"Unsettle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... the young lady," said the bookseller. "I don't want all you young blades dropping in here to unsettle her mind. If she falls in love with anybody in this shop, it'll have to be Joseph Conrad ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... deorganization^; dislocation; perturbation, interruption; shuffling &c v.; inversion &c 218; corrugation &c (fold) 258; involvement. interchange &c 148. V. derange; disarrange, misarrange^; displace, misplace; mislay, discompose, disorder; deorganize^, discombobulate, disorganize; embroil, unsettle, disturb, confuse, trouble, perturb, jumble, tumble; shuffle, randomize; huddle, muddle, toss, hustle, fumble, riot; bring into disorder, put into disorder, throw into disorder &c 59; muss [U.S.]; break the ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... individuals; and there will be, from the point of view of the critics, some truth in the criticism. No such reorganization of our industrial methods could be effected without a prolonged period of agitation, which would undoubtedly injure the prosperity and unsettle the standing of the victims of the agitation; and no matter what the results of the agitation, there must be individual loss and suffering. But there is a distinction to be made between industrial efficiency and business prosperity. ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... alone must speed, what shall become of the rest? Hero was beloved of many, but one did enjoy her; Penelope had a company of suitors, yet all missed of their aim. In such cases he or they must wisely and warily unwind themselves, unsettle his affections by those rules above prescribed,— [5856]quin stultos excutit ignes, divert his cogitations, or else bravely bear it out, as Turnus did, Tua sit Lavinia conjux, when he could not get her, with a kind of heroical scorn ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... which knows nothing of any injuries inflicted upon itself. As regards what is new to us, a definition will sometimes dilute a difficulty, and help us to swallow that which might choke us undiluted; but to define when we have once well swallowed is to unsettle, rather than settle, our digestion. Definitions, again, are like steps cut in a steep slope of ice, or shells thrown on to a greasy pavement; they give us foothold, and enable us to advance, but when we are at our journey's end we want them no longer. ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... now a question whether or not an added impulse can be communicated from without. Such an impulse must (a) unsettle all the old beliefs, (b) inspire an era of skepticism, (c) reintroduce the old struggle of ideas between the Insurgent and the Standpatter, and Radical and the Conservative, (d) in the meantime furnish, from the older civilization, materials, both ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... Old Top, shine on! Through leagues of lifeless air Shine on! It's true I've no more shirts to wear, My underwear is soaked, 'tis true, My gullet is a redhot flue— But don't let that unsettle you! Never you mind! Shine on! [It ...
— A line-o'-verse or two • Bert Leston Taylor
... philosophy tends, after all, to unsettle what appear to be permanent convictions of the common mind and the presuppositions of science much less than is sometimes imagined. Our intuitions of external realities, our indestructible belief in the uniformity of nature, in the nexus of cause and effect, and so on, are, by the admission of ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... of Israel to a more independent basis, as simply to demand that Jews shall continue to control other nations as well as their own. It might be worth while for England to take risks to settle the Jewish problem; but not to take risks merely to unsettle the Arab problem, and leave ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... "This being," she soliloquised; "has awakened to a sense of perception; and all through my fault, for it's that ballad of mine yesterday which has incited this! But the subtle devices in all these rationalistic books have a most easy tendency to unsettle the natural disposition, and if to-morrow he does actually get up, and talk a lot of insane trash, won't his having fostered this idea owe its origin to that ballad of mine; and shan't I have become the ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... pretty head mournfully. "No. He says it would unsettle me, and they would be always worrying round, and he wants peace and quietness—but, oh, Miss Patch, they loved me so, it must have nearly broken their hearts! And—and I love them so, I feel sometimes I can't bear it, I can't, I can't. I feel I must run ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... recover himself. In order to avoid their own conscience, intelligent, serious, honourable men do not blush to employ the little tricks of a woman or a child trying to get its own way; and dreading a discussion which might unsettle them, they would seize on the first awkward expression used by Clerambault. They would separate it from the context, dress it up if necessary, and with raised voices and eyes starting from their heads, feign an indignation which they ended by feeling sincerely. They would repeat "mordicus," ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... you do, don't unsettle her temper, for she will have to prepare for eight to-day. I will send Mr. Macdonald and Miss Macrae to the bakery for gingerbread, to gain time, and possibly I can think of a way to rescue you. If I can't, are you tolerably comfortable? Perhaps Miss Grieve won't mind Penelope, ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... a time. "Not unless I send for you, Wulf. Our meeting has given me much pleasure, and I shall be the happier for it, but for a time our talk of the past and present will unsettle me and stir up afresh regrets and longings. Therefore, it were best that you come not again until ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... part with dear Margaret," she said to herself. "It will not do to have the two together. Alec may possibly attempt to impress his opinions on her mind, and may unsettle it should he fail to do more permanent injury; or, even should he keep them to himself, her sweet disposition, and other attractive qualities, may win his heart, while she may give her's in return, and I am sure that his father would never consent to his marrying a penniless orphan, ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... Those who regulate their conduct according to this religion of nature and of reason are called virtuous men of other nations, and are the children of eternal salvation." Such a religion does not unsettle man's mind. ...
— History of Circumcision from the Earliest Times to the Present - Moral and Physical Reasons for its Performance • Peter Charles Remondino
... banter or nice distinctions, by a well-timed mixture of paradox and common-place, by an appeal to vulgar prejudices or startling scepticism. It seemed to be equally his object, or the tendency of his Discourses, to unsettle every principle of reason or of common sense, and to leave his audience at the mercy of the dictum of a lawyer, the nod of a minister, or the shout of a mob. To effect this purpose, he drew largely on the learning of antiquity, on modern literature, ...
