"Destructive" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... distinguished himself. "Major Nairne of the Royal Emigrants and M. Dambourges of the same corps by their gallant behaviour attracted the attention of every body," writes an English officer.[8] By ladders, taken from the enemy, they mounted to a window of one of the houses, from which came a destructive fire, and at the point of the bayonet drove the foe out by the door into the street. In the end, to the number of more than four hundred, the Americans were forced to surrender. The casualties included thirty killed ...
— A Canadian Manor and Its Seigneurs - The Story of a Hundred Years, 1761-1861 • George M. Wrong
... past nor present nor future. The human beings who live upon their sides are at odds with nature, clinging on for bare existence to the soil, sheltering themselves beneath protecting rocks from avalanches, damming up destructive streams, all but annihilated every spring. Man, who is paramount in the plain, is nothing here. His arts and sciences, and dynasties, and modes of life, and mighty works, and conquests and decays, demand our whole attention in Italy or Egypt. But here the mountains, ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Day, to have done so. I have—rather I think from dyspepsia than dyspneumony—been often and for days disabled from doing anything but read. In this way I have gone through a good deal of Strauss's Book; which is exceedingly clever and clearheaded; with more of insight, and less of destructive rage than I expected. It will work deep and far, in such a time as ours. When so many minds are distracted about the history, or rather genesis of the Gospel, it is a great thing for partisans on the one side to have, what the other never have wanted, a Book of which they can say, ...
— The Life of John Sterling • Thomas Carlyle
... be folded away with your cerements, and leave no scar on your spirit. This thrusts its lancet into the secret place where your soul abideth, but you know that it tortures only to heal; it is recuperative, not destructive, and you will rise from it to newness of life. But when little ones see a ripple in the current of their joy, they do not know, they cannot tell, that it is only a pebble breaking softly in upon the summer flow, to toss a cool spray up into the white bosom of the lilies, ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... person beheaded by Bontoc, and you, the anito of a person who died in a dwelling, you all go to the pueblo of Sadanga [that is, you destructive spirits, do not visit Bontoc; but we suggest that you carry your mischief to the pueblo of Sadanga, an enemy of ours]. You, the anito of a Bontoc person beheaded by some other pueblo, you go into the north country, and ...
— The Bontoc Igorot • Albert Ernest Jenks
... any conditions he pleased with his workers. If the master were a humane man, a just man, or even a far-seeing man, he took care that those who worked for him should be fairly treated, and should not be compelled to work under conditions dangerous to their health and destructive of their comfort. But if he were a selfish man, or a careless man, the workers were used merely as instruments of profit by him, or by those immediately under him; and it did not matter how soon they were ...
— A History of the Four Georges and of William IV, Volume IV (of 4) • Justin McCarthy and Justin Huntly McCarthy
... but destructive, green parrots are now seeking, or making, cavities in trees or buildings in which to deposit their ...
— A Bird Calendar for Northern India • Douglas Dewar
... the birds themselves. This is a scene to which we are aware of no parallel in the nesting-places of the feathered tribes. In the select places where the birds only roost for the night, the congregating, though not permanent, is often as great and destructive to the forest. The native Indians rejoice in a breeding or a roosting-place of the migratory pigeon, as one which shall supply them with an unbounded quantity of provisions, in the quality of which they are not ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various
... the most showy and pleasing part of the work. That which had the greatest scientific worth and interest, that upon which John Flint's value and reputation were steadily mounting, was in less lovely and more destructive forms of insect life. Beside this last, a labor calling for the most unremitting, painstaking, persevering research, observation, and intelligence, the painted beauties of his butterflies were but as precious play. For in this last he was wringing from Nature's reluctant fingers ...
— Slippy McGee, Sometimes Known as the Butterfly Man • Marie Conway Oemler
... as some whispers, which have been wafted from the other house, inform us, a motion has been made in terms which might imply the subordination of this assembly, an assertion without foundation either in reason or justice, and which I shall always oppose as destructive to our rights, and dangerous to ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... sometimes appeals in vain; for if the majority of the Commons choose to support their representatives in a course of conduct adverse to the opinion of the nation, the House of Commons will set the nation at defiance. They have done so once; may they never repeat that destructive career! Such are our two Houses of Parliament—the most illustrious assemblies since the Roman Senate and Grecian Areopagus; neither of them is the 'House of the People,' but both alike represent ...
— Sketches • Benjamin Disraeli
... it as a question in social life, in morals, or in physiology, the American plan of granting absolute divorces is dangerous, and destructive to what is best in life. It leads to hasty, ill-assorted matches, to an unwillingness to yield to each other's peculiarities, to a weakening of the family ties, to a lax morality. Carry it a trifle farther than ...
— The Physical Life of Woman: - Advice to the Maiden, Wife and Mother • Dr. George H Napheys
... of the illusion, having destroyed their courage and having struck them with the sword of despair, the rock of reality had proved destructive ...
