"Ransack" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... castle, arid I shall remain deeply grateful for them all the days of my life. If I am able to repay you by avenging you on some proud miscreant that hath done you any wrong, know that it is my office to help the weak, to revenge the wronged, and to punish traitors. Ransack your memory, and if you find anything of this sort for me to do, you have but to utter it, and I promise you, by the Order of Knighthood which I have received, to procure you satisfaction to your ...
— The Junior Classics, V4 • Willam Patten (Editor)
... give a tinker's dam for the law," I continued. "Good enough! We'll take a leaf out of his book. To-morrow night you have an engagement—to ransack the ...
— The Pirate of Panama - A Tale of the Fight for Buried Treasure • William MacLeod Raine
... to ransack my brain for the possibilities, and almost at once the talk on the train with Horace Barton, the wagon sales manager, flashed into ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... offending Trojan—service kind, But lost on thee, regardless of it all. And now—What now? Thy threatening is to seize 200 Thyself, the just requital of my toils, My prize hard-earn'd, by common suffrage mine. I never gain, what Trojan town soe'er We ransack, half thy booty. The swift march And furious onset—these I largely reap, 205 But, distribution made, thy lot exceeds Mine far; while I, with any pittance pleased, Bear to my ships the little that I win After long battle, and account ...
— The Iliad of Homer - Translated into English Blank Verse • Homer
... Sennacherib laid on Hezekiah was three hundred talents of silver and thirty talents of gold. To meet this, Hezekiah was forced to ransack the Temple in Jerusalem and the treasure-chamber of the royal palace. He was even forced to strip the doors and pillars of the Temple of their gold decorations in order to make up the enormous tribute ...
— Stories of the Prophets - (Before the Exile) • Isaac Landman
... AT QUEBEC. Several years later, in 1541, Cartier and others attempted to establish a permanent settlement on the St. Lawrence. As it was hard to get good colonists to settle in the cold climate so far north, the leaders were allowed to ransack the prisons for debtors and criminals to make up the necessary numbers. They selected the neighborhood of the cliffs where Cartier had wintered in 1535, where Quebec now stands, as the most suitable ...
— Introductory American History • Henry Eldridge Bourne and Elbert Jay Benton
... that rapid walking to and fro which was working such havoc in the nerves of the man in the room below her. When she paused, it was to ransack a trunk and bring out a flat wallet filled with newspaper clippings, many of them discoloured by time, and all of them showing marks ...
— Dark Hollow • Anna Katharine Green
... You know that I wander about Paris a great deal, like book collectors who ransack book stalls. I just look at the sights, at the people, at all that is passing by and all ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... delighted, He is not fooled, but warily knoweth His love shall never be requited. And thus the wise Immortal doeth,— 'T is his study and delight To bless that creature day and night; From all evils to defend her; In her lap to pour all splendor; To ransack earth for riches rare, And fetch her stars to deck her hair: He mixes music with her thoughts, And saddens her with heavenly doubts: All grace, all good his great heart knows, Profuse in love, the king bestows, Saying, ...
— Poems - Household Edition • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... to ourself, and are stricken with the most perfect iridescent sorrow. We even ransack our memory to try to think of someone who has been ungrateful to us, so that we can throw a little vigorous bitterness into ...
— Plum Pudding - Of Divers Ingredients, Discreetly Blended & Seasoned • Christopher Morley
... take to the cudgel and the rifle, and join sectarian orders or lodges to ensure that Ireland will be made in their own ignoble image. Those who love Ireland nobly desire for her the highest of human destinies. They would ransack the ages and accumulate wisdom to make Irish life seem as noble in men's eyes as any the world has known. The better minds in every race, eliminating passion and prejudice, by the exercise of the imaginative reason have revealed to their countrymen ideals which ...
— National Being - Some Thoughts on an Irish Polity • (A.E.)George William Russell
... come, and Sir Gawaine and his fellows gat the field and put the Romans to flight, and after returned and came with their fellowship in such wise that no man of worship was lost of them, save that Sir Gawaine was sore hurt. Then the king did do ransack his wounds and comforted him. And thus was the beginning of the first journey of the Britons and Romans, and there were slain of the Romans more than ten thousand, and great joy and mirth was made that night in the host of King ...
— Le Morte D'Arthur, Volume I (of II) - King Arthur and of his Noble Knights of the Round Table • Thomas Malory
... pretty well at ease, and to have been exempt from the pressures of extreme poverty. But yet with most of them it was much otherwise, and they fell perpetually into such miserable penury, that they were forced to devour or squeeze most of their friends and servants, to cheat with infamous projects, to ransack and pillage all their provinces. This fashion of imperial grandeur is imitated by all inferior and subordinate sorts of it, as if it were a point of honour. They must be cheated of a third part of their estates, two other thirds they must expend in vanity, so that they remain debtors for all the ...
— Cowley's Essays • Abraham Cowley
... awakened by the sight of interesting objects, was most actively at work. At such moments, sensibility quickly furnishes similes, and the sublimated spirits combine images, which rising spontaneously, it is not necessary coldly to ransack the understanding or memory, till the laborious efforts of judgment exclude present sensations, and damp the fire ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... when she heard she was to go to Bergen, she regularly turned the house upside down. There was nothing good enough for her in the whole shop; there was not a shelf that she didn't ransack to find the finery ...
— Weird Tales from Northern Seas • Jonas Lie
... mercy on himself, and no mercy on others," he explained, "where his literary labors are concerned. You must spare yourself, Miss Emily. It is not only absurd, it's cruel, to expect you to ransack old newspapers for discoveries in Yucatan, from the time when Stephens published his 'Travels in Central America'—nearly forty years since! Begin with back numbers published within a few years—say five years from the present date—and let us see what your ...