— The Spirit of the Age - Contemporary Portraits • William Hazlitt
... it and there's a litter of tumbled bricks on the top step. After you've gone through the front door you come into the hall where the wounded are as thick as flies. You go through the hall and turn to the left. There's a pantry place on your right all full of flies and when you open the door they unsettle with a great buzz and shift into all sorts of shapes and patterns. Next to them is our sitting-room, the horrid place always dirty and stifling. Then there's the operating-room, then another room for beds, then the kitchen. Outside ...
— The Dark Forest • Hugh Walpole
... revolutionary. If canal navigation should be begun in this manner, probably we should soon have the railroad companies running their trains on water by means of sails, and stage lines traveling in the air with balloons. Such things would unsettle the foundations of society and induce anarchy and chaos. A canal that has no water is a licentious and incendiary canal; and it is equally improper and equally repugnant to all conservative persons when, as Mr. Robbins suggests, the boats are ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... of imparting my last news, but I checked myself. Lady Henriette had seen her last, and must be well aware of the direction she was taking to Lyons and Marseilles. It would only unsettle her to know that her sister was at Marseilles to-day, and would be at Genoa to-morrow. She would be mad to join her, and it was my most earnest wish that, for the present at least, Lady Henriette should keep quiet in the background ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... it's very old, and he's taking liberties with it masterfully; now it's like the cypress singing in the big coulee. Of course, it wasn't learned in one generation, but why does a waltz of that kind unsettle one so, with a suggestion of ancient sorrow sighing through its gladness? But I'm forgetting, and vaporing again. We are ox-drivers, you ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... mother, to do nothing of the kind," he said. "She is well, you tell me, she is happy: that is all I cared to know. I have no wish to unsettle her, but leave her cheerfully and confidently with you, being well assured that you will not fail to send me word at ...
— The Forest Lovers • Maurice Hewlett
... does not lag or limp from the opening scene to Valere's last words. The versification is easy and natural; the dialogue abounds in wit and comic humor; it is short and quick, with none of those tedious declamations which weary and unsettle the attention of an audience. Take it all in all, we may say, that, if Moliere had chosen the same subject, he could hardly have ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 92, June, 1865 • Various
... manner was enough to unsettle the firmest convictions, and make doubt penetrate the ...
— File No. 113 • Emile Gaboriau
... put a premium on what we can yield. By the token of our patriotism and in sight of our willingness to yield all the blood or brawn or brain necessary for the advancement of our common country, we simply beg that you cast not away your ideals, that you do not unsettle the foundations of your democracy when you come to ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... Vendome still persevered, and as his intrigues tended to unsettle the minds of the people, and to harass the Regent, she resolved to despatch the Marquis de Coeuvres, then recently returned from his embassy in Italy, to expostulate with him, and endeavour to recall him to reason. This ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 2 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe
... his country, as it then existed morally, alone prevented Ghita from casting aside all other ties, and following his fortunes in weal and in woe. Still he was too frank and generous to deceive, while he had ever been too considerate to strive to unsettle her confiding and consoling faith. Her infirmity even, for so he deemed her notions to be, had a charm in his eyes; few men, however loose or sceptical in their own opinions on such matters, finding any pleasure in the contemplation ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... calling his attention to a technical flaw in his work of the previous afternoon, addressed him as 'Here, you—young what's-your-confounded-name!' he did not point out that this was no way to speak to a gentleman of property. You would have said that the sudden smile of Fortune had failed to unsettle him. ...
— The Man Upstairs and Other Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... but that they began to give ear to the bold speeches of the philosophers, who loudly proclaimed their sufferings and their rights; and, in short, that the age would not pass away without the occurrence of some great outburst, which would unsettle France, and change the ...
— Memoirs Of The Court Of Marie Antoinette, Queen Of France, Complete • Madame Campan
... me; that gave me my strength. I knew that night, as well as I know that I am sitting here, that we could not go on the way we had been going with safety. I knew also that it all rested with me. For me to unsettle her love for your father during his lifetime would have been damnable. Only one thing was left—flight—That I took and that you must take. Turn your eyes, Phil, and look at her. She saved me from myself; she will save you from yourself. ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... roll on! Through seas of inky air Roll on! It's true I've got no shirts to wear; It's true my butcher's bill is due; It's true my prospects all look blue— But don't let that unsettle you! Never YOU ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... asked why, on Lamarck's theory, if serpents wanted more legs they could not have made them, the answer is that the attempt to do this would be to unsettle a question which had been already so long settled, that it would be impossible to reopen it. The animal must adapt itself to four legs, or must get rid of all or some of them if it does not like them; but it has stood so long committed to the theory ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... wit, warlike pursuits are full of unrest, so that they hinder the mind very much from the contemplation of Divine things, the praise of God, and prayers for the people, which belong to the duties of a cleric. Wherefore just as commercial enterprises are forbidden to clerics, because they unsettle the mind too much, so too are warlike pursuits, according to 2 Tim. 2:4: "No man being a soldier to God, entangleth himself with secular business." The second reason is a special one, because, to wit, all the clerical Orders are directed to the ministry ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... wrong with me." She repeated the same words to herself over and over again. With all the efforts which she had made she could not quite reconcile herself to the two letters which she had written in the book. This coming up to London, and riding in the Park, and going to the theatres, seemed to unsettle her. At home she had schooled herself down into quiescence, and made herself think that she believed that she was satisfied with the prospects of her life. But now she was all astray again, doubting about herself, hankering after something over and ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... to the title and estates, McMahon was somehow or other induced to look into the case, and became convinced that Gerald was the rightful heir. I thought that it was better while he was at sea not to unsettle his mind by holding out any great ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... during her brief recital, to rise to her husband's face. "My dear mother died a day or two afterwards. She died regretting having to own even what she did, and begging me not to think unkindly of my father, and not to unsettle your mind by telling you what could ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... understand your point of view, dear Governor, but perhaps you don't altogether get mine. Isn't it so? I am settled. What you mean by being settled, would unsettle me, completely. I'm cut out for just such an existence as this; to live four floors up in an attic, get my own breakfast, and have a charwoman to do for me. I should be awfully bored with an establishment. I'm quite content with a ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... injustice, Judith; yes, you do. The poor fellow dotes on you, and when a man has ra'ally set his heart on such a creatur' it isn't a Mingo, or even a Delaware gal, that'll be likely to unsettle his mind. You may laugh at such men as Hurry and I, for we're rough and unteached in the ways of books and other knowledge; but we've our good p'ints, as well as our bad ones. An honest heart is not to be despised, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... opinion of this House it is inexpedient to disturb or unsettle, by resolution or enactment, the appropriations or endowments now existing in Upper and Lower Canada for religious purposes; that the well-being of society and the growing wants of the various Christian bodies in Canada demand that the several provisions of the ...