— Common Sense - - Subtitle: How To Exercise It • Yoritomo-Tashi
... vandals, the barbarians! Worse than that, the idiots! who revenge the Borgia crimes and the debauches of Louis XV. on stone. How well those Pharaohs, Menaes, and Cheops knew man as the most perversive, destructive and evil of animals! They who built their pyramids, not with carved traceries, nor lacy spires, but with solid blocks of granite fifty feet square! How they must have laughed in the depths of those sepulchres as they watched Time dull its scythe and pashas wear out their nails in vain against ...
— The Companions of Jehu • Alexandre Dumas
... Turning round a couple of stones, for the mere pulverization of human food, is not noble work for the winds. So, also, of all low labor to which one sets human souls. It is better than no labor; and, in a still higher degree, better than destructive wandering of imagination; but yet, that grinding in the darkness, for mere food's sake, must be melancholy work enough for many a living creature. All men have felt it so; and this grinding at the mill, whether it be breeze or soul that ...
— Modern Painters, Volume IV (of V) • John Ruskin
... I suppose you hear from Mr Grey, that the fever seems to be spreading everywhere, and is just now very destructive at Buckley. Does not ...
— Deerbrook • Harriet Martineau
... meet their requirements. Each window had to confront, not a particular quarter, but a particular ninetieth, of the compass. A full view of the sea had to be achieved from a sitting-room not exposed to its glare, an attribute destructive of human eyesight, and fraught with curious effects on the nerves. But the bedrooms had to look in directions foreign to human experience—directions from which no wind ever came at night. A house of which every story rotated on an independent vertical axis might have answered—nothing ...
— Somehow Good • William de Morgan
... conquest of the Holy Land, gave extraordinary encouragement to the shipping of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa, sometimes in transporting them thither, and always in supplying them with provisions. They were the commissaries, if one may say so, of those armies; and the most destructive frenzy that ever befel the European nations, was a source of opulence ...
— An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations • Adam Smith
... because of its generally heavy effect as a pigment, and the difficulty of harmonizing it with other colours except as an outline; and even here it makes all the difference whether it is a cool or a hot shade. A hot brown is most destructive of harmony in colours. It is safe, as a rule, to make it lean to ...
— Line and Form (1900) • Walter Crane
... the other hand, the rationalist movement had always had over against it the great foil and counterpoise of the pietist movement. Rationalism ran a much soberer course than in France. It was never a revolutionary and destructive movement as in France. It was not a dilettante and aristocratic movement as deism had been in England. It was far more creative and constructive than elsewhere. Here also before the end of the century it had run its course. Yet here the men who transcended the ...
— Edward Caldwell Moore - Outline of the History of Christian Thought Since Kant • Edward Moore
... drops for experiment and scrutiny, and to exhibit to the king and subsequently preserve among the wonders of the museum. What this liquid is has been determined. It is without question that fierce and most destructive fluid called lightning. It was wrested, in its container, from its storehouse in the clouds, by the resistless might of the flying planet, and hurled at our feet as she sped by. An interesting discovery here results. Which is, that lightning, kept to itself, is quiescent; ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... theorist does is to mutilate letters. He suppresses all those parts of a correspondence which tell against his theory. When these torn and bleeding passages are restored piously to their contexts they are destructive to the legend of tragic passion. They show (as Mr. Clement Shorter has pointed out) that throughout her last year at Brussels Charlotte Bronte saw hardly anything of M. Heger. They also show that before very long Charlotte had a shrewd suspicion that Madame had ...
— The Three Brontes • May Sinclair
... increased though the violence of the radical journals kept in check any hint of surrender or negotiation. Yet in spite of fog and snow storms the bombardment was systematically continued, and with every day the destructive effect of the terrible ...
— A History of The Nations and Empires Involved and a Study - of the Events Culminating in The Great Conflict • Logan Marshall
... mice. You will be surprised at the numbers of the little rascals, and not only that, but the field mice, the common field mouse and pine mouse run in mole holes under the ground and can smell a nut a long way off. They are extremely destructive. What percentage of pollen grains of the white oak were alive? I do not know. Enough to fertilize a number of flowers. The sooner pollen is used the better. I cannot answer the question exactly because I did not make an experiment in the laboratory to know what part of the pollen was viable. I ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association, Report of the Proceedings at the Third Annual Meeting • Northern Nut Growers Association
... storm-tossed ark which rested on some local mountain answering to Ararat, and which was filled with the natural elements of reproduction, is found amongst the traditions of every country of the globe. In Egypt, the destructive agency drives the God into the ark—or into the fish's belly, where he is obliged to remain until the flood subsides. In other words, at the time of the destruction of the world, the creative agency is forced within the womb of ...
— The God-Idea of the Ancients - or Sex in Religion • Eliza Burt Gamble
... understood the original, though many Englishmen even were staggered by its obtuseness and failed to comprehend the subtlety of its allusion. It is criticism in the narrowest, most arrogant sense of the word, destructive instead of informing, blinding instead of illuminating. It is noteworthy that Sterne's name is nowhere mentioned in the review, nor is there a hint of Tristram's English popularity. The author of this unsigned criticism is not to be located ...
— Laurence Sterne in Germany • Harvey Waterman Thayer
... among reformers and progressive people, without periodically returning into the settled system of things, to correct himself by a new observation from that old stand-point.' Yet good men rightly hoped that 'out of the very thoughts that were wildest and most destructive might grow a wisdom, holy, calm, and pure, and that should incarnate itself with the substance of a noble and happy life.' Now that we are able to look back on the crisis of the times that Hawthorne describes, we perceive that it was as he expected, ...
— Critical Miscellanies, Vol. 1, Essay 5, Emerson • John Morley
... bank. As usual in frontal attacks upon a well-entrenched resolute enemy, the loss of the assailants greatly exceeded the results obtained. By an eye-witness the action was likened to Methuens at the Modder.[38] The fire of the batteries, however, was extremely destructive to the Boer laager, causing several explosions, and great distress to the enemy could not but ensue from this injury to their ...
— Story of the War in South Africa - 1899-1900 • Alfred T. Mahan
... force and warmth on this subject: "Nothing is so destructive to morals as loitering at public entertainments; for vice more easily insinuates itself into the heart when softened by pleasure. What shall I say! I return from them more covetous ...
— The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus • Tacitus
... ass's milk for that of the cow. The evident conclusion from this is, that the breast-milk of a healthy woman is incomparably the most suitable diet for the infant; but that, if she be not of a healthy constitution, it may be destructive to the child; and that where this cannot be obtained, and cow's milk is found to disagree, ass's milk may sometimes be resorted to with ...
— The Maternal Management of Children, in Health and Disease. • Thomas Bull, M.D.
... in with a deep, dark, deadly, and destructive war, waged by the princes and potentates of those parts, both spiritual and temporal, against what do you think? One thing I am sure of. That unless I told you, you would never know; nor how they waged that war ...
— The Water-Babies - A Fairy Tale for a Land-Baby • Charles Kingsley
... it. At last, when the time comes that the large caterpillar should have been full fed, and it has eaten its way outwards until it rests close under the bark, preparatory to turning into a chrysalis, its enemies finish their destructive work, and, if the tree is then opened, the empty skin and cartilage skeleton of the large caterpillar is found, together with two or three large cocoons. These cocoons, if kept, will produce in due time specimens ...
— Science and the Infinite - or Through a Window in the Blank Wall • Sydney T. Klein
... splashes of yellow blossoms, attenuated stalks lifted what looked like crumpled fragments of brown paper, which quivered in a breeze too light to move the surface of the stream. Here alone the fingers of the frost had left a blight, like that of flames, and had denied to their destructive work the glamour of a funeral pall, dealing ...
— The Mayor of Warwick • Herbert M. Hopkins
... soon obvious that it was an unequal warfare. The soldiers of the holy office were partially protected by a breast-work upon the walls which were covered with soldiers, while our troops were in the open plain, and exposed to a destructive fire. We had no cannon, nor could we scale the walls, and the gates successfully resisted all attempts at forcing them. I could not retire and send for cannon to break through the walls without giving them time to lay a train for blowing us up. ...
— Life in the Grey Nunnery at Montreal • Sarah J Richardson
... the beaver territory, but it never reached a point of universal adoption. It was well known that the gopher abounded, and his name was introduced as a competitor with the beaver; but being a rather insignificant animal, and his nature being destructive, and in no way useful, he was objected to by many, as too useless and undignified to become an emblem of the coming great state,—for we all had, at that early day, full confidence that Minnesota was destined to ...
— The History of Minnesota and Tales of the Frontier • Charles E. Flandrau
... after saponification has the appearance of jelly, when the ether or petroleum spirit solution is concentrated and allowed to cool, and the presence of sperm oil can thus be readily detected. Solid paraffin, heavy petroleum or paraffin oils, and rosin oil—which is produced by the destructive distillation of rosin—are not saponifiable, and yield about the whole of the amount employed to the petroleum spirit or ether. Japan wax is almost entirely saponifiable, while beeswax and spermaceti yield about half their weights to ...
— Scientific American Suppl. No. 299 • Various
... fired with a bag of one-pound balls, or ordinary grape-shot, with very reduced charges, and a wad between the powder and the balls. One pound of powder will project a 200-lb. bomb 302 yards; the same weight of grape-shot thrown in among boats would prove destructive; and especially a lot of canister fired in this manner would cause ...
— Ordnance Instructions for the United States Navy. - 1866. Fourth edition. • Bureau of Ordnance, USN
... mischief! For no Anti-Corn-Law League yet asks more of them than this;—Nature and Fact, very imperatively, asking so much more of them. Anti-Corn-Law League asks not, Do something; but, Cease your destructive misdoing, Do ...