— I Say No • Wilkie Collins
... have," she answered. "It's easy enough to pick up imitations in the second-hand shops, or to ransack country houses; but these pieces are all genuine and have been in the family for generations. There are three Chippendales that belonged to my grandfather on my mother's side, Colonel Styles, and this is a Sheraton. That mahogany table ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... distraught ambition compasses, And is encompass'd; whilst as craft deceives, And is deceiv'd: whilst man doth ransack man And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: he looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no venture ...
— A History of English Literature - Elizabethan Literature • George Saintsbury
... to search the wide world over, ransack history, dive deep into the annals of the past, I doubt if there would be found any more perfect example of unselfish love than that which is exemplified in the wedded life of this woman. With her it was always "Richard only." It is with this thought in ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins
... the door, and stood fairly within the church, it was impossible to comprehend that it was a very large building. I had to cipher a comprehension of it. I had to ransack my memory for some more similes. St. Peter's is bulky. Its height and size would represent two of the Washington capitol set one on top of the other—if the capitol were wider; or two blocks or two blocks and a half of ordinary ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... a friend—an acquaintance whom I could apply to? I ransack my memory to find a man good for a penny piece, ...
— Hunger • Knut Hamsun
... the girl within, and the door closed, the same dexterity that has already rid you of the dealer will relieve you of this last danger in your path. Thenceforward you have the whole evening—the whole night, if needful—to ransack the treasures of the house and to make good your safety. This is help that comes to you with the mask of danger. Up!" he cried: "up, friend; your life hangs trembling in the scales: up, ...
— The Short-story • William Patterson Atkinson
... He had just opened this safe apparently and begun to ransack it. This is my private safe. Mrs. Verplanck has another built into her own room upstairs where she ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... that already a large gang of thieves and vampires have descended on and near the place. Their presumed purpose is to rob the dead and ransack the demolished buildings. ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... I, "give me a man's rig-out—a jersey and some breeches and a cap—quick," and, while the old fellow stared and whistled softly, I helped to ransack his box; and in a trice I had dressed myself, putting my pistols, my papers, and my money in my new clothes; but leaving everything else in a heap ...
— The Iron Pirate - A Plain Tale of Strange Happenings on the Sea • Max Pemberton
... on stopping at the Feroe Islands, whither the north wind might have carried the castaways; then, if he was convinced that they had not been received in any of the ports of that locality, he would continue his search beyond the Northern Ocean, ransack the whole western coast of Norway as far as Bodoe, the place nearest the scene of the shipwreck; and, if necessary, ...
— A Winter Amid the Ice - and Other Thrilling Stories • Jules Verne
... was so strange; he never mentioned no names—never. He used to rave a great deal about two orphans and a will, and he would ransack the bed, and pull up the sheets, and look under the pillows, as if he thought it was there. Oh, he acted very strange, but never mentioned no names. I used to think he had something in his trunk, he was so very special about it. He was better the day they took him ...
— The Garies and Their Friends • Frank J. Webb
... in this work, I resolved to leave neither words nor things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, with the obscure recesses of northern learning, which I should enter and ransack; the treasures with which I expected every search into those neglected mines to reward my labour, and the triumph with which I should display my acquisitions to mankind. When I had thus enquired into the original of words, I resolved to show likewise my attention ...
— Preface to a Dictionary of the English Language • Samuel Johnson
... agog for a peep at the stranger, Their figures and forms to describe, language fails— They'd such very odd heads, and such very odd tails; Of their genus or species a sample to gain, You would ransack all Hungerford market in vain; E'en the famed Mr. Myers, Would scarcely find buyers, Though hundreds of passengers doubtless would stop To stare, were such monsters ...
— The Humourous Poetry of the English Language • James Parton
... and ransack the box till he had almost destroyed it was now his natural action. But it ...
— Desperate Remedies • Thomas Hardy
... reasoning is also illustrated very well in these simple cases. It is an exploratory process, a searching for facts. In a way, it is a trial and error process. If you don't ransack the house, at least you ransack your memory, in search for facts that will assist you. You recall this fact {463} and that, you turn this way and that, mentally, till some fact is recalled that serves your need. No more in reasoning than in motor exploration can you hope ...
— Psychology - A Study Of Mental Life • Robert S. Woodworth
... through districts inhabited only by the roughest and poorest classes, entirely unmolested; and that we trusted much on many occasions to the honesty of the people, and never found cause to repent our trust—I cannot but feel that it would be an ungracious act to ransack newspapers and Reports to furnish materials for recording in detail, the vices of a population whom I have only personally known by their virtues. Let you and I, reader, leave off with the same pleasant impressions ...
— Rambles Beyond Railways; - or, Notes in Cornwall taken A-foot • Wilkie Collins
... best part of an hour, in pursuance of her husband's counsel, the Mistress sat and waited for the prodigal's return. Then, surreptitiously, she made a round of the house; sent a man to ransack the stables, telephoned to the gate lodge, and finally came into the Master's ...