— The Story of My Life - Being Reminiscences of Sixty Years' Public Service in Canada • Egerton Ryerson
... expression, and looked at his wine-glass while Lydgate was speaking. Whatever was not problematical and suspected about this young man—for example, a certain showiness as to foreign ideas, and a disposition to unsettle what had been settled and forgotten by his elders—was positively unwelcome to a physician whose standing had been fixed thirty years before by a treatise on Meningitis, of which at least one copy marked ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... appropriation of the fruits of the labor of his slaves, as robbery. We comprehend the motives prompting such utterances. We come not to attend meetings of Ecclesiastical Conventions, representing the republican principles of America, to unsettle the doctrines upon which the throne of your kingdom is based. But we come as cotton planters, to supply your looms with cotton, that British commerce may not be abridged, and England, the great civilizer of the world, may not be forced to slack her pace in the performance of her mission. ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... far to the station, and gaunt Desolation Is a spectre that glooms in the way; Like a red smoke the air is, like a hell-light its glare is, And as flame are the feet of the day. The wastes are like metal that forges unsettle When the heat of the furnace is white; And the cool breeze that bloweth when an English sun goeth, Is unknown to the ...
— The Poems of Henry Kendall • Henry Kendall
... she said, tenderly, that evening, when they were all talking it over in the family council, "I hope you didn't drop anything, when that poor creature spoke to you about it this morning, that could unsettle her mind in ...
— A Modern Instance • William Dean Howells
... which I have been complaining, are on the whole inevitable; or, if not, that we can mend so very little of them, that it is wisest to leave them alone altogether, lest, like certain sewers, "the more you stir them, the more they smell." They fear lest we should unsettle the minds of the many for whom these evils will never be mended; lest we make them discontented; discontented with their houses, their occupations, their food, their whole social ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... years and months renews the coveted blessings,— All goes on of itself, and each himself deems the wisest, Deems the best, and so they continue abiding together, He of greatest intelligence ranking no higher than others; All that occurs, as if of itself, going quietly forward. But let disaster unsettle the usual course of existence, Tear down the buildings about us, lay waste the crops and the garden, Banish the husband and wife from their old, familiar-grown dwelling, Drive them to wander abroad through nights and days ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... taxing power is especially something after which the reformer's finger always itches. Sometimes there is an element of self-interest in the proposed reformation, as when a publisher wanted a duty imposed on books, to keep Americans from reading books which would unsettle their Americanisms; and when artists wanted a tax laid on pictures, to save Americans from buying ...
— What Social Classes Owe to Each Other • William Graham Sumner
... we may observe that the people of Rome in that age were generally more corrupt by many degrees than has been usually supposed possible. The effect of revolutionary times, to relax all modes of moral obligation, and to unsettle the moral sense, has been well and philosophically stated by Mr. Coleridge; but that would hardly account for the utter licentiousness and depravity of Imperial Rome. Looking back to Republican Rome, and considering the state of public morals but fifty years before the emperors, ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... had gratefully accepted the dedication, would go down to posterity with the brand of Cain upon his brow. Several even of the higher critics took fright. Jeffrey, while protesting his appreciation of the literary merits of the work, lamented its tendency to unsettle faith. Mr. Campbell talked of its "frightful audacity." Bishop Heber wrote at great length to prove that its spirit was more dangerous than that of Paradise Lost—and succeeded. The Quarterly began ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... exhausted. This he filled up with alcohol, and stirred the fiery and mellifluous ingredients together. The glorious results may readily be imagined; a happy compound of strength and sweetness, enough to soothe the most ruffled temper and unsettle the most solid understanding. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... we may have occasion to observe among ourselves. Christian teachers question the wisdom of bringing young people under free-thinking influence, because, although they do not deny the morals of free-thinkers, they believe that to unsettle the young may have a disastrous effect, not only on belief, but also on conduct. Yet this dangerously unsettling process has been applied by missionaries on a wholesale scale to races which in some respect are often little more than children. When, therefore, ...
— Studies in the Psychology of Sex, Volume 3 (of 6) • Havelock Ellis
... he answered, "are divided among the firms in London, Paris, Vienna, and Frankfort, and it would be impossible for them to be combined and used to unsettle the markets of the world. But Mr. —— could do this and prevent governments from ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... this measure should have been so conceived and ushered in; both because we think these changes of opinion on the part of public men, when unaccompanied by sufficient outward motives, and in the teeth of their own recorded words and actions, are unseemly in themselves, and calculated to unsettle the faith of the country in the political morality of our statesmen—and because we fear that a grievous, if not an irreparable division has been thereby caused amongst the ranks of the Conservative party. Neither have we hesitated—after giving all due weight to the arguments ...
— Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 365, March, 1846 • Various
... into Paris, and they are to spend the winter and spring there, and perhaps go on to Germany in the summer. At first papa was very anxious to take me with them; but Augusta dropped some little hints—it would interrupt my studies, and unsettle me, and so on. You know I am rather proud, Mary, so you can imagine I was not slow to understand her. I said I would much prefer to stay at Thornleigh, and proposed immediately that you should come to me and be my companion, and help me on with ...
