim. She refused to listen to the conciliatory proposals presented by Italy in conjunction with other powers in the effort to spare Europe from a vast conflict, certain to drench the Continent with blood and to reduce it to ruin beyond the conception of human imagination, and finally ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... a ruin, but is one of the best-preserved specimens of the style of fortification of the Middle Ages. We cross the moat and the drawbridge, and over the stone door-way we see the Spanish coat-of-arms, and under it an inscription stating that the ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... of great endurance, he was well fitted for a mountain evangelist. After an extended preaching tour in the summer of 1848, he spent some time at his mountain home. The Bishop of Gawar had received a charge from Mar Shimon to ruin him, and made complaint against him to Suleiman Bey. He was seized by that chief, heavily fined, and his life threatened. But Suleiman Bey was taken, meanwhile, a prisoner by the Turks. Afterwards, Tamo, while on his return to Oroomiah with two of his brothers ...
— History Of The Missions Of The American Board Of Commissioners For Foreign Missions To The Oriental Churches, Volume I. • Rufus Anderson
... with milk and rum. Rum was, forsooth, a very decent devil, if judged by the exalted character of the company it kept. It stood high on the rungs of the social ladder and pulled and pushed men from it by thousands to wretchedness and ruin. So flagrant and universal was the drinking customs of Boston then that dealers offered on the commons during holidays, without let or hindrance, the drunkard's glass to the crowds thronging by extemporized booths and bars. Shocking as was the excesses of ...
— William Lloyd Garrison - The Abolitionist • Archibald H. Grimke
... more than from Druidic stones; till at thirty yards, the stones become vocal—and continued so at a dreadful rate; and in a space of seventeen minutes, have blown Montcalm's regulars, and their second in command, and their third into ruin and destruction. In about seven minutes more the army was done 'English falling on with bayonet, Highlanders with claymore'; fierce pursuit, rout total—and Quebec and Canada as good as finished. The thing is yet well known to every Englishman; ...
— Picturesque Quebec • James MacPherson Le Moine
... and women, either playing the game of fan-tan or anxiously awaiting their turn. I did not understand the game, but the haggard expressions and restless attitudes around me told a tale of dissipation and ruin. We remained only a few moments, then passed into the chop-house, which was crowded and where eatables of the Chinese type were en evidence in every direction. The theatre was not yet open, but it was spacious, with a large stage. This compound is only one of several, ...
— Travels in the Far East • Ellen Mary Hayes Peck
... remarked, 'That minister with his large family will ruin himself, and if he dies they will be beggars.' Yet there has never been a beggar among then to the ...
— Birth Control • Halliday G. Sutherland
... as vulgar as blue ruin and old tom at home; but sherry cobbler is an affair of consideration—only never pound your ice, always ...
— Canada and the Canadians - Volume I • Sir Richard Henry Bonnycastle
... you wretched creature! Here we have a peasant cub just as ragged as anyone of us, and yet he takes it upon himself to ruin his own kith and kin; I caught him in the act of sprinkling a white powder in a well, and the water of that well is still bubbling and boiling from the virulence of the poison, and yet, as you see, he has the ...
— The Day of Wrath • Maurus Jokai
... able to remove the contest entirely from the dangerous ground upon which it has got—that of a war between the manufacturers, the hungry and the poor against the landed proprietors, the aristocracy, which can only end in the ruin of the latter; he will not bring forward a measure upon the Corn Laws, but a much more comprehensive one. He will deal with the whole commercial system of the country. He will adopt the principle ...
— The Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol 2 (of 3), 1844-1853 • Queen Victoria
... leisured calm was huge, gigantic, so much so that the other dwindled into a kind of lost remoteness. "Smothered by depth and distance," he could almost forget it altogether. Out there nations were at war, republics fighting, empires tottering to ruin; great-hearted ladies were burning furniture and stabbing lovely pictures (not their own) to prove themselves intelligent enough to vote; and gallant gentlemen were flying across the Alps and hunting for the top and bottom of the ...
