"Unsettle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... "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 prime of all ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... open to the same objection as that which made him the motive power in this murder. One is not driven insane by an expected horror. It takes shock to unsettle the brain. He was not looking for the ...
— The Circular Study • Anna Katharine Green
... divided between sentiment and conviction, and you prefer to yield to the former. Lawrence, do 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 Lost Leader • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... 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 and the ...
— South America • W. H. Koebel
... Theodora 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 that they must deny themselves the pleasure of spending it together; ...
— Heartsease - or Brother's Wife • Charlotte M. Yonge
... not?' cried the other exultingly. 'Not only does it bowl over the Established Church and Protestant ascendency, but it inverts the position of landlord and tenant. To unsettle everything in Ireland, so that anybody might hope to be anything, or to own Heaven knows what—to legalise gambling for existence to a people who delight in high play, and yet not involve us in a civil ...
— Lord Kilgobbin • Charles Lever
... 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 ...
— J. S. Le Fanu's Ghostly Tales, Volume 1 • Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu
... contrive no method but that of a convulsion of the earth that shall project the deposed President to this indefinitely distant space; but a shock of nature of so vast an energy and for so great a result on him might unsettle even the footing of the firm members of Congress. We certainly need not resort to so perilous a method as that. How shall we accomplish it? Why, in the first place, nobody knows where that space is but the learned manager ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... resume, what I said to you and the open air I resume, I know I am restless and make others so, I know my words are weapons full of danger, full of death, For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them, I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me, I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule, And the ...
— Leaves of Grass • Walt Whitman
... haze of the transforming mass. By this theory Herschel was able to account for the phenomena associated with nebulous stars and the supposed changes which were observed in some nebulae. The nebular hypothesis as described by Herschel was not received with much favour, nor did it unsettle much the belief that all nebulae were vast stellar aggregations, and that their cloudy luminosity was a consequence of the inadequacy of telescopic power to resolve them into their component stars. Laplace, who was highly gifted as a ...
— The Astronomy of Milton's 'Paradise Lost' • Thomas Orchard
... 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 be ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... Bible, or as to the supernatural origin of religion to reach such persons, you run a grave risk that they will reflect the uncertainty on the canons of morality. In taking from them what you believe to be false, inevitably you will unsettle their ideas on moral questions although you might be in full agreement as to these moral questions. Huxley refused to accept the asserted association between morality and ...
— Thomas Henry Huxley; A Sketch Of His Life And Work • P. Chalmers Mitchell
... and cautious manner of their approach, the nice modulations necessary to "call" them successfully, and the reckless sweep with which they seem to throw aside all fear, and rush into the very jaws of death,—all these combine to unsettle the nerves and aim of ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... co-operate with Cortes if by so doing they could obtain it. 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 ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... there. He went to California, and came back with five and twinty thousand pounds. I met him in Liverpool the day he arrived. 'This is no good to me, Toby,' says he. 'Why not?' I asks. 'Not enough,' says he; 'just enough to unsettle me.' 'What then?' says I. 'Put it on the favourite for the St. Leger,' says he. And he did too, every pinny of it, and the horse was beat on the post by a short head. He dropped the lot in one day. A fact, sir, 'pon me honour! Came to me next day. 'Nothing left!' ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... says Mr. Browne. "She'll learn. So are you—you'll learn. And remember this, my boy, always respect old legends. A disregard for them will so unsettle you that finally you will find yourself—at the foot of the gallows in all human probability. I suppose," sadly, "that you are even so far gone in scepticism as to doubt the glorious truth of the moon's being ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... were settled, and Mrs. Starling made no attempt to unsettle them; on the other hand, she fell into a condition of permanent unrest which I do not know how to characterize. It was not ill-humour exactly; it was not displeasure; or if, it was displeasure at herself, but it was contrary to all Mrs. Starling's ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... of the importance of a good job of spanking. It was force that had settled the slavery question—and settled it so that now you might travel in the South and have a hard time to find a man that would want to unsettle it. ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... unsettle it. I have a right to choose my own occupation, and I don't intend to become a blacksmith. Even if I did, I should choose some one ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... 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 beyond that which seemed ...
— The Last Chronicle of Barset • Anthony Trollope
... unsettle all, and endeavours utterly to ruine the whole Story: for he tells us, If you travel all over Africa, you shall not meet with either a Crane or Pygmie: Se mirari (saith[A] Isaac Vossius) Aristotelem, quod tam serio affirmet non esse fabellam, quae ...
— A Philological Essay Concerning the Pygmies of the Ancients • Edward Tyson
... 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 ranks, disconcert, convulse; break in upon. unhinge, ...
— Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases: Body • Roget
... 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 ...
— The Greatest English Classic A Study of the King James Version of • Cleland Boyd McAfee
... to unsettle any claim that this Creole climate might make to character, the hurricane leaves its awful trace upon the island. This rotating storm of wind has its origin to the east of the Caribbee Islands; its long parabolic curve sweeps over them, and bends to ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 9, No. 56, June, 1862 • Various
... 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
... finally, following the divine Plato among the sages at a humble distance, comes the prosaic and unfashionable Paley, and says in his precise way: that 'this vice has a tendency, which other species of vice have not so directly, to unsettle and weaken the powers of the understanding; as well as, I think, in a greater degree than other vices, to render the heart thoroughly corrupt.' True; and, once admitted and fostered, it eats like a canker, and with difficulty can ever be brought to let go its hold again, but for ever tightens it. ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... the Styx rolled between it and me. With that sternness which is admissible only to the afflicted, I have denied myself even the consolation of your visits. I have told you fairly and simply that your presence would unsettle all my enforced and infirm philosophy, and remind me only of the past, which I seek to blot from remembrance. You have complied on the one condition, that whenever I really want your aid I will ask it; and, meanwhile, ...
— My Novel, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... 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 ...
— Maupassant Original Short Stories (180), Complete • Guy de Maupassant
... And that is why I have always wished you and the vicar could be brought together. I have—yes, I own to it—I have been afraid sometimes you were a little unsettled about religion, and that it might unsettle Georgie, too. But I knew if you once met the vicar that would all be set right. As I often say to George, let anybody just see Dr. Nevington and then they will begin to have an inkling of all they miss in not hearing him in ...
— The Far Horizon • Lucas Malet
... 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 of the ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... March 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
... idea did not appear auspicious to Gard. If Deming got the run of Villa Elsa, he would unsettle things, interfere with his own work. Jim was a good boy but he played hob with study. And he was just the kind of flashy, ignorant Yankee who would prove to Villa Elsa what it claimed about the race. He would disgust ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... though it would be disagreeable, an' I should be sorry to have you put to that inconvenience. But the wind and the water may unsettle the foundation o' your house, the chimney bein' on the outside, an' no support to it. Even that would not certainly put you in danger, as the frame would likely float. But I knew, ef sech a thing should ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... 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 to me are sacred; none are profane. I simply experiment—an endless seeker, with ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... 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 ...
— The Humour of Homer and Other Essays • Samuel Butler
... 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
... 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. He towunst ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... importance of the protective policy to American interests, as would naturally be expected of a descendant of that high protectionist, Thomas Jefferson. He had no sympathies with any measures that would debase or unsettle the currency, and set his face and gave his powerful influence against all forms of fiat or irredeemable paper money, and the kindred folly of the free coinage of silver by this country alone, without the concurrence of the commercial ...
— Autobiography of Seventy Years, Vol. 1-2 • George Hoar
... fellow's villainy. But his day of reckoning will come; I am sure of it, and the world will be none the worse for the loss of so vile a creature. If you take my advice you'll say nothing to Mr. Merriman of this discovery. 'Twould only unsettle the poor man. He had better know nothing until we can either restore the ladies to him or tell him that there ...
— In Clive's Command - A Story of the Fight for India • Herbert Strang
... into a scheme of such rational employment and virtuous self-control. Her smile however changed to a sigh when she remembered that promise to Willoughby was yet unfulfilled, and feared she had that to communicate which might again unsettle the mind of Marianne, and ruin at least for a time this fair prospect of busy tranquillity. Willing therefore to delay the evil hour, she resolved to wait till her sister's health were more secure, before she appointed it. But the resolution ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... general was wiser than the fiery captain of the horse. It has been common to censure Hannibal for neglecting to march on Rome after the battle of Cannae. But his dazzling triumph did not for a moment unsettle his clear judgment. He knew that his forces were unequal to the task of storming a walled city garrisoned by a population of fighting men. An attack which he had made on Spoletium had proved the inadequacy of the small Carthaginian army to carry a strongly fortified ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... Munnion, looking at the child 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 would ...