— Further Adventures of Lad • Albert Payson Terhune
... the aim of fiction will be recognized instinctively upon examination of any wonderfully written passage. Let us consider, for example, the following paragraphs from "Markheim." After Markheim has killed the dealer, and gone upstairs to ransack the belongings of the murdered man, he suffers an ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... individuals, and will not have any individual great, except through the general. There is no choice to genius. A great man does not wake up on some fine morning and say, 'I am full of life, I will go to sea and find an Antarctic continent: to-day I will square the circle: I will ransack botany and find a new food for man: I have a new architecture in my mind: I foresee a new mechanic power:' no, but he finds himself in the river of the thoughts and events, forced onward by the ideas and necessities ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XIII • John Lord
... make a museum of modern decorative art, from which he would carefully exclude all that which was not in some way fresh and intelligent, and if not good, at least promising, a room like this one would hold all his trophies, even though he should use his millions to ransack Europe and America. It is nobody's fault, least of all is it the architect's fault. For see what you expect of an architect. He must know about digging deep holes; and about sheath-piling, that he may retain the loose soil and keep it from smothering the workmen at the bottom ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... we shall ransack the lower floor of the little house on the beach and discover what is to be ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 17, - No. 97, January, 1876 • Various
... later days,—for my intimacy with him lasted many years,—he became the feeder of my intellect. He delighted to ransack the history of a nation, of an art or a science, and bring to me all the particulars. Telling them fixed them in his own memory, which was the most tenacious and ready I have ever known; he enjoyed my clear ...
— Memoirs of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, Vol. I • Margaret Fuller Ossoli
... stabbed him several times in the back with his knife. The master fell unconscious, and the mistress began to run about, screaming, while Yanson, showing his teeth and brandishing his knife, began to ransack the trunks and the chests of drawers. He found the money he sought, and then, as if noticing the mistress for the first time, and as though unexpectedly even to himself, he rushed upon her in order to violate her. But as he had let his knife ...
— The Seven who were Hanged • Leonid Andreyev
... among his own friends, and be very proud of his arguments, who would cut a very poor figure with those same arguments among those who are on the other side. Would you find out for yourself from books? What learning you will need! What languages you must learn; what libraries you must ransack; what an amount of reading must be got through! Who will guide me in such a choice? It will be hard to find the best books on the opposite side in any one country, and all the harder to find those on all sides; ...
— Emile • Jean-Jacques Rousseau
... Arbitrary Will of a licentious Minister, they basely yield to voluntary Slavery, and future Generations shall load their Memories with incessant Execrations—On the other Hand, if we arrest the Hand which would ransack our Pockets.... Posterity will acknowledge the Virtue which ...
— The Road to Independence: Virginia 1763-1783 • Virginia State Dept. of Education
... misused wine! With freedom led to every part, And secret chamber of the heart, Dost thou thy friendly host betray, And shew thy riotous gang the way To enter in, with covert treason, O'erthrow the drowsy guard of reason, To ransack the abandon'd place, And revel there ...
— The Works of William Hogarth: In a Series of Engravings - With Descriptions, and a Comment on Their Moral Tendency • John Trusler
... found in old trunks and bureaus, which have gathered dust for untold years in attics and storerooms. Opportunities to ransack old garrets are greatly appreciated by collectors, as the uncertainty of what may be found gives zest to their search. It was of such old treasure trove that the hangings were found to make what Harriet ...
— Quilts - Their Story and How to Make Them • Marie D. Webster
... the profit side of the account; you say not a word of the cost of it all. First, if there was a whisper of a new piece (no matter how bad the weather), one had to ransack all the garrets in Paris, until one had found the author; then to get a reading of the play, and adroitly to insinuate that there was a part in it which would be rendered in a superior manner by a certain person ...
— Diderot and the Encyclopaedists - Volume II. • John Morley
... am awfully busy with my garden, and people are very kind in giving me things. To-morrow we go to the Rowans, and I am to ransack his garden! I do think the exchange of herbaceous perennials is one of the joys of life. You can hardly think how delicious it feels to garden after six months of frost and snow. Imagine my feelings when Mrs. Medley found a bed of seedling bee larkspurs in her garden, and gave me at ...
— Juliana Horatia Ewing And Her Books • Horatia K. F. Eden
... little. When first I engaged in this work, I resolved to leave neither words nor things unexamined, and pleased myself with a prospect of the hours which I should revel away in feasts of literature, with the obscure recesses of northern learning which I should enter and ransack, the treasures with which I expected every search into those neglected mines to reward my labour, and the triumph with which I should display my acquisitions to mankind. When I had thus inquired into the original of words, I resolved to show likewise my attention to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume V: Miscellaneous Pieces • Samuel Johnson
... cry for hunger, so I ransack the ruins and bring away my spoils. Eat, Kinder, eat and ...
— Kitty's Class Day And Other Stories • Louisa M. Alcott
... representative men and women its moral significance, its severe but picturesque unity. Some future artist, looking back for a memorable illustration of this period, will put this new "Declaration of Independence" upon canvas, and will ransack the land for portraits of those ladies who first spoke for their countrywomen at the Capitol, and of those Senators and Representatives who first ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... the world is rich in blessings: Earth and Ocean, flame and wind, Have unnumber'd secrets still, To be ransack'd when you will, For the service of mankind; Science is a child as yet, And her power and scope shall grow, And her triumphs in the future Shall diminish toil and woe; Shall extend the bounds of pleasure With an ever-widening ken, ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... for the life of him, imagine why anyone would want specially to ransack his of all the choice of rooms at Mrs. Clunie's. He had nothing worth stealing, while many of his landlady's boarders were fairly well endowed in ...
— The Spoilers of the Valley • Robert Watson
... automatic gaze of the Greeks and Turks exhibited on the Boulevard du Temple, and say sternly, "Go away!" There were days when he had lucid intervals and could give his wife excellent advice as to the sale of their wines; but at such times he became extremely annoying, and would ransack her closets and steal her delicacies, which he devoured in secret. Occasionally, when the usual visitors made their appearance he would treat them with civility; but as a general thing his remarks and replies were incoherent. ...
— The Illustrious Gaudissart • Honore de Balzac
... fine wind had sprung up; the sun riding joyously in the heavens; and the Lagoon all tossed with white, flying manes; Media called upon Yoomy to ransack his whole assortment of songs:—warlike, amorous, and sentimental,—and regale us with something inspiring for too long the company had ...
— Mardi: and A Voyage Thither, Vol. II (of 2) • Herman Melville
... thanks to the women who have so generously allowed me to ransack their treasuries, filching here and there as I chose, always modestly declaiming against the existence of wit ...
— The Wit of Women - Fourth Edition • Kate Sanborn
... out his drawers for the articles, and then went downstairs to ransack his larder. He came back with some cold cutlets and bread, pulled up a light table, and placed them before his guest. "Never mind knives," said his visitor, and a cutlet hung in mid-air, with ...
— The Invisible Man • H. G. Wells
... triumphed. Death fights for him: on the very brink of the last scandal, a cold, caught at some Vipont's ball, became fever; and so from that door the Black Horses bore away the Bloomsbury Dame, ere she was yet—the fashion! Happy in grief the widower who may, with confiding hand, ransack the lost wife's harmless desk, sure that no thought concealed from him in life will rise accusing from the treasured papers. But that pale proud mourner, hurrying the eye over sweet-scented billets; compelled, in very justice to the dead, to convince himself that the mother of his ...
— What Will He Do With It, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... of 1878, while on a visit at Rougham Hall, Norfolk, the seat of Mr. Charles North, my kind host drew my attention to some large boxes of manuscripts, which he told me nobody knew anything about, but which I was at liberty to ransack to my heart's content. I at once dived into one of the boxes, and then spent half the night in examining some of its treasures. The chest is one of many, constituting in their entirety a complete apparatus for the history of the parish of Rougham from the time of Henry the Third to the present ...
— The Coming of the Friars • Augustus Jessopp
... to defend, the union and the distinction of the two natures, and to invent such forms of speech, such symbols of doctrine, as were least susceptible of doubt or ambiguity. The poverty of ideas and language tempted them to ransack art and nature for every possible comparison, and each comparison mislead their fancy in the explanation of an incomparable mystery. In the polemic microscope, an atom is enlarged to a monster, and each party was skilful to exaggerate the absurd or impious conclusions that ...
— The History of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire - Volume 4 • Edward Gibbon
... 1793." An unlucky town for me! Fernand was actually born seven months after my marriage, by one of those fatalities that give ground for shameful accusations! I shall ask my aunt to carry the certificate in her pocket, until I can deposit it in some place of safety. The duke would ransack my rooms for it, and the whole police are at his service. Government refuses nothing to a man high in favor. If Joseph saw me going to Mademoiselle de Vaudrey's apartments at this hour, the whole house would hear of it. Ah—I am alone in the world, alone with all against me, a prisoner ...
— Vautrin • Honore de Balzac
... was made here and—at Fredericks'. His studio was on the corner of Ninth Street up to a few years ago. It's a trail after my own mind. If that negative is in existence, I'll find it, if I have to ransack half the photograph-studios in town. About how old do you think this ...
— The Mystery of the Hasty Arrow • Anna Katharine Green
... gradually turned round. A splendid burst of cheering pursued him when he finally sped down the street and disappeared. It was understood by those who heard his speech that he had gone off at more than twenty miles an hour to ransack the great European libraries for information about General John Regan. Everyone felt that the splendid eagerness of his departure reflected a ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... inquiry before the Lords Commissioners, the same system was tried as in the preliminary investigations of 1603. Ralegh was placed, from September 11 till October 15, under a special keeper. The keeper's business, like that of a Juge d'Instruction, was to ransack him, and worry him into supplying a case against himself. For the office Sir Thomas Wilson, Keeper of the State Paper Office, was chosen. As Wilson himself confessed, his arrival produced an impression on the officers of the ...
— Sir Walter Ralegh - A Biography • William Stebbing
... we'd better repair to your room, Alice, where we can obtain the necessary articles. Mr. Smilk will naturally want to ransack your room anyhow, so we 'll be saving quite a bit of time. And the police are likely to be here any ...
— Yollop • George Barr McCutcheon
... "I do not lack, Though with but one provided; And, truth to honour, for that matter, I hold it than a thousand better." In fresh dispute they sided; And loudly were they at it, when Approach'd a mob of dogs and men. "Now," said the Cat, "your tricks ransack, And put your cunning brains to rack, One life to save; I'll show you mine— A trick, you see, for saving nine." With that, she climb'd a lofty pine. The Fox his hundred ruses tried, And yet no safety found. A hundred times he falsified. The nose of every hound Was here, and there, and everywhere, ...
— The Talking Beasts • Various
... and Robert was drawn into a list. Then, full of joyfulness at being allowed to help, she gathered up her reins, she nodded her pretty little head at him, and was just starting off her ponies at full speed, equally eager 'to tell Harry' and to ransack Churton for the stores required, when it occurred to her ...
— Robert Elsmere • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... long time. I shouldn't like anything to happen to the chap while he's in my service, that's all. Get out now and make enquiries in every direction. Have Dimmock go down to the village. And ransack every public house round about. If you can't find any trace of him—" his lips tightened for a moment, "then I'll fetch in the police. I'll get the finest detective in the land on this thing, I'll get Cleek ...
— The Riddle of the Frozen Flame • Mary E. Hanshew
... can 'member de Yankees. Don't 'member dat they was so bad. You know they say even de devil ain't as black as he is painted. De Yankees did take off all de mules, cows, hogs, and sheep, and ransack de smoke-house, but they never burnt a thing at our place. Folks wonder at dat. Some say it was 'cause General Bratton ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... his word and began to ransack the house, while Mordecai and Leah, paralyzed with fear, great beads of perspiration starting from their foreheads, sat idly by and watched the work of destruction. Not an article of furniture was left ...
— Rabbi and Priest - A Story • Milton Goldsmith
... few words have been said relating to this armament. Two frigates, bearing the American colours, were to have been placed under the orders of Paul Jones, and M. de Lafayette was to command the small army intended to descend unexpectedly upon the western coast of England, and to ransack Bristol, Liverpool, and other commercial towns, for the advantage of the American finances. But this expedition was soon considered below the position in which M. de Lafayette was placed, and was abandoned for the plan of a descent on England, which ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... utterly impossible to return without having some refreshments, after the immense fatigue they had all undergone in exploring the beauties of the surrounding country. Most of the party were of the same opinion, so forthwith he and Bob Mornington proceeded to ransack the hampers, and distributed the contents in the most primitive manner imaginable, to the amusement of the company generally, and to the extreme disgust of Grace Arlington in particular. And then there was a general ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... cat replied, 'I do not lack, Though with but one provided; And, truth to honour, for that matter, I hold it than a thousand better.' In fresh dispute they sided; And loudly were they at it, when Approach'd a mob of dogs and men. 'Now,' said the cat, 'your tricks ransack, And put your cunning brains to rack, One life to save; I'll show you mine— A trick, you see, for saving nine.' With that, she climb'd a lofty pine. The fox his hundred ruses tried, And yet no safety found. A hundred times he falsified The nose of every ...
— The Fables of La Fontaine - A New Edition, With Notes • Jean de La Fontaine
... that oblivion our interest is deeper than even hers. My right honorable friend, the member for East Edinburgh (Mr. Goschen) asks us to-night to abide by the traditions of which we are the heirs. What traditions? By the Irish traditions? Go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all countries, find, if you can, a single voice, a single book, find, I would almost say, as much as a single newspaper article, unless the product of the day, in which the conduct of England towards Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound ...
— Ten Englishmen of the Nineteenth Century • James Richard Joy
... when he wakes to-morrow and finds it gone—what then? You know this Governor of Cesena well enough to be assured that he would ransack the castle, torture, rack, burn and flay us all until ...
— The Shame of Motley • Raphael Sabatini
... planted by the learned Abdullatif at Bagdad, and the European paradises of Naples, Florence, Monza, Mannheim and Leyden to draw up plans and a particular description of the Oxford Physic Garden, by Magdalen College, as well as the plantations of Worcester, Trinity and St. John's Colleges; and to ransack the bookshops of that seat of learning for such works as might be procurable in no more difficult tongue than the Latin. In this way Captain Barker became possessed of a vast number of monkish herbals, Pliny's ...
— The Blue Pavilions • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... then Alonzo heard the girl's sobbings retreating, and knew she had gone from the telephone. He rose with a heavy sigh, and hastened from the room, saying to himself, "I will ransack the charity missions and the haunts of the poor for my mother. She will persuade her that I never ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... collections must come back. Factories have been robbed of their pumps, of their equipment, of their trucks; other pumps, other equipment, other trucks must be put in their place. Otherwise, nothing will prevent that in the future other expeditions will come to ransack other countries. A bold move towards Venice allowed base hands to be laid on the most beautiful works of art humanity had produced. A fortunate descent on the shores of Long Island or of New Jersey would allow the ...
— Fighting France • Stephane Lauzanne
... the arbitrary will of a licentious minister, they basely yield to voluntary slavery, and future generations shall load their memories with incessant execrations. On the other hand, if we arrest the hand which would ransack our pockets, if we disarm the parricide which points the dagger to our bosoms, if we nobly defeat that fatal edict which proclaims a power to frame laws for us in all cases whatsoever, thereby entailing ...
— The Life of George Washington, Vol. 1 (of 5) • John Marshall
... Muse, you must versify your very best, To sing how they ransack the East and the West, To tell how they plunder the North and the South For food for the stomach and zest for the mouth! Such savoury stews, and such odorous dishes, Such soups, and (at Calais) such capital fishes! With sauces so strange they disguise ...
— My Life as an Author • Martin Farquhar Tupper
... the table, he left them to wait upon themselves, while he went off to ransack the pantry soon to return with a sufficiency of viands, and savoury enough to satisfy men who had just come out of the Acordada. There was cold mutton, ham, and venison, maize bread, and "guesas de Guatemala," with a variety of ...
— The Free Lances - A Romance of the Mexican Valley • Mayne Reid
... to ransack every nook and cranny for supplies, and went myself in search of a camping ground. That was not a very difficult job, and I soon came upon a nice garden and orchard, with big shady mulberry trees, and a ...
— With Kelly to Chitral • William George Laurence Beynon
... Cartillon, d'Artin," Ortez bowed. "Here at last we find rest and refreshment. Let a feast be spread in the great hall, ransack the place for good cheer. We've done brave work this glorious day, my lads, and a merry ending we'll have before the ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson
... were sent thence. Major Hockin looked at me till I could have cried, as much as to hint that the whole of my story was all of a piece, all a wild-goose chase. And being more curious than ever now to go to the bank and ransack, he actually called out to the cabman to drive without delay to Messrs. Shovelin, Wayte, and Shovelin. But I begged him to allow me just one minute while I spoke to the servant-maid alone. Then I showed her a sovereign, at which ...
— Erema - My Father's Sin • R. D. Blackmore
... compasses, And is encompassed, while as craft deceives, And is deceived: whilst man doth ransack man, And builds on blood, and rises by distress; And th' Inheritance of desolation leaves To great-expecting hopes: He looks thereon, As from the shore of peace, with unwet eye, And bears no ...
— The Prose Works of William Wordsworth • William Wordsworth
... damning and unanswerable. All the arts for inflaming popular passion under the pretext of "patriotism" would have been used, and we know that patriotism sometimes assumes strange disguises. The material would have been rich and easily accessible. Instead of having to ransack ancient numbers of Irish or American newspapers for incautious phrases dropped by Mr. Redmond or Mr. O'Brien in moments of unusual provocation, the speeches of Botha, Steyn, and De Wet, during the war, and even at the Peace ...
— The Framework of Home Rule • Erskine Childers
... declared my passion, it was not ill received by the lovely object who inspired it; but, just now, Leander has declared to me that he is preparing to deprive me of Celia; therefore let us make haste; ransack your brain for the speediest means to secure me possession of her; plan any tricks, stratagems, rogueries, inventions, ...
— The Blunderer • Moliere
... something more. 270 Next Jonson sat, in ancient learning train'd, His rigid judgment Fancy's flights restrain'd; Correctly pruned each wild luxuriant thought, Mark'd out her course, nor spared a glorious fault. The book of man he read with nicest art, And ransack'd all the secrets of the heart; Exerted penetration's utmost force, And traced each passion to its proper source; Then, strongly mark'd, in liveliest colours drew, And brought each foible forth to public view: 280 The coxcomb felt a lash in every word, And fools, hung out, ...
— Poetical Works • Charles Churchill
... of France this week. Bussy(169) was in great pain on the fireworks for quebec, lest he should be obliged to illuminate his house: you see I ransack my memory ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole Volume 3 • Horace Walpole
... leprosy of lust, Which taints the hoariest years of vicious men Making them ransack to the very last The dregs of pleasure for their ...
— Manon Lescaut • Abbe Prevost
... exclaimed. "I haven't lost them, they are all in the secret compartment under us inside the coach body, just where Lydia put them before we left Rome. The bandits had barely begun to ransack the coach when we heard the yells of the constabulary and then the hoof-beats of their horses. They and their horses made so much noise that the brigands thought they had to do with a hundred or more and ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... mutineers. But it goes hard with my pride, Thrasyllus, to make equals of this soft-tongued race. Why, these Ionians, do they not enjoy themselves in perpetual holidays?—spend days at the banquet?—ransack earth and sea for dainties and for perfumes?—and shall they be the equals of us men, who, from the age of seven to that of sixty, are wisely taught to make life so barren and toilsome, that we may well have no fear of death? I hate ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... adventurous used to overhaul vessels skirting the coast to and from Cuba and Central America. They'd sally out from their hiding-places among the keys and lie in wait for the merchant-ships. If the prey was weak enough they'd board and ransack her and make her crew walk the plank,—(that's how Aaron Burr's beautiful daughter is supposed to have died on her way North, you know,)—and if the ship showed fight or seemed too tough a handful the ...
— Black Caesar's Clan • Albert Payson Terhune
... thou not better me these three shillings? Thinkest thou I shall not be able to oblige thee therewith another time? Prithee, do it, an thou have any regard for me. Why all this haste? We shall yet reach Torrenieri betimes this evening. Come, find the purse; thou knowest I might ransack all Siena and not find a doublet to suit me so well as this; and to think I should let yonder fellow have it for eight-and-thirty shillings! It is worth yet forty shillings or more, so that thou wouldst worsen me in ...
— The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio • Giovanni Boccaccio
... heard of her?" said Betty. "She used to be Mrs. van Ambridge, and then she got a divorce and married Warden, the big lumber man. She used to give 'boy and girl' parties, in the English fashion; and when we went there we'd do as we please—play tag all over the house, and have pillow-fights, and ransack the closets and get up masquerades! Mrs. Warden's as good-natured as an old cow. You'll meet her sometime—only don't you let her fool you with those soft eyes of hers. You'll find she doesn't mean it; it's just that she likes to have handsome ...
— The Metropolis • Upton Sinclair
... East, the scene of his chief diplomatic successes, a part of the world in which his Imperial word is law. He will continue to shower his favours upon it, and disturb everything there, so as to be able to fish in troubled waters. He will ransack everything for his purposes, even that very vague thing, homogeneous Turkey, based on the Mussulman faith. At this moment, he is planning I know not what kind of acceptance of the Cross by the Crescent, just as he planned Prince Henry's Chinese crusade. ...
— The Schemes of the Kaiser • Juliette Adam
... men of intellect. But referring, by way of contrast, to the place during the earlier half of the eighteenth century, he laments that 'this emporium is vanished, and the trade contracted into the hands of two or three persons, who, to make good their monopoly, ransack, not only their neighbours of the trade that are scattered about the town, but all over England, ay, and beyond sea, too, and send abroad their circulators, and in this manner get into their hands all that is valuable. ...
— The Book-Hunter in London - Historical and Other Studies of Collectors and Collecting • William Roberts
... of the representative MOTHER of our race and age that bids us wrap our mourning robes around us. For any record of such another we ransack in vain the treasure stores of all history. She is the only mother that ever reigned in her own right over any potent realm; and certainly over our own. Queen Mary of unhappy memory, died childless, and her more ...
— With the Guards' Brigade from Bloemfontein to Koomati Poort and Back • Edward P. Lowry
... female and male, and other subjects, all of which he utilised when he came to write his Notes and Terminal Essay to The Arabian Nights, particularly the articles on Al Islam and woman. Then, too, when at Bombay and other large towns he used to ransack the bazaars for rare books and manuscripts, whether ancient or contemporaneous. Still, the most valuable portion of his ...
— The Life of Sir Richard Burton • Thomas Wright
... find himself staring into the muzzles of three revolvers, held by two masked men, who stood looking over the footboard. Bidding them move at their peril, the man with two revolvers remained to guard the doctor and his wife, while the other began to ransack the room. As he did so, he carried on an easy, if not eloquent, dissertation upon the rights of man and the iniquitous conditions which made it necessary for the poor and oppressed to obtain by force, if they obtained at all, any share in the privileges and riches of the wealthy. As he discoursed, ...
— The Strange Adventures of Mr. Middleton • Wardon Allan Curtis
... fairer decorations; but every man, whether he copies or invents, whether he delivers his own thoughts or those of another, has often found himself deficient in the power of expression, big with ideas which he could not utter, obliged to ransack his memory for terms adequate to his conceptions, and at last unable to impress upon his reader the image ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson in Nine Volumes - Volume IV: The Adventurer; The Idler • Samuel Johnson
... list she handed me, and wondered what Harry, who had to visit Vancouver, would say when he found I had pledged him to ransack the dry-goods stores for all kinds of fabrics. Still, I felt I should have faced much more than my comrades' remonstrances to please Grace Carrington then, as she stood beside me, glorified as it were by ...
— Lorimer of the Northwest • Harold Bindloss
... full and frank overture, I entered into a few more particulars respecting my progress and purpose in the projected work; and invited him—on his return from France—to come at once to Bedford and ransack my papers. ...
— The Sailor's Word-Book • William Henry Smyth
... commune with oneself, bethink oneself; collect one's thoughts; revolve in the mind, turn over in the mind, run over in the mind; chew the cud upon, sleep upon; take counsel of one's pillow, advise with one's pillow. rack one's brains, ransack one's brains, crack one's brains, beat one's brains, cudgel one's brains; set one's brain to work, set one's wits to work. harbor an idea, entertain an idea, cherish an idea, nurture an idea &c 453; take into one's head; bear in mind; reconsider. occur; present itself, suggest ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... them fly to India for gold, Ransack the ocean for orient pearl, And search all corners of the new round world For pleasant ...
— English Literature: Modern - Home University Library Of Modern Knowledge • G. H. Mair
... place and 'gin ransack it. Old Missy done lock dat stormhouse door and sot down on it and she wouldn't git up when dey done tell her to. So dey takes her by de arms and lifts her off it. Dey didn't hurt her any. Den dey brekks de lock and comes down in dere. I didn't see whay dey hadn't found us kids, 'cause ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Texas Narratives, Part 1 • Works Projects Administration
... do what we pleased; ransack her desk and her workbox, and turn her drawers inside out; and she was so good-natured, she would give us anything ...
— Jane Eyre - an Autobiography • Charlotte Bronte
... extraordinary effect was produced on two of them, for they fell down on the deck, and rolled about as if in intense agony. This drew the attention of all hands on them; and as we had no surgeon on board, the captain began to ransack his medical knowledge ...
— Peter the Whaler • W.H.G. Kingston
... has had a better schooling and enjoyed an older civilization than he, were to go and reside in the "Free" State with her daughters, all of them would be forced to carry passes on their persons, and be called upon to ransack their skirt pockets at any time in the public streets at the behest of male policemen in quest of their passes. Several white men are at present undergoing long terms of imprisonment inflicted by the Orange ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... that boy," said Corentin, to the gendarme, "and take him away by himself. And shut up that girl, too," pointing to Catherine. "As for you, Peyrade, search for papers," adding in his ear, "Ransack everything, spare nothing.—Monsieur l'abbe," he said, confidentially, "I have an important communication to make to you"; and he took him ...
— An Historical Mystery • Honore de Balzac
... always been burned before we separated. Such letters as I have had from France, I have always destroyed as soon as I have read them. Perilous stuff of that sort should never be left about. No; they may ransack the place from top to bottom, and nothing will be found that could not be read aloud, without harm, in the marketplace ...
— A Jacobite Exile - Being the Adventures of a Young Englishman in the Service of Charles the Twelfth of Sweden • G. A. Henty
... my house is free to all," I said, hotly. "You have had the impertience to ransack it in my absence ...
— Danger! and Other Stories • Arthur Conan Doyle
... of the Hotel de Pekin before I had done anything startling, and soon C——, the genial and energetic Swiss, who is the master of this wonderful hostelry, had given me coffee. He told me then to go into his private rooms, ransack the place and take what I liked. I found I was not alone in his private apartments. Baron R——, the Russian commandant, had just come in before me, and had fallen asleep from sheer fatigue as he was ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... women lay tossed and tumbled in the dirt of floor and passage. To those who had time to think, a sad, heart-rending sight, pitiful evidence of the degrading influence of war. During the first year of the struggle there was not a man in the British army who would have pushed a woman aside to ransack the sacred corners of her chamber. But war's brutal influence in time blunted the finer instincts. How could it be otherwise? The longer a struggle is protracted the fiercer and more bestial it will ...
— On the Heels of De Wet • The Intelligence Officer
... resolved, come what might, to ransack Koltsoff's rooms before dawn—to dump the contents of all drawers in the middle of the floors, to cut with his knife any bags that might be locked, and in general to turn the suite inside out. For he ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry
... would delight in. However, my youthful appetite did not scorn Minerva's gingerbread, and, as I had many lonely hours to get through with as best I could, I would mount the highest chair that I could find, and ransack the old musty volumes in search of amusement. The collection consisted chiefly of antiquated medical works, some tracts, etc., but once, to my delight, I unearthed two of Mrs. Radcliffe's novels, which were indeed a treasure trove; one of them was ...
— Plantation Sketches • Margaret Devereux
... arrests, the police officers spread through the apartments, and proceeded to a searching examination of them. They had received orders to obey M. Tabaret, and the old fellow guided them in their search, made them ransack drawers and closets, and move the furniture to look underneath or behind. They seized a number of articles belonging to the viscount,—documents, manuscripts, and a very voluminous correspondence; but ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... will, was separated from his wife's bedroom by her boudoir. The walls were thick; through them no ordinary sound could penetrate, and, unless since his departure Jeanne had moved her maid or some other chaperon into his bedroom, he could ransack it at his leisure. The safe in which he would replace the will was in the dining-room. From the sleeping-quarters of Preston, the butler, and the other servants ...
— Somewhere in France • Richard Harding Davis
... the peculiar lot of our country to be visited by the worst kind of English travellers. While men of philosophical spirit and cultivated minds have been sent from England to ransack the poles, to penetrate the deserts, and to study the manners and customs of barbarous nations, with which she can have no permanent intercourse of profit or pleasure; it has been left to the broken-down tradesman, the scheming adventurer, the wandering mechanic, the ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... of defense was, of course, that the compound had been improperly used. For the rest, we relied with well-placed confidence on the want of evidence against us. Mr. Pickup wisely closed his shop for a while, and went off to the Continent to ransack the foreign galleries. I received my five and twenty pounds, rubbed out the beginning of my second Rembrandt, closed the back door of the workshop behind me, and there was another scene of my life at an end. I had but one circumstance to regret—and I did regret it bitterly. I was still as ignorant ...
— A Rogue's Life • Wilkie Collins
... are pearle-imbroderies, That not adorne, but cloud thy wast; Thou shalt be cloath'd above all prise, If thou wilt promise me imbrac't. Wee'l ransack neither chest nor shelfe: Ill cover thee with ...
— Lucasta • Richard Lovelace
... in a low voice, 'you may ransack the town, as I've done, and get all your keys together. I want to see if you can find one, or contrive one with any locksmith's help, that will fit into that lock. I'll give you a month to try it. I'd ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... therefore a mystery to us why they should persevere in their delusion. What—in the name of the Bend Sinister—have they to do with the earlier Harrys or Edwards, or the charge of the Templars at Ascalon, or the days of the Saxon Heptarchy? Are they called upon by some irrepressible impulse to ransack the pages of English history for a "situation," or to crib from the Chronicles of Froissart? Cannot they let the old warriors rest in peace, without summoning them, like the Cid, from their honoured graves, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 61, No. 379, May, 1847 • Various
... to take another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the countryside—"See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something. They'll ransack that castle," he ...
— War and Peace • Leo Tolstoy
... you my heir. I care for nothing now. Here are my keys. Hang me, if that's your good pleasure. Take all, ransack the house; it is full of gold. I give up ...
— Maitre Cornelius • Honore de Balzac
... be added a dozen or more which seem to be of doubtful formation, such as huckaback, pickapack, gimcrack, ticktack, picknick, barrack, knapsack, hollyhock, shamrock, hammock, hillock, hammock, bullock, roebuck. But the verbs on which this argument is founded are only six; attack, ransack, traffick, frolick, mimick, and physick; and these, unquestionably, must either be spelled with the k, or must assume it in their derivatives. Now that useful class of words which are generally and properly written with final c, are about four hundred and fifty in ...
— The Grammar of English Grammars • Goold Brown
... 'twas the lust of wealth that urged my hand to ravish the grave. This know; but none hereafter, I ween, will be fain to ransack Fafnir's lair." ...
— Grettir The Strong - Grettir's Saga • Unknown
... market. Another troop comes to La Force, to deliver those imprisoned for debt; a third breaks into the Garde Meuble, carrying away valuable arms and armour. Mobs assemble before the hotel of Madame de Breteuil and the Palais-Bourbon, which they intend to ransack, in order to punish their proprietors. M. de Crosne, one of the most liberal and most respected men of Paris, but, unfortunately for himself a lieutenant of the police, is pursued, escaping with difficulty, and his hotel is sacked.—During ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 2 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 1 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... are afraid of. We had a kind of a vague fear that you meant business, so we did not reply to your letter. Wyoming already has women enough who write with a lead pencil. We are also pretty well provided with poor spellers, and we do not desire to ransack Michigan for affectionate but ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... friend, nobody preaches like him. Else religion would be to every one just what it should be, the most valuable and reliable friend of men. He explained the gospel of the day without fanaticism, yet with a grand simplicity which needed not to ransack the world for its wisdom, its figures of speech, or its scholastic arts. It was no religious study, hurled in its three divisions at the heart of stony sinners; nor was it what some would call a current article of pulpit manufacture. It was no cold, heathen, moral lecture, which sought ...
— History of Rationalism Embracing a Survey of the Present State of Protestant Theology • John F. Hurst |