— The Extra Day • Algernon Blackwood
... clouds, of which there were plenty in evidence, brought no lingering idea of gloom. All nature was bright and joyous, being in striking contrast to the scenes of wreck and devastation, the effects of obliterating fire and lasting ruin. ...
— The Lair of the White Worm • Bram Stoker
... not this pre-eminence in commercial prosperity lead to our destruction, as the gigantic conquests of France may also pave the way to her ruin? Alas! the experience of ages proves this melancholy truth, which has also been repeated by Raynal: "Commerce," says that celebrated writer, "in the end finds its ruin in the riches which it accumulates, as every powerful state lays the foundation of its ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... erection has been differently and yet, in both cases, aptly compared to a telescope and a butterchurn; comparisons apart, it ranks among the vilest of men's handiworks. But the chief feature is an unfinished range of columns, "the Modern Ruin" as it has been called, an imposing object from far and near, and giving Edinburgh, even from the sea, that false air of a modern Athens which has earned for her so many slighting speeches. It was meant to be a National Monument; and its present state is a very suitable monument to certain national ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 1 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it." He was ordained just the same. Our friends may be sure, however, that the leaven has been cast into the meal, and in due time will leaven the mass. But, oh, the darkness, the moral corruption, the sorrow and ruin that comes from the long delay. Where we can put one good minister into the field we need a score, and where one boy or girl is in school there should be a dozen. May the dear Father open our eyes to see His work and to know the joy of ...
— The American Missionary - Volume 52, No. 1, March, 1898 • Various
... napoleon: I never risk further. There's that cursed crusty old De Trumpetson, persisting, as usual, in his run of bad luck, because he will never give in. Trust me, my dear De Konigstein, it'll end in his ruin; and then, if there's a sale of his effects, I ...
— Library Of The World's Best Literature, Ancient And Modern, Vol 4 • Charles Dudley Warner
... fairly self-respecting. Today, instead of being what I am, I'd still have the love of my wife, the respect of my girl, and—oh, well, you can't understand. You all are against me—and have been for years. I don't blame you—not a bit of it. I deserve it. Grand deliberately set out to ruin me—to pull me down. You know why. We won't go into that. I happen to know he afterwards paid her a lot of money for her interest in the business. When she tells me it was a square transaction I'll ...
— The Rose in the Ring • George Barr McCutcheon
... LATHE.—The important things about a lathe are the spindle bearings and the ways for the tool-holder. The least play in either will ruin any work. Every other part may be defective, but with solidly built bearing-posts and bearings, your ...
— Practical Mechanics for Boys • J. S. Zerbe
... troops, if properly handled; he saw with the military eye of a great general the advantage which the position of the forces gave him for a sudden attack, and as a profound politician he felt the perils of remaining inactive, and of giving treachery time to ruin the Athenian cause. ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... by the contrivances of this wily Brahman, who thus assists Chandragupta to the throne, and becomes his minister. Rakshasa refuses to recognise the usurper and endeavours to be avenged on him for the ruin of his late master. ...
— Tales from the Hindu Dramatists • R. N. Dutta
... warmly in the bend of her arm beneath her cape, or turned her head to listen to the stamping of the horses in a near-by stable. Directly across the alley, a large, half-finished building lifted its walls in the dim light, like a ruin, exhaling from its yawning windows a mingled odour of fresh pine boards and plaster; and toward these squares of blackness she sometimes turned a look almost childish in its suggestion ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... translation a book which should be widely read with much pleasure. The winning of money on an immense scale to the neglect of all other objects, to the neglect even of the nearest duties, is the sin of one Argonaut; the utter neglect of money and the proper means of living is the ruin of the other. ...