— Milly Darrell and Other Tales • M. E. Braddon
... never quite sure of Chilian. So much study, and reading, and college talk, and the new theories, and what they called discoveries, were enough to unsettle one's faith, and she feared for him. Younger children than Cynthia had gone through the throes of conviction—she had herself, and she longed to see her ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... Lampson." Occasionally he would bubble over with some prophetic vision, and, as he could not be silenced, he was carried out. He usually made himself as limp as possible, which added to the difficulty of his exit and the amusement of the audience. A ripple of merriment would unsettle, for a moment, even the dignity of the platform when Abigail Folsom, another crank, would shout from the gallery, "Stop not, my brother, on the order of your going, but go." The abolitionists were making the experiment, at this time, of ...
— Eighty Years And More; Reminiscences 1815-1897 • Elizabeth Cady Stanton
... Mr. Potts is defiant; Lady Stafford is absolutely convulsed with laughter. Already filled with a keen sense of the comicality of the situation, it only wanted her husband's face of indignant surprise to utterly unsettle her. Therefore it is that the one embarrassment she suffers from is a difficulty in refraining from an outburst ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... enforce the proclamation as far and fast as you have an opportunity; and you will have opportunity more speedily then than you will if you attempt to invade South Carolina without emancipating her slaves. Unsettle the foundations of society in South Carolina; do you hear the rumbling? Not we, not we, are responsible for what happens in South Carolina between the slaves and their masters. Our business is to save the Union; to re-establish the authority of the Union over the ...
— Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs, Vol. 1 • George Boutwell
... difficult for their sympathisers to swallow, but charity is not broken by plain repudiation of error and its teachers. 'Subverting your souls' is a heavy charge. The word is only here found in the New Testament, and means to unsettle, the image in it being that of packing up baggage for removal. The disavowal of these men is more complete if we follow the Revised Version in reading (ver. 24) 'no commandment' instead of 'no ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... it was her fault; but was not the world, spiritual and material, in conspiracy against her, and against Huggo, and against her other darlings, to make easy her fault? Ah, that war, that war! Didn't it unsettle everybody and everything? Naturally it unsettled the boy down at the tutor's. Naturally one did not notice or foresee the trend of his unsettlement. Naturally it made plausible the ...
— This Freedom • A. S. M. Hutchinson
... such rapidity, that the gravitational pull of the planets there situated is not powerful enough to deflect it to any extent. It must not be presumed, however, that a comet once captured should always remain a prisoner. Further disturbing causes might unsettle its newly acquired orbit, and send it out again ...
— Astronomy of To-day - A Popular Introduction in Non-Technical Language • Cecil G. Dolmage
... survive this challenge to his leadership. The news from Virginia was by no means encouraging. Given the long record of disappointment there, and the many men who previously had died there, the fact that several hundred of the most recent settlers had succumbed might have been expected to unsettle any administration. Perhaps it was the king's interference, serving as it did to rally the adventurers in defence of the company's liberty. Perhaps Sir Thomas was guilty of too naked a display of his power, with the result that the lesser adventurers, who already had been taught to view the ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... convention, and preferred to serve on the committee on credentials, and leave to others the more showy work of membership in the committee on resolutions. He believed in education, provided it did not unsettle things. He had a good deal of Latin and some Greek, and lived on a farm rather than in a fine house in the county seat because of his lack of financial ability. As a matter of fact, he had been too strictly scrupulous to do the things—such as dealing ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... to co-operate with Stoneman's raid, which at these dates should have been well on Lee's rear, and to unsettle Lee's firm footing preparatory to the heavy blows Hooker was preparing to deliver; but, as Stoneman was delayed, these movements failed of much of their intended effect. Nevertheless, Jackson's corps was drawn down to the vicinity, ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... work, shall strive, by passing along the Northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the Southern end of Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa. In so doing, I have no wish to unsettle what with so much toil and danger was accomplished by Speke and Grant, but rather ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... the President-Dictator quailed before the obvious charge of political ingratitude. Great regenerating transactions were being initiated—the fresh loan, a new railway line, a vast colonization scheme. Anything that could unsettle the public opinion in the capital was to be avoided. Don Jose bowed to these arguments and tried to dismiss from his mind the gold-laced portent in boots, and with a sabre, made meaningless now at last, he hoped, in the new order ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... tenement-house should notify the owner of the existence of a smoldering fire in the basement, and if the owner, instead of taking measures to extinguish the fire, should have the janitor locked up for giving information that might alarm the tenants and "unsettle their minds," we should regard such owner as an extremely irrational person, if not an out-and-out lunatic; and yet, this is the course that the Russian government has been pursuing for the past quarter of a century. Again and again it has closed ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. 31, No. 1, May 1908 • Various
... you for being an outspoken man, and true to those who have used you well. You could do him no good, and you might do harm to others, and unsettle simple minds, by going on about him among ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... my own deficiency in scientific lore, I never ventured to unsettle his conviction that the sun made his daily circuit round the earth; and for aught I said to the contrary, he lived and ...
— The Crayon Papers • Washington Irving
... noble spirit in which the son held fast his post, and the father forebore to unsettle him there, let not their example he used in the unkind and ignorant popular cry against the occasional return of colonial Bishops. For, be it remembered, that dire necessity was not drawing Coleridge Patteson to demand pecuniary assistance round all the platforms of English towns. The ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... was till I said a word yesterday which foolishly seemed to unsettle it. But I have thought it over again, and I find that ...
— The Belton Estate • Anthony Trollope
... morality, when adherence to principle may possibly cause them some trouble, and perhaps lead to some loss. If the Southern plant has not become the tyrant of Europe, as for a long time it was of America, it has certainly done much in a brief time to unsettle English opinion, and to convert the Abolitionists of Great Britain, the men who could tax the whites of their empire in the annual interest of one hundred million dollars in order that the slavery of the blacks in that empire might come ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 8, Issue 45, July, 1861 • Various
... sorrow has just fallen upon us, we find it impossible to feel that all things about us are not changed. We cannot imagine ourselves falling into the old daily routine again. The death of one dear to us gives us a shock which seems to unsettle the very foundation of things. A sense of insecurity and unreality pervades all that concerns us. We shrink from the thought that the old pleasures will charm us again, that daily cares will occupy our minds to the exclusion of to-day's sadness, that time will heal the wounds that smart ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... in the conspiracy? Since you have so much of his confidence, you might warn him to be careful. Doubts of our father's wisdom must unsettle him woefully. I do not ask to join the alliance, but it may please you to know that in my belief Hetty has been treated too fiercely for her deserts, and in my sermon I intend to hint ...
— Hetty Wesley • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... of humbler estate?" he queried, sending his words straight out of his lips like pellets from a pop-gun, being in fear lest he should unsettle the hand of the small ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... charger was all mettle, And soon won to the middle of the stream— But then the sky grew black as a tea kettle; It rained, too, quite as fast as ever steam Rose. But the thing which did at last unsettle The balance of John's steed, was what you'll deem A being that was nearly supernatural— But here the waves John's clothes began to ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... the former would be improperly committed to juries. The great and primary use of a court of equity is to give relief IN EXTRAORDINARY CASES, which are EXCEPTIONS2 to general rules. To unite the jurisdiction of such cases with the ordinary jurisdiction, must have a tendency to unsettle the general rules, and to subject every case that arises to a SPECIAL determination; while a separation of the one from the other has the contrary effect of rendering one a sentinel over the other, and of keeping each within the expedient limits. Besides this, ...
— The Federalist Papers
... the agent of your country. You are called to do your country's urgent work. Here is your trouble over one girl. Would you make trouble for a million American girls—would you unsettle thousands and thousands of American homes because, for a time, you have known trouble? All life is only trouble vanquished. I ask you now to be a man; I not only expect it, but ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... reasons here stated, and in view of the fact that further uncertainty on this point will be calculated to obstruct other much-needed legislation, to weaken the discipline of the service, and to unsettle salutary measures now in progress for the government and improvement of the Indians, I respectfully recommend that the decision arrived at by Congress at its last session be permitted ...
— Complete State of the Union Addresses from 1790 to the Present • Various
... Max Lenz is too reckless in his generosity towards Lowe, for his actions from beginning to end of his career prove that he was a dreadful creature. The thought of him and of those incarnate spiders who kept spinning their web, and for six mortal years disgracing humanity, is in truth enough to unsettle one's reason. Vainly they had ransacked creation in search of persons in authority to support them in the plea of justification, but never a soul came forth to share what is ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... it, and says her only wish is to die quietly, at home. She fully estimates the strength of your affection, and entreats of you to spare her all superfluous agitation. 'Tell him,' said she, 'there is but one thing that can unsettle the calmness of my mind; it is to see him ...
— Rich Enough - a tale of the times • Hannah Farnham Sawyer Lee
... without a spark of hope in her eyes, but a great longing for help and advice, "there's Mrs Fotheringham. She'll disapprove, she so dislikes being worried. When I came she told me she hoped I had no relations to unsettle me. And I haven't. I haven't a soul in the world that cares for me except Diana. And she was always so strong. How could I tell she ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... the individual, or even in the people, to undertake for themselves, on any prevalent, temporary opinions of convenience or improvement, any fundamental change in the Constitution, or to fabricate a new government for themselves, and thereby to disturb the public peace, and to unsettle the ancient Constitution of ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... near to the close of my career; I am fast shuffling off the stage. I have been perhaps the most voluminous author of the day; and it is a comfort to me to think I have tried to unsettle no man's faith, to corrupt no man's principle, and that I have written nothing which on my deathbed I should ...
— Leaves of Life - For Daily Inspiration • Margaret Bird Steinmetz
... States;" he had cited Webster upon various words and plainly was aiming at him in his preface, when he declared that "in this country, as in England, we have thirsty reformers and presumptuous sciolists, who would unsettle the whole of our admirable language, for the purpose of making it conform to their whimsical notions of propriety." Webster at once addressed a letter in print to Pickering, and took up weapons, offensive and defensive, with alacrity ...
— Noah Webster - American Men of Letters • Horace E. Scudder
... to be given something with a meaning. Most people think that to be able to buy what they wish, within reason, is perfect happiness, but it isn't. Barbara, you and this man of yours quite unsettle me and shake my pet theories. You show sides of things in my own birthplace that I never dreamed of looking up, and you convince me, when I am on the wane, that married friendship is the only thing worth living for. It's too bad of you, but fortunately for me the notion passes off after you ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... That noble Hector shall be foil'd by me. 225 But while I put mine armor on, pray all In silence to the King Saturnian Jove, Lest, while ye pray, the Trojans overhear. Or pray aloud, for whom have we to dread? No man shall my firm standing by his strength 230 Unsettle, or for ignorance of mine Me vanquish, who, I hope, brought forth and train'd In Salamis, have, now, not much to learn. He ended. They with heaven-directed eyes The King in prayer address'd, Saturnian Jove. 235 Jove! glorious father! who from Ida's height Controlest all below, let Ajax prove ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... I should mislead any, when I have my own head, and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane. I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no past at my back.' To my fancy that savors strongly of ...
— Beulah • Augusta J. Evans
... of wages? Why have they always refused to interfere between the master and the workman? Because they knew the touchy and jealous nature of property, and, regarding it as the principle of all civilization, felt that to meddle with it would be to unsettle the very foundations of society. Sad condition of the proprietary regime,—one of inability to exercise charity ...
— What is Property? - An Inquiry into the Principle of Right and of Government • P. J. Proudhon
... than likely that such thoughts as these seem objectionable to many good Christians, because they consider that every well-intentioned person should strive to uphold the church and to refrain from the expression of ideas that might tend to unsettle faith. ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)
... he goes along—until he comes to the 'last but not least' point? If you had let me alone, Molly, I was comin' to Rosebud and yourself too; but as you've been so unmannerly, I'll keep these points till another time. By the way, when you write to Rosebud, not a word about all this. It might unsettle the darlin' with her lessons. An' that reminds me that one o' my first businesses will be to have her supplied wi' the best of teachers—French, Italian, Spanish, German masters—Greek an' Hebrew an' Dutch ones too if the dear child wants 'em—to say nothin' ...
— Jeff Benson, or the Young Coastguardsman • R.M. Ballantyne
... original delivery. In startling proximity to the religious department I was shown the skeptical clocks. So near were they, indeed, that when, as I stood there, the various time-pieces announced the hour of ten, the war of opinions that followed was calculated to unsettle the firmest convictions. The observations of an Ingersoll which stood near me were particularly startling. The effect of an actual wrangle was the greater from the fact that all these individual clocks were surmounted by effigies of the authors of ...
— With The Eyes Shut - 1898 • Edward Bellamy
... said at last. "I almost think, for some things, papa wants to go, and that it's a good thing for him, and if it's a good thing for him I dare say God wouldn't unsettle it." ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... is that it invariably leads to periodic wars, which unsettle all business, and but too often introduce into legitimate trade the element of chance. These wars give, moreover, to designing railroad managers an opportunity to enrich themselves by stock speculations at the expense of the stockholders, ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... other old people good; that, had I come when the first white traders came, the Tsimsheans had long since been good; but they had been allowed to grow up in sin; they had seen nothing among the first whites who came amongst them to unsettle them in their old habits, but these had rather added to them fresh sins, and now their sins were deep laid, they (he and the other old people) could not change. Legaic interrupted him, and said, 'I am a chief, a Tsimshean chief. You know I have been bad, very ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... not be hasty! Think of all that depends upon your judgment in this matter. From the very first you have been the bitterest and most formidable opponent of this absurd scheme. If you turn round you will unsettle public opinion throughout the country. Remember, the power of the statesman is almost a ...
— A Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... I not written to you about, you cross thing? Oh! Kossuth. Well, then, here is an immensely interesting person, whom we invited over here to settle, and who is much more likely to unsettle us. How far would you have him unsettle us? To the extent of carrying us into a war with Russia, or of banding us, with all liberal governments, in a war with the despotic governments, so that Europe should be turned into a caldron of blood for years to come, millions of people sacrificed, ...
— Autobiography and Letters of Orville Dewey, D.D. - Edited by his Daughter • Orville Dewey
... of Charles Bray, a prosperous ribbon manufacturer, whose house was a gathering place for the freethinkers of the neighborhood. The effect of this liberal atmosphere upon Miss Evans, brought up in a narrow way, with no knowledge of the world, was to unsettle many of her youthful convictions. From a narrow, intense dogmatism, she went to the other extreme of radicalism; then (about 1860) she lost all sympathy with the freethinkers, and, being instinctively religious, seemed ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... that the skipper was very fidgety, so I thought I would not further unsettle him by obtruding my own opinion—which coincided with his—upon him; therefore, finding him slightly disposed to be taciturn, I left him, and made the round of the deck, assuring myself that all hands were on the alert, and ready to go to quarters ...
— The Log of a Privateersman • Harry Collingwood
... balloon let up with a lengthy rope and held captive will, with a fitful breeze, pitch and sway in a manner which may induce all the unpleasant feelings attending a rough passage at sea. It may do worse, and even be borne to earth with a puff of wind which may come unexpectedly, and considerably unsettle the nerves of any holiday passenger. I could tell of a "captive" that had been behaving itself creditably on a not very settled day suddenly swooping over a roadway and down into public gardens, where it lay incontinently along the ground, and ...
— The Dominion of the Air • J. M. Bacon
... succeed in bringing the work to perfection, Brewster begs him to remember his wife and children. "I mean if this my work should miscarry by wars of the Indians, for I may not remove it till it be perfected, otherwise I should so unsettle the body by removing sun & moon out of their settled places, that there would then be no other afterworking." Once more he inculcates secrecy, and for a most comical reason: "For it is such a secret as is not fit for every one either for secrecy or for parts to use it, as God's secret ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... profits of the voyage had been considerable, he resolved to devote them to establishing the claims of the young foundling. He had never told Rolf Morton what those claims were. He knew that they would only tend to unsettle the mind of the boy, and make him less contented with his lot, should he fail to obtain his rights. Rolf had no more notion, therefore, than the world in general, who he was, and he believed the ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... "believe me, monarchy, even at the present day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the public mind, and you unsettle the basis of government and the sacredness of property; everything else goes with it. The hereditary principle has in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; nothing can adequately ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... Marquis of Lansdowne, and the Duke of Wellington. Lord Goderich said that the true object of its noble mover was to get rid of the alterations lately introduced into our commercial system, and to unsettle the basis on which the currency now stood. For his own part he had never been able to learn, from the opponents of what was called "Free Trade," what that was which they denounced under that name. The noble mover seemed to menace by it the refusal to foster ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.III. - From George III. to Victoria • E. Farr and E. H. Nolan
... the best husbands. When you marry, Sally, grab a chump. Tap his forehead first, and if it rings solid, don't hesitate. All the unhappy marriages come from the husband having brains. What good are brains to a man? They only unsettle him." She broke off and scrutinized Sally closely. "Say, what do you do ...
— The Adventures of Sally • P. G. Wodehouse
... and passion, he has let go by the acting of its command; but he does not plead that his conscience stood in his way. The Ghost itself says that it comes to whet his 'almost blunted purpose'; and conscience may unsettle a purpose but does not blunt it. What natural explanation of all this can be given ...
— Shakespearean Tragedy - Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth • A. C. Bradley
... act, if you'll allow me to say so," said Captain John, in his quiet way. "That sort of thing might unsettle her and make her discontented. She steers that little craft over there and is happy now; let her shape her own course, and remember it isn't well to talk to the man at ...
— A Garland for Girls • Louisa May Alcott
... "turn and wind a fiery Pegasus," and but failed where it may be doubted whether even the fittest for such a task would have succeeded,—full allowance is, at the same time, made for the great martyr of genius himself, whom so many other causes, beside that restless fire within him, concurred to unsettle in mind and (as he himself feelingly expresses it) "disqualify for comfort;"—whose doom it was to be either thus or less great, and whom to have tamed might have been to extinguish; there never, perhaps, having existed an individual to ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... Mind and Matter; but the terms Freedom and Necessity represent the point of agreement as the point of difference; and this being made familiar, through iteration, as the mode of expressing the contrast, the rectification is supposed to unsettle everything, and to obliterate the wide ...
— Practical Essays • Alexander Bain
... exclaimed the captain, his military pride reviving a little, to unsettle his last convictions of duty. "Did you open your columns, and charge your enemies, ...
— Wyandotte • James Fenimore Cooper
... don't! I asked you not to unsettle me—you're not kind to do it! You're not kind! I must think it's important and, and—the necessary thing to do. I must!" She put her hands over her eyes as she spoke. She was trying to shut out a vision of Paul's embittered ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... people to lack moral steadiness, and they tend to compare it with other ages which look steadier. That is a virtually invariable opinion of such men. The comparison with other ages is generally fallacious, yet the fact is real for each age. Many things tend in this age to unsettle moral solidity. Some of them are peculiar to this time, others are not. But one of the great influences which the Bible is perpetually tending to counteract is stated in best terms in an experience of Henry M. Stanley. It was on that journey to Africa ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... very immoral character as to women: that knowing this, it is a high degree of impurity to think of joining in wedlock with such a man: that he is young, unbroken, his passions unsubdued: that he is violent in his temper, yet artful; I am afraid vindictive too: that such a husband might unsettle me in all my own principles, and hazard my future hopes: that his own relations, two excellent aunts, and an uncle, from whom he has such large expectations, have no influence upon him: that what tolerable qualities he has, are founded ...
— Clarissa, Volume 1 (of 9) • Samuel Richardson
... was summoned home; for her mother was too unwell and dispirited to do without her any longer. Her father offered to come and take her place, but Arthur and Violet decided that it would be a pity to unsettle him from home again. Arthur was now able to sit up for some hours each day, and Percy undertook to be always at hand. He was invited to Brogden for Christmas; but it was agreed between him and Theodora ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... impulse was to say nothing of this to his wife in the meantime. Why unsettle her? But he had reckoned without the sudden upward leap his spirits made, once his decision was taken: the winter sky was blue as violets again above him; he turned out light-heartedly of a morning. It was impossible to ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... prototype has also threatened to unsettle the world with respect to the history of the seventh-day Sabbath. If he proceeds with it as he has with the unerring word of God, our minds will have to be remodelled, to believe with him. If any of the little ...
— A Vindication of the Seventh-Day Sabbath • Joseph Bates
... temper, superficial, restless, unduly optimistic, open to suggestion and wanting in the solid force of great tradition has joined with the recasting of Science, Theology, Psychology and Philosophy, to open the door for the entrance of new religions, and in general, to so unsettle the popular mind as to make ...
— Modern Religious Cults and Movements • Gaius Glenn Atkins
... read carefully the works of Collins and Shaftesbury, which were well suited to unsettle his religious belief. At the time of this interview, he was really a doubter, though not avowedly opposed to religion. The fact shows the necessity of using care in selecting books to be read, and the danger of tampering with those that speak lightly of the Gospel. ...
— The Printer Boy. - Or How Benjamin Franklin Made His Mark. An Example for Youth. • William M. Thayer
... forgotten this constitutional principle. But the Irish lord-lieutenant is always a party-man, and is always surrounded by party-men. They were Whigs or Tories, Liberals or Conservatives, often extreme in their views and violent in their temper. The vice of the old clan system was its tendency to unsettle, to undo, to upset, to smash and destroy. Instead of counteracting that vice (which still lingers in the national blood), by a fixed, unchanging system of administration, based on principles of unswerving rectitude, which ...
— The Land-War In Ireland (1870) - A History For The Times • James Godkin
... of political satire. It is 1866, and "Petroleum V. Nasby," writing from "Confedrit X Roads," Kentucky, gives Deekin Pogram's views on education. "He didn't bleeve in edjucashun, generally speekin. The common people was better off without it, ez edjucashun hed a tendency to unsettle their minds. He had seen the evil effex ov it in niggers and poor whites. So soon ez a nigger masters the spellin book and gits into noosepapers, he becomes dissatisfied with his condishin, and hankers after a better cabin and more wages. ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... or Absolutist party, Pedro went his way, and, even in his latter days of rule, refused to sign Bills for the development of the Constitution. There was undoubtedly much now to unsettle the Brazilian populace. Disadvantageous reciprocity treaties were concluded with various countries, while defeats of the Brazilian soldiers were experienced at the hands of the troops of the Argentine Republic. An indemnity was demanded by France ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... back to the original pretences of those who set out as reformers, I think we shall be able to form a clear decision as to the part we ourselves should act, where the confusion they labour to excite has actually commenced. They first unsettle our obedience by discovering what they call the iniquity of our governors; and indeed it is not difficult for those who look with a malignant eye on their conduct to perceive such errors, or, if you will, vices, as an artful and censorious temper may dress up into glaring enormities, especially ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... amendments suggested by the various states. The proposal was supported by the Virginia legislature, but Massachusetts and Pennsylvania opposed it, as having a dangerous tendency to reopen the whole discussion and unsettle everything. The proposal fell to the ground. People were weary of the long dispute, and turned their attention to electing representatives to the first Congress. With the adhesion of New York all serious anxiety came to an end. The new government could be put ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... don't like it," said Tom, digging his knife savagely into the railing, "they have a chance to kick up their heels and unsettle that heavy party." ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... not know which was their child and loved us both equally, now that they believe that Rupert is their son and that I was a fraud, they will have come to give him all their love, and I am not going to unsettle things again. That is my present idea, and I do not think that I am likely to ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... after. If that's how they work it out, then they wouldn't need think much to conclude that putting Brown on the blink would hoodoo us. Maybe they allow that that much bad luck to begin with would unsettle Brown's friendly feelings for us. Anyway—somebody bought the mules—somebody stole the cattle—cattle are somewhere ahead. Let's ...
— The Ivory Trail • Talbot Mundy
... private conversation with him, either at home or abroad. Even in a crowd, a ball, or garden- party, the vigilant sister had her means of breaking into any kind of confidence; and Frank was continually tantalized by the pursuit. It could not but unsettle him, and draw him into much more gaiety than was compatible with the higher pursuits his mother had expected of him; and what was worse, it threw him into Sir Harry Vivian's set, veteran roues, and younger men who looked up to their knowingness ...
— The Three Brides • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Cameron, positively; "it would but unsettle you the more; and now that I come to think of it the more, that face—though I caught but the merest glimpse of its outline—was thinner ...
— His Heart's Queen • Mrs. Georgie Sheldon
... prejudices, worth the sacrifice which she and Hosmer had made? This was the doubt that bade fair to unsettle her; that called for a sharp, strong out-putting of the will before she could bring herself to face the situation without its accessions of personalities. Such communing with herself could not be condemned as a weakness with ...
— At Fault • Kate Chopin
... it, you had locked your bedroom, and taken away the key. I went into my own to unsettle the bedclothes, as usual, and give the bed the appearance of having been slept in. Now, a variety of circumstances concurred to bring about the dreadful scene through which I was that night to pass. In the first place, I was literally overpowered with fatigue, and longing for sleep; ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... had been oppressed by gloomy presentiments. "I have been too long making war in Africa," said he; "the bullets of Europe know me no longer." On falling he said to General Boudet, "Conceal my death; it might unsettle the troops." The soldiers had perceived it and rushed forward to avenge him. Kellermann arrived at the same instant, urged forward by one of those sudden inspirations which mark great generals; hurling his dragoons upon the Austrian ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... to deny my act, but that I would not, Should I try death by dussons.—I am mop't, Food tooke I none these two daies, Sipt some water. I have not closd mine eyes Save when my lids scowrd off their brine; alas, Dissolue my life, Let not my sence unsettle, Least I should drowne, or stab or hang my selfe. O state of Nature, faile together in me, Since thy best props are warpt! So, which way now? The best way is the next way to a grave: Each errant step beside is torment. Loe, The Moone is down, the Cryckets chirpe, the ...
— The Two Noble Kinsmen • William Shakespeare and John Fletcher [Apocrypha]
... chosen business, and I mean to stick to it, so don't you unsettle my mind. Have you practised that March?" asked Ed, turning to a gayer subject, for he had his little troubles, but always looked on the bright ...
— Jack and Jill • Louisa May Alcott
... the momentary dream which her own desires had conjured into a promise, as suddenly subsided, leaving her to a full consciousness of her desolation. Her father at length found it necessary to abridge the interview. Every moment of its protraction seemed still more to unsettle the understanding of his daughter. She spoke wildly and confusedly, and in that thought of separation which the doom of her lover perpetually forced upon her, she contemplated, in all its fearful extremities, her own. She ...
— Guy Rivers: A Tale of Georgia • William Gilmore Simms
... understand nothing about the subject. It seems to me that real love must unsettle the mind, upset the nerves and distract the head; that it must—how shall I express it?—be dangerous, even terrible, almost criminal and sacrilegious; that it must be a kind of treason; I mean to say that it is bound to break laws, fraternal bonds, sacred obligations; when love is ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... atonement. I am aware he has never forgiven the preference which your mother gave to my addresses, instead of complying with the terms of a sort of family compact, which absurdly and tyrannically destined her to wed her deformed relative. The shock was even sufficient to unsettle his wits (which, indeed, were never over-well arranged), and I had, as the husband of his nearest kinswoman and heir, the delicate task of taking care of his person and property, until he was reinstated in the management of the latter ...
— The Black Dwarf • Sir Walter Scott
... on, copiously greasing the joint of his inconsistency with words; while the boy listened silently, his eyes fixed on the horse, his mind seething. It was all lost eloquence; no array of words could unsettle a belief of Jean-Marie's; and he drove into Fontainebleau filled with pity, horror, ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 6 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Indeed, they had no particular regard for their own leader, who was arrogant, and by no means liberal. Profiting by these important hints, the general sent a conciliatory letter to Narvaez, beseeching him not to unsettle the natives by a show of animosity, when it was only by union they could hope for success, and declaring that for his part he was ready to greet Narvaez as a brother in arms, to share with him the fruits of conquest, and, if he could produce ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... and sudden departure of Mr. Pohlman so affected a maiden sister, Miss Pohlman, then at Amoy, as to unsettle her mind and necessitate an immediate return to the United States. No lady friend could accompany her. It was decided that Mr. Talmage take passage on the same ship and act as guardian and render what assistance he could. The ship arrived at New ...
— Forty Years in South China - The Life of Rev. John Van Nest Talmage, D.D. • Rev. John Gerardus Fagg
... kindness to have them go along quietly on the paths they have chosen. Bertie is happy and contented enough now, but he's a high-spirited lad, fond of the sea almost passionately; a voyage, be it ever so short, may unsettle his mind for the office. Eddie is discontented enough already; I don't really see what good can come of it. Of course, I don't really think that either of the boys is going to make his fortune, recover Riversdale, and live there in peace and plenty, ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... mean that; but anybody may outlive anybody for that matter. Anyway, there's no chance of any of these schemes coming to pass while we are young enough to care, even if they ever do; and if they unsettle us now, it would ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... your life, Spike. It would unsettle the rustic mind. They're fearfully particular about that ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse |
