"Ruin" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... John Cummins would ever know of the woman he had lost. These volumes of dead voices had come with her into the wilderness from that other world she had known. They breathed the pathos of her love from out of their ragged pages, mended in a hundred places to keep them from falling into utter ruin. Slowly the man gathered them against his breast, and held them there silently, as he might have held the woman, fighting hard to keep ...
— The Honor of the Big Snows • James Oliver Curwood
... child-face as it was irradiated by a smile of exquisite sweetness. The play of feature, the light of her eyes, and the expression of innocence and ignorance unconscious of danger, filled me with profound sadness. And there was I, standing alone, seeing that sweet child flinging herself to ruin, and yet unable to prevent her, simply because I was bound hand and foot by the infernal restrictions of a miserable and a senseless conventionality. ...
— The American Baron • James De Mille
... going to ruin their farms by running a road through them," replied Percival. "I'd like to know where they are. I never heard of any farms through ...
— The Hilltop Boys on the River • Cyril Burleigh
... amongst his papers as Benjamin Levy had done, for the same hideous reason. Her heart sank with fear, and then leaped up with the fierce defensive instinct of a woman who sees her lover's enemies working for his ruin. She did not hesitate for an instant, but walked swiftly along the cliff-side ...
— The New Tenant • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... hungry? Do you know that I ran about in the most frightful dives, with rattling plate, collecting pennies and insults? Do you know what it means to humiliate oneself for dry bread? You see; that has been my school. Do you understand that I had to become an entirely different person or go to ruin? One who owes everything to himself, who is proud of himself, but who no longer respects anything, above all, no conventional measures and weights? And do you understand, Fred, that it would be base on my part were I to follow you ...
— Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 2, April 1906 - Monthly Magazine Devoted to Social Science and Literature • Various
... Impudence and Malice wou'd extend so far as to stain your Noble and ever-Loyal Family with its unavoidable Imputatious; and as often for joy, to see how undauntedly both the Illustrions Duke your Father, and your Self, stem'd the raging Torrent that threatned, with yours, the ruin of the King and Kingdom; all which had not power to shake your Constancy or Loyalty: for which, may Heaven and Earth reward and bless you; the noble Examples to thousands of failing hearts, who from so great a President of Loyalty, became confirm'd. May Heaven and ...
— The Works of Aphra Behn, Vol. II • Aphra Behn
... love for me will be your ruin!" said Lucy, coldly, and stood suddenly before the pair, looking ...
— Love Me Little, Love Me Long • Charles Reade
... am no slave: So impudent, I own myself no knave: So odd, my country's ruin makes me grave. Yes, I am proud; I must be proud to see Men not afraid of God, afraid of me: Safe from the bar, the pulpit, and the throne, 210 Yet touch'd ...
— The Poetical Works Of Alexander Pope, Vol. 1 • Alexander Pope et al
... persuaded Baliol to his ruin, was John Cummin of Strathbogie, Earl of Athol in right of his wife, the heiress ...
— The Scottish Chiefs • Miss Jane Porter
... then. We passed a town called Gettysburg, and we went squarely behind the Union army. Mountainous and hilly country up there, but good and cultivated beautifully. Those Pennsylvania Germans, Harry, beat us all hollow at farming. I'm beginning to think that slaves are not worth owning. They ruin our land." ...
— The Star of Gettysburg - A Story of Southern High Tide • Joseph A. Altsheler
... not play tricks, or purposely mistake: with all your pains, you are still far short of the mark. Patience grows out of the endless pursuit, and turns it into a luxury. A streak in a flower, a wrinkle in a leaf, a tinge in a cloud, a stain in an old wall or ruin grey, are seized with avidity as the spolia opima of this sort of mental warfare, and furnish out labour for another half-day. The hours pass away untold, without chagrin, and without weariness; nor ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... built about A.D. 670, and from the existing walls and foundations it is clear that its plan was basilican. The church is now a ruin, but some stone pillars which supported the arches are preserved in the ...
— Our Homeland Churches and How to Study Them • Sidney Heath
... unfortunate time for him. Considering all the circumstances, it would be no great strain upon the credulity to picture Fluette, driven to desperation, ridding himself of the foe that had hounded him to ruin. ...
— The Paternoster Ruby • Charles Edmonds Walk
... self-understanding when he became conscious that he was a man of thought rather than of action, and that the two ideals tend to exclude each other. In the contest at Philippi Brutus and his wing win the day; it is the defeat of Cassius which brings about the ruin; Shakespeare evidently intended to depict Brutus as ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris
... hold; Hoarded, barter'd, bought, and sold, Stolen, borrow'd, squander'd, doled: Spurn'd by the young, but hugg'd by the old To the very verge of the churchyard mould; Price of many a crime untold; Gold! Gold! Gold! Gold! Good or bad a thousand-fold! How widely its agencies vary— To save—to ruin—to curse—to bless— As even its minted coins express, Now stamp'd with the image of Good Queen Bess, And now ...
— Langstroth on the Hive and the Honey-Bee - A Bee Keeper's Manual • L. L. Langstroth
... From Alp and Apennine to where Gleam the Pyrenees in air; From pastoral vales and piny woods, Rocks and lakes and mountain-floods, The warriors come, in armed might Careering, careless of the right! Their leader he who sternly bade Freedom fall; and glory fade, The scourge of nations ripe for ruin, Planning oft their own undoing! But who in yonder swarming host Locust-like from coast to coast, Reluctant move, an alien few, Sullen, fierce, of sombre hue, Who, forced unhallow'd arms to bear, Mutter to the moaning air, Whose curses on the welkin cast Edge the keen and icy ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 57, No. 351, January 1845 • Various
... believe all evil things of people of whom he knew nothing! Should his brother die,—and his brother's health was bad,—what steps should he take? Would it be for him to accept this Italian brat as the heir to everything, or must he ruin himself by a pernicious lawsuit? Looking forward he saw nothing but family misery and disgrace, and he saw, also, inevitable difficulties with which he knew himself to be incapable to cope. "It is true," he said to his wife very gloomily, when he first ...