— The Argonauts • Eliza Orzeszko (AKA Orzeszkowa)
... a hundred years after the ruin of Corinth, Julius Caesar built it up again in great strength and beauty, and made it the capital of Achaia. As it stood where the Isthmus was only six miles across, and had a beautiful harbour on each side, travellers who did not wish to go round ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... rain resolved itself into a dim chaos of mist. Xanthus and Balius plodded on, but often paused and gasped, or, turning their heads as if they missed something, strayed from the track and drew us against the dripping bushes. After one such excursion, which had nearly been the ruin of us, and which by calling out coachee's scourging powers had put him thoroughly in good-humor, he turned to ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 58, August, 1862 • Various
... lark. I'll confess to her some day. I'd have my head cut off sooner than injure Miss Rivers or Miss Van Buren. Afterwards, when we've got to be great friends, they shall hear the whole story, I promise; but of course, you can ruin me if you tell them, or let your friend tell them, at this stage. Do you think it's fair to take advantage of what you overheard by accident, and spoil the chance of my life? Oh, say now, what can I do to make ...
— The Chauffeur and the Chaperon • C. N. Williamson
... ruin and his companions. But that's impossible. His poor little boy too! What must ...
— The Gamester (1753) • Edward Moore
... the beginning of the nineteenth century. Both Constable and Ballantyne were men of great cleverness and aptitude for business; but, wanting certain higher endowments, they were unable to resist the whirl of excitement accompanying an unprecedented measure of financial success. Their ruin was as rapid as their rise. To Murray, on the other hand, perhaps their inferior in the average arts of calculation, a vigorous native sense, tempering a genuine enthusiasm for what was excellent in literature, gave precisely that mixture of ...
— A Publisher and His Friends • Samuel Smiles
... command. We happen to have ample means of estimating now all Lincoln's Republican competitors; we know that none of the rest were equal to Seward; and we know that Seward himself, if he had had his way, would have brought the common cause to ruin. Looking back now at the comparison which Lincoln, when he entered into the contest, must have drawn between himself and Seward—for of the rest we need not take account—we can see that to himself at least and some few in Illinois ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... around you, the white surf lashes the rocks far below, the white vessels come and go, the water is around you on all sides but one, and spreads its pale blue beauty up the lovely bay, or, in deeper tints, southward towards the horizon line. I know of no ruin in America which nature has so resumed; it seems a part of the living rock; you ...
— Malbone - An Oldport Romance • Thomas Wentworth Higginson
... the work of destruction and ruin being done, the storm abated, the rain ceased to pour and the winds to wag their noisy tongues so furiously. A wolf howl, and of all fearful howls, or yelps uttered by beasts of prey, none can, I think, be ...
— The Humors of Falconbridge - A Collection of Humorous and Every Day Scenes • Jonathan F. Kelley
... store of antiquated sentiments—like those in the chronicles of the paladins. I knew his nephew well—a witty fellow, but visionary. He laughed at the old cavalero, but he was fond of him, and our affections rule us and ruin us. A man should have no loves nor hates if he would get ...
— Days of the Discoverers • L. Lamprey
... these arrangements were being made, the victims and entrails were inspected on behalf of Jovian, and it was pronounced that he would ruin everything if he remained in the camp, as he proposed, but that if he quitted it he ...
— The Roman History of Ammianus Marcellinus • Ammianus Marcellinus
... wrong," corrected Dormer Colville, with a sudden gravity, "for we have in Captain Clubbe the very man we want—one of the hardest to find in this chattering world—a man who will not say too much. If we can only make him say what we want him to say he will not ruin all by saying more. It is so much easier to say a word too much than a word too little. And remember he speaks French as well as English, though, being British, ...
— The Last Hope • Henry Seton Merriman
... me? It means failure—complete failure! I never could get through the scene again. It means thousands of dollars, that's what it means. Because I let a stage-struck fool like you speak a line! Talk about gratitude! You turn and ruin me!" ...
— The Cricket • Marjorie Cooke
... that these terms are found in the versions of Holy Scripture. For instance, Isaiah, describing the condition to which Babylon was to be reduced after her ruin, says that she shall become the abode of satyrs, lamiae, and strigae (in Hebrew, lilith). This last term, according to the Hebrews, signifies the same thing, as the Greeks express by strix and lamiae, which are sorceresses or magicians, who seek to put to death new-born ...