— A Pair of Clogs • Amy Walton
... know," I 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
... wrestling with his afflicting circumstances, whatever they were, and he has no hesitation in spreading them all out before God and asking for His delivering help. Wishes that are not turned into prayers irritate, disturb, unsettle. Wishes that are turned into prayers are calmed and made blessed. Stanley and his men lived for weeks upon a poisonous root, which, if eaten crude, brought all manner of diseases, but, steeped in running water, had all the acrid juices washed out of it, and became wholesome ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... 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)
... punishment as cheats and impostors out of the range of ordinary toleration, and as founders of new sects and modes of life, and teachers that lead the ignorant public to believe and accept as truth all the folly they contain. And such is their audacity, they even dare to unsettle the wits of gentlemen of birth and intelligence, as is shown plainly by the way they have served your worship, when they have brought you to such a pass that you have to be shut up in a cage and carried on an ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... some beggar's haffet squattle; There ye may creep, and sprawl, and sprattle, Wi' ither kindred, jumping cattle, In shoals and nations; Whaur horn nor bane ne'er daur unsettle Your ...
— Poems And Songs Of Robert Burns • Robert Burns
... time. You wouldn't—well, say you couldn't marry me to-morrow. A month hence you would be willing. Because you suffer from a passing illusion, I am to unsettle all my arrangements, and face an intolerable humiliation. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... about eighteen years ago, and about the same number of late years; one man was flung here only about three months before I was appointed. I have the full list, with dates, down in my office, but the rangers never let people in Sunch'ston know when they have Blue-Pooled any one; it would unsettle men's minds, and some of them would be coming up here in the dark to drag the pool, and see whether they could find anything on ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... 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 hide the change in his mood from Polly—even if he had felt it ...
— Australia Felix • Henry Handel Richardson
... which we have seen employed to shake the nerves and unsettle the mind in the service of superstition,—can they be turned to no ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, No. 382, October 1847 • Various
... is 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 in ...
— The Land of Footprints • Stewart Edward White
... nothing essential disturbed, nothing torn up by the roots, no parts rent asunder which can be left in wholesome combination. Fortunately, no measures of sweeping or novel change are necessary. It will be understood that our object is not to unsettle business or anywhere seriously to break its established courses athwart. On the contrary, we desire the laws we are now about to pass to be the bulwarks and safeguards of industry against the forces that have disturbed it. What we have to do can ...
— President Wilson's Addresses • Woodrow Wilson
... the present the fact to be noted is that the authorized reviewers are both in honor and in duty bound to keep themselves absolutely clear of controversial bias. The movement is not a movement to alter in any slightest respect the dogmatic teaching of the Church, not a movement to unsettle foundations, not a movement toward disowning or repudiating our past, but simply and only an endeavor to make the Common Prayer, if possible (and we are far from being sure, as yet, that it is possible), a better thing of its kind, more comprehensive, more ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... 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 ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... in college, believes that it would be moral suicide to permit them to come under the influence of a professor whose religious indifference, or unfavorable remarks about Christianity, might infuse the poison of skepticism, doubt, or indifference, and perhaps unsettle their early religious convictions, and "send them forth confused and adrift on the endless ...
— Colleges in America • John Marshall Barker
... river North of Cape Delgado, and, in addition to my other 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 to ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... well known that the two great revolutions of the seventeenth century—that in 1649, accomplished by the Parliament armies (including its reaction in 1660), and secondly, that in 1688-9—did much to unsettle the religious tone of public morals. Historians and satirists ascribe a large effect in this change to the personal influence of Charles II., and the foreign character of his court. We do not share in their views; ...
— Theological Essays and Other Papers v2 • Thomas de Quincey
... your life, Spike. It would unsettle the rustic mind. They're fearfully particular about that sort ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... the game, whose moves are death, It maketh a man draw too proud a breath: And to see his force taken for reason and right, It tendeth to unsettle his reason quite. Never did chief of the line of Sword Keep his wits whole at that drunken board. He taketh the size, and the roar, and fate, Of the field of his action, for soul as great: He smiteth and stunneth the cheek of mankind, And saith "Lo! ...
— Captain Sword and Captain Pen - A Poem • Leigh Hunt
... no otherwise minded; but he that troubles you shall bear his judgment, whoever he may be. (11)But as for me, brethren, if I still preach circumcision, why am I still persecuted? Then has the offense of the cross ceased. (12)I would that they were even cut off who unsettle you. ...
— The New Testament of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. • Various
... except that it is against you? Why impede the circulation of books which take religious views opposite to your own? Why forbid your children and scholars the free perusal of poems or tales or essays or other light literature which you fear would unsettle their minds? Why oblige them to know these persons and to shun those, if you think that your friends have reason on their side as fully as your opponents? Truth is bold and unsuspicious; want of self-reliance is the mark ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... pertinent to the study of the crater and will find appropriate place in any comprehensive discussion of its origin; but the fact which is peculiarly worthy of note at the present time is their ability to unsettle a conclusion that was beginning to feel itself secure. This illustrates the tentative nature not only of the hypotheses of science, but of what ...
— Arizona Sketches • Joseph A. Munk
... something about the bargain and the terms, and whether the negroes were honest, and sound, and all that. Well, though I looked out as often as I well could with civility, I saw nothing of you, and began to fear that something had happened to unsettle the whole plan; but, after a while, I saw Peter, with his mouth drawn back and hooked up into his ears, with his white teeth glimmering like so many slips of moonshine in a dark night, and I then concluded that all was as it should be. But seeing me look out so earnestly and often, the ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms
... only proper genuine received sense? And, if Matter, in such a sense, be proved impossible, may it not be thought with good grounds absolutely impossible? Else how could anything be proved impossible? Or, indeed, how could there be any proof at all one way or other, to a man who takes the liberty to unsettle and change the common signification ...
— Three Dialogues between Hylas and Philonous in Opposition to Sceptics and Atheists • George Berkeley
... 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 whom, whether as author or man, the ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... would inevitably flow from the approbation and allowance by the people and the practice by the Senate of the unconstitutional power of arraigning and censuring the official conduct of the Executive in the manner recently pursued. Such proceedings are eminently calculated to unsettle the foundations of the Government, to disturb the harmonious action of its different departments, and to break down the checks and balances by which the wisdom of its framers sought to insure ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 1 (of 2) of Volume 3: Andrew Jackson (Second Term) • James D. Richardson
... crossing an undulation in the ground when a ball struck him in the breast; from daybreak he 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 cavalry, which he broke ...
— Worlds Best Histories - France Vol 7 • M. Guizot and Madame Guizot De Witt
... 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 story which had at first been told by the men, ...
— Ronald Morton, or the Fire Ships - A Story of the Last Naval War • W.H.G. Kingston
... there was some hidden demon who did it. But there would be no end of such doubts, and if we indulged in them, all our work endeavour and practical activities would have to be dispensed with (vyaghata). Thus such doubts as lead us to the suspension of all work should not disturb or unsettle the notion of vyapti or concomitance at which we had arrived by careful observation and consideration [Footnote ref 2]. The Buddhists and the naiyayikas generally agreed as to the method of forming the notion of concomitance or vyapti (vyaptigraha), but the former tried ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... 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. ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge
... and returned with a most perplexed countenance. Now "the master's" correspondence had always been a great bother to Reuben. It took him a long time to spell out the letters and a longer time to indite the answers. So the arrival of a letter was always sure to unsettle him for a day or two. Still, that fact did not account for the great disturbance of mind in which he reached home and entered the ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... 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
... disappearing from an old road that led away to Tushielaw, the last of the king's troops; and she omened sadly that they had completed their work. She hesitated again, whether she should proceed to a place where she would inevitably behold a sight that might unsettle her reason. But whether could she fly? What could she do? Her little children were there; it was still her home, and the dead body of her beloved husband was also there. But judgment might vacillate ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... 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 ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... 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 ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... desolation strike thy towers alone? No, fair Ellandonan! such ruin 'twill bring, That the storm shall have power to unsettle the throne, And thy fate shall be mixed with the fate of ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... for many centuries, that would signify or prove nothing. Would water, air, earth, fire, be less useful to man whether they were or were not elements? Such errors are of no consequence; they lead to no revolutions, do not unsettle the mind; above all, they injure no interests, so they might, without inconvenience, endure for millions of years. The physical world would progress just as if they did not exist. Would it be thus with errors which attack the moral world? Can we conceive that a system of government, ...
— What Is Free Trade? - An Adaptation of Frederic Bastiat's "Sophismes Econimiques" - Designed for the American Reader • Frederic Bastiat
... foolish ones of my own. But I am a poor philosopher, or rather am like all philosophers, have no presence of mind, and must study my part before I can act it. I have now settled myself not to expect you this year-do not unsettle me: I dread a disappointment, as I do a relapse of the gout; and therefore cut this article short, that I may not indulge vain hopes, My affection for you both is unalterable; can I give so strong a proof as by supplicating ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... heard him say, that, if any malicious enemy wished to kill him, the course would be to make sure that tidings of some signal piece of prosperity should arrive by post on each of six or seven successive days. It would quite unhinge and unsettle him, he said. His heart would go: his nervous system would break down. People to whom pieces of good-luck come rare and small have a great curiosity to know how a man feels when he is suddenly told that he has drawn ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. XI., April, 1863, No. LXVI. - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics. • Various
... point 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 with ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... untrustworthy, perishable—yet able to stand unlimited agony, cope with the greatest forces of Nature and build against a thousand years. Passion can blind it—yet it can read in infinity the difference between right and wrong. Alcohol can unsettle it—yet it can create a poem or a harmony or a philosophy that is immortal. A flower pot falling out of a window can destroy it—yet it ...
— The Industrial Canal and Inner Harbor of New Orleans • Thomas Ewing Dabney
... that I had come too late to do him and 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 ...
— Metlakahtla and the North Pacific Mission • Eugene Stock
... I must 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 ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... 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
... between that event and the fall of Granada. Then begins the activity of the corsairs. There is this difference between them, that the corsairs merely paid flying visits; a change of wind, the appearance of an Italian sail, an unexpected resistance on the part of the inhabitants, sufficed to unsettle their ephemeral plans. The coast-lands were never in their possession; they only harried the natives. The system of the Saracens on the mainland, though it seldom attained the form of a provincial or even military government, was different. They had the ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... 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 Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... 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 ...
— The Three Admirals • W.H.G. Kingston
... that a revolution might be made upon his revolution, and as lucrative to them as his was to the first projectors. Scarcely was Mir Jaffier, Lord Olive's nabob, seated on his musnud, than they immediately, or in a short time, projected another revolution, a revolution which was to unsettle all the former had settled, a revolution to make way for new disturbances and new wars, and which led to that long chain of peculation which ever since has afflicted ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... Federal Convention be called for considering the 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 in operation without waiting ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... To unsettle the existence of a God, it is only necessary to ask a theologian to speak of Him; as soon as he utters one word about Him, the least reflection makes us discover at once that what he says is incompatible with the essence ...
— Superstition In All Ages (1732) - Common Sense • Jean Meslier
... hills almost all my life; and though in ways it had grown familiar, and even dear to me, yet I never seemed to grow quite used to the city. It had strange tricks of deception that were enough to unsettle the finest faith. For when I looked at it from the windows of my room under the roof it was as flat as a plate, visible in its entirety from end to end, and it was as easy to find Telegraph Hill or the Plaza upon it ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... of traffic, and it might unsettle her opinions of her uncle's stability. If a man does not maintain credit within his own doors, how can he expect ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... 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. Do you suppose ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... nor children shall know thereof." If Winthrop should 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
... "penetration," divested his large heavy face of all 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 "own" was bound ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... young man for you to see too much of, I'm sure, Mr. Christy," he said, with marked disapprobation. For, in the Dean's opinion, it was a most dangerous thing for a man to think, especially when he's young; thinking is, of course, so likely to unsettle him! ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... begun. Whatever 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 ...
— Penelope's Progress - Being Such Extracts from the Commonplace Book of Penelope Hamilton As Relate to Her Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
... services were so recent that 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 ...
— Nostromo: A Tale of the Seaboard • Joseph Conrad
... Fitzadree's good 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 ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 12, Issue 330, September 6, 1828 • Various
... more profitable and humane, than to disturb them with formalities that have no virtue in themselves—to distress them with useless controversies, that settle no one point, teach no one doctrine, but unsettle and unfix all the good that our simple creed had previously built ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... 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 ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... 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 in ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... he had waxed so heavy of purse that a woman could come between us,—a selfish woman, I made no doubt, pampered survival of a pernicious and now happily destroyed system, who would not only unsettle my domestic tranquillity, but would, in all likelihood, fetch another alien ferment into our already sorely tried existence as a town needing elevation. It seemed, indeed, that we were never to be ...
— The Boss of Little Arcady • Harry Leon Wilson
... 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 to be groping after a definite faith while ...
— English Literature - Its History and Its Significance for the Life of the English Speaking World • William J. Long
... the Albany meeting, Thurlow Weed, with the foresight of a prophet, wrote in the Evening Journal: "This question of slavery, when it becomes a matter of political controversy, will shake, if not unsettle, the foundations of our government. It is too fearful, and too mighty, in all its bearings and consequences, to be recklessly mixed up in our partisan conflicts."[287] When the Legislature convened, in January, 1836, Governor Marcy took up the question in his message. ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... is to be? The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind? I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds; Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds From the hid battlements of Eternity, Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again; But not ere him who summoneth I first have seen, enwound With grooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned; His name I know, and what his trumpet saith. Whether man's heart or ...
— Poems • Francis Thompson
... 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 ...
— The Virginia Company Of London, 1606-1624 • Wesley Frank Craven
... Sidney saw the enthusiasm which agitated every man, woman, and child in the Netherlands against Philip and D'Alva, he told Queen Elizabeth that it was the spirit of God, and that it was invincible. What is the spirit which seems to move and unsettle every other man in England and on the Continent at this time? Upon my conscience, and judging by St. John's rule, I think it is a special spirit of the devil—and ...
— Specimens of the Table Talk of S.T.Coleridge • Coleridge
... Mallow took the offensive, and tried to unsettle Dyck's poise and disorganize his battle-plan. For an instant the tempestuous action, the brilliant, swift play of the sword, the quivering flippancy of the steel, gave Dyck that which almost disconcerted him. Yet he had a grip of himself, and preserved his ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... 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 ...
— Christie Redfern's Troubles • Margaret Robertson
... it dark about 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 ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley
... from all quarters, containing criticisms on her conduct, and assuring her that she was acting a very foolish part. But her constancy remained unshaken, as conscience told her her resolution was made for the glory of God. This trial was followed by two others, which were calculated either to unsettle or confirm her vocation, as, under the guise of prudence, a seemingly greater good was proposed. In fact, a person less enlightened in the ways of God would have wavered at this period of her life. During her sojourn in Paris, ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... dignified mien he always maintained, when it was not his pleasure to throw aside the reserve of high station, or when he yielded to the torrents of feeling that sometimes poured through his southern temperament, in a way to unsettle the deportment of mere convention. He was presented to Roger de Blonay and the bailiff, as the person just alluded to, and as the oldest and most tried of the friends of his introducer. His reception by the former was natural and ...
— The Headsman - The Abbaye des Vignerons • James Fenimore Cooper
... comfortably"—yes, but only for a short time. Marion never before in her life received two such letters. Both were anonymous. The first one that she opened aroused enough curiosity to "unsettle" her. She thought she knew whom it was from—those ingenious Boy Scouts of Spring Lake—perhaps it was written by cousin Clifford himself. It was just like him. He was a natural leader among boys, and often up to mischief ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... proper bounds, which it is death for them to pass, they afford our belly no pretence at all for their destruction; and therefore to catch or be greedy after fish is plain deliciousness and luxury, which upon no just reason unsettle the sea and dive into the deep. For we cannot call the mullet corn-destroying, the trout grape-eating, nor the barbel or seapike seed-gathering, as we do some land-animals, signifying their hurtfulness by these epithets. Nay, those little mischiefs which we complain ...
— Essays and Miscellanies - The Complete Works Volume 3 • Plutarch
... place, 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 ...
— The Caesars • Thomas de Quincey
... 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 ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... 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 now regarded ...
— The Tragedy of St. Helena • Walter Runciman
... in the debate. "If," said he, "we look 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, ...
— The Loyalists, Vol. 1-3 - An Historical Novel • Jane West
... answer for 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
... the loom, year after year, that he may earn food for the day and lodging for the night. In our day the demand here hinted at has taken more definite form and determinate aim, and goes on, visible to all men, to unsettle society and change social and political relations. The great movement of labor, extravagant and preposterous as are some of its demands, demagogic as are most of its leaders, fantastic as are many of its ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... bring him little satisfaction, and might be very inconvenient; that his uncle was in no distress, and did not require assistance; and that it was too probable that in seeking him out he might meet with persons who might unsettle his principles,—in short, that he had much better give ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... such as have a great, and false opinion of their own Wisedome, take upon them to reprehend the actions, and call in question the Authority of them that govern, and so to unsettle the Lawes with their publique discourse, as that nothing shall be a Crime, but what their own designes require should be so. It happeneth also to the same men, to be prone to all such Crimes, as consist in Craft, and in deceiving of their ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... 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, ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... probable that the opposition to Galileo on the part of the Roman church was as much due to some such feelings as these, as to theological objections; the discovery was felt to unsettle not only the foundations of the earth, but those of every branch of human knowledge and polity, and hence to be an outrage upon morality itself. A man has no right to be very much in advance of other people; he is as a sheep, which may lead the ...
— The Fair Haven • Samuel Butler
... vulgar career of action? Would you assist the rulers?—servility! The people?—folly! If you take the great philosophical view which the worshippers of the past rarely take, but which, unknown to them, is their sole excuse,—namely, that the changes which may benefit the future unsettle the present; and that it is not the wisdom of practical legislation to risk the peace of our contemporaries in the hope of obtaining happiness for their posterity,—to what suspicions, to what charges are you exposed! ...
— The Pilgrims Of The Rhine • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... would it do so? With a Presbyterian majority in it, looking on all that had been done since 1648 as the illegal acts of pretended Governments, might it not be tempted to a revengeful revision of all those acts? Might it not thus unsettle those arrangements for the sale, purchase, gift, and conveyance of property upon which the fortunes of many thousands, including the Army officers and the soldiery in England, in Scotland, and especially in Ireland, now ...
— The Life of John Milton, Volume 5 (of 7), 1654-1660 • David Masson
... efficiency and as wickedly unjust to 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. Americans have ...
— The Promise Of American Life • Herbert David Croly
... result would be to oblige the Government of the United States to enter the courts ostensibly to assert and protect its title to said land, while in point of fact it would be used to enforce private claims to the same and unsettle private ownership. ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 3 (of 3) of Volume 8: Grover Cleveland, First Term. • Grover Cleveland
... 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 away and find my way back ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... evident 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
... that after the tragic events which had occurred, and the public reports of them which had appeared, Meynell's abrupt withdrawal from public life would once more unsettle and confuse the public mind. If there had been any change ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... intended 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 ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... you undertook unfinished, you would find it hard to apply yourself to anything; and yet that's my unhappy case. I was born into this unfinished contention with all its chances and changes, and it began to unsettle me before I quite knew the difference between a suit at law and a suit of clothes; and it has gone on unsettling me ever since; and here I am now, conscious sometimes that I am but a worthless fellow to love ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... on my shoulder, holds my hands and half shuts her beautiful eyes while we settle what our future life shall be, when I cover her with kisses and inhale the odor of all those little hairs that are as fine as silk and are like a halo round her imperial brow, excite me, unsettle me, kill me, and yet I feel inclined to shed tears, when the time comes for us to part, and I really only exist ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... flowers of antennaria, or everlasting. The wood thrush frequently weaves a fragment of newspaper or a white rag into the foundation of its nest. "Evil communications corrupt good manners." The newspaper and the rag-bag unsettle the wits of the birds. The phoebe-bird is capable of this kind of mistake or indiscretion. All the past generations of her tribe have built upon natural and, therefore, neutral sites, usually under shelving and ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... under threat of wrecking their shops. At this time a foreign diplomat, during an audience of the Shah, on being asked by his Majesty, according to his wont, what news there was in the European quarter of the town, mentioned this latest phase of Moulla agitation as tending to unsettle men's minds. The Shah passed his hand lightly over his shaven chin, and said, with a touch of humour and royal assurance: 'See, I shave; let them talk; ...
— Persia Revisited • Thomas Edward Gordon
... re-cut them at half a foot from the surface; and then meddle with them no more: But this (if the process be not more severe than needs) must be done with a very sharp instrument, and with care, lest you violate, and unsettle the root; which is likewise to be practis'd upon all those which you did not transplant, unless you find them very thriving trees; and then it shall suffice to prune off the branches, and spare the tops; for this does not only ...
— Sylva, Vol. 1 (of 2) - Or A Discourse of Forest Trees • John Evelyn
... thou ball, 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! ...
— The Bab Ballads • W. S. Gilbert
... bulk 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 ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... 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 to cool towards the author. Moore wrote to ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... renewed in the session of December, 1819, the number of free States equaled the number of slave States. The addition of a twenty-third State, then, would unsettle the equilibrium between the sections in the Senate. A growing antagonism based upon widely different economic and social organizations was coming to be felt—felt rather than clearly perceived and openly recognized. In the year 1800, the two sections had ...
— Union and Democracy • Allen Johnson
... had been intended 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
... innocent enjoyment, and the most entire peace of mind; that no pressure was put upon any one who decided to stay there, and to observe the quiet customs of the place; but that it was always considered a heinous and ill-disposed thing to attempt to unsettle any one's convictions, or to attempt, by using undue influence, to bring about the migration of any citizen to conditions of which little was known, but which there was reason to believe ...
— The Child of the Dawn • Arthur Christopher Benson
... is altogether ignorant of traffic, and it might unsettle her opinions of her uncle's stability. If a man does not maintain credit within his own doors, how can he expect it in ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... ever very sure. He had no intimate friends and no enemies—he was not noticed enough to inspire dislike. But he was a man of positive opinion, which he generally kept to himself. He had settled convictions, which he never used to unsettle others. I had known him in his old home, Virginia; so perhaps he felt more friendly toward me and talked ...
— A Few Short Sketches • Douglass Sherley
... now almost to wondering when de Spain would leave, and, disinclined though she felt to further parley, she believed he would go the sooner if she were to consent to see him again. Everything he had said to her seemed to unsettle her mind and to imperil impressions concerning him that she felt it dangerous, or at least treasonable, to part with. To believe anything but the worst of a man whom she heard cursed and abused continually by her uncles, cousins, and their associates and retainers, seemed ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... said earnestly, "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 ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... so feeble and so trifling that if he be not accustomed to contemplate the wonders of human imagination, he will marvel that one century has gained for it so much pomp and reverence. The art of opposition and of revolution is to unsettle established customs, sounding them even to their source, to point out their want of authority and justice. We must, it is said, get back to the natural and fundamental laws of the State, which an unjust custom has abolished. It is a game certain to result in the loss of all; ...
— Pascal's Pensees • Blaise Pascal
... principalities may descend to females by hereditary right, it did not appear to me necessary to move the question, not only because the thing would be most invidious; but because in my opinion it would not be lawful to unsettle governments which are ordained by the peculiar ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... the stars, like that frisky cow who, in jumping over the moon, upon a time, made the milky way. I've always had some doubts about that exploit; but then there is the mark she left. Your friend Roberts is uneasy about this new star business; he is afraid that it will unsettle the cheese market, and he don't know about it, nor ...
— Bart Ridgeley - A Story of Northern Ohio • A. G. Riddle
... tell them," said the doctor to Miss Smithers, on the morning of the day. "It will only more completely unsettle Miss Ruth, while the other poor child need have no more laid upon her. If the worst comes, there will be strength given, and anticipated trouble is always the hardest to bear. If you have any influence over Miss Ruth, keep her very ...
— 'Our guy' - or, The elder brother • Mrs. E. E. Boyd |