— Past and Present - Thomas Carlyle's Collected Works, Vol. XIII. • Thomas Carlyle
... developed in the other. For three thousand years the Caucasian race have continued, under all circumstances, and in every variety of situation, to exhibit the same traits and the same indomitable prowess. No calamities, however great—no desolating wars, no destructive pestilence, no wasting famine, no night of darkness, however universal and gloomy—has ever been able to keep them long in degradation or barbarism. There is not now a barbarous people to be found in the whole race, and there has not been one for ...
— King Alfred of England - Makers of History • Jacob Abbott
... A destructive eruption from Mauna Loa took place in 1868, in the District of Kau. The almost total destruction of the whaling fleet in the Arctic Sea in 1871 was a serious blow to the ...
— The Hawaiian Islands • The Department of Foreign Affairs
... proportion. The ambition of the citizens increases with the power of the state; the strength of parties, with the importance of the ends they have in view; but that devotion to the common weal, which is the surest check on destructive passions, is not stronger in a large than in a small republic. It might, indeed, be proved without difficulty that it is less powerful and less sincere. The arrogance of wealth and the dejection of wretchedness, capital cities ...
— American Institutions and Their Influence • Alexis de Tocqueville et al
... to me the worst instrument of arbitrary power, the most destructive of English liberty and the fundamental principles of law, that ever was found in an ...
— Public Speaking • Clarence Stratton
... by the increasing practical effect given to them by nations acting in co-operation; but now comes the German Empire with its military force, immense in numbers and efficient beyond all former experience through the intelligent use for destructive purposes of the new powers attained by applied science, saying not only in words, but in terrible acts: "We shall not abide by any international contracts or agreements into which we may have previously entered, if at ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... storm with thunder and cruel flashes of lightning; a storm hammering and hammering at him.... Must not lose his hold on—on life! He must stay fast against everything! It wasn't his hand gripping the destructive force towering above him, but a strange quality within him, at once within him and aside, burning in his heart ...
— The Happy End • Joseph Hergesheimer
... and actions, which their cooler reason will condemn. They may have some oddities of behavior, and some peculiarities of temper. They may be subject to accidental ill humor, or to whimsical complaints. Blemishes of this kind often shade the brightest character; but they are never destructive of mutual felicity, unless when they are made so by an improper resentment, or by an ill-judged opposition. When cooled, and in his usual temper, the man of understanding, if he has been wrong, will suggest to himself all that could be urged against ...
— Sketches of the Fair Sex, in All Parts of the World • Anonymous
... none are "perfectly hardy." The Turner has never been injured on my place, and the Cuthbert is rarely hurt; but occasionally they are partially killed, more by alternations of freezing and thawing than by steady cold. What are termed "open winters" are often the most destructive. I find that it pays to cover all those kinds that are liable to injury, and, as the varieties are described, this need will be distinctly stated. The difficulties of covering are chiefly imaginary, and it can be ...
— Success With Small Fruits • E. P. Roe
... children the potential influence of kindness to dumb animals and to birds. By it they will conquer what of viciousness, ugliness, or wildness is often the character of their beasts of burden; and they will find, by the almost total eradication of the destructive flies and insects which are the scourge of their crops, the value of the lives of birds and toads to their farms. Setting aside for the present the consideration of the moral virtues which are thus inculcated, and which are so consistent with a proper devotion ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 5, No. 5, May, 1864 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... treeless, desolate, as you look up and down; which has, evidently, often changed its course, since grinding down that alluvium as site for Frankfurt; and which, though now holding mainly to northward, is still given to be erratic, and destructive on the eastern low grounds,—had not the Frankfurters built an 'Oder-Dam' on that side; a broad strong Earth-mound, running for many miles, and confining its floods. Beyond the Dam there are traces of an 'Old Oder (ALTE ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XIX. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle
... he peoples the remoteness of forest and mountain with malign and destructive creatures, whence has grown up an extensive and astonishing literature of ...
— Stories from Everybody's Magazine • 1910 issues of Everybody's Magazine
... and by paying ten or fifteen cents to have that part mended it saves dollars in time. Gunmetal shoes are preferable for everyday wear, for such shoes are lusterless and can be cleaned with oils instead of polish, which is destructive to the best leather, ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... prevented that; because it was very unwise that they should come together; for in the two armies was there almost all that was noblest in England. They therefore prevented this, that they might not leave the land at the mercy of our foes, whilst engaged in a destructive conflict betwixt ourselves. Then it was advised that they should exchange hostages between them. And they issued proclamations throughout to London, whither all the people were summoned over all this north end in ...
— The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle • Unknown
... return again! No questioning the joy you feel! Having done ill you now enjoy the fruit; better far to dwell with an enemy of wisdom, than work with one who, while a fool, professes friendship. Openly professing sweetness and light, inwardly a scheming and destructive enemy. And now this royal and kingly house, in one short morn is crushed and ruined! All these fair and queen-like women, with grief o'erwhelmed, their beauty marred, their breathing choked with tears and sobs, their faces soiled with crossing tracks of grief! ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... council paid the extraordinary sum of $150,000, thereby provoking a storm of newspaper discussion. Three destructive fires had ravaged through the cloth and paper districts, and on their ashes ...
— Port O' Gold • Louis John Stellman
... embodied denial of the impeachment, and as carolling forth their cheerful rebuke of such unmanly and ungodly plaints. With God's grace in the heart, and with the gleaming gates of his heaven brightening the horizon beyond the grave, we may be reformers; but it cannot be in the destructive spirit displayed by some who, in the prophet's language, amid darkness on the earth, "fret themselves, and curse their King and their God, and look upward." Poverty cannot degrade, nor ignorance bedwarf, nor persecution crush, nor dungeon enthral the free, glad spirit of a child of ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... reflections made upon the occasion, by men who had just before manifested the highest esteem for you, as one destined to be a saviour of your country. I must own to you, it has filled the bosom of your aged and infirm parent with anxiety and distress, lest it should not only prove true, but destructive of your reputation and interest; and I repeat, I will not believe it, unless it be confirmed by your own mouth, or ...
— The Emancipation of Massachusetts • Brooks Adams
... madness of the land shall be no less fatal to the Swedes. Breaking bones, and brandished about the mangled limbs of warriors, the stock I have wrenched off shall crush the backs of the wicked, crush the hearths of our kindred, shed the blood of our countrymen, and be a destructive ...
— The Danish History, Books I-IX • Saxo Grammaticus ("Saxo the Learned")
... to attack, the destructive force, is indicated by the final strokes of letters and the cross-bars of t's advancing well forward, the dots of the i's placed well forward. In such a word as "time" the dot would probably be between the m and e. The style is angular and well and evenly spaced, ...
— The Detection of Forgery • Douglas Blackburn
... and hard was the Wednesday On which hosts were strewn under the fall of shields; It shall be called, till judgment's day, The destructive ...
— An Illustrated History of Ireland from AD 400 to 1800 • Mary Frances Cusack
... once to afford sufficient means for the immediate completion of the five double-turreted monitors now undergoing repairs, which must otherwise advance slowly, and only as money can be spared from current expenses. Supplemented by these, our Navy, armed with the destructive weapons of modern warfare, manned by our seamen, and in charge of our instructed officers, will present a force powerful for the home purposes of a ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Ulysses S. Grant • Ulysses S. Grant
... drive, upon which his health began to improve more rapidly. He ate better, grew more lively, and began to tell tales of his adventures, of the truth of which Robert was not always certain, but never showed any doubt. He knew only too well that the use of opium is especially destructive to the conscience. Some of his stories he believed more readily than others, from the fact that he suddenly stopped in them, as if they were leading him into regions of confession which must be avoided, resuming with matter that did not well connect ...
— Robert Falconer • George MacDonald
... that I rejoice as much as ever in the thought of you, and feel confident that you will ever be to me the same best of friends that you ever have been. I owe more to you than to all others put together. I am sure, for myself, that the main difference in our opinions (considered so destructive to friendship by so many pious men) is a difference in the Understanding, not in the Heart: and though you may not agree entirely in this, I am confident that it will ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... and re-affirm it as the general interest of all. For this end, he takes occasion to state, with the utmost frankness and lucidity, the view which it is his intention to refute; and consequently it is in his works that we find the fullest exposition of the destructive argument he ...
— The Greek View of Life • Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson
... Boxer Society first began to attract attention, there were, including the Imperial Railway, not only 566 miles in operation, but 6,000 miles were projected, and engineers were surveying rights of way through whole provinces. Much of the completed work was undone during the destructive madness of the Boxer uprising, but reconstruction began as soon as the tumult was quelled. According to the Archiv fur Eisenbahnwesen of Germany, the total length of the railways in use in 1903 in China was 1,236 ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN
... consequently could have no recognition of our own existence. The confusion of thought involved even in the attempt to state such a condition shows it to be perfectly inconceivable, for the simple reason that it is self-contradictory and self-destructive. On this account it is clear that our own existence and that of the world around us necessarily implies the presence of a Universal Mind acting on certain fixed lines of its own which establish the basis for the working of all individual minds. This paramount action of ...
— The Creative Process in the Individual • Thomas Troward
... "but it is enough. Leopard as you are, Sir Knight, beware tempting the lion's paw. Hark ye—to become enamoured of the moon would be but an act of folly; but to leap from the battlements of a lofty tower, in the wild hope of coming within her sphere, were self-destructive madness." ...
— The Talisman • Sir Walter Scott
... Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, "Your excellency will often find the most infamous of men, the very outcasts of Britain, put into the highest employments or loaded with exorbitant pensions; while all that ministered and gave sanction to the most shameful and destructive measures of such viceroys never failed of an ample share in the spoils ...
— Newfoundland and the Jingoes - An Appeal to England's Honor • John Fretwell
... until the day of the battle of Leipzig, 700 men were treated for this disease. The character of this ophthalmy was mild, and under treatment the patients completely recovered within a few days (nine days at most) without any destructive lesion remaining. Quite different from this form was a severe ophthalmy which appeared in the army toward the end of the year 1813, and also during the years ...
— Napoleon's Campaign in Russia Anno 1812 • Achilles Rose
... rushing onwards, the leaders must advance, although destruction await the movement. The Indians take advantage of this circumstance to destroy great quantities of this favorite game; and certainly no method could be resorted to more effectually destructive, nor could a more terrible devastation be produced, than that of forcing a numerous herd of these large animals to leap from the brink of a dreadful precipice upon a rocky and broken surface, ...
— Delineations of the Ox Tribe • George Vasey
... know that they can get a living by emigration.' R. 'Yes, if there were an emigration of children under six years of age. But they don't emigrate till they could earn their livelihood in some way at home.' C. 'It is remarkable that the most unhealthy countries, where there are the most destructive diseases, such as Egypt and Bengal, are the most populous.' JOHNSON. 'Countries which are the most populous have the most destructive diseases. That is the true state of the proposition.' C. 'Holland is very unhealthy, yet it is exceedingly populous.' ...
— Life Of Johnson, Vol. 3 • Boswell, Edited by Birkbeck Hill
... Mulatto in the Negro Problem," which contended at the same time that whatever meritorious work the race had accomplished was due to the infusion of white blood and that it was the mulatto that was constantly poisoning the mind of the Negro with "radical teachings and destructive doctrines." These points found frequent iteration throughout the period, and years afterwards, in 1917, the first found formal statement in the American Journal of Sociology in an article by Edward Byron Reuter, "The Superiority of ...
— A Social History of the American Negro • Benjamin Brawley
... Boeotia, distant only a few miles across the plain from the historian's birthplace. Here dwelt a family of which the men went by the name of Psoloeis or "Sooty," and the women by the name of Oleae or "Destructive." Every year at the festival of the Agrionia the priest of Dionysus pursued these women with a drawn sword, and if he overtook one of them he had the right to slay her. In Plutarch's lifetime the right was actually exercised by a priest ...
— The Golden Bough - A study of magic and religion • Sir James George Frazer
... pushing the Americans back, toward the scene of the first encounter; but Baum was no longer there to assist, the scattered militiamen were fast closing in round Breyman's flanks, and Stark had now brought one of Baum's cannon to bear, with destructive effect, upon the head of the enemy's ...
— Burgoyne's Invasion of 1777 - With an outline sketch of the American Invasion of Canada, 1775-76. • Samuel Adams Drake
... ye look for such things.' What things? Peter has been drawing a very vivid and solemn picture of the end, in two parts, one destructive, the other constructive. Anticipating the predictions of modern science, which confirm his prophecy, he speaks of the dissolution of all things by fervent heat, and draws therefrom the lesson: 'What manner of persons ought ye to be in ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - Ephesians; Epistles of St. Peter and St. John • Alexander Maclaren
... evolved from the final triumph and consequent corruption of Commercial Whiggery, which force will include in it a recognition of its constructive activity by intelligent people on the one hand, and on the other half-blind instinctive struggles to use its destructive activity on the part of those who suffer and have not been allowed to think; and, to boot, a great deal that goes between ...
— Signs of Change • William Morris
... the Land of Volcanoes; frequent and sometimes very destructive earthquakes and volcanic activity; ...
— The 2003 CIA World Factbook • United States. Central Intelligence Agency
... sincere; in their lights and garlands and ribbons we read their indwelling despair. It was so, indeed, with Byron himself; his really bitter moments were his frivolous moments. He went on year after year calling down fire upon mankind, summoning the deluge and the destructive sea and all the ultimate energies of nature to sweep away the cities of the spawn of man. But through all this his sub-conscious mind was not that of a despairer; on the contrary, there is something of a kind of lawless faith in thus parleying ...
— Twelve Types • G.K. Chesterton
... disappearing, together with the colonies of marmots; the insectivores are also becoming scarce in consequence of the destruction of insects, while vermin, such as the suslik (Spermophilus), become a real plague, as also the destructive insects which have been a scourge to agriculture during recent years. The absence of Coregoni is a characteristic feature of the fish-fauna of the Steppes; the carp, on the contrary, reappears, and the rivers are rich ...
— Russia - As Seen and Described by Famous Writers • Various
... trice we were out of the lean-to, panic-stricken and alarmed, thinking of nothing but our lives; for of all perils of the Great Lone Land, the snow slide, with its speed and destructive power, was the most to be dreaded. We forgot the dead man—the gold under his pillow. We sped down the valley as though on wings, not daring to look up the hillside, where the avalanche was cleaving its way with a deafening noise, with the crash of falling trees, the grind of dislodged ...
— The Cryptogram - A Story of Northwest Canada • William Murray Graydon
... progress. This was the supposition that if a heavy weight were to be drawn, the grip or bite of the wheels would not be sufficient, but that they would turn round and leave the engines stationary, hence Trevethick made his wheels with cogs, which of course tended to cause great jolts, as well as being destructive to the cast-iron rails. ...
— Lectures on Popular and Scientific Subjects • John Sutherland Sinclair, Earl of Caithness
... inner life. Bunyan's unhappy mode of dealing with the Bible as a collection of texts, each of Divine authority and declaring a definite meaning entirely irrespective of its context, by which the words hide the Word, is also utterly destructive of the true purpose of the Holy Scriptures as a revelation of God's loving and holy mind and will. Few things are more touching than the eagerness with which, in his intense self-torture, Bunyan tried to evade the ...
— The Life of John Bunyan • Edmund Venables
... little by playing safely through the over, and scoring a couple of twos off it. And when Ellerby not only survived the destructive de Freece's second over, but actually lifted a loose ball on to the roof of the scoring-hut, the cloud began perceptibly to lift. A no-ball in the same over sent up the first ten. Ten for two was not good; but it was considerably ...
— Mike • P. G. Wodehouse
... foresee that the tiny spring, forcing its way up among the stones and heather of a lonely hill-side, will grow into the broad river, which may carry peace and prosperity on its rolling tide to the lands below, or overwhelm them with destructive floods, according to the forces which feed it and the barriers ...
— A Crooked Path - A Novel • Mrs. Alexander
... was a triumph of Christian principle to recognise the grace of God under new forms, and in so strange a place. It was a still greater triumph to hail it with rejoicing. One need not have wondered if the acknowledgment of a fact, dead in the teeth of all his prejudices, and seemingly destructive of some profound convictions, had been somewhat grudging. Even a good, true man might have been bewildered and reluctant to let go so much as was destroyed by the admission—'Then hath God granted to the Gentiles also repentance unto life,'—and might have been pardoned if he had not been able ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... necessary to have a hole somewhere in the boiler—no matter what part—through which water may be pumped, and we have all that is desired. This is a very grave error. Many boilers have been ruined, and (we make the assertion with the confidence born of long experience) a large number of destructive explosions have been directly caused by introducing the feed water into boilers at the ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 483, April 4, 1885 • Various
... but he would have begged off, if he could have done so with any prospect of success; but he might as well have pleaded with the ocean to hold back its destructive waves, as with Mr. Batterman to stay his hand, before his revenge was satisfied. Another and another blow fell. The pain was so severe that the culprit could not endure it, and the quick-falling strokes soon kindled a fire in his soul which neither prudence ...
— In School and Out - or, The Conquest of Richard Grant. • Oliver Optic
... back in the direction of the Rue du Four, happy, though at my wits' end, forming projects that were mutually destructive; now expatiating in the seventh heaven, now loading myself with the most appalling curses. I slipped along the streets, concealed beneath my umbrella, for the rain was falling; a great storm-cloud had ...
— The Ink-Stain, Complete • Rene Bazin
... their parents. Their offspring will, by a parity of reasoning, tend to predominate over their contemporaries, and there being (suppose) no room for more than one species such as A, the weaker variety will eventually be destroyed by the new destructive influence which is thrown into the scale, and the stronger will take its place. Surrounding conditions remaining unchanged, the new variety (which we may call B)—supposed, for argument's sake, to be the best adapted for these conditions ...
— The Darwinian Hypothesis • Thomas H. Huxley
... unpaved; and in summer time the sand and dust in them are as great a nuisance as the mud is in the rainy season, during which they are scarcely passable after a shower; for in the interior of the town the water does not run off, but remains till it is dried up. It may be ascribed to the destructive rains, which, though of shorter duration than in other tropical countries, fall with considerable violence, that no ancient buildings are found in Mekka. The mosque itself has undergone so many repairs under different sultans, that it may be called a modern structure; ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction, No. 358 - Vol. XIII, No. 358., Saturday, February 28, 1829 • Various
... A drought or a destructive rain is therefore to be feared by any government, especially if there be malcontents to make use of it. There was quite a severe drought in Asisi last summer, and loud and deep were the imprecations we heard against the government. As the vines withered and the corn shrank, so ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 26, September 1880 • Various
... through the open doors of saloons, are caught glimpses of a life which we all should unite in condemning and loathing; and what I have seen has always led me to connect cards with just that kind of life. Moreover, gambling—that fearful and destructive vice—is ...
— From Jest to Earnest • E. P. Roe
... the presence of the awful mystery of all-destructive Nature, the difference between myself and the other living things seems trivial. In town, human society is to the fore and looms large; it is cruelly callous to the happiness and misery of other creatures as compared with ...
— Glimpses of Bengal • Sir Rabindranath Tagore
... and prudent man will not allow his senses license. For these senses are, indeed, our greatest foes, causes of misery; for men enamoured thus by sensuous things cause all their miseries to recur. Destructive as a poisonous snake, or like a savage tiger, or like a raging fire, the greatest evil in the world, he who is wise, is freed from fear of these. But what he fears is only this—a light and trivial heart, which ...
— Sacred Books of the East • Various
... and confusion in the solid parts of this globe, have been led to conclude, that there formerly existed a more regular and uniform state, in the constitution of this earth; that there had happened some destructive change; and that the original structure of the earth had been broken and disturbed by some violent operation, whether natural, or from a super-natural cause. Now, all these appearances, from which conclusions of this kind have been formed, find the most perfect explanation ...
— Theory of the Earth, Volume 1 (of 4) • James Hutton
... great principles, which are destructive of cheerfulness in their own nature, as well as in right reason, I cannot think of any other that ought to banish this happy temper from a virtuous mind. Pain and sickness, shame and reproach, poverty and old age, nay, death itself, considering the shortness ...
— The Young Gentleman and Lady's Monitor, and English Teacher's Assistant • John Hamilton Moore
... the woman the words came like a destructive avalanche. She buried her face in her hands, while her frame shook with successive sobs. The last shreds of her outward composure vanished as before the wind, and she surrendered unresistingly to the turbulent emotions struggling within her. Several minutes ...
— The Substitute Prisoner • Max Marcin
... policy. Formerly I used to have a seal-brown taste in my mouth when I arose in the morning, but that has entirely disappeared. I am more hopeful and happy, and my hair is getting thicker on top. I would not try to keep house without life insurance. Last September I was caught in one of the most destructive cyclones that ever visited a republican form of government. A great deal of property was destroyed and many lives were lost, but I was spared. People who had no insurance were mowed down on every hand, but aside from a broken leg I was ...
— Remarks • Bill Nye
... also read those hymns in which philosophic thought found expression in sumptuous allegories[16] or humbled itself before the omnipotence of the infinite, poems of which only a few stoic effusions celebrating the creative or destructive fire, or expressing a complete surrender to divine fate can give ...
— The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism • Franz Cumont
... action. The river is a tremendous machine for grinding and sawing and transporting, but the rains and the frost and the air and the sunbeams smite the rocks as with weapons of down, and one is naturally incredulous as to their destructive effects. ...
— Time and Change • John Burroughs
... flock from the attacks of wild beasts, and, like the Spanish sheep dog of the present day, had nothing to do with the management of sheep. Indeed, he seems to have been regarded with great dislike by the Jews, and, if not carefully watched, was more destructive to the sheep than the beast of whose approach he was to give warning. When he was not on duty, he was regarded as ...
— Minnie's Pet Dog • Madeline Leslie
... the most intelligent of household pets, and much attention should be bestowed upon them. So large a bird suffers if kept constantly confined in a cage, but a parrot is so destructive that it is impossible to allow it the liberty of a house, as chairs, carpets, in short, every article of furniture, will soon show the marks of its strong beak. If there is a garden, the parrot should be given a daily promenade ...
— Harper's Young People, March 16, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... South delight in their Home so Long as it is Possible for them to remain.—The Policy of abridging their Rights Destructive to their Usefulness as Members of Society.—Political Intimidation, Murder, and Outrage disturb the Negroes.—The Plantation Credit System the Crime of the Century.—The Exodus not inspired by Politicians, but the Natural Outcome of the Barbarous Treatment bestowed upon the Negroes by the ...
— History of the Negro Race in America from 1619 to 1880. Vol. 2 (of 2) - Negroes as Slaves, as Soldiers, and as Citizens • George Washington Williams
... future event. As to the manner of their opposition, it is evident, that as the contrary views are incompatible with each other, and it is impossible the object can at once exist conformable to both of them, their influence becomes mutually destructive, and the mind is determined to the superior only with that force, which ...
— A Treatise of Human Nature • David Hume
... of fighting is now altered, and this destructive engine the musket is the proper arms for the soldier, I could wish the diversion also of the English would change too, that our pleasures and profit might correspond. It is a great hindrance to this nation, ...
— An Essay Upon Projects • Daniel Defoe
... ought to have been added, and the canker, in the former of which the nourishing fluid of the plant seems to be exsuded by a retrograde motion of the cutaneous lymphatics, as in the sweating sickness of the last century. The latter is a phagedenic ulcer of the bark, very destructive to young apple- trees, and which in cherry-trees is attended with a deposition of gum arabic, which often terminates in the death ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... formerly so hostile, have been transformed into helpers, Calypso herself being also transformed. Thus we catch the outlines of the Fairy Tale or marvelous story, which tells, in a supernatural way, of man's mastery of the physical world, once so destructive, ...
— Homer's Odyssey - A Commentary • Denton J. Snider |