— The Phantom World - or, The philosophy of spirits, apparitions, &c, &c. • Augustin Calmet
... crazy craft rolled and pitched like a beer-barrel, the water in her washing from side to side. However, I reached the island called 'Inishail.' It was a striking scene. Around me were the tombs of many generations. In the far distance the dark ruin of Kilchurn was reduced almost to insignificance by its background of rugged hills towering into ...
— Philip Gilbert Hamerton • Philip Gilbert Hamerton et al
... outrage!" sez Jabez, his eyes flashin'. "Take 'thought' an' through,' an' 'though'—why, it's enough to ruin the morals of the best child the' is. ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason
... church, on the side wall of which a little gray-haired old woman, clad in a dark cloak, was running to and fro, chanting and wailing, and throwing up her arms. The girls were very frightened, but the young men ran forward and surrounded the ruin, and two of them went into the church, the apparition vanishing from the wall as they did so. They searched every nook, and found no one, nor did any one pass out. All were now well scared, and got home as fast as possible. On reaching their home their mother ...
— The Best Ghost Stories • Various
... thousand and fifty pounds—the extreme limit fixed in the correspondence; or rather he would pay, he would pay and sue him for damages. He would go to Jobling and Boulter and put the matter in their hands. He would ruin the impecunious beggar! And suddenly—though what connection between the thoughts?—he reflected that Irene had no money either. They were both beggars. This gave him ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... so, if we are constantly to imitate one another, to what purpose was a soul and an understanding given to each? Providence might have spared this superfluity."—"That is very well said," replied the Count, "very philosophically thought; but people ruin themselves by these kind of maxims, and when love is gone, the censure of opinion remains. I, who appear to possess levity, would never do any thing to draw upon me the disapprobation of the world. We may indulge ...
— Corinne, Volume 1 (of 2) - Or Italy • Mme de Stael
... insolvent for months, and had been forced to the wall at last by a futile effort on the part of Van Horne to redeem the situation by a final speculation on a large scale. It had failed owing to the continuation of the state of dry rot in the stock market, and utter ruin followed. ...
— Unleavened Bread • Robert Grant
... When he came to the moth his face was very grim as he lifted the twig and helped the beautiful creature to climb on a limb. "You'll be ready to fly in a few hours," he said. "If I keep you in a box you will ruin your wings and be no suitable subject, and put you in a cyanide jar I will not. I am hurt too badly myself. I wonder if what Doc said was the right way! It's ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... of the dogs, but she had no idea of discipline, and casually suggested all sorts of foolish and revolutionary privileges for them that would have meant ruin in ...
— Baldy of Nome • Esther Birdsall Darling
... world-responsibility. We must do our part to save Christian civilization from the mad nationalism of the German people led by their diabolic Hohenzollern reigning family and war bureaucracy. Too much kultur would ruin the world. Germany must be whipped. We tingled with anticipation of our entrance to the trenches beside the bled-white France. We were going "Over There" in ...
— The History of the American Expedition Fighting the Bolsheviki - Campaigning in North Russia 1918-1919 • Joel R. Moore
... used as a burying-ground, and the church itself was as nearly deserted by the present generation of villagers, for a clergyman came only once a month to hold service there, and while the old building gradually became a ruin, a flourishing chapel sprang up to satisfy the needs of the ...
— Paul the Courageous • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... wise concerns her. This is a critical matter, do you see, and if it were known in this place that your young mistress had gone away as she has done—though quite innocently—upon my honour—I think it would blast her. You would not like, for a stupid crotchet, to ruin ...
— Wylder's Hand • J. Sheridan Le Fanu
... would hinder their resistance to evil as applied to the conservatives and the overthrowing of them. The conservatives were indignant at the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force hindering the energetic destruction of the revolutionary elements, which may ruin the national prosperity; the revolutionists were indignant at the doctrine of non-resistance to evil by force hindering the overthrow of the conservatives, who are ruining the national prosperity. It is worthy of remark in this connection that the revolutionists have attacked ...
— The Kingdom of God is within you • Leo Tolstoy
... perfectly fast, and will bear being repeatedly washed, provided no soda or washing-powder is used. Directions for cleaning crewel work are given later; but it should not be sent to an ordinary laundress, who will most certainly ruin the colours. ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin
... he could not prevent rustling. Dunlavey bribed his men; his herds dwindled; he saw that he was facing ruin if he did not devise some means to successfully cope with his enemies. He went over to Santa Fe to see the governor—a piffling carpet-bagger. He was told that the government was powerless; that the same ...
— The Coming of the Law • Charles Alden Seltzer
... was drifting to ruin, his country was going to the devil, the house was a hospital of people wounded by his carelessness, the country roads choked with his smashed (and uninsured) automobiles, the cows were probably lined up along the ...
— Mr. Britling Sees It Through • H. G. Wells
... which threatened the destruction of the mine, occurred. While boring, to obtain some potash salts, through an aquiferous stratum, a spring was tapped, which poured an immense quantity of water into the lower galleries. The inhabitants feared not only the ruin of the mine, but the falling in of their houses from the melting of the salt pillars; but fortunately the inundation was confined to the lower galleries, and a powerful steam-engine being set to work, the water was again pumped out, and the spring blocked up. However, so vast are the excavations ...
— The Mines and its Wonders • W.H.G. Kingston
... If it's low itself the High King would sooner be on it this night than on the throne of Emain Macha. NAISI — sitting down. — You are Fed- limid's daughter that Conchubor has walled up from all the men of Ulster. DEIRDRE. Do many know what is fore- told, that Deirdre will be the ruin of the Sons of Usna, and have a little grave by herself, and a story will be told for ever? NAISI. It's a long while men have been talking of Deirdre, the child who had all gifts, and the beauty that has no equal; there are ...
— Deirdre of the Sorrows • J. M. Synge
... property of a spendthrift; the monastic manse is like a patrimony whereon nothing is neglected for its amelioration," to such an extent that "the two-thirds" which the abbe enjoys bring him less than the third reserved by his monks.—The ruin or impoverishment of agriculture is, again, one of the effects of absenteeism. There was, perhaps, one-third of the soil in France, which, deserted as in Ireland, was as badly tilled, as little productive as in Ireland in the ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine
... of day the Holy Virgin appeared to me, and commanded me to forgive you. You shall not die. The grief that your treachery caused me made me pass all the night sleepless, since I knew that the letters you had given to the secretary would prove my ruin—and my one consolation was to believe that in three days I should see you die in this very cell. But though my mind was full of my revenge—unworthy of a Christian—at break of day the image of the Blessed ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... whales are beaten—by narwhals and men, And other mere pigmies. 'Tis said, now and then, E'en sword-fish can compass their ruin, By stabbing together—in Cassius's way With Caesar. Leviathan, dead, is a prey To ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 103, July 23, 1892 • Various
... those letters years ago, foolishly, to be sure, but innocently, believe me. They now appear to ruin me," he huskily proceeded. "But Gabrielle would be fair and forgive me that. No, it is not that I wrote the letters—there is something hidden. She will not tell me what it is. I have begged her to tell me, but she will not. She would only tell me she loved me when I entreated her to confide ...
— Cupid's Middleman • Edward B. Lent
... I to do?" groaned the skipper, too depressed even to resent his subordinate's manner. "It's a judgment summons. It's ruin if he ...
— Sea Urchins • W. W. Jacobs
... accents of despair, "you surely will not allow those—those—dockyard people to completely ruin the poor little hooker by making all these alterations and additions to her? She is a new vessel, sir—I understood from the mate of her that this was her first voyage. She is as sound and strong as wood ...
— A Pirate of the Caribbees • Harry Collingwood
... Seeing a look of surprise upon his friend's face he added: "Yes, it is true; they owe everything to me. On my father's death they pressed me for an annual allowance. I knew this would have been their ruin, by relaxing their industry. So making a sacrifice of my inclinations to gratify them I refused to give them a farthing, and they have thriven ever since—owing everything ...
— Law and Laughter • George Alexander Morton
... failings or imperfections in themselves they are thrown into despair. They are like people so anxious about their health that the slightest illness alarms them, and who take so many precautions to preserve this precious health that in the end they ruin it." ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... inches under ground, and an extracted tooth is disposed of in the same manner. [331] Some Hindus think that the nail-parings should always be thrown into a frequented place, where they will be destroyed by the traffic. If they are thrown on to damp earth they will grow into a plant which will ruin the person from whose body they came. It is said that about twenty years ago a man in Nagpur was ruined by the growth of a piece of finger-nail, which had accidentally dropped into a flower-pot in his house. Apparently in this case the nail is supposed to contain a portion ...
— The Tribes and Castes of the Central Provinces of India - Volume IV of IV - Kumhar-Yemkala • R.V. Russell
... are three fine devils eating my heart— They left me, my grief! without a thing; Sickness wrought, and Love wrought, And an empty pocket, my ruin and my woe. Poverty left me without a shirt, Barefooted, barelegged, without any covering; Sickness left me with my head weak And my body miserable, an ugly thing. Love left me like a coal upon the floor, Like a half-burned sod, that is never put out, Worse than the cough, worse than ...
— Poets and Dreamers - Studies and translations from the Irish • Lady Augusta Gregory and Others
... Felix Page's murder, the tragedy could not have occurred at a more unfortunate time for him. Considering all the circumstances, it would be no great strain upon the credulity to picture Fluette, driven to desperation, ridding himself of the foe that had hounded him to ruin. ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... treatment of the hands is best illustrated by the mortality which, in some places, reached 44 per cent. per annum. In those days natives were plentiful and labour easy to get, and nobody worried about the future; so the ruin of the race began, and to-day their number hardly suffices for the needs of ...
— Two Years with the Natives in the Western Pacific • Felix Speiser
... the W. coast of Scotland, capital of Buteshire, charmingly situated at the head of a fine hill-girt bay on the NE. side of the island of Bute, 19 m. SW. of Greenock; has an excellent harbour, esplanade, &c.; Rothesay Castle is an interesting ruin; is a great health and ...
— The Nuttall Encyclopaedia - Being a Concise and Comprehensive Dictionary of General Knowledge • Edited by Rev. James Wood
... permission of the most righteous God, sought altogether to ruin us, and how we lost ...
— Sidonia The Sorceress V2 • William Mienhold
... hope Master Burton will be regular with his payments; for if not, there's Jail and Ruin for him written in capital letters on yon fellow's ...
— The Experiences of a Barrister, and Confessions of an Attorney • Samuel Warren
... you can correct these for us by to-morrow, you shall have eighteen francs to-morrow for them. We are not shabby here; we put our competitor's foreman in the way of making money. As a matter of fact, we might let Mme. Sechard go too far to draw back with her Shepherd's Calendar, and ruin her; very well, we give you permission to tell her that we are bringing out a Shepherd's Calendar of our own, and to call her attention too to the fact that she will not be the ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac
... Ajax seized the fragment of a rock Applied each nerve, and swinging round on high, With force tempestuous let the ruin fly The huge stone thundering through his ...
— An Essay on Criticism • Alexander Pope
... obtain the help of the people in stripping a numerous aristocracy of their baneful exemption from state-burdens, had already found out its own share in the peril of the experiment, and now sought, by a close alliance with the noblesse, to avert the ruin that too evidently menaced both. But the torrent had but accumulated at each irresistible concession, and every day's work added to the democratic elements of a constitution that had already made royalty a cipher, and annihilated, as political ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 3, August, 1850. • Various
... when I left," Lady Mary answered. "If he is forced to do so, it will be ruin! Mr. Ruff, you must help us Maurice is such a dear, but a mistake like this, at the very beginning of his career, would be fatal. Here we are. That is my brother waiting ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... treasures with which cultivated intellects sought everywhere to be enriched. It formed an essential part of the intellectual wealth of the civilized world, when civilization could not prevent the world from falling into decay and ruin. And as it was the noblest triumph which the human mind, under Pagan influences, ever achieved, so it was followed by the most degrading imbecility into which man, in civilized countries, was ever allowed to fall. Philosophy, like art, like literature, like science, arose, shone, grew dim, and ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume I • John Lord
... half-century ago, enclosed a plantation. The hill is now better known by the memory of Charles Fox than by that of its ancient saint. The chapel of Saint Martha has been restored and applied to Protestant worship. The chapel of Saint Catharine remains a picturesque ruin, on the banks ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... night-fall, oft to me That ruin'd City of the Sea; And, as the gloomy fancy grew Still darker with night's darkening hue, All round me seem'd by Death o'ercast,— Each footstep in those halls the last; And the dim boats, as slow they pass'd, All burial-barks, with each its ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 569 - Volume XX., No. 569. Saturday, October 6, 1832 • Various
... seven hundred of the clan Camerons, who with three hundred of the Macdonnells formed the chief part of the hapless band. Of course, they thought themselves very fine fellows, and were so, in one sense, though terribly mistaken; and had they succeeded they would have brought ruin and misery on the country. A monument was erected on the spot, some years ago, by one of the Macdonnells, and a bronze tablet on it records ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston
... aperture. A scene of greater desolation could not well be imagined. There was a fire upon the floor, the smoke of which, after circling through the apartment, escaped by a hole broken in the arch above. The walls, seen by this smoky light, had the rude and waste appearance of a ruin of three centuries old at least. A cask or two, with some broken boxes and packages, lay about the place in confusion. But the inmates chiefly occupied Brown's attention. Upon a lair composed of straw, with a blanket stretched over it, lay a figure, so still that, except ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott
... evening of the 13th they discovered an immense ice-berg approaching. They were sailing before the wind, and just when they neared it, became enveloped in so thick a fog that they could not see a yard from the ship, nor use any means to avoid a concussion which threatened instant ruin. After an hour of helpless anxiety the fog dispersed, and they perceived that they had providentially passed at a very short distance. Next morning land was discovered a-head, which the captain endeavoured to reach, but was forced to seek shelter by fastening the vessel to a large field of ice three ...
— The Moravians in Labrador • Anonymous
... were thrown off at the moment I first caught sight of the ruin from a small eminence by the wayside; the rest was added many years ...
— Recollections of a Tour Made in Scotland A.D. 1803 • Dorothy Wordsworth
... at their irregularities — they are such "good-hearted creatures!" And so they go easily and rapidly down that sloping path which leads to ruin and despair. What is their end? Many of them literally kill themselves by drinking; and those who get through the seasoning, which is the fatal period, are either compelled to become labourers in the fields for any one who will provide them with food; or else succeed in exciting the compassion ...
— The Bushman - Life in a New Country • Edward Wilson Landor
... now, for my sake, Take care how they such havoc make; For drunkenness, you plain may see, Had like his ruin ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell
... which caused him some anxiety. Panky insisted that my father should give them a receipt for the money, and there was an altercation between the Professors on this point, much longer than I can here find space to give. Hanky argued that a receipt was useless, inasmuch as it would be ruin to my father ever to refer to the subject again. Panky, however, was anxious, not lest my father should again claim the money, but (though he did not say so outright) lest Hanky should claim the ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... west-end livery-stables, and his consequence is proportionate. To none under the degree of a groom does he condescend a nod of recognition—with a second coachman he drinks porter—and purl (a compound of beer and blue ruin) with the more respectable individual who occupies the hammer-cloth on court-days. Tom estimates a man according to his horse, and his civility is regulated according to his estimation. He pockets a gratuity with as much ease ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... their common letter, "the least disposition to pay any further attention to it. Every one almost says that the abolition of the Slave Trade must immediately throw the West Indian islands into convulsions, and soon complete their utter ruin. Thus they will not trust Providence for its protection for so pious ...
— The History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the - Abolition of the African Slave-Trade, by the British Parliament (1839) • Thomas Clarkson
... contrary to all known facts. "The Ugly Duckling" is as true as Fiske's "History of the United States," and every whit as consistent. "Alice in Wonderland" is an excellent story; yet it contains no facts. The introduction of a single fact would ruin the story; for between the realm of fact and the region of fancy is a great gulf fixed, and no man has successfully crossed it. Whatever conditions of life and action are assumed in one part of a story must be continued throughout. ...
— English: Composition and Literature • W. F. (William Franklin) Webster
... Greece has gained generally from the introduction of German royalty and German office-holders, it has no doubt profited by the greater attention thus excited toward the works of the mighty poets who stand alone and unharmed after all else that their times produced has fallen into ruin. Thus, since the incoming of the Bavarians there has been growing up a disposition in favor of the early literature, and against the newer and less elegant forms of the modern language. The purification of the latter, and its ...
— The International Monthly, Volume 3, No. 1, April, 1851 • Various
... around her was silent save when the rude blast Howl'd dismally round the old pile; Over weed-cover'd fragments she fearlessly passed, And arrived at the innermost ruin at last, Where the elder-tree grew in ...
— The Children's Garland from the Best Poets • Various
... expectation, I met an old friend: Miss Fordyce is married there to a physician. We met, I think, with honest kindness on both sides. I thought her much decayed, and having since heard that the banker had involved her husband in his extensive ruin, I cannot forbear to think, that I saw in her withered features more impression of sorrow than ...
— Dr. Johnson's Works: Life, Poems, and Tales, Volume 1 - The Works Of Samuel Johnson, Ll.D., In Nine Volumes • Samuel Johnson
... blowing it to pieces with non-eligibility notices. There was something diabolical about that Faculty when it was wrestling with the athletic problem. It wasn't human. It was like Mount Etna. You never could tell just when it would stop being lovely and quiet, and scatter ruin all over the vicinity. ...
— At Good Old Siwash • George Fitch
... myself compelled to choose between them. My mother developed a gray hair the day after the first trouble, and my wife began to go out to afternoon teas and sewing-circles and dances. The teas and dances were all right. You can't talk at either. But the sewing-circle was ruin. At this particular time the circle was engaged in making winter garments for the children of the mother of the Gracchi. I presume that as a student and as a father you realize all that this meant. You also know that a sewing-circle needs four things: first, an object; second, a needle and ...
— Olympian Nights • John Kendrick Bangs
... flame. Sure nature made thee her peculiar care: Was ever form so exquisitely fair? Yes, once there was a form thus heavenly bright, But now 'tis veil'd in everlasting night; Each glory which that lovely face could boast, And every charm, in traceless dust is lost; An unregarded heap of ruin lies That form which lately drew ten thousand eyes. What once was courted, lov'd, adored, and prais'd, Now mingles with the dust from whence 'twas raised. No more soft dimpling smiles those cheeks adorn, Whose rosy tincture sham'd the rising morn; No more with sparkling ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... chief citizens of Sparta at the price of gold. They, being as shamelessly greedy as they were faithless in diplomacy, chased off Peace with ignominy to let loose War. Though this was profitable to them, 'twas the ruin of the husbandmen, who were innocent of all blame; for, in revenge, your galleys went out to ...
— Peace • Aristophanes
... do not, as the public report, approve of the financial schemes out of which your Ministers make their fortunes, to the utter ruin of the people in general," she said slowly; "Dismiss Carl Perousse from office! So may you perchance ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli |
