"Breakdown" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... equal to the long tramp back to the ranch, of course. They were dripping wet. The elation that followed their escape, and the discovery of Scylla's great good fortune, was followed by a nervous breakdown on the part of both girls, and they cuddled in each other's arms on the wet grass, sobbing and frightened, to wait for ...
— Southern Stories - Retold from St. Nicholas • Various
... being spoiled by kindness in New York and the surrounding towns, if not in danger of a breakdown from constant activity, literary and social, with club interests and weekend visits at homes of delightful friends on the Hudson, when I was surprised and honoured by a call from President L. Clark Seelye of Smith College, Northampton, Massachusetts, who invited me to take the position of teacher ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... the fireplace, with a foot on the fender and an arm on the mantelpiece, as her grandfather had done when he came in that night of the opera. She was too near a breakdown to ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... attack during an "Encounter Battle" the cavalry will have been out on reconnaissance in front of the attacking force; during the attack they may be called on to assist by dismounted fire action, and by local counter-strokes as mounted troops (against cavalry, or against infantry disorganised by the breakdown of a movement), but must not be allowed to impair their speed or freshness; after the successful assault the Pursuit is their special duty, not necessarily on the heels of the enemy, but on lines parallel to their retreat, to hamper his movements, to round up stragglers, ...
— Lectures on Land Warfare; A tactical Manual for the Use of Infantry Officers • Anonymous
... their trudge through those endless trees, with Fear for a companion. Even the porters, who had been told nothing, seemed more afraid than usual, though whether this was because they "smell rat," as Jeekie called it, or owing to the progressive breakdown of their nervous systems, Alan did not know. About midday they stopped to eat because the men were too tired to walk further without rest. For an hour or more they had been looking for a comparatively open place, but as it chanced could find none, so were obliged to halt in dense ...
— The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa • H. Rider Haggard
... for an operation, and won't be back for a couple of months, perhaps, and this man isn't even taking his place. He's just here for his health or for fun or something, I guess. He says he had a large suburban church near New York, and had a nervous breakdown; but I've been wondering if he didn't make a mistake, and it wasn't the church had the nervous breakdown instead. He isn't very big nor very little; he's just insignificant. His hair is like wet straw, and his eyes like a fish's. His hand feels like a dead toad when you have ...
— A Voice in the Wilderness • Grace Livingston Hill
... that it is the law of the universe that what is good will endure. But here we have not merely a contravention of that law, but an utter and everlasting breakdown of the divine administration. In a universe where God rules in wisdom, in righteousness, and in love; and where moreover He is possessed of all power, not only physical but moral, it seems almost blasphemy to ...
— Love's Final Victory • Horatio
... the hour of the wedding approached his nerves tried him, and between fingering the ring in his waistcoat pocket and repeating his "cues" over to himself, he reached a painful condition of mental confusion which bordered closely on a breakdown. ...
— The One-Way Trail - A story of the cattle country • Ridgwell Cullum
... still early when the coach rolled out of Witley, but it was not early enough, nor was the pace fast enough, to satisfy Barbara. She became suddenly fearful of pursuit which might stop her from reaching Dorchester. She began to dread some breakdown which might delay her and cause her to ...
— The Brown Mask • Percy J. Brebner
... outright, and an emphatic: "Wife determined, coming Tuesday's train," from the Maluka was followed by a complete breakdown at the Katherine. ...
— We of the Never-Never • Jeanie "Mrs. Aeneas" Gunn
... played a part in the breakdown and break-up of Roman civilization. People lost faith and hope. They became disillusioned and cynical. They forgot the common good and devoted themselves to the gratification of body hungers. They turned from proud service ...
— Civilization and Beyond - Learning From History • Scott Nearing
... you do, if you don't?" he had asked her in a businesslike manner. "You're just on the verge of a breakdown"—She knew it; and his tone of conviction did not add to her sense of security—"Another scene like to-day's would upset you completely. You say you have no friends or relatives here; and there's no one you want to go to away from here. And ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. XXXI, No. 3, July 1908. • Various
... lost: Heine becomes a mere prentice-metrist; he sets the teeth on edge as surely as Browning himself; the verse that recalled a dance of naiads suggests a springless cart on a Highland road; Terpsichore is made to prance a hobnailed breakdown. The poem disappears, and in its place you have an indifferent copy of verses. You look at the pages from afar, and your impression is that they are not unlike Heine; you look into them, and Heine has vanished. The man is gone, and only an ...
— Views and Reviews - Essays in appreciation • William Ernest Henley
... Galilean campaign had been little more creditable than that of Josephus—that is, if the latter's account may be believed at all. He had been a leader of the Zealot party in Tiberias, and had roused the people of that city against the double-dealing commander; but on the breakdown of the revolt he entered the service of Agrippa II. He fell into disgrace, but was pardoned. Some twenty-four years after the war was over he wrote a History of the Jewish Kings and a History of the War. It is difficult to form any judgment of the work, because, apart from the abuse of Josephus, ...
— Josephus • Norman Bentwich
... more and more completely under a carpeting of snow, through which the not very powerful engine ploughed its way with increasing difficulty. The Vienna-Fiume line is scarcely the best equipped of the Austrian State railways, and Abbleway began to have serious fears for a breakdown. The train had slowed down to a painful and precarious crawl and presently came to a halt at a spot where the drifting snow had accumulated in a formidable barrier. The engine made a special effort and broke through the obstruction, but in the course of another twenty minutes ...
— Beasts and Super-Beasts • Saki
... usual amount of agony, and soon arrived at Corner Camp where we left a note to Captain Scott explaining the cause of our breakdown. I told Mr. Evans to say this sledge won't go much farther. After getting about a mile past Corner Camp my engine gave out finally, so here is an end to the motor sledges. I can't say I am sorry because I am not, and the others are, I think, of the same opinion as myself. We have had ...
— The Worst Journey in the World, Volumes 1 and 2 - Antarctic 1910-1913 • Apsley Cherry-Garrard
... damned geeks, the more they expect from you.... When you get your vehicle re-ammoed, lieutenant, suppose you buzz back to where you machine-gunned that first gang. If there are any more around, they'll have moved in for the free meal by now." This breakdown of the Jeels' taboo against eating fellow-tribesmen was one of the best things he'd heard from the cannibal-extermination project ...
— Uller Uprising • Henry Beam Piper, John D. Clark and John F. Carr
... poor Pauline attack it and eleven times did she have a breakdown. It was not always the D flat that caused the downfall, though Miss Bibby found herself listening with nerves a-stretch every time the difficult bar approached. And she felt inclined to cry with thankfulness everytime the child went smoothly past. But then just as ...