— Is He Popenjoy? • Anthony Trollope
... sovereignty of the planters had been the striking feature of the old regime, so their ruin was the outstanding fact of the new. The situation was extraordinary. The American Revolution was carried out by people experienced in the arts of self-government, and at its close they were free to follow the general course to which they had long been accustomed. The French Revolution ...
— History of the United States • Charles A. Beard and Mary R. Beard
... satisfying luxuries which the place afforded, I was in an excellent mood for enjoying the communicativeness of my landlord; and, after speaking about the cave of Slaines, the state of the crops, and the neighbouring franklins, edged him, by degrees, to speak about the Abbey of Deer, an interesting ruin which I had examined in the course of the day, formerly the stronghold of the ...
— Folk-Lore and Legends - Scotland • Anonymous
... might sit on his table, and also a palace of gold a span high with a door an inch wide, for little Tom to live in. He also gave him a coach drawn by six small mice. This made the queen angry, because she had not a new coach too; therefore, resolving to ruin Tom, she complained to the king that he had behaved very insolently to her. The king sent for him in a rage. Tom, to escape his fury, crept into an empty snail-shell and there lay till he was almost starved; then, peeping out of ...
— Children's Literature - A Textbook of Sources for Teachers and Teacher-Training Classes • Charles Madison Curry
... go to work and how roughly he really did so; for the same power that sharpened his feeling for the degree carried him beyond it as soon as he came to act. He knew that what he had begun must complete its course to his ruin. He sought forgetfulness and drew his wife ever deeper with him into the whirlpool ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IX - Friedrich Hebbel and Otto Ludwig • Various
... important city of Caniza, and just as he reached the ground they had besieged the town of Olumpagh, with two thousand men. But the addition to the armies of Germany, France, Styria, and Hungary of John Smith, "this English gentleman," as he styles himself, put a new face on the war, and proved the ruin of the Turkish cause. The Bashaw of Buda was soon to feel ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... for this," I said to myself—"it was to hear such propositions as this that I came to Sicily! That Polizzi is simply a scoundrel, and his son another; and they made a plan together to ruin me." But what was their scheme? I could not unravel it. Meanwhile, it may be imagined how ...
— The Crime of Sylvestre Bonnard • Anatole France
... staircase, the recollections of his boyhood, the lustre of his ancient race, the agonies of mind he had endured since he last beheld that spot, and gratitude to that Providence which had spared him amidst such universal ruin, completely overwhelmed him, and, falling prostrate on the tesselated pavement, he imprinted a thousand kisses on the cold white marble, while tears gushing from his eyes indicated, while they relieved, the ...
— Louis Philippe - Makers of History Series • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... best men, especially in the border States, of which Virginia was the principal, would have welcomed emancipation. But neither Northerner nor Southerner saw a practicable method of giving freedom to the negro. Such a measure, if carried out in its entirety, meant ruin to the South. Cotton and tobacco, the principal and most lucrative crops, required an immense number of hands, and in those hands—his negro slaves—the capital of the planter was locked up. Emancipation would have swept the whole of this capital away. Compensation, ...
— Stonewall Jackson And The American Civil War • G. F. R. Henderson
... they have themselves purchased their conviction by many disappointments and vexations which an earlier knowledge would have spared them; and may see, on every side, some entangling themselves in perplexities, and some sinking into ruin, by ignorance or neglect of the maxim of ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson - Volume IV [The Rambler and The Adventurer] • Samuel Johnson
... of Mexico was at an end. He hated a long war at any time, and was always ready to abandon an enterprise when he could not carry out his projects by a coup de main. The war was extremely unpopular in France. Financial ruin had come upon many Frenchmen from the failure of the Mexican bonds negotiated by the banker, Jecker, to pay interest to their bond-holders. The Civil War in the United States was at an end, and Mr. Seward was instructing ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... dispensation; and that the principle relied on for this purpose, is a fundamental principle of the Mosaic law, under which slavery was instituted by Jehovah himself: and third, with this absence of positive prohibition, and this absence of principle, to work its ruin, I affirm, that in all the Roman provinces, where churches were planted by the apostles, hereditary slavery existed, as it did among the Jews, and as it does now among us, (which admits of proof from history that no man will ...
— Cotton is King and The Pro-Slavery Arguments • Various
... for the next twenty-four hours no one knows. What plans he turned in his head, what wild schemes, what despair, what terrors filled him, only he himself could tell. Every moment he expected the fatal vision of Cripps at Saint Dominic's, and with it his own certain disgrace and ruin, and, as time went on, his perturbation became so great that he really felt ill ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed
... be on some most important account, and he could not but strongly suspect that the General had some information respecting Charles's lurking place. If taken, a renewal of the tragedy of the 30th of January was instantly to be apprehended, and the ruin of the whole family of Lee, with himself probably included, must be ...
— Woodstock; or, The Cavalier • Sir Walter Scott
... chestnuts, especially in the South, because a lot of the southern producers right now are giving a black eye to Chinese chestnuts, because they are shipping lots of mixed nuts, and by the time they get to the consumer half of them are rotten. This will ruin the market. We have been buying some six or seven thousand pounds of nuts to ship to Italy, and we know something about the conditions of nuts when they reach us. There is no quicker way of killing ...
— Northern Nut Growers Association Report of the Proceedings at the 44th Annual Meeting • Various
... and liberality of this man and his wife. She asked me to bring her a cloth from the white man's country; but, when we returned, poor Mozinkwa's wife was in her grave, and he, as is the custom, had abandoned trees, garden, and huts to ruin. They can not live on a spot where a favorite wife has died, probably because unable to bear the remembrance of the happy times they have spent there, or afraid to remain in a spot where death has once visited the establishment. If ever the place is revisited, ...
— Missionary Travels and Researches in South Africa - Journeys and Researches in South Africa • David Livingstone
... harshly. All the time, beneath his quite genuine defiance, he was thinking what an idiot he had been to cheek the examiner, and how staggeringly simple it was to ruin years of industry by one impulsive moment's folly, and how iniquitous was a world in ...
— The Roll-Call • Arnold Bennett
... my dear Prose: what may insure your promotion would be my ruin. I never nursed a child or shelled a pea in my life; the first I should certainly let fall, and the second I probably should eat for my trouble. So pray continue at your post of honour, and I will go for the fresh beef ...
— The King's Own • Captain Frederick Marryat
... frequent in those times, was probably the result of a secret combination among the barons, who never could endure to see the total ruin of one of their own order: but it encouraged Fawkes de Breaute, a man whom King John had raised from a low origin, to persevere in the course of violence to which he had owed his fortune and to set at nought all law and justice. When ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... cultivate inferior land; their profits diminished in proportion to the cost of cultivation, and though the supply of food was increased, its price was kept up. A sudden fall in prices would send the land back to its original wild state and was likely enough to ruin ...
— The Political History of England - Vol. X. • William Hunt
... its death, the stealthy panther lures, Mocking the voice of its dam, thus he led the innocent child Through her tenderness down to ruin, he is a friend of yours, And admired by all; as you say, "men ...
— Poems • Marietta Holley
... from the world, and for which I will take care to provide, as I will for you. I wish you may feel less on this account than I have suffered; but summon all your fortitude to your assistance, and forgive and forget the man, whom nothing but the prospect of certain ruin could have forced to write this letter. I bid you forget me, I mean only as a lover; but the best of friends you shall ever find in ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... did laugh, looking at her with his head hanging down, his swollen face all creased and purple, his hair sticking up rough and unkempt. He laughed, sitting there a degraded, debauched ruin, looking down from the height of his memories upon the gaunt, unlovely child of the slums who was rendered even more unlovely by the very courage that kept her waiting beside the ...
— O. Henry Memorial Award Prize Stories of 1921 • Various
... teaching him especially the duty of praying for others, for the Princess de Lamballe, and for Madame de Tourzel, his governess; though even those petitions the poor boy was compelled to utter in whispers, lest, if they were repeated to the Municipal Council, he should bring ruin on those whom he regarded as friends. At ten the family separated for the night, a sentinel making his bed across the door of each of their chambers, to prevent the possibility of ...
— The Life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France • Charles Duke Yonge
... that event had inflicted upon Sampson. The affectionate heart of the poor Dominie had always reproached him, that his negligence in leaving the child in the care of Frank Kennedy had been the proximate cause of the murder of the one, the loss of the other, the death of Mrs. Bertram, and the ruin of the family of his patron. It was a subject which he never conversed upon,—if indeed his mode of speech could be called conversation at any time,—but it was often present to his imagination. ...
— Guy Mannering • Sir Walter Scott
... which was out of their power, they thought it best not to appear, but would renew their proposal of storing the tea, and submitting the same to the inspection of a committee, and that they could go no further without incurring their own ruin; but as they had not been active in introducing the tea, they should do nothing to obstruct the people in their procedure with ...
— Tea Leaves • Various
... misfortune's billows o'er him hurled, And strove against its tide—where wave meets wave Like huge leviathans sporting wild, and lave Their mountain breakers round with circling sweep, Till, drawn within the vortex of their deep, The man of ruin struggleth—but in vain; Like dying swimmers who, in breathless pain Despairing, strike at random!—It would be A subject worth the schoolmen's scrutiny, To trace each simple source from whence arose The strong and mingled stream of human woes. But here we may ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume XXIV. • Revised by Alexander Leighton
... our men. I asked if he intended to speak to them, and he said he would like to. I asked him then to please discourage all cheering, noise, or any sort of confusion; that we had had enough of it before Bull Run to ruin any set of men, and that what we needed were cool, thoughtful, hard-fighting soldiers—no more hurrahing, no more humbug. He took my remarks in the most perfect good-nature. Before we had reached the first camp, I heard ...
— The Memoirs of General W. T. Sherman, Complete • William T. Sherman
... among the rocks—huge clusters of them, bloomy and luscious as the grapes of Eshcol. The blueberry is nature's compensation for the ruin of forest fires. It grows best where the woods have been burned away and the soil is too poor to raise another crop of trees. Surely it is an innocent and harmless pleasure to wander along the hillsides gathering these wild fruits, as the Master and His disciples ...
— Little Rivers - A Book Of Essays In Profitable Idleness • Henry van Dyke
... waxed eloquent, and Mrs. Mark Pattison said of it: "Of these beautiful galleries the eastern side alone has survived, and being little known it has fortunately not been restored, and left to go quietly to ruin. Yet even in its present condition the sculptures with which it is enriched, the bas reliefs, arabesques, and medallions which fill the delicate lines of the pilasters and arcades testify to the brilliant and decided character which the ...
— In Chteau Land • Anne Hollingsworth Wharton
... Oh, this is too bad! What shall I do? This will ruin me! Oh, where is that rascal? How can I catch him?" and the old man ran around the kitchen, staring at one thing and another, ...
— The Rover Boys in Alaska - or Lost in the Fields of Ice • Arthur M. Winfield
... the General about it. I think you're right, Harry. I've heard of Shepard myself, and he's worth ten thousand men to the Yankees. It's more than that. At such a critical stage of our affairs he might ruin us. We'll make a general search for him. We'll rake the city ...
— The Shades of the Wilderness • Joseph A. Altsheler
... one of the world's masterpieces. The Italians call it "Il Pensiero." The sullen strength of the attitude gives one a vague ominous impulse to get away. Some one has said that it fulfils Milton's conception of Satan brooding over his plans for the ruin of mankind. ...
— Little Journeys to the Homes of the Great, Volume 4 (of 14) - Little Journeys to the Homes of Eminent Painters • Elbert Hubbard
... ran across the ditch, and rushed a breach. As the pirates gained the inside of the fort, the Spanish Governor charged home upon them with twenty-five soldiers armed with pikes, clubbed muskets, swords, or stones from the ruin. For some minutes these men mixed in a last desperate struggle; then the Spaniards were driven back by the increasing numbers of the enemy. Fighting hard, they retreated to the inner castle, cheered by their Governor, who still called on them to keep their flag aloft. The inner castle was a ruin, ...
— On the Spanish Main - Or, Some English forays on the Isthmus of Darien. • John Masefield
... bank's swept that into the bag, of course, along with the rest. The whole thing was like a stack of nine-pins—when one tumbled, it knocked the other over. I thought I could manage to save that much for her, out of the ruin. But the bank saw the land-boom was petering out. They shut off my credit, and foreclosed on the city block—and that sent the whole ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... continued to keep his tavern, but discarded the sale and use of whisky upon his premises. He became known as the one hotel keeper in all that region who did not furnish his customers strong liquors. However, this action did not ruin his business; for, while some of his patrons left him, others took their places, and he was able still to supply all proper needs of the ...
— The Kentucky Ranger • Edward T. Curnick
... think,' she said, 'that he has been among evil men that advised and prompted him thus to assault my door. They would ruin and ...
— The Fifth Queen Crowned • Ford Madox Ford
... try them. If you will make them understand that I don't at all want the place, and that it will go to rack and ruin because there is no one to live there, I am ...
— The Claverings • Anthony Trollope
... sign was seen of any of those who had been on board this ill-fated schooner when she went down. It was known that twenty-one souls were in her, including the man and the boy who had belonged to the light-house. As the boat moved slowly over this sad ruin, however, a horrible and startling spectacle came in view. Two bodies were seen, within a few feet of the surface of the water, one grasped in the arms of the other, in the gripe of despair. The man held in the grasp, was kept beneath ...
— Jack Tier or The Florida Reef • James Fenimore Cooper
... splendid though it was, but the ruined castles, blind and broken, of the Counts Guidi: Porciano itself, line a jagged menace, rises across Arno, which is heard but not seen; farther, on the crest of a blue hill, round which evening gathers out of the woods, rises the great ruin of Romena like a broken oath; while farther still, far away on its hill in a fold of the valley, Poppi thrusts its fierce tower into the sky, a cruel boast that came to nothing. They are but the ghosts of a forgotten ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... books at a dry goods store, and there shall never buy anything but the cheapest religious literature, or occasionally a popular story for my wife, and to this promise I solemnly set my hand." With the ruin of his family before his eyes, or at least, let us say, the disgraceful condition of the dining-room carpet, he intends to keep his word, and for a whole fortnight will not allow himself to enter the street of his favourite bookshop. Next week, however, ...
— Books and Bookmen • Ian Maclaren
... the alarmed youth lightly on the shoulder. "What good could it do me to ruin you? I have only one thing at heart just now, and that is to save Caesar from care and anxiety. Keep him occupied only during the third hour after midnight and you may count on my friendship; but if out of fear or ill-will you refuse me your assistance you do not deserve your sovereign's ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... in return for that which it was her privilege to give freely; while the notion of servility, of economic dependence—though she did not so phrase it—repelled her far more than the possibility of social ruin. ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... I went after him, and begged and prayed of him, with a pail and broom in my hand, to let me do him up, but he only pynted downward like a man in a play; and there's his place going to rack and ruin." ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... their long-neglected families, upon a new career of peace and happiness, rising, Phoenix like, from the ashes of slavery to join the Phalanx of industry in upbuilding the greatness of their country, which they had aided in saving from desolation and ruin. ...
— The Black Phalanx - African American soldiers in the War of Independence, the - War of 1812, and the Civil War • Joseph T. Wilson
... anti-social doctrines will never be applied again? If they will not render obedience when they are in a minority, who will obey them even if they have a majority behind them? Government will cease; the reign of order will be at an end; Society will be dissolved amid "red ruin and the ...
— Freedom In Service - Six Essays on Matters Concerning Britain's Safety and Good Government • Fossey John Cobb Hearnshaw
... purpose, did the same. The charge is false, O King Theodoric".The inter-position of Boethius was due to a noble and generous impulse, but it was not perhaps wise, in view of all that had passed, and without in any way helping Albinus, it involved Boethius in his ruin. Cyprian, thus challenged, included the Master of the Offices in his accusation, and certain persons, not Goths, but Romans and men of senatorial rank, Opilio (the brother of Cyprian), Basilius, and Gaudentius, came forward ...
— Theodoric the Goth - Barbarian Champion of Civilisation • Thomas Hodgkin
... the Jewish nation disrupted. Jerusalem was taken; the Temple had become a ruin. The last vestige of independence seemed to have been wiped out. All who had taken up arms were either dead, or enslaved, or banished. The infuriated Roman conquerors had spared neither the women nor the children. It seemed as if Judaism had breathed her last in that terrible year ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... "Go, kiss your sire! go, share the bridal mirth!" She cry'd, and hurl'd their quivering limbs on earth. Rebellowing thunders rock the marble towers, And red-tongued lightnings shoot their arrowy showers; 175 Earth yawns!—the crashing ruin sinks!—o'er all Death with black hands extends his mighty Pall; Their mingling gore the Fiends of Vengeance quaff, And Hell receives them ...
— The Botanic Garden. Part II. - Containing The Loves of the Plants. A Poem. - With Philosophical Notes. • Erasmus Darwin
... then he grew thoughtful, then sad; and when he heard me tell Dowley I should have Dickon, the boss mason, and Smug, the boss wheelwright, out there, too, the coal-dust on his face turned to chalk, and he lost his grip. But I knew what was the matter with him; it was the expense. He saw ruin before him; he judged that his financial days were numbered. However, on our way to invite the others, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... terrible misfortunes are said to have happened to him in his life—last of all, came the utter ruin of his country; and after his death he had the stone suspended (talanteia) over his head in the world below—all this agrees wonderfully well with his name. You might imagine that some person who wanted to call him Talantatos (the most weighted down by misfortune), disguised the name by ...
— Cratylus • Plato
... constant assertion and more perpetual proof than our own period and our own country. * * * The living danger is that society may come to permanently distrust the reign of law. * * * A national or a personal life built on expedients of the day, like a house built on the sand, will inevitably come to ruin. ...
— The California Birthday Book • Various
... only in error, in subsequent suffering of mind, and with material disadvantage? I must be frank: I own that I can perceive in Nature no moral order, that in her world there is no knowledge of us or of our ideals, and that in general her order often breaks upon man's life with mere ruin, irrational and pitiful; and I acknowledge, also, the prominence of evil in the social, and its invasion in the individual, life of man. But, again, were we so situated that there should be no external divine order apparent ...
— Heart of Man • George Edward Woodberry
... thought into thy heart?" cried Eurycleia in wailing tones. "Why wilt thou take this dreadful journey, thou, an only child, so loved, and so dear? Odysseus is lost for ever, and if thou go we shall lose thee too, for the suitors will plot thy ruin ...
— Stories from the Odyssey • H. L. Havell
... inside now. He had shut himself in his citadel... and they were inside. The brandy stayed his hand from shaking—but he knew that he had weakened. His mind went back to the man he had "killed in business"—the straight, clear voice sounding over the 'phone—he had not wanted to ruin him—them, hundreds of them. It was the System—kill or be killed. He took his chance and they took ...
— Mr. Achilles • Jennette Lee
... for mercies received for the church of God, or for themselves? then they may pray together: The proof whereof is plain (Exo 15:20,21). If it be objected the case was extraordinary, and that Miriam was a prophetess; To which I answer, That the danger of ruin and destruction, and our deliverance from it, if the Lord grant it, cannot be looked at but as extraordinary. The designs of ruin to the church, and servants of God, being as great as at that time when ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... rise in the world by boasting and pushing down and deceiving your neighbours. For you are subjects of God's kingdom; and to do so is to break his laws, and to put yourselves under His curse; and however worldly-wise all this selfishness and boasting may seem, it is sin, whose wages are death and ruin." ...
— Sermons on National Subjects • Charles Kingsley
... 'Why don't you ruin your wife, you fool?' said Slivers, turning vindictively on Villiers. 'You ain't going to let her have all the money while you are ...
— Madame Midas • Fergus Hume
... a change came over the household. Sabine accepted the attentions of Fauchery, whose mistress she became, and soon after launched into a course of extravagance which in the end went far to complete the ruin to which her husband was himself contributing. Other lovers followed Fauchery, and in the end she ran off with the manager of a large drapery store. Ultimately she returned, and was pardoned by her husband, who had lost his ...
— A Zola Dictionary • J. G. Patterson
... rode over to see the quaint town of Upholland, and its fine old church, with the little ivied monastic ruin close by. We returned thence, by way of "Orrell Pow," to Wigan, to meet my engagement at ten in the forenoon. On our way, we could not help noticing the unusual number of foot-sore, travel-soiled people, many of them evidently factory ...
— Home-Life of the Lancashire Factory Folk during the Cotton Famine • Edwin Waugh
... by the lightning, of caverns deserted by the waves, plunged him into fresh reveries, and at last threw him back on himself, ending, after many divagations of mind, in the contemplation of the ruin within him. Then once more he sounded his soul, and tried to reduce his thoughts to some ...
— The Cathedral • Joris-Karl Huysmans
... us. Do we go to the play to see nature? of course not: we only desire to see the actors playing at being natural, like Mr. Gallot, Mr. Howe, Mr. Worral, or Mr. Kean, and other actors. This system of being too natural will, in the end, be the ruin of the drama. It has already driven me from the Stage, and will, I fear, serve the great performers I nave named above in the same manner. But the Haymarket Juliet overdoes it; she is more natural than nature, for she makes ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 1, Complete • Various
... grand viziers, and in such shaving countries a barber is held in high respect. He would be all right there. But no, no, I cannot be weak over so vital a thing as this. Just think, you two, of the consequences if through some inept act on his part he should ruin all our prospects." ...
— In the Mahdi's Grasp • George Manville Fenn
... nature of poetry, however poor or small, is of value inestimable to the development of the individual, ludicrous even though it may show itself, should conceit clothe it in print. The desire of fame, so vaunted, is the ruin of the small, sometimes of the great poet. The next evil to doing anything for love of money, is doing it for the love of fame. A man may have a wife who is all the world to him, but must he therefore set her on a throne? Cosmo, essentially and peculiarly practical, ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... yon plain, Right sore exposed to wind and rain; And on it the sun shines never at morn, Because it was built in the widow's corn; And its foundations can never be sure, Because it was built on the ruin of the poor. And or an age is come and gane, Or the trees o'er the chimly-taps grow green, We kinna wen ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... made by the letters and my L10,000 checks, would put the thing through. Yet we, of course, felt that a thousand things could arise to block our way effectually. A look, a word too much, a shadow, or a smile in my face might ruin all; but still, after providing so far as possible for every contingency, after planning what was to be said or left unsaid at the interview, after my companions filling me full of advice, we felt after all that everything must be left to my discretion, to ...
— Bidwell's Travels, from Wall Street to London Prison - Fifteen Years in Solitude • Austin Biron Bidwell
... You have a wife and children. This is a serious business. It's ruin, Forbes, that's what it is. R-u-i-n, my friend! Be advised by me, and give it up. The hundred pounds is not worth it, and besides I need it badly. Don't deprive a ...
— About Peggy Saville • Mrs. G. de Horne Vaizey
... muzzled,—they were the voice of the world's conscience, they were a part of destiny. Weak as they were, they drove the South to madness. "Every step she takes in her blindness," said Wendell Phillips, "is one more step towards ruin." And when South Carolina took the final step in battering down Fort Sumter, it was the fanatics of slavery themselves who called upon their idolized institution ruin swift and complete. What law and reason were unable to accomplish, had now to be done by that uncertain and dreadful ...
— Memories and Studies • William James
... your imperence, master Cholly," said he, aiming a blow at my head, which I dexterously avoided. "I never touches none o' the skipper's ruin; I wouldn't taste the nasty stuff now, after all I've seen it's done. No, I tell you straight, b'y, I ain't lying. I see Sam Jedfoot last night as ever was, jest soon arter you went away from ...
— The Island Treasure • John Conroy Hutcheson
... mules or horses to escape upon, leaving the teams to mingle in the greatest disorder. Drivers of ambulances filled with dead and wounded also fled, and the animals ran with them unguided over the field. The scene was of the wildest ruin. The gloom of night soon fell over the field to add to ...
— Slavery and Four Years of War, Vol. 1-2 • Joseph Warren Keifer
... bore away to Olympus, to be a cup-bearer to the gods. Paris, too, was a Trojan of royal birth, but like Oedipus, he had been left on the mountain in his infancy, because the oracle had foretold that he would be the death of his kindred and the ruin of his country. Destiny saved and nurtured him to fulfill that prophecy. He grew up as a shepherd and tended his flocks on the mountain, but his beauty held the favor of all the wood-folk there and won the heart of ...
— The Children's Hour, Volume 3 (of 10) • Various
... was a noble character, and he once did me a great service, but I never loved him. With Alice my one fear is that she may mistake respect for affection, and with her nature such an error would ruin her life." ...
— The Lever - A Novel • William Dana Orcutt
... the gate, the diligence went on a long way, through a great many narrow streets, leading into the heart of the city. There was nothing in these streets to denote the ancient grandeur of Rome, excepting now and then an old and venerable ruin, standing neglected among ...
— Rollo in Rome • Jacob Abbott
... parted, and disclosed the trunks and torn branches of the large trees they had overwhelmed and were bearing away, and the earth-colored flood, in the wider places, was a struggling mass of planks, timber, rocks, and roots—tokens of a tumultuous ruin above, to which the thunder-shower pouring around us gave but a feeble clew. A heavy-limbed willow, which overhung a rock on which I had often sat to watch the freshets of spring, rose up while we looked at it, and with a surging heave, as if lifted by ...
— Nature's Serial Story • E. P. Roe
... to the squatter girl meant a certain and final break with the Waldstrickers, the financial ruin of ...
— The Secret of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White
... recrossed the passage and ascended the steep, narrow winding stairs to the chambers above. There were four small rooms, opening one into the other, with a closet partitioned off in each, and so low that in the highest part a tall man could but just have stood upright. Here the ruin was farther advanced. The floor creaked under my foot, the plaster had nearly all fallen from the ceiling and was peeling from the walls, while deep stains on the remaining portion showed that the rain and thawing snow had made their way through the roof. The ...
— Not Pretty, But Precious • John Hay, et al.
... is devoid of beauty. No attempt at decoration has been made. It seems a shapeless pile of towers and machicolated and battlemented curtains, falling into almost complete ruin. But on passing through the single entrance, one finds oneself in a well-proportioned church of nave and side aisles, a south chapel, and an apse. Each buttress of the apse is battlemented outside and forms a ...
— In Troubadour-Land - A Ramble in Provence and Languedoc • S. Baring-Gould
... all with this war. Any man who thinks that the awful perversion of the character of a great European people, the death of such vast numbers in such painful circumstances, the ruin of further millions, and all the innumerable ugly results of a great war, were worth bringing about in order to secure a few spiritual advantages has neither sense of proportion nor sense of decency nor sense of humour. The theory would be too repulsive if it were ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... man and a truer friend never lived. He loves me, and I fear it will be his ruin, for he will too often come within the reach of those who would destroy him, if they only knew where and how to reach him. Persecution and cruelty placed him on the bloody path he has had to follow, and now—now ...
— Wild Bill's Last Trail • Ned Buntline
... the ruinous expedient of substituting convicts, whose regular punishments were commuted into transportation, for a limited period, to the Indies. No measure could possibly have been devised more effectual for the ruin of the infant settlement. The seeds of corruption, which had been so long festering in the Old World, soon shot up into a plentiful harvest in the New, and Columbus, who suggested the measure, was the first to reap ...
— The History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella The Catholic, V2 • William H. Prescott
... man, who, at the age of nearly sixty, had postponedly encountered that thing in sorrow's technicals called ruin. He had been an artisan of famed excellence, and with plenty to do; owned a house and garden; embraced a youthful, daughter-like, loving wife, and three blithe, ruddy children; every Sunday went to a cheerful-looking church, planted in ...
— Moby Dick; or The Whale • Herman Melville
... peace. In that vision of Jack Belsize I saw misery, guilt, children dishonoured, homes deserted,—ruin for all the actors and victims of the wretched conspiracy. Laura marked my disturbance when we reached home. She even divined the cause of it, and charged me with it at night, when we sate alone by our dressing-room fire, ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray
... you know? Some of the people here have been in comfortable circumstances. And, two days ago, when Mr. Northfield was over he was talking about some of papa's property that had nearly gone to ruin—been destroyed, I think, and would take a good deal to repair it. And—eighty or ninety years is a long time to live. There may be another war—people are so quarrelsome—and everything will go then! ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... love that led Thee here below To tread a lonely path in grace, To pass through sorrow, grief and woe, The portion of a ruin'd race." ...
— The Lord of Glory - Meditations on the person, the work and glory of our Lord Jesus Christ • Arno Gaebelein
... encourage my enemies to treat me in the same manner as Clesel and Lobkowitz were treated. The article alludes to the archdukes who overthrew the minister so obstinately opposed to peace, and to the Empress Claudia who profited by her power over the emperor in order to ruin an all-powerful minister, her enemy. And you pretend not to see that all this is merely referred to for the purpose of encouraging Archduke Charles and the Empress Theresia to act as those have acted? Both are at the ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... by this time so far recovered from her amazement as to find voice enough to demand of Nelly whether she was really going to be so ungrateful as to leave a place where she had been so kindly treated, and ruin herself for life, by going off with a wandering character like that. But Nelly's reply was ready. "You said, ma'am, you'd have to send me away because I couldn't do your work properly. So I ...
— Lucy Raymond - Or, The Children's Watchword • Agnes Maule Machar
... one of these upon the building he occupies, and another one upon the post-office or in some other prominent place. It will be the talk of the region. At first you must give him several days in which to force a sale of his belongings at something approaching their value. We will ruin him by-and-by, but gradually; we must not impoverish him at once, for that could bring him to despair and injure his health, possibly ...
— A Double Barrelled Detective Story • Mark Twain
... that. If I am so, it doesn't bring me happiness. ... Do you remember what I told you once, about my being a preacher—disgrace, ruin, and all that—and my rainbow-chasing dream out here after ...
— The Rainbow Trail • Zane Grey
... green hills slope to lawns or peer at a peaceful sea; but there among the flames of those dreadful peaks the Sun seemed not the giver of joy and colour and life, but only a catastrophe huger than everlasting war, a centre of hideous violence and ruin and anger and terror. There came by mountains of copper burning everlasting, hurling up to unthinkable heights their mass of emerald flame. And mountains of iron raged by and mountains of salt, quaking and thundering and clothed with ...
— Don Rodriguez - Chronicles of Shadow Valley • Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, Baron, Dunsany
... be either quite logical or just. The Transvaal Government had never asked them to come and live in the country, and if they did so, it must be remembered that many of the agitators had accumulated property, to leave which would mean ruin; and they saw that, unless something was done, its value ...
— Cetywayo and his White Neighbours - Remarks on Recent Events in Zululand, Natal, and the Transvaal • H. Rider Haggard
... he, with a knowing wink, and nudging the young gentleman in the left side, "vot do you say to a drop o' blue ruin? or, as you likes to be conish [genteel], I does n't care if I sports you a glass of port!" While Dunnaker was uttering this invitation, a sudden reminiscence flashed across Paul: he bethought him at once of MacGrawler; and he resolved forthwith to repair ...
— Paul Clifford, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... end of the garden of the Refuge, Tinker scanned the country round with dissatisfied eyes. None of the low hills was hollowed by a pirates', or brigands', or even a smugglers' cave with its buried hoard, no ruin tottered above a secret treasure-chamber. For himself he did not mind; it was all one to him whether he hunted his prey in the Champs Elysees or the long, straggling street of Farndon-Pryze. There were men ...
— The Admirable Tinker - Child of the World • Edgar Jepson
... pervading ideas which give a tone to the whole. The principal of these is the idea of a fixed destiny, of a wise arrangement of the world, which has prescribed to every being his path, and which allots ruin and destruction not only to crime and violence, but to excessive power and riches and the overweening pride which is their companion. In this consists the envy of the gods so often mentioned by Herodotus, and ...
— Handbook of Universal Literature - From The Best and Latest Authorities • Anne C. Lynch Botta
... still," Mark laughingly rejoined, as he put Helen aside and plied the dasher himself, in spite of her protestations that he would certainly ruin ...
— Family Pride - Or, Purified by Suffering • Mary J. Holmes
... his horse on and joined his master, leaving John to merely hint at the great trouble that almost disrupted the household at Pebbly Pit. "Now, thank Heavens, I have saved the ranch from ruin, and united two hearts that ought ...
— Polly and Eleanor • Lillian Elizabeth Roy
... the poems for any traces of this season of suffering and disaster. The past and his own meditations were now all in all to him; the horrors of the present were as nothing to a man who had outlived his hopes. Plague and fire, what were they, after the ruin of the noblest of causes? The stoical compression of Paradise Regained is in perfect keeping with the fact that it was in the middle of the ruins of London that Milton placed his finished poem in ...
— Milton • Mark Pattison
... to be doubted whether any spot of earth can, in desolateness, furnish a parallel to this group. Abandoned cemeteries of long ago, old cities by piecemeal tumbling to their ruin, these are melancholy enough; but, like all else which has but once been associated with humanity, they still awaken in us some thoughts of sympathy, however sad. Hence, even the Dead Sea, along with whatever other emotions ...
— The Piazza Tales • Herman Melville
... up the Swift, and though this was not accepted, broke for a time all other connection with Constable—an unfortunate breach, as it helped to bring about the establishment of the Ballantyne publishing business, and so unquestionably began Scott's own ruin. It is remarkable that a similar impatience of interference afterwards broke Scott's just-begun connection with Blackwood, which, could it have lasted, would probably have saved him. For that sagacious person would certainly never have ...
— Sir Walter Scott - Famous Scots Series • George Saintsbury
... DEER.—Five hundred years hence, when the greed and rapacity of "civilized" man has completed the loot and ruin of the continent of North America, the white-tailed deer will be the last species of our big game to be exterminated. Its mental traits, its size, its color and its habits all combine to render it the most persistent of our large animals, and the best fitted to survive. ...
— Our Vanishing Wild Life - Its Extermination and Preservation • William T. Hornaday
... Mercers declined to make any further advance;(141) but with the assistance of the other companies the sum of L5,000 was raised, which was afterwards increased to L18,000.(142) Nevertheless, in spite of every exertion, the company was in the autumn of 1611 on the very verge of ruin, and something had to be done to prevent its utter collapse. It was accordingly again re-constructed, its domains were made to comprise the Bermudas, or Somers Islands, and a third charter granted (12 March, 1612), in which a number of citizens are named ...
— London and the Kingdom - Volume II • Reginald R. Sharpe
... hath of himself, perceiveth that in wealth and authority he doth his own soul harm, and cannot do the good that to his part appertaineth; but seeth the things that he should set his hands to sustain, decay through his default and fall to ruin under him, and seeth that to the amendment thereof he leaveth his own duty undone; then would I in any wise advise him to leave off that thing—be it spiritual benefice that he have, parsonage or bishopric, or temporal office and authority—and ...
— Dialogue of Comfort Against Tribulation - With Modifications To Obsolete Language By Monica Stevens • Thomas More
... Tiberius, that reign of terror, during which the Roman world was reduced to a frightful silence and torpor as of death;[22] and, although he was not thrown into personal collision with that "brutal monster," he not unfrequently alludes to him, and to the dangerous power and headlong ruin of his wicked minister Sejanus. Up to this time he had not experienced in his own person those crimes and horrors which fall to the lot of men who are brought into close contact with tyrants. This first happened to ...
— Seekers after God • Frederic William Farrar
... his character, so evenly balanced between right and wrong, might have followed the proper path, and Eugen might have figured at any rate with dignity on the European stage. But now it appeared that all was over, the last stroke played. And in this disaster Aribert saw the ruin of his own hopes. For Aribert would have to occupy his nephew's throne, and he felt instinctively that nature had not cut him out for a throne. By a natural impulse he inwardly rebelled against the prospect of monarchy. Monarchy meant so much for which he knew himself ...
— The Grand Babylon Hotel • Arnold Bennett
... few miles to the east of the city, while Ch'un-yue remained in the capital, living in such state, and gaining so much influence, that he excited the King's jealousy; and when it was foretold, by means of signs in the heavens, that ruin threatened the kingdom, that its inhabitants would be swept away, and that this would be the work of an alien, the prophecy seemed to point to ambitious designs on the part of Ch'un-yue, and means were taken to ...
— Myths and Legends of China • E. T. C. Werner
... rounded a sharp bend in the fiord, and were sailing up a broad and straight reach which every moment disclosed new beauties, sights fair enough to be balm to the angriest spirit. A red-roofed hamlet was on our left, on the right an ivied ruin, close to the water, where some contemplative cattle stood knee-deep. The view ahead was a white strand which fringed both shores, and to it fell wooded slopes, interrupted here and there by low sandstone cliffs of warm red colouring, and now and again ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... one immediate result of the expedition seems to have been the ruin of Surenas. His services to his sovereign had exceeded the measure which it is safe in the East for a subject to render to the crown. The jealousy of his royal master was aroused, and he had to pay the penalty ...
— The Seven Great Monarchies Of The Ancient Eastern World, Vol 6. (of 7): Parthia • George Rawlinson
... Anything but the foremost place I could not conceive for myself, and for that very reason I quite contentedly occupied the lowest in reality. Either to be a hero or to grovel in the mud—there was nothing between. That was my ruin, for when I was in the mud I comforted myself with the thought that at other times I was a hero, and the hero was a cloak for the mud: for an ordinary man it was shameful to defile himself, but a hero was too lofty to be utterly defiled, and so he might defile himself. ...
— Notes from the Underground • Feodor Dostoevsky
... after his return. It was not of long duration, and was, no doubt, partly physical, and not unconnected with the effects of his decline from the paths of temperance. But while it lasted, he read some of the bills and talked about the way ruin stared him in the face and the need there was for retrenchment, turning over a new leaf, facing facts and kindred things. Also, which was more important, he wrote to his wife's banker brother—he who had been instrumental in getting the papers ...
— The Good Comrade • Una L. Silberrad
... deep flush of the sunset, Cardinal's scarlet, "red" gold have I seen, With red ruin, red rhubarb, red herring—but none set My iris afire as ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Volume 104, May 6, 1893 • Various |