— In the Mist of the Mountains • Ethel Turner
... again, when, after two hours, the Wonder was still close behind them. "Our only chance is that they may have a breakdown." ...
— Tom Swift and his Submarine Boat - or, Under the Ocean for Sunken Treasure • Victor Appleton
... home. They were all convinced of his guilt, had no doubt as to what the sentence of the court would be—death and degradation—but thought that physical fatigue and great depression must have caused a general breakdown. The end every one knows. He was condemned to be shot and degraded. The first part of the sentence was cancelled on account of his former services, but he was degraded, imprisoned, escaped, and finished his life in Spain in poverty and obscurity, deserted by all his friends ...
— My First Years As A Frenchwoman, 1876-1879 • Mary King Waddington
... kindly (we saw that now) Scotch face; the worn voice, unused to sustained utterance, gasping for breath in the middle of a line, and sometimes failing to be ready in time ("I lost the run of it," he explained to us in the middle of a temporary breakdown); the quaint simplicity of the words, "Kind, kind and gentle is she, kind is ma Ma-ary"; the thunder of applause that greeted the close; the immediate and unassailable popularity of the Captain. If I have described it as I saw it, you will understand why I shall always ...
— The Relief of Mafeking • Filson Young
... drinkable water lies within a few feet of the surface, indicated by the mesquite and the bunch grass (Sporobolus airoides). It is this nearness of unimagined help that makes the tragedy of desert deaths. It is related that the final breakdown of that hapless party that gave Death Valley its forbidding name occurred in a locality where shallow wells would have saved them. But how were they to know that? Properly equipped it is possible to go safely across that ghastly sink, yet every year it takes its toll of death, and ...
— The Land Of Little Rain • Mary Hunter Austin
... "Over and over again our government has been saved from complete breakdown only by an absolute disregard of the Constitution, and most of the very men who framed the compact would have refused to sign it, could they have foreseen its eventual development." Ford's ...
— The Spirit of American Government - A Study Of The Constitution: Its Origin, Influence And - Relation To Democracy • J. Allen Smith
... dangers with which we have had to contend. But the very worst feature of the defence is that no one trusts the neighbouring detachment sufficiently to believe that it will stand firm under all circumstances and not abandon its ground; consequently this fear that a sudden breakdown along some barricades will allow of an inrush of Chinese troops and Boxers makes men fight all the time with their eyes over their shoulders, which is the very worst way of fighting I can possibly imagine. And another hardly less important point is ...
— Indiscreet Letters From Peking • B. L. Putman Weale
... shall I go to work?" inquired Alan cheerfully. "Shall I dance a breakdown, or will ...
— Half a Dozen Girls • Anna Chapin Ray
... one meets but three surface streams in a hundred miles. Between their valleys surface water finds its way underground by means of sink holes. These are pits, commonly funnel shaped, formed by the enlargement of crevice or joint by percolating water, or by the breakdown of some portion of the roof of a cave. By clogging of the outlet a sink hole may come to be ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... sustained by the Medical Officer of Health, the Chaplain of the Workhouse, and others; the Chairman, of course, would figure in the title role. A topical comic song, by the Board of Guardians, with breakdown, might serve as a pleasing interlude; breakdowns in local matters are, I believe, not unknown already. The idea is worth considering. I think the Vestrymen owe something to the ratepayers in return for the ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 101, August 8, 1891 • Various
... has never suspected the nephew. Only two people suspect him: the broken-hearted girl and an old friend of his father. This gentleman puts a detective on the trail. (The detective is impersonated by Ralph Lewis.) The gradual breakdown of the victim is traced by dramatic degrees. This is the second case of the thing I have argued as being generally impossible in a photoplay chronicle of a private person, and which the considerations of chapter twelve indicate as exceptional. ...
— The Art Of The Moving Picture • Vachel Lindsay
... Grove and White Lodge and the Indian agency at night. I had a breakdown after going past Talpers's store—a tire to replace. By the time I climbed the hill on the Dollar Sign road it was well along in the morning. I saw a man coming toward me on a white horse. It was my brother, Willard Sargent, or Willis Morgan. ...
— Mystery Ranch • Arthur Chapman
... on that first question in these very informal days. We are witnessing a breakdown of all external forms of authority which, while salutary and necessary, is also perilous. Not many of us err, just now, by overmagnifying our official status. Many of us instead are terribly at ease in Zion and might ...
— Preaching and Paganism • Albert Parker Fitch
... into his pillow. 'Do as you think best, Sheila,' he said. 'For my own part, I believe it may be as he suggests—partly an illusion, a touch of nervous breakdown. It simply can't be as bad as I think it is. If it were, you would not be here talking like this; and Bethany wouldn't have believed a word I said. Whatever it is, it's no good crying it on the housetops. Give me time, just time. Besides, ...
— The Return • Walter de la Mare
... asked Wallace. "They're lucky. This beastly breakdown of mine has spoiled all my chances. My, I'd like to be ...
— In Orchard Glen • Marian Keith
... personal and intimate friends of the prisoners: some were connected by closer ties; and one of the most trying experiences for the prisoners was to witness the complete breakdown of the minor officials employed in the carrying out of this tragic farce. The judge's first order was for the removal of all ladies. The wives and relatives of many of the prisoners had been warned by them beforehand of what was likely to happen and had accordingly ...
— The Transvaal from Within - A Private Record of Public Affairs • J. P. Fitzpatrick
... up from his chair. He was beginning to tremble. Was it coming upon him at last then, the utter breakdown which through all these months he had—somehow—kept at a distance? Determined not to shake, he exerted his will violently, till he felt as if he were with dreadful difficulty holding, keeping together, a multitude of living, struggling things, which were trying to get away ...
— In the Wilderness • Robert Hichens
... experience discovers the mutual benefit of honour among blackmailers. Therefore, at eight it is no longer the ticket to threaten to tell the teacher; and, a little later, threatening to tell any adult at all is considered something of a breakdown in morals. Notoriously, the code is more liable to infraction by people of the physically weaker sex, for the very reason, of course, that their inferiority of muscle so frequently compels such a sin, if they are to ...
— Gentle Julia • Booth Tarkington
... Carlyle, the celebrated literary moralist, was born at Ecclefechan, Scotland, Dec. 4, 1795. He was educated at the village school and at the Annan Grammar School, proceeding to Edinburgh University in 1809. The breakdown of his dogmatic beliefs made it impossible for him to enter the clerical profession, and neither school-teaching nor the study of law attracted him. Supporting himself by private teaching, Carlyle ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IX. • Edited by Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton
... were physically and chemically stable over a temperature range of hundreds of degrees. The breakdown voltage was up in the millions. The insulation resistance was better than the best known to ...
— Security • Poul William Anderson
... well as anomalous in its action. Under civilization with its division of labour, the various functions of mind and body are very unequally exercised. There is overwork or misuse of one part and disuse and neglect of others, leading to the partial breakdown or degeneration of various organs and to general deterioration of health through disturbed balance of the constitution. The brain, or rather particular parts of it, are often over-stimulated, while the body is neglected. In many ways education and civilization ...
— Are the Effects of Use and Disuse Inherited? - An Examination of the View Held by Spencer and Darwin • William Platt Ball
... fifth expedition had been halted there and put in camp. The hospital held several officers. Billy Gray was down with brain fever, and there had been a furious scene between him and his peppery colonel before the breakdown; and by that same steamer Mrs. Garrison had got a letter that made her turn white and tremble, as Mrs. Stockman saw and told, and then shut herself up in her room an entire day. Now, for nearly a fortnight, the lovely guest had ...
— Found in the Philippines - The Story of a Woman's Letters • Charles King
... a hundred large or five hundred small beasts on the common pasture-land, and stipulated for the employment of a certain proportion of free labour. The free labourers were to give information of the crops produced, so that the fifths and tenths might be duly paid; and it may have been the breakdown of such an impossible institution which led to the establishment of the 'publicani.' [Sidenote: Composite nature of the Licinian law.] Nothing, indeed, is more likely than that Licinius and Sextius should have attempted to remedy by one measure the specific grievance of the poor plebeians, the political ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... Elfrida," said a well-known voice, "what have you been up to? You seem to have thoroughly upset that nice woman who was with the Copplestones so long. She told me you were a very strange lady; in fact she thought you must be suffering from a nervous breakdown." ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, April 7, 1920 • Various
... Thursday with six of his old school-fellows at the Nonsense Club. His essays in Bonnell Thornton and Coleman's paper, The Connoisseur, written some time before he went mad and tried to hang himself in a garter, lead one to believe that, if it had not been for his breakdown, he might have equalled or surpassed Addison as a master of light prose. He was something of the traditional idle apprentice, indeed, during his first years in a solicitor's office, as we gather from the letter in which he reminds Lady Hesketh how he and Thurlow used to pass the time with her ...
— The Art of Letters • Robert Lynd
... words we perceive that "nerves" are uppermost, that the song and drink of the opening moment were bravado—that Sebald, in short, is close on a breakdown. He turns upon her with a gibe against her ever-shuttered windows. Though it is she who now has ordered the unwelcome light to be admitted, he overlooks this in his enervation, and says how, before ever they met, he had observed ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... reaction, or an attempt at one. Krebs had not been born yesterday, he had avoided the wiles of the politicians heretofore, he wouldn't be fool enough to be taken in now. I told myself that if I were not in a state bordering on a nervous breakdown, I should laugh at such morbid fears, I steadied myself sufficiently to dictate the extract from my speech that was to be published. I was to make addresses at two halls, alternating with Parks, the mayoralty candidate. At four o'clock I went back to my ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... Mr. Manderson, I believe,' said Trent. He was much inclined to like young Mr. Marlowe. Though he seemed so near a physical breakdown, he gave out none the less that air of clean living and inward health that is the peculiar glory of his social type at his years. But there was something in the tired eyes that was a challenge to Trent's penetration; an habitual expression, as he took it tobe, of meditating and weighing ...
— Trent's Last Case - The Woman in Black • E.C. (Edmund Clerihew) Bentley
... work at the loading, and in the end six wagons were carrying capacity. The seventh lead wagon was an extra, which Jo had decided to use only in case of a breakdown. With thirty tons of hay, grain, case goods, and barreled provisions they started back early the following morning. Jo's heart was light, for this was exceedingly good business, and it was coming faster than she had dared to hope, with so few ...
— The She Boss - A Western Story • Arthur Preston Hankins
... influence upon all about him. His voice had the same sort of influence upon them as the drum and fife on a soldier's march: it quickened their movements. We were often called in by our neighbour manufacturers to repair a breakdown of their engines. That was always a sad disaster, as all hands were idle until the repair was effected. Archy was in his glory on such occasions. By his ready zeal and energy he soon got over the ...
— James Nasmyth's Autobiography • James Nasmyth
... emancipate himself from the hand that pressed like a weight upon him. Even before this time he had observed a little discrepancy between his father's words and deeds, between his wide liberal theories and his harsh petty despotism; but he had not expected such a complete breakdown. His confirmed egoism was patent now in everything. Young Lavretsky was getting ready! to go to Moscow, to prepare for the university, when a new unexpected calamity overtook Ivan Petrovitch; he became blind, and hopelessly blind, ...
— A House of Gentlefolk • Ivan Turgenev
... beasts which make the nights of Caspak hideous. A shuddering sob ran through Lys' figure. "O God," she cried, "give me the strength to endure, for his sake!" I saw that she was upon the verge of a breakdown, after all that she must have passed through of fear and horror that day, and I tried to quiet and reassure her as best I might; but even to me the future looked most unpromising, for what chance of ...
— The Land That Time Forgot • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... we are our brother's keeper; that a brotherhood of man does exist outside after-dinner speeches. Too many men make the mistake, when they reach the point of enough, of going on pursuing the same old game: accumulating more money, grasping for more power until either a nervous breakdown overtakes them and a sad incapacity results, or they drop "in the harness," which is, of course, only calling an early grave by another name. They cannot seem to get the truth into their heads that as they have been helped ...
— The Americanization of Edward Bok - The Autobiography of a Dutch Boy Fifty Years After • Edward William Bok (1863-1930)
... to five the telephone bell rang and Jack languidly went to answer it. Then he came back into the drawing-room. "Radmore's had a breakdown," he said briefly, "he's afraid he can't get ...
— What Timmy Did • Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes
... the breakdown of national government, most regions have reverted to Islamic law with a provision for appeal ...
— The 1999 CIA Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency.
... misunderstand it. He must have felt certain that the fair figure of "Don Jorge," created in "The Bible of Spain," had been poisoned for most readers by many a passage in "Lavengro," like that where he doubted the existence of self and sky and stars, or where he told of the breakdown in his health when he was sixteen and of ...
— George Borrow - The Man and His Books • Edward Thomas
... hairs, his sixty years, and his clerical profession. 'Massa Joe' and the others striking in, the male and female darkies paired off two by two, and to a lively air began dancing a sort of 'cotillion breakdown.' Other dances followed, in which the little negroes joined, and soon the air rang with the creak of the fiddles and the merry shouts of the negroes. In the midst of it my arm was touched lightly, and, turning round, ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol 3 No 3, March 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... weeks flew by, and as commencement day drew nearer, Patty worked harder and her nerves grew more strained and tense, until a breakdown of some ...
— Patty's Summer Days • Carolyn Wells
... I must warn the police. That priest and corporal cannot have got so very far in two hours! They did not leave together: they had to meet somewhere: they may not know how to manage the car ... that means delay—a breakdown, perhaps!" ...
— A Nest of Spies • Pierre Souvestre
... cutter. We made some easting running along shore, and gave a wide berth to the Horseshoe Bank and St. Mary's shoal portwards, to African Knoll and Middle Ground starboardwards, and to a crowd of other pleasant patches, where the water was dancing a breakdown in the liveliest way. ...
— To the Gold Coast for Gold - A Personal Narrative in Two Volumes.—Vol. I • Richard F. Burton
... him?" Dr. O'Connor said. "None, I'm afraid. We did at one time feel that there had been a mental breakdown early in the boy's life, and, indeed, it's perfectly possible that he was normal for the first year or so. The records we did manage to get on that period, however, were very much confused, and there was never any way of telling ...
— Brain Twister • Gordon Randall Garrett
... promising. It soon developed that the difficulties of this position were such as to make his success seem almost hopeless. He became obsessed with the idea that the people with whom he had to deal were "out to get him." His fears of the job and of his associates grew to the point where a nervous breakdown seemed inevitable. ...
— The Conquest of Fear • Basil King
... "with care, and under favourable circumstances, there might be no further breakdown for another year; but"—with a keen look at his patient—"I will not ...
— Herb of Grace • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... committee, Parliament, plucked up courage to begin the civil war again, and to shoot right and left, they were bound to yield to the demands of the men whom they employed, and pay higher and higher wages for shorter and shorter day's work. Yet one ally they had, and that was the rapidly approaching breakdown of the whole system founded on the World-Market and its supply; which now became so clear to all people, that the middle classes, shocked for the moment into condemnation of the Government for the great massacre, turned round nearly in a mass, and called on the Government ...
— News from Nowhere - or An Epoch of Rest, being some chapters from A Utopian Romance • William Morris
... washstand and two arm chairs. The forethought of little Pitapat had caused her to kindle a fire on the hearth and place a waiter of refreshments on the workstand, so as to make all comfortable before she had left with the other negroes to go to the banjo breakdown. ...
— Capitola the Madcap • Emma D. E. N. Southworth
... transition take place from the maternal system, in which the mother was so important in the family, to the paternal system, in which the father was so all-important? What were the causes which brought about the breakdown of the maternal system and the gradual development of the patriarchal family? Some of these causes we can clearly make out from the study of ...
— Sociology and Modern Social Problems • Charles A. Ellwood
... to her face, burying her head deeply into the cushions of the divan, shutting out from her sight the barbaric luxury of her surroundings, shuddering convulsively. She did not cry. The complete breakdown of the first night had never been repeated. Tears of shame and anger had risen in her eyes often, but she would not let them fall. She would not give her captor the satisfaction of knowing that he could make her weep. Her pride was dying hard. Her mind travelled ...
— The Sheik - A Novel • E. M. Hull
... of antiseptics. I rather like that. I spent six weeks in a hospital once. I had a nervous breakdown, and the quiet was heavenly, and all ...
— Mistress Anne • Temple Bailey
... time you are here come up into the loft, and I will show you what a chest of rattletraps I have to work with. We are lucky to get through a service without a breakdown; the pedal-board is too short and past its work, and now ...
— The Nebuly Coat • John Meade Falkner
... From every cot necks were stretched, and grinning faces watched the show. In the excess of his joy the Kid let out a blast on the trumpet that fairly shook the building. As if it were a signal, the boys jumped out of bed and danced a breakdown about him in their ...
— Children of the Tenements • Jacob A. Riis
... you how he broke down before; but on Sunday morning, in spite of mine own amended Litany, I had just as much hope of the breakdown of the Falls of Niagara, or a nineteen-feet spring tide. You would have said his face was afire, and those great eyes of his were lit up like the red lamps on ...
— The Christian - A Story • Hall Caine
... drinking coffee and heavy beer; and, in accordance with the precepts of Rousseau, he had adopted a regime which proved too severe for his enfeebled constitution. So he wrote in his old age, but his contemporary letters leave us in little doubt regarding the cause of his breakdown. He had, in fact, during the latter part of his sojourn in Leipzig lived the life of the average German student of his day. He had fought a duel, and had been wounded in the arm; he had drunk more than was good for him, and we have seen that he had followed other ...
— The Youth of Goethe • Peter Hume Brown
... said, coming back to his place, "let us consider the Rosario matter disposed of. Let us go back for a moment to Starling. Tell me why you and your sister saw danger to yourselves in Starling's nervous breakdown? Tell me why, when I returned to Pelham Lodge with her that night, she found a dead man in her room, a man whose body was ...
— The Lighted Way • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... "Well," he said, "we have our sources. Confidential. Top secret. I'm sure you understand, commissioner." Hurriedly, he added: "What does the breakdown look like?" ...
— Out Like a Light • Gordon Randall Garrett
... lulled herself with the old rhyme, for comfort's sake. But Dickie she could not comfort, since, irony of ironies, she was the cause of his pitiful breakdown. Why, if she spoke, he started; if she moved towards him, he shrank. Yet still Ruth dreamt that if he would only let her touch him, she could bring him reassurance. But meanwhile his appetite was meagre, ...
— The Best British Short Stories of 1922 • Edward J. O'Brien and John Cournos, editors
... say which is the more obvious, the antecedent improbability of the Christian scheme and miracles, or the breakdown of the evidences on which these are supposed to rest. And yet Christianity ...
— The Note-Books of Samuel Butler • Samuel Butler
... breaks down," "something has snapped"—these phrases by which we describe the phases of death yield their full meaning. They are different ways of saying that "correspondence" has ceased. And the scientific meaning of Death now becomes clearly intelligible. Dying is that breakdown in an organism which throws it out of correspondence with some necessary part of the environment. Death is the result produced, the want of correspondence. We do not say that this is all that is involved. But this is the root ...
— Natural Law in the Spiritual World • Henry Drummond
... of snow were piled against the bows and port side, where the weight of the drift had forced the floe downward. The lead ahead had opened out during the night, cracked the pack from north to south and frozen over again, adding 300 yds. to the distance between the ship and "Khyber Pass." The breakdown gang had completed its work by lunch-time. The gale was then decreasing and the three- days-old moon showed as a red crescent on the northern horizon. The temperature during the blizzard had ranged from -21 to -33.5 Fahr. It is usual for the temperature to rise during a blizzard, and the failure ...
— South! • Sir Ernest Shackleton
... found Mr. Haskell in very low health. Experts had sent him on a tour through Europe in search of that health he failed to find; his body was starving on three meals a day that were not digested, and he began to arrange his affairs with reference to a near-at-hand breakdown. ...
— The No Breakfast Plan and the Fasting-Cure • Edward Hooker Dewey
... schools for hearing children. This is very unsatisfactory and even dangerous, for if persisted in it results in wholly inadequate progress, uneven development, bad speech, irretrievable loss of time, and often in a complete nervous breakdown. This may not come for some years, but the nervous system, once undermined by the excessive strain of trying to keep up under impossible conditions, can never be fully repaired. Here is what a partially deaf woman writes of her experience ...
— What the Mother of a Deaf Child Ought to Know • John Dutton Wright
... cigars lay on the table. All seemed nervous and excited, indeed as if under an intolerable strain, and kept fidgeting and looking at their watches. Conversation was evidently maintained with an effort, as a thing necessary to keep them from a complete breakdown. Raymond ...
— The Pit Prop Syndicate • Freeman Wills Crofts
... road, a hundred paces from the place of our breakdown, a cliff of soft stone, the foot of which was quarried in several places. We resolved to wait in one of those caves, warming ourselves until the return of the boy sent to Tournus. The second boy tied the three remaining ...
— The Queen Pedauque • Anatole France
... The supplies for the brain and nervous system are absorbed, and the seed diverted through sexual excesses in the marriage relationship, by fornication, or by any other form of immorality, the man's power must decline: that to this very cause may be attributed the failure and breakdown of so many men ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... The breakdown of individualism has been so complete in Great Britain that we are confronted with the spectacle of this great and ancient kingdom reconstructing itself perforce, while it wages the greatest war in history. ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... frank with you, I am compelled to say that, in my opinion, your wife's case is an incurable one. The one specific cause of her mental breakdown is the Southern situation which has borne tremendously upon her. That whole region of country is affected by a sort of sociological hysteria and we physicians are expecting more and more pathological manifestations as a result of the ...
— The Hindered Hand - or, The Reign of the Repressionist • Sutton E. Griggs
... absolution had made her, she went that afternoon to St. Joseph's, and in confession laid the matter before Monsignor Mostyn. Regarding the money question, he approved of what she had written to Sir Owen, and he was far more indulgent regarding her breakdown than she had dared to hope. He had expected some such mental crisis. It was extraordinary the strength it gave her even to see his stern, grave face; she was thrilled by his certainty on all points, and it no longer seemed difficult ...
— Evelyn Innes • George Moore
... differences within the party, and senators made it evident that they would have their way or kill the measure. The House thereupon capitulated and accepted what became known as the Wilson-Gorman act—a law which was only less protectionist than the McKinley act. The President, chagrined at the breakdown of the party program, allowed the act to pass without his signature, but expressed his mingled disappointment and disgust in a ...
— The United States Since The Civil War • Charles Ramsdell Lingley
... half-way through high school when her brother Benjamin was born and for two years after she graduated, her mother's ill health, the familiar breakdown of the middle forties, kept her at home. Then she defied her father and took a job in a down-town office. What he objected to, of course, was not her going to work but the use she made of the independence with which self-support provided ...
— Mary Wollaston • Henry Kitchell Webster
... Somalia following the breakdown of the central government, most regions have reverted to local forms of conflict resolution, either secular, traditional clan-based arbitration, or Islamic (Shari'a) law with a provision ...
— The 2005 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... human sympathy. She was not nervous either, in the sense of her nerves being unsteady or overwrought in consequence of a long-continued strain; there was nothing in her weeping that could have suggested a neurotic breakdown even to the most sceptical of physicians. It was genuine, irresistible, overwhelming grief, and she knew that its cause was not even in part imaginary, but was altogether real, and terrible ...
— The White Sister • F. Marion Crawford
... not know what to make of it at all. In a weighty leader it welcomed Mr. Vennard's conversion, but hinted that with a convert's zeal he had slightly overstated his case. The Daily Chronicle talked of "nervous breakdown," and suggested "kindly forgetfulness" as the best treatment. The Daily News, in a spirited article called "The Great Betrayal," washed its hands of Mr. Vennard unless he donned the white sheet of the penitent. Later ...
— The Moon Endureth—Tales and Fancies • John Buchan
... that night she had recovered, and remembered her breakdown rather as a bad dream, but neither that evening nor the next day could she quite shake off the feeling of strangeness and depression. She had never imagined that she would like town life, but she had thought that the unpleasantness ...
— Joanna Godden • Sheila Kaye-Smith
... attention at such a high point for a long while, or to perform such rapid movements, or to retain the numbers correctly, does not lead to fatal accidents like those in the case of the unfit motormen, but it does lead to fatigue and finally to a nervous breakdown of the employees and to confusion in the service. The result is that the company is continually obliged to dismiss a considerable proportion of those who have entered the service and who have spent some months in going through the training ...
— Psychology and Industrial Efficiency • Hugo Muensterberg
... drunkenness, which always accompanies war; the hardening of the finer sensibilities of men through the cruelty and barbarity of modern warfare; the increase of hatred and suspicion; the dividing of humanity and the destruction of its sense of unity, brotherhood, and cooperation; the breakdown of international law and respect for law and order; and the loss of reverence for human life and the ...
— With Our Soldiers in France • Sherwood Eddy
... there is in course of construction still more powerful pumps of 40 in. diameter, which will provide against contingencies, and prevent delay in case of a breakdown such as occurred lately on the Liverpool side of the works. The nature of the rock is the new red sandstone, of a solid and compact character, favorable for tunneling, and yielding only a moderate quantity of ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 384, May 12, 1883 • Various
... night, the Negroes had a "breakdown," often dancing all night long. About twelve o'clock they had a big supper, everybody bringing a box of all kinds of good things to eat, and putting it on a ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration
... others eyed him a little anxiously now and then, knowing that he had been living on excitement through a physically exhausting day, and they were fearful lest his nerves react and bring him to a breakdown. But the healthy flush of his cheek was reassuring; he looked steady and strong, and they were pleased to believe that the stirring-up was what ...
— The Gentleman From Indiana • Booth Tarkington
... secretaries were measured. Indeed, to the loss of his sight he had become, in some measure, reconciled; what really dominated every other consideration was the need of being able to meet the peculiar conditions which had arisen through the complete breakdown of ...
— An Adventure With A Genius • Alleyne Ireland
... look on eating as a bad habit, like sleeping, but it would be nice to avoid a breakdown and stay ...
— Ten From Infinity • Paul W. Fairman
... flushed the toilet and went to the bunk. Now everything that could identify him as Bart Steele was on its way to the breakdown tanks. Before long, the complex hydrocarbons and cellulose would all be innocent little molecules of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen; they might turn up in new combinations as sugar ...
— The Colors of Space • Marion Zimmer Bradley
... they can't furnish as an excuse that they have a pain under the left shoulder blade and are fearful for their lung, then they may say they have a twitching of the upper right eyelid and are almost certain of a nervous breakdown unless they secure a few weeks' rest beside the life-giving sea. Even if they are unable to furnish such justifiable excuses as these, they might take some aged, wealthy relative to a health resort for the purpose of boiling ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... the house of Wormser was shaken. It wasn't a serious breakdown, but among the good things that had to be thrown overboard belonged—at the demand of ...
— The Indian Lily and Other Stories • Hermann Sudermann
... "trailed" by Senator Hiram Johnson, who was sent out by the opposition in the Senate to present the other side. Johnson also attracted large crowds. On the return trip, while delivering an address at Wichita, Kansas, September 26, the President showed signs of a nervous breakdown and returned immediately to Washington. He was able to walk from the train to his automobile, but a few days later he was partially paralyzed. The full extent and seriousness of his illness was carefully concealed from the public. He was confined to the White House for five months, ...
— From Isolation to Leadership, Revised - A Review of American Foreign Policy • John Holladay Latane
... with that which he has left us, there would probably have been no question as to the propriety of the means he used. I am fully aware how difficult and often dangerous it is in these matters to argue from a mere fragment, especially in view of the breakdown of so many plays when they come to the unravelling, but it should be borne in mind that in the matter of dramatic construction Jonson stood head and shoulders above all the other writers with whom we have been concerned, Fletcher ...
— Pastoral Poetry and Pastoral Drama - A Literary Inquiry, with Special Reference to the Pre-Restoration - Stage in England • Walter W. Greg
... Government now appealed once more to Congress for authority to issue bonds at a lower rate of interest. Carlisle, the Secretary of the Treasury, addressed a letter to the Senate committee of finance, setting forth the great saving that would be thus effected. Then ensued what must be acknowledged to be a breakdown in constitutional government. Immediately after a committee meeting on January 16, 1894, the Chairman, Senator Voorhees, issued a public statement in which he said that "it would be trifling with a very grave affair to pretend that new legislation concerning the issue of bonds ...
— The Cleveland Era - A Chronicle of the New Order in Politics, Volume 44 in The - Chronicles of America Series • Henry Jones Ford
... discomfort and unbalance, due to overfatigue, errors in diet, a stuffy room, lack of exercise, or what-not, which can be promptly relieved by removing the cause; or whether we have to deal with the first symptoms of a dangerous fever, the beginning of a nervous breakdown, or an early warning of some grave trouble ...
— Preventable Diseases • Woods Hutchinson
... flitting here and there; he chose the outer edges of the sidewalks, and he went nowhere after nightfall unattended. The time was past when he could doubt the constancy of his purpose; but he did fear a nervous breakdown, and even shuddered at the thought of possible insanity. Being in fact as sane a man as ever lived, his irrational nerves alarmed him all the more. He could not conceive that an event was immediately before him which, without making his ...
— The Net • Rex Beach
... characteristics. As throwing light on the quality of their friendship, we give below a letter which has already appeared in the "Life and Letters of T.H. Huxley," I., page 366. Mr. L. Huxley gives an account of the breakdown in health which convinced Huxley's friends that rest and relief from anxiety must be found for him. Mr. L. Huxley aptly remarks of the letter, "It is difficult to say whether it does more honour to him who sent it or to him who received it." ...
— More Letters of Charles Darwin - Volume I (of II) • Charles Darwin
... a breakdown of hysterics, between sobs of which were frequent admonitions to the child not to say that bad word; for Myra had caught sight of Rowland ...
— The Wreck of the Titan - or, Futility • Morgan Robertson
... This is the first time I have mounted guard since I was reduced to a private." "Ah! well," said Captain Clifford Lloyd, "you see what a fool you have been to get intoxicated. But I always said that any man can have a breakdown in his lifetime; and if ever you have another chance you will mind it?" "Yes, sir; I think I shall," replied I. The Captain then walked away, but he had not gone many paces when he returned and said to me, "I'll tell you what I'll do. One of ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End
... carriage broke down in Sneyd Vale, two miles from Sneyd and three miles from Hanbridge. Fourth, that five minutes later Denry, all in his best clothes, drove up behind his mule. Fifth, that Denry drove right past the breakdown, apparently not noticing it. Sixth, that Jock, touching his hat to Denry as if to a stranger (for, of course, while on duty a footman must be dead ...
— The Card, A Story Of Adventure In The Five Towns • Arnold Bennett
... says Luttrell, gravely. "My ignominious breakdown was nothing in comparison with a harsh word thrown at me by you. I feel a deep sense of injury ...
— Molly Bawn • Margaret Wolfe Hamilton
... that, owing to bad management, lack of foresight, and the almost complete breakdown of the commissary and medical departments of the army, our soldiers in Cuba suffered greater hardships and privations, in certain ways, than were ever before endured by an American army in the field. They were not half equipped, nor half fed, nor half cared for ...
— Campaigning in Cuba • George Kennan
... Richmond, where he had been used to take a prominent part in the peculiar songs of the "profession." He would sometimes give us a specimen of his vocal powers, and would nearly bring the house down, literally and metaphorically, while executing the mysteries of a "Virginny breakdown" in thick soled brogans sixteen ...
— The Narrative of a Blockade-Runner • John Wilkinson
... your sermon last Sunday had caused a scandal. What was it you said? That, in a breakdown of Christianity like the present, we might leave talk of the public-houses and usefully consider Sunday closing of churches and chapels—or ...
— Nicky-Nan, Reservist • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch (Q)
... of the night Prescott awoke, stiff, nauseated, hungry and parched with tormenting thirst. Though he did not know it at that moment, the train had halted because of a breakdown in ...
— Uncle Sam's Boys with Pershing's Troops - Dick Prescott at Grips with the Boche • H. Irving Hancock
... be more proper to say a series of accidents. I think "the greatest train in the world" is entitled to one accident, but not to several. And when, in addition to being a train, it happens to be a hotel and club, and not an experiment, I think that a system under which a serious breakdown anywhere between Syracuse and Elkhart (about three-quarters of the entire journey) is necessarily followed by starvation—I think that such a system ought to be altered—by Americans. In Europe it would ...
— Your United States - Impressions of a first visit • Arnold Bennett
... opposition they became masters of the situation. To be sure, the commandants and proprietors of the depots tried not to recognize them, but a mere application to the soldiers' committee or the employees of each institution sufficed to cause the immediate breakdown of the opposition. After that, arms were issued only on order ...
— From October to Brest-Litovsk • Leon Trotzky
... the great service a regenerate and socialized efficiency could render. Just at this point came the outbreak in Europe; efficiency was again caught in bad company, and we began to hear such phrases as the "moral breakdown of efficiency," "efficiency, a false ideal," and others of similar import. In an article bearing the title, "Moral Breakdown of Efficiency," published in the "Century" for June, 1915, it was maintained that pursuit of efficiency had led and was still leading ...
— Higher Education and Business Standards • Willard Eugene Hotchkiss
... weighs thirty-two stone if a hounce—seein's believin'—and all for a tanner—a tanner! Sixpence an' no more! Come and see Franko the fattest feller o' Florence as will eat fire, devour glass and swaller swords, and all for sixpence—for sixpence! See Franko as will dance ye a hornpipe, breakdown or double-shuffle wi' helegance and hease, bein' nippy, neat and nimble though weighin' thirty-two stone, seein's believin'—and all for a tanner—a tanner! Walk up, ladies and gents, an' don't be shy; walk up ...
— Peregrine's Progress • Jeffery Farnol
... the question squarely, I'm going to be candid. I'm alarmed about you. The strain on your nerves is too great. This maggot of Socialism in your brain is the trouble. It is the mark of mental and moral breakdown, the fleeing from self-reliant individual life into the herd for help. You call it 'brotherhood,' the 'solidarity of the race.' Sentimental mush. It's a stampede back to the animal herd out of which a powerful manhood ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... off now,' he said, 'we will go to the gospodarstwo and you shall give me some nails in case of another breakdown, and I will leave you some of this cordial in return. Mind, if your head or your stomach aches or you are worried and can't sleep, take a glassful of this: all your worries will at once disappear. Take good care of it and don't on any account ...
— Selected Polish Tales • Various
... create, as one case worker puts it, "the sort of home that tends to get itself deserted." These faults of the wife are responsible for as many desertions, probably, as are the faults of the husband. When the man and the wife are both industrial failures we get the extremity of family breakdown to be found in ...
— Broken Homes - A Study of Family Desertion and its Social Treatment • Joanna C. Colcord
... have none of his lagging ways, and compelling him to drive ahead, were soon forced to abandon the useless locomotive. Each such obstacle was a lengthy hindrance, and the kind gentlemen of our party were obliged to organise a breakdown gang to overcome the difficulty. Our trolleys, with all the baggage, had to be transferred to another line. Effort and energy were not spared, and the following midday brought us face to face with the first engine ...
— The Fulfilment of a Dream of Pastor Hsi's - The Story of the Work in Hwochow • A. Mildred Cable
... the dining-room, very near the time for him to go forth affronting the elements in order to put in another day's work in his country's service. All he could say at the moment in elucidation of this breakdown from his usual ...
— Chance - A Tale in Two Parts • Joseph Conrad
... later made the largest selling argument for the Ford. The price and the quality of the car would undoubtedly have made a market, and a large market. We went beyond that. A man who bought one of our cars was in my opinion entitled to continuous use of that car, and therefore if he had a breakdown of any kind it was our duty to see that his machine was put into shape again at the earliest possible moment. In the success of the Ford car the early provision of service was an outstanding element. Most of the expensive cars of that ...
— My Life and Work • Henry Ford
... pass through Canton, Massillon, Brookfield, Greeneville, Dover, and on to Brother Jacob Kurtz's, where we stay all night." We have to wonder how a man laboring under a well-defined attack of typhoid fever could keep on going for twelve consecutive days before the final breakdown came. It makes one think of Paul, who could even be stoned until he was thought to be dead, and next day be found preaching again. But the crisis with Brother Kline came at last. The ...
— Life and Labors of Elder John Kline, the Martyr Missionary - Collated from his Diary by Benjamin Funk • John Kline
... instrument. Again and again he made us restart the movement. There were a good many friends of the family invited to this last rehearsal, which made it worse for the poor girl, who was obviously on the brink of a breakdown. Presently Ella again jumped off his chair, and shouted: 'Not E flat! There's no E flat there; E natural! E natural! I never in my life knew a young lady so prolific of flats as you.' There was a pause, then a giggle, then ...
— Tracks of a Rolling Stone • Henry J. Coke
... it's all rot! Do you think I believe for one instant—" He broke off. "And so's a nervous breakdown all rot, isn't it, and D.T.? They aren't real snakes, ...
— The Necromancers • Robert Hugh Benson
... matinee slip by, he made the plunge on a Thursday. She was to leave New York on Sunday morning; that much he knew from the daily newspapers, which teemed with Nellie's breakdown and its lamentable consequences. It would be at least a year, the papers said, before she could resume her career on the stage. He searched the columns daily for his own name, always expecting to see himself in type little ...
— What's-His-Name • George Barr McCutcheon
... the telling of the story. This, however, is a very difficult matter; and only in very recent years have even the best writers grown to master it. The novels which have been told without a single violation of this principle are very few in number. But the fact remains that any unwarrantable breakdown in the point of view selected diseconomizes the attention of the reader. It is unfortunate, for instance, that Thomas Bailey Aldrich, in "Marjorie Daw," should have found it necessary, after telling almost ...
— A Manual of the Art of Fiction • Clayton Hamilton
... As evening came I heard your voice singing, and, screaming for help, I slipped from my saddle, with the intention of running towards you. Olivet made a brave effort to help me—but——" And it was only with an effort that she prevented another breakdown. ...
— Orrain - A Romance • S. Levett-Yeats
... Standard lamps, he suddenly decided on a complete set of Dickens. But as soon as he had ordered it, it seemed to him pitiably flat, and he countermanded it. Then they spent weary hours at Liberty's, and other places of the kind, when Bruce declared he felt a nervous breakdown coming on, and left it to Edith, who ...
— Love's Shadow • Ada Leverson
... itself upon these untenanted bare rocks. They strengthened and fortified the road. Its grandeur in so empty and impoverished a land was a boast or a threat of their power. The Republic succeeded the kings, the Armies succeeded the Republic, and every experiment succeeded the victories and the breakdown of the Armies. The road grew stronger all the while, bridging this desert, and giving pledge that the brain of Paris was able, and more able, to order the whole of the soil. So then, as I followed it, it seemed to me to bear in itself, and in its contrast with untamed surroundings, ...
— Hills and the Sea • H. Belloc
... constitutional outlet is not afforded for such grievances, so long must unconstitutional means be appealed to; but the question which the breakdown of the old regime suggests seriously to all thinkers is whether there are not ample means within the Constitution, and I think it is the universal opinion of the more moderate that there is; and it is just these moderates whose views will be the more welcome because of the ...
— Six days of the Irish Republic - A Narrative and Critical Account of the Latest Phase of Irish Politics • Louis Redmond-Howard
... "suppose you should have a breakdown on that lonely road? There is neither station nor house from ...
— The Motor Girls on a Tour • Margaret Penrose
... greater sacrifice than in any other animal, it would seem that the addition of this last demand, namely, of satisfying the sexual desires of the husband during the period of pregnancy, might prove "the straw that breaks the camel's back," and result in the more or less complete nervous breakdown of the woman. The author submits this question to all fair-minded men: Is it not due to the wife that she be not asked to satisfy the recurring sexual desires of the husband during the period when her life and its energies are ...
— The Biology, Physiology and Sociology of Reproduction - Also Sexual Hygiene with Special Reference to the Male • Winfield S. Hall
... urged the doctor; "it can profit us nothing, it can profit Myra nothing, for you to shatter your nerves at a time when real trials are before you. You are inviting another breakdown. Oh! I know it is hard; but for everybody's sake try ...
— Brood of the Witch-Queen • Sax Rohmer
... they knew nothing of what was said and done in the Sixth Form studies, and even the prefects themselves never thought for a moment that this little bit of friction in the machinery of Ronleigh College would, figuratively speaking, lead to "hot bearings" and a narrow shave of a general breakdown. ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... idly for a while; Mrs. Delarayne gradually receding from the position of one on the verge of a dangerous malady, to that of a person merely threatened with a serious breakdown if her worries were not ...
— Too Old for Dolls - A Novel • Anthony Mario Ludovici
... a great change in Pastor Drury, but he noticed no such signs of breakdown as he had expected to see. He did not know that the beloved pastor was keyed up for this meeting. He could not guess that the beaming eye, the old radiant smile, the touch of color in a face usually pale, were on special if unconscious ...
— John Wesley, Jr. - The Story of an Experiment • Dan B. Brummitt
... you can introduce into gasoline will cause rapid engine wear and eventual breakdown. Fine particles of pumice, sand, ground glass, and metal dust can easily be introduced into a gasoline tank. Be sure that the particles are very fine, so that they will be able to ...
— Simple Sabotage Field Manual • Strategic Services
... energy with which, seeking an anodyne to pain, she had flung herself into her work, would act either one way or the other—would either finish the job, so that the frayed nerves gave way, culminating in a serious breakdown of her health, or so fill her horizon that the memories of the past gradually ...
— The Splendid Folly • Margaret Pedler
... Ask yourself a riddle. Tell yourself a few anecdotes. I'll be with you in a moment. I say, I wonder what the cove is doing at Belpher? Deuced civil cove," said Reggie approvingly. "I liked him. And now, business of repairing breakdown." ...
— A Damsel in Distress • Pelham Grenville Wodehouse
... hysteria," she said at last. "It is a form of hysteria now, but it did not begin with that. It was overstrain, nervous breakdown, a collapse of the system. See my hand when I hold it up, how it shakes? I can't control that, and my heart beats wildly at the slightest exertion. I am exhausted, limp, Victor, ironed out by the events of last year, very much like what your collar would ...
— To-morrow? • Victoria Cross
... suggests that pusillanimity and subservience are the key to his career. Nevertheless, but for that short hour of abasement nobly and humbly retrieved, the general judgment would probably be altogether different. And that breakdown does not appear to have been characteristic. Twice in the reign of Henry he had bowed to the King's judgment, acknowledging that Anne Boleyn and Thomas Cromwell must be guilty since Henry was convinced: but there was no man in the country who took ...
— England Under the Tudors • Arthur D. Innes
... to overcome. My eldest brother had a nervous breakdown while working on the DEW Line (he was posted on the Arctic Circle watching radar screens for a possible incoming attack from Russia). I believe his collapse actually began with our childhood nutrition. While ...
— How and When to Be Your Own Doctor • Dr. Isabelle A. Moser with Steve Solomon
... opportunity of the Exposition, which would give Arthur Putnam a worthy field for his great genius, will be disappointed to know that the mermaid is his only contribution, and scarcely representative of his original way in dealing with animal forms. The untimely breakdown, some two years ago, of his robust nature prevented his giving himself more typically, for his real spirit is merely suggested in this ...
— The Art of the Exposition • Eugen Neuhaus
... has a tendency to undermine the health, repeated sufficiently often, will ultimately cause a complete breakdown. How often do we see the strength and beauty of early manhood blighted and turned to premature old age and death as a consequence of disregarding the warnings that have just been given! How frequently do we observe young men rejoicing ...
— Health on the Farm - A Manual of Rural Sanitation and Hygiene • H. F. Harris
... heat cost more for installation, but have many advantages over the furnace. Their chief drawbacks are the space usurped by radiators, lack of ventilation, and the possibility of an occasional breakdown. The ingenuity of the makers, however, is partly overcoming these difficulties, mainly by the ...
— The Complete Home • Various
... of Eleanore; he was passionately fond of her. He told how she had brought him the quartette, and how she had glowed with inspiration and the desire to help. He also had a good deal to say about Gertrude, especially with regard to her mental breakdown ...
— The Goose Man • Jacob Wassermann
... that he is nervous, realizes that he needs help, but the man who has as yet felt no lack of stability in himself is quite likely to be impatient with that whole class of people who are liable to nervous breakdown. It is therefore well to remind ourselves at once that the line between the so-called "normal" and the nervous is an exceedingly fine one. "Nervous invalids and well people are indistinguishable both in theory and in practice,"[1] ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... devoted herself with redoubled ardour to her mother, to prevent her from finding out how things were going. She would have a plain talk with her father the next time he came, very difficult as she felt it would be; things could not go on as they were; or at least, not without ending in a thorough breakdown. But what we purpose is one thing; what we are able to execute is often quite ...
— The End of a Coil • Susan Warner
... there about the dugout their comrades were eating as best they could, no one, it appeared, having anything hot. It was at a critical period during the fighting, and the commissary and transportation departments were suffering from a temporary breakdown. Still the men had enough to eat, such as ...
— Ned, Bob and Jerry on the Firing Line - The Motor Boys Fighting for Uncle Sam • Clarence Young
... programme dictated to us, except the delirium tremens. Even Jack, though he itched to see me thus labelled, agreed with me that a less definite form of drunkenness would be safer, and finally Sir Francis decided to substitute "an alcoholic breakdown." ...
— The Man From the Clouds • J. Storer Clouston
... to do? How could I hold back? I was certainly growing stronger every hour, and in spite of my breakdown on the previous night, I felt that it would be absurd to pretend ...
— Gil the Gunner - The Youngest Officer in the East • George Manville Fenn
... stopped work, gaping at the insubordination. Madden flushed under the implication. He stepped forward to smash the long insolent face and white mustache, but it was plain the Englishman was on the verge of a nervous breakdown. ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling |
