"Unsettle" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Borodino was like the roar of the sea: on my battle-field, where drink has been the only slayer, there are many dead; and I can imagine that I hear the full volume of cries from those who are stricken but still living. The vision would unsettle my reason if I had not a trifle of Hope remaining. The philosophic individual who talks in correctly frigid phrases about the evils of the Liquor Trade may keep his reason balanced daintily and his nerve unhurt. But I have images for company—images ...
— The Ethics of Drink and Other Social Questions - Joints In Our Social Armour • James Runciman
... father, "it lifted up its head and did address itself to motion, as it would speak." But they began to quiver, and he once more screwed them together, as if he feared the very exertion of uttering a word or two might unsettle his moniplies. ...
— Tom Cringle's Log • Michael Scott
... of the boys' pleasure or profit, but I think it is truer kindness to have them go along quietly on the paths they have chosen. Bertie is happy and contented enough now, but he's a high-spirited lad, fond of the sea almost passionately; a voyage, be it ever so short, may unsettle his mind for the office. Eddie is discontented enough already; I don't really see what good can come of it. Of course, I don't really think that either of the boys is going to make his fortune, recover Riversdale, and ...
— Little Folks (October 1884) - A Magazine for the Young • Various
... me, monarchy, even at the present day, is of the greatest social and political value. Unsettle it in the public mind, and you unsettle the basis of government and the sacredness of property; everything else goes with it. The hereditary principle has in its keeping all that makes for stability, continuity, and tradition; nothing ...
— King John of Jingalo - The Story of a Monarch in Difficulties • Laurence Housman
... in counsel, uneasy as to their procedure. Some would ignore the pertinacious outsider and persuade their followers that he is negligible; others would sustain an energetic campaign against him. Some would openly and candidly meet the questions of their followers; others would prefer not to unsettle the large number who never ask questions. At the present juncture it is impossible to be wholly silent. Some of the clergy, it seems—I learn this from the recorded words of eminent preachers—wish to ignore the war and go ...
— The War and the Churches • Joseph McCabe
... your life, Spike. It would unsettle the rustic mind. They're fearfully particular about that ...
— The Intrusion of Jimmy • P. G. Wodehouse
... slowly and casually, and addressing himself strictly to the man, while Trampas, on his side, paid obvious inattention, "this hyeh delay, yu' see, may unsettle our plans some. But it'll be one of two ways,—we're all goin' to Rawhide, or we're all goin' to Billings. We're all ...
— The Virginian - A Horseman Of The Plains • Owen Wister
... not by accident," he answered curtly. He was growing angry. "Why do you come here and unsettle me?" he demanded. "I wasn't thinking of it. ...
— Tristram of Blent - An Episode in the Story of an Ancient House • Anthony Hope
... on the top of a hill, mourned for his son; and his wailing voice sounded through the silence until the new day came. Then the general had him stopped and brought in, for it might be that the old man's noise would unsettle ...
— Red Men and White • Owen Wister
... my shoulder, holds my hands and half shuts her beautiful eyes while we settle what our future life shall be, when I cover her with kisses and inhale the odor of all those little hairs that are as fine as silk and are like a halo round her imperial brow, excite me, unsettle me, kill me, and yet I feel inclined to shed tears, when the time comes for us to part, and I really only exist when I am ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume II (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... allowing her eyes, which had been lowered during her brief recital, to rise to her husband's face. "My dear mother died a day or two afterwards. She died regretting having to own even what she did, and begging me not to think unkindly of my father, and not to unsettle your mind by telling you what could do ...
— How It All Came Round • L. T. Meade
... best illustration in history of the importance of a good job of spanking. It was force that had settled the slavery question—and settled it so that now you might travel in the South and have a hard time to find a man that would want to unsettle it. ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... you for being an outspoken man, and true to those who have used you well. You could do him no good, and you might do harm to others, and unsettle simple minds, by going on ...
— Mary Anerley • R. D. Blackmore
... on him that such intercourse could bring him little satisfaction, and might be very inconvenient; that his uncle was in no distress, and did not require assistance; and that it was too probable that in seeking him out he might meet with persons who might unsettle his principles,—in short, that he had much better give up the visit ...
— The Heir of Redclyffe • Charlotte M. Yonge
... practice, it hath been established, that realms and principalities may descend to females by hereditary right, it did not appear to me necessary to move the question, not only because the thing would be most invidious; but because in my opinion it would not be lawful to unsettle governments which are ordained by ...
— The First Blast of the Trumpet against the monstrous regiment - of Women • John Knox
... opinions that he may be said to have inherited from his country, as it then existed morally, alone prevented Ghita from casting aside all other ties, and following his fortunes in weal and in woe. Still he was too frank and generous to deceive, while he had ever been too considerate to strive to unsettle her confiding and consoling faith. Her infirmity even, for so he deemed her notions to be, had a charm in his eyes; few men, however loose or sceptical in their own opinions on such matters, finding any pleasure in the contemplation ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... you, dear Mother, that I am about to confide the story of my soul. When you asked me to write it, I feared the task might unsettle me, but since then Our Lord has deigned to make me understand that by simple obedience I shall please Him best. I begin therefore to sing what must be my eternal song: "the Mercies of ...
— The Story of a Soul (L'Histoire d'une Ame): The Autobiography of St. Therese of Lisieux • Therese Martin (of Lisieux)
... but anybody may outlive anybody for that matter. Anyway, there's no chance of any of these schemes coming to pass while we are young enough to care, even if they ever do; and if they unsettle us now, ...
— The Pillars of the House, V1 • Charlotte M. Yonge
... mournfully. "No. He says it would unsettle me, and they would be always worrying round, and he wants peace and quietness—but, oh, Miss Patch, they loved me so, it must have nearly broken their hearts! And—and I love them so, I feel sometimes I can't bear it, I can't, ...
— The Story of Jessie • Mabel Quiller-Couch
... not be more profitable and humane, than to disturb them with formalities that have no virtue in themselves—to distress them with useless controversies, that settle no one point, teach no one doctrine, but unsettle and unfix all the good that our simple creed had previously built up and ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 54, No. 337, November, 1843 • Various
... Guinevere's kidnaper, whom he challenged and defeated. The queen, instead of showing herself grateful for this devotion, soon became needlessly jealous, and in a fit of anger taunted her lover about his journey in the cart. This remark sufficed to unsettle the hero's evidently very tottering reason, and he roamed wildly about until the queen recognized her error, and sent twenty-three knights in search of him. They journeyed far and wide for two whole years ...
— Legends of the Middle Ages - Narrated with Special Reference to Literature and Art • H.A. Guerber
... on! Through seas of inky air Roll on! It's true I've got no shirts to wear; It's true my butcher's bill is due; It's true my prospects all look blue - But don't let that unsettle you! Never YOU ...
— Fifty Bab Ballads • William S. Gilbert
... had gratefully accepted the dedication, would go down to posterity with the brand of Cain upon his brow. Several even of the higher critics took fright. Jeffrey, while protesting his appreciation of the literary merits of the work, lamented its tendency to unsettle faith. Mr. Campbell talked of its "frightful audacity." Bishop Heber wrote at great length to prove that its spirit was more dangerous than that of Paradise Lost—and succeeded. The Quarterly began to cool towards the author. Moore wrote to him, that Cain was "wonderful, terrible, never to ...
— Byron • John Nichol
... of imparting my last news, but I checked myself. Lady Henriette had seen her last, and must be well aware of the direction she was taking to Lyons and Marseilles. It would only unsettle her to know that her sister was at Marseilles to-day, and would be at Genoa to-morrow. She would be mad to join her, and it was my most earnest wish that, for the present at least, Lady Henriette should keep quiet in the ...
— The Passenger from Calais • Arthur Griffiths
... quick move, Mallow took the offensive, and tried to unsettle Dyck's poise and disorganize his battle-plan. For an instant the tempestuous action, the brilliant, swift play of the sword, the quivering flippancy of the steel, gave Dyck that which almost disconcerted him. Yet he had a grip of himself, ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... force; and neither the tribunes nor the popular assemblies, though constitutionally omnipotent, could maintain a successful contest against men who possessed the whole property of the state. Hence the necessity for measures tending to unsettle the whole frame of society, and to take away every motive of industry; the abolition of debts, and the agrarian laws—propositions absurdly condemned by men who do not consider the circumstances from which they sprung. They were the desperate remedies ...
— The Miscellaneous Writings and Speeches of Lord Macaulay, Vol. 1 (of 4) - Contibutions to Knight's Quarterly Magazine] • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... any other citizen of the State of Maine from adopting proceedings within the British limits (as claimed) calculated to infringe the authority and jurisdiction of this Province and to disturb and unsettle the minds of that portion of its inhabitants residing in the disputed territories until the question in dispute be brought to a final settlement Greely shall immediately ...
— A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents - Section 2 (of 2) of Volume 3: Martin Van Buren • James D. Richardson
... lucrative to them as his was to the first projectors. Scarcely was Mir Jaffier, Lord Olive's nabob, seated on his musnud, than they immediately, or in a short time, projected another revolution, a revolution which was to unsettle all the former had settled, a revolution to make way for new disturbances and new wars, and which led to that long chain of peculation which ever since has afflicted ...
— The Works Of The Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IX. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... after the tragic events which had occurred, and the public reports of them which had appeared, Meynell's abrupt withdrawal from public life would once more unsettle and confuse the public mind. If there had been any change ...
— The Case of Richard Meynell • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... To unsettle the idea of God, is to dry up its source the stream of the veritable progress of modern society; it is to attack the foundations of liberty, justice, and love. The material conquests of civilization would serve thenceforward only to hasten the decomposition of the social body. The pure idea ...
— The Heavenly Father - Lectures on Modern Atheism • Ernest Naville
... had no particular regard for their own leader, who was arrogant, and by no means liberal. Profiting by these important hints, the general sent a conciliatory letter to Narvaez, beseeching him not to unsettle the natives by a show of animosity, when it was only by union they could hope for success, and declaring that for his part he was ready to greet Narvaez as a brother in arms, to share with him the fruits of conquest, and, ...
— The True Story Book • Andrew Lang
... cannot but transcribe, from his excellent work, a distinguished passage in support of the Christian Revelation.—After shewing, in decent but strong terms, the unfairness of the indirect attempts of modern infidels to unsettle and perplex religious principles, and particularly the irony, banter, and sneer, of one whom he politely calls 'an eloquent historian,' the archdeacon thus ...
— Life Of Johnson, Volume 5 • Boswell
... immediate proximity to a dense Manufacturing population; hence Belgium is now a garden, while Ireland (except the manufacturing North) is to a great extent stagnant and decaying. Other causes doubtless conspire, as in England contrasted with Italy and Spain, to produce these results, but they do not unsettle the general truth that Industry advances through a symmetric and many-sided development or does not ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... know how I picture God? Don't know what to say, for I am always terribly stupid at first Hotel bed: Who has occupied it the night before? Irresistible force of mutual affection Isn't for the fun of it, anyhow! Love must unsettle the mind Machine for bringing children into the world Moments of friendly silence One cannot both be and have been Only by going a long distance from home Sadness of existences that have had their day Well-planned ...
— Widger's Quotations from The Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant • David Widger
... says Mr. Browne. "She'll learn. So are you—you'll learn. And remember this, my boy, always respect old legends. A disregard for them will so unsettle you that finally you will find yourself—at the foot of the gallows in all human probability. I suppose," sadly, "that you are even so far gone in scepticism as to doubt the glorious truth of the moon's ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford
... but only for a short time. Marion never before in her life received two such letters. Both were anonymous. The first one that she opened aroused enough curiosity to "unsettle" her. She thought she knew whom it was from—those ingenious Boy Scouts of Spring Lake—perhaps it was written by cousin Clifford himself. It was just like him. He was a natural leader among boys, and often up to mischief of some sort. Marion was sure ...
— Campfire Girls in the Allegheny Mountains - or, A Christmas Success against Odds • Stella M. Francis
... enough task in these strenuous days. We hear of women leaving home, and we hear it with deepest sorrow. Do you know why women leave home? There is a reason. Home is not made sufficiently attractive. Would letting politics enter the home help matters. Ah no! Politics would unsettle our men. Unsettled men mean unsettled bills—unsettled bills mean broken ...
— Purple Springs • Nellie L. McClung
... of view, dear Governor, but perhaps you don't altogether get mine. Isn't it so? I am settled. What you mean by being settled, would unsettle me, completely. I'm cut out for just such an existence as this; to live four floors up in an attic, get my own breakfast, and have a charwoman to do for me. I should be awfully bored with an establishment. I'm quite content with ...
— A Collection of Stories, Reviews and Essays • Willa Cather
... comes I must part with dear Margaret," she said to herself. "It will not do to have the two together. Alec may possibly attempt to impress his opinions on her mind, and may unsettle it should he fail to do more permanent injury; or, even should he keep them to himself, her sweet disposition, and other attractive qualities, may win his heart, while she may give her's in return, and I am sure that his father would never consent to ...
— Janet McLaren - The Faithful Nurse • W.H.G. Kingston
... "the master's" correspondence had always been a great bother to Reuben. It took him a long time to spell out the letters and a longer time to indite the answers. So the arrival of a letter was always sure to unsettle him for a day or two. Still, that fact did not account for the great disturbance of mind in which he reached home ...
— Ishmael - In the Depths • Mrs. E. D. E. N. Southworth
... days afterward, that a second Federal Convention be called for considering the amendments suggested by the various states. The proposal was supported by the Virginia legislature, but Massachusetts and Pennsylvania opposed it, as having a dangerous tendency to reopen the whole discussion and unsettle everything. The proposal fell to the ground. People were weary of the long dispute, and turned their attention to electing representatives to the first Congress. With the adhesion of New York all serious anxiety came to an end. The new government could be put in operation without ...
— The Critical Period of American History • John Fiske
... coveted blessings,— All goes on of itself, and each himself deems the wisest, Deems the best, and so they continue abiding together, He of greatest intelligence ranking no higher than others; All that occurs, as if of itself, going quietly forward. But let disaster unsettle the usual course of existence, Tear down the buildings about us, lay waste the crops and the garden, Banish the husband and wife from their old, familiar-grown dwelling, Drive them to wander abroad through nights and days of privation,— ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... said at last. "I almost think, for some things, papa wants to go, and that it's a good thing for him, and if it's a good thing for him I dare say God wouldn't unsettle it." ...
— The Boys and I • Mrs. Molesworth
... contrive no method but that of a convulsion of the earth that shall project the deposed President to this indefinitely distant space; but a shock of nature of so vast an energy and for so great a result on him might unsettle even the footing of the firm members of Congress. We certainly need not resort to so perilous a method as that. How shall we accomplish it? Why, in the first place, nobody knows where that space is but the learned manager himself, and he is the ...
— History of the Impeachment of Andrew Johnson, • Edumud G. Ross
... themselves, on any prevalent, temporary opinions of convenience or improvement, any fundamental change in the Constitution, or to fabricate a new government for themselves, and thereby to disturb the public peace, and to unsettle the ancient ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. IV. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... though it would be disagreeable, an' I should be sorry to have you put to that inconvenience. But the wind and the water may unsettle the foundation o' your house, the chimney bein' on the outside, an' no support to it. Even that would not certainly put you in danger, as the frame would likely float. But I knew, ef sech a thing should happen, an' you here alone, you would be very much frightened, an' perhaps ...
— The New Penelope and Other Stories and Poems • Frances Fuller Victor
... from "Confedrit X Roads," Kentucky, gives Deekin Pogram's views on education. "He didn't bleeve in edjucashun, generally speekin. The common people was better off without it, ez edjucashun hed a tendency to unsettle their minds. He had seen the evil effex ov it in niggers and poor whites. So soon ez a nigger masters the spellin book and gits into noosepapers, he becomes dissatisfied with his condishin, and hankers after a better cabin ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... Looking around, she saw, disappearing from an old road that led away to Tushielaw, the last of the king's troops; and she omened sadly that they had completed their work. She hesitated again, whether she should proceed to a place where she would inevitably behold a sight that might unsettle her reason. But whether could she fly? What could she do? Her little children were there; it was still her home, and the dead body of her beloved husband was also there. But judgment might vacillate according to its laws; her feet had ...
— Wilson's Tales of the Borders and of Scotland, Volume III • Various
... hast alluded as having gone off from the Society. I should like to talk with thee concerning the separation in America; for we have been greatly misrepresented. But I came to this country solely on business, and I have no wish to say or do anything that can unsettle the mind, or wound the feelings of any Friend." She seemed very much surprised, and for a minute or two covered her face with her hands. But when the company broke up, some hours after, she followed him into the entry, ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child
... criticisms on her conduct, and assuring her that she was acting a very foolish part. But her constancy remained unshaken, as conscience told her her resolution was made for the glory of God. This trial was followed by two others, which were calculated either to unsettle or confirm her vocation, as, under the guise of prudence, a seemingly greater good was proposed. In fact, a person less enlightened in the ways of God would have wavered at this period of her life. During her sojourn in Paris, she resided with ...
— The Life of Venerable Sister Margaret Bourgeois • Anon.
... there. He went to California, and came back with five and twinty thousand pounds. I met him in Liverpool the day he arrived. 'This is no good to me, Toby,' says he. 'Why not?' I asks. 'Not enough,' says he; 'just enough to unsettle me.' 'What then?' says I. 'Put it on the favourite for the St. Leger,' says he. And he did too, every pinny of it, and the horse was beat on the post by a short head. He dropped the lot in one day. A fact, sir, 'pon me honour! Came to me next day. 'Nothing ...
— The Firm of Girdlestone • Arthur Conan Doyle
... is what you have learned from Mrs. Merton you must not go there any more. I have always known that she held peculiar views, but I had no idea that she would try to unsettle the minds ...
— Jess of the Rebel Trail • H. A. Cody
... the same number of late years; one man was flung here only about three months before I was appointed. I have the full list, with dates, down in my office, but the rangers never let people in Sunch'ston know when they have Blue-Pooled any one; it would unsettle men's minds, and some of them would be coming up here in the dark to drag the pool, and see whether they could find ...
— Erewhon Revisited • Samuel Butler
... to remove this obstacle, and to eradicate these patriotic sentiments, which had taken strong hold of the minds and hearts of the people of both sections. For more than two generations the Union had been held sacred, beyond all other earthly blessings. It was an object of the first magnitude to unsettle ...
— The Continental Monthly , Vol. 2 No. 5, November 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... begun. Whatever you do, don't unsettle her temper, for she will have to prepare for eight to-day. I will send Mr. Macdonald and Miss Macrae to the bakery for gingerbread, to gain time, and possibly I can think of a way to rescue you. If I can't, are you tolerably comfortable? ...
— Penelope's Experiences in Scotland • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Ohio spoke to similar effect. If, he said, the claims of freedom are sacrificed here by forms of legislation, "the people will unsettle your settlement." "It may be that you will succeed in burying the ordinance of freedom. But the people will write upon its tomb, 'I ...
— The Negro and the Nation - A History of American Slavery and Enfranchisement • George S. Merriam
... seven hills almost all my life; and though in ways it had grown familiar, and even dear to me, yet I never seemed to grow quite used to the city. It had strange tricks of deception that were enough to unsettle the finest faith. For when I looked at it from the windows of my room under the roof it was as flat as a plate, visible in its entirety from end to end, and it was as easy to find Telegraph Hill or the ...
— The Other Side of the Door • Lucia Chamberlain
... another at the spade and the loom, year after year, that he may earn food for the day and lodging for the night. In our day the demand here hinted at has taken more definite form and determinate aim, and goes on, visible to all men, to unsettle society and change social and political relations. The great movement of labor, extravagant and preposterous as are some of its demands, demagogic as are most of its leaders, fantastic as are many of its theories, is nevertheless real, and gigantic, and full of a certain primeval ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... been erroneously alleged that Se-quo-yah was a believer in, or practiced, the old Indian religious rites. Christianity had, indeed, done little more for him than to unsettle the pagan idea, ...
— Se-Quo-Yah; from Harper's New Monthly, V. 41, 1870 • Unknown
... of Chilian. So much study, and reading, and college talk, and the new theories, and what they called discoveries, were enough to unsettle one's faith, and she feared for him. Younger children than Cynthia had gone through the throes of conviction—she had herself, and she longed to see her ...
— A Little Girl in Old Salem • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... man; and finally, following the divine Plato among the sages at a humble distance, comes the prosaic and unfashionable Paley, and says in his precise way: that 'this vice has a tendency, which other species of vice have not so directly, to unsettle and weaken the powers of the understanding; as well as, I think, in a greater degree than other vices, to render the heart thoroughly corrupt.' True; and, once admitted and fostered, it eats like a canker, ...
— Matthew Arnold • G. W. E. Russell
... himself. In order to avoid their own conscience, intelligent, serious, honourable men do not blush to employ the little tricks of a woman or a child trying to get its own way; and dreading a discussion which might unsettle them, they would seize on the first awkward expression used by Clerambault. They would separate it from the context, dress it up if necessary, and with raised voices and eyes starting from their heads, feign an ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... Judaising teachers would be difficult for their sympathisers to swallow, but charity is not broken by plain repudiation of error and its teachers. 'Subverting your souls' is a heavy charge. The word is only here found in the New Testament, and means to unsettle, the image in it being that of packing up baggage for removal. The disavowal of these men is more complete if we follow the Revised Version in reading (ver. 24) 'no commandment' instead of 'no ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture: The Acts • Alexander Maclaren
... has concluded, upon reflection, that it is rather too revolutionary. If canal navigation should be begun in this manner, probably we should soon have the railroad companies running their trains on water by means of sails, and stage lines traveling in the air with balloons. Such things would unsettle the foundations of society and induce anarchy and chaos. A canal that has no water is a licentious and incendiary canal; and it is equally improper and equally repugnant to all conservative persons when, as Mr. Robbins suggests, ...
— Elbow-Room - A Novel Without a Plot • Charles Heber Clark (AKA Max Adeler)
... my words are weapons, full of danger, full of death; (Indeed I am myself the real soldier; It is not he, there, with his bayonet, and not the red-striped artilleryman;) For I confront peace, security, and all the settled laws, to unsettle them; I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me; I heed not, and have never heeded, either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule; And the threat of what is called hell is little or ...
— Poems By Walt Whitman • Walt Whitman
... obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle anything as true or false. I unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an endless seeker, with no Past ...
— Ralph Waldo Emerson • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... they don't like it," said Tom, digging his knife savagely into the railing, "they have a chance to kick up their heels and unsettle that heavy party." ...
— Five Little Peppers Abroad • Margaret Sidney
... manner, why should you dread secular education, except that it is against you? Why impede the circulation of books which take religious views opposite to your own? Why forbid your children and scholars the free perusal of poems or tales or essays or other light literature which you fear would unsettle their minds? Why oblige them to know these persons and to shun those, if you think that your friends have reason on their side as fully as your opponents? Truth is bold and unsuspicious; want of self-reliance ...
— The Idea of a University Defined and Illustrated: In Nine - Discourses Delivered to the Catholics of Dublin • John Henry Newman
... been intended to co-operate with Stoneman's raid, which at these dates should have been well on Lee's rear, and to unsettle Lee's firm footing preparatory to the heavy blows Hooker was preparing to deliver; but, as Stoneman was delayed, these movements failed of much of their intended effect. Nevertheless, Jackson's corps was drawn down to the vicinity, and remained ...
— The Campaign of Chancellorsville • Theodore A. Dodge
... or else she wouldn't do it. Anyhow, it's none of MY affair to bring the subject up to 'em. It looks to me like one of them things George has been gassing about—one of them things that has settled itself, and it ain't fur me to meddle and unsettle it. ...
— Danny's Own Story • Don Marquis
... of all expression, and looked at his wine-glass while Lydgate was speaking. Whatever was not problematical and suspected about this young man—for example, a certain showiness as to foreign ideas, and a disposition to unsettle what had been settled and forgotten by his elders—was positively unwelcome to a physician whose standing had been fixed thirty years before by a treatise on Meningitis, of which at least one copy marked "own" was bound ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... was out on the lawn. She bowed to me, but did not come in. Not a word had dropped from my lips, or from hers, that could unsettle either of us—and yet the same unacknowledged sense of embarrassment made us shrink alike from meeting one another alone. She waited on the lawn, and I waited in the breakfast-room, till Mrs. Vesey or Miss Halcombe came in. How quickly I ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... theorists, that's what he is," said Baker; "and he's got a little authority, and he's doing just as much as he can to unsettle business and hinder the legitimate development of the country." He relaxed his earnestness with another grin. "Stung again. That's two rises you got out of me," he remarked. "Say, Orde, don't get persuaded to turn ranger. ...
— The Rules of the Game • Stewart Edward White
... connected with the birth-place and the older traditions of the very society in which they live. A great deal must be attributed to the facts of our condition; though I admit those facts need not, and ought not to unsettle principles. But look at those two old fellows! There they are, true to the feelings and habits of their races, even after passing so long a time together in this hut. There squats Susquesus on a stone, idle and disdaining work, ...
— The Redskins; or, Indian and Injin, Volume 1. - Being the Conclusion of the Littlepage Manuscripts • James Fenimore Cooper
... objection to pooling is that it invariably leads to periodic wars, which unsettle all business, and but too often introduce into legitimate trade the element of chance. These wars give, moreover, to designing railroad managers an opportunity to enrich themselves by stock speculations ...
— The Railroad Question - A historical and practical treatise on railroads, and - remedies for their abuses • William Larrabee
... to ascend the Rovuma, or some other river North of Cape Delgado, and, in addition to my other work, shall strive, by passing along the Northern end of Lake Nyassa and round the Southern end of Lake Tanganyika, to ascertain the watershed of that part of Africa. In so doing, I have no wish to unsettle what with so much toil and danger was accomplished by Speke and Grant, but rather ...
— A Popular Account of Dr. Livingstone's Expedition to the Zambesi and Its Tributaries • David Livingstone
... charades and dressing up at a party is that they make away with so much valuable time of the players who are out of the room, and unsettle those who are left in. It should be the first duty of every one taking part in acting at parties to decide quickly on the subject or word, and to perform it quickly. Many and many a party has been spoiled by the slowness of the actors outside. Historical or family scenes with no dressing ...
— What Shall We Do Now?: Five Hundred Games and Pastimes • Dorothy Canfield Fisher
... Clinton and his wife did not know which was their child and loved us both equally, now that they believe that Rupert is their son and that I was a fraud, they will have come to give him all their love, and I am not going to unsettle things again. That is my present idea, and I do not think that I am ...
— The Dash for Khartoum - A Tale of Nile Expedition • George Alfred Henty
... man for you to see too much of, I'm sure, Mr. Christy," he said, with marked disapprobation. For, in the Dean's opinion, it was a most dangerous thing for a man to think, especially when he's young; thinking is, of course, so likely to unsettle him! ...
— The British Barbarians • Grant Allen
... here stated, and in view of the fact that further uncertainty on this point will be calculated to obstruct other much-needed legislation, to weaken the discipline of the service, and to unsettle salutary measures now in progress for the government and improvement of the Indians, I respectfully recommend that the decision arrived at by Congress at its last ...
— State of the Union Addresses of Rutherford B. Hayes • Rutherford B. Hayes
... desolation strike thy towers alone? No, fair Ellandonan! such ruin 'twill bring, That the storm shall have power to unsettle the throne, And thy fate shall be mixed with ...
— The Journal of Sir Walter Scott - From the Original Manuscript at Abbotsford • Walter Scott
... know thereof." If Winthrop should succeed in bringing the work to perfection, Brewster begs him to remember his wife and children. "I mean if this my work should miscarry by wars of the Indians, for I may not remove it till it be perfected, otherwise I should so unsettle the body by removing sun & moon out of their settled places, that there would then be no other afterworking." Once more he inculcates secrecy, and for a most comical reason: "For it is such a secret as is not fit for every one ...
— Among My Books - First Series • James Russell Lowell
... which I have been complaining, are on the whole inevitable; or, if not, that we can mend so very little of them, that it is wisest to leave them alone altogether, lest, like certain sewers, "the more you stir them, the more they smell." They fear lest we should unsettle the minds of the many for whom these evils will never be mended; lest we make them discontented; discontented with their houses, their occupations, their food, their whole social arrangements; ...
— Sanitary and Social Lectures and Essays • Charles Kingsley
... to myself? She did! How? By her confidence in me; that gave me my strength. I knew that night, as well as I know that I am sitting here, that we could not go on the way we had been going with safety. I knew also that it all rested with me. For me to unsettle her love for your father during his lifetime would have been damnable. Only one thing was left—flight—That I took and that you must take. Turn your eyes, Phil, and look at her. She saved me from myself; she will save you from yourself. Do you suppose ...
— Colonel Carter's Christmas and The Romance of an Old-Fashioned Gentleman • F. Hopkinson Smith
... Declaration to the Kingdom of England, as the sense of this Kingdom) considered in relation to Religion makes the danger yet the greater and more palpable, yea, may reach further to shake and unsettle Religion established in this Land; If to the premises this be added which is not only often declared, but also demanded, That his Majestie be brought to one of his houses in Honour, Freedom and Safety, ...
— The Acts Of The General Assemblies of the Church of Scotland
... it is to be given something with a meaning. Most people think that to be able to buy what they wish, within reason, is perfect happiness, but it isn't. Barbara, you and this man of yours quite unsettle me and shake my pet theories. You show sides of things in my own birthplace that I never dreamed of looking up, and you convince me, when I am on the wane, that married friendship is the only thing worth living ...
— People of the Whirlpool • Mabel Osgood Wright
... You wouldn't—well, say you couldn't marry me to-morrow. A month hence you would be willing. Because you suffer from a passing illusion, I am to unsettle all my arrangements, and face an intolerable humiliation. ...
— The Crown of Life • George Gissing
... the fact to be noted is that the authorized reviewers are both in honor and in duty bound to keep themselves absolutely clear of controversial bias. The movement is not a movement to alter in any slightest respect the dogmatic teaching of the Church, not a movement to unsettle foundations, not a movement toward disowning or repudiating our past, but simply and only an endeavor to make the Common Prayer, if possible (and we are far from being sure, as yet, that it is possible), a better thing of its kind, more comprehensive, more elastic, ...
— A Short History of the Book of Common Prayer • William Reed Huntington
... you love me. The picture is—the picture: and my lady is—my lady. That's my way of taking things, and I'm not metaphysical; don't unsettle me." ...
— Lady Audley's Secret • Mary Elizabeth Braddon
... Europe—mostly from Italy and the north of Spain—but the great majority are negroes, British subjects from Jamaica and Trinidad. It was foreseen that if negroes from the Southern States were employed, the high wages rates might unsettle the American cotton labor market: so it was decided to recruit from British colonies, and it is not too much to say that, so far as the Canal is hand-made, it is mainly the work of British labor. Several hundreds of Hindus have found their way here; they ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 21 - The Recent Days (1910-1914) • Charles F. Horne, Editor
... was very pious, and knowed lots o' things. Least, I don't know if he was pious, fur he didn't go to church, but he'd his own thoughts o' things, an' he was steady, an' kep' himself to himself. He niver telled me his thoughts o' things—he said it 'ud unsettle me like—but he taught me reading; an' mother, she liked his coming constant to see us. As fur as I knows, he was a good man; but I tell ye, Johnnie, that man had a will—whatsoever thing Dan'el McGair wanted, that thing he mun have, if he died i' the getting. He was about forty, ...
— A Dozen Ways Of Love • Lily Dougall
... Godfather, don't! I asked you not to unsettle me—you're not kind to do it! You're not kind! I must think it's important and, and—the necessary thing to do. I must!" She put her hands over her eyes as she spoke. She was trying to shut out a vision of Paul's embittered face of wrathful chagrin. "That's the trouble with me," she ...
— The Squirrel-Cage • Dorothy Canfield
... was wiser than the fiery captain of the horse. It has been common to censure Hannibal for neglecting to march on Rome after the battle of Cannae. But his dazzling triumph did not for a moment unsettle his clear judgment. He knew that his forces were unequal to the task of storming a walled city garrisoned by a population of fighting men. An attack which he had made on Spoletium had proved the inadequacy of the small Carthaginian army to carry a strongly fortified town. Had he followed ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... of Israel to a more independent basis, as simply to demand that Jews shall continue to control other nations as well as their own. It might be worth while for England to take risks to settle the Jewish problem; but not to take risks merely to unsettle the Arab problem, and ...
— The New Jerusalem • G. K. Chesterton
... railroads. He was always in the county convention, and preferred to serve on the committee on credentials, and leave to others the more showy work of membership in the committee on resolutions. He believed in education, provided it did not unsettle things. He had a good deal of Latin and some Greek, and lived on a farm rather than in a fine house in the county seat because of his lack of financial ability. As a matter of fact, he had been too strictly scrupulous to do ...
— The Brown Mouse • Herbert Quick
... first goose-shooting. The size and number of the birds, the wary and cautious manner of their approach, the nice modulations necessary to "call" them successfully, and the reckless sweep with which they seem to throw aside all fear, and rush into the very jaws of death,—all these combine to unsettle the nerves and ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... meet him and defend ourselves, that we may stand before him and conquer. He is a terrible, mighty foe, says Peter, and is the god of this world. He has more wisdom and more deceptive snares than all men, and can so blind and unsettle reason that it will cheerfully believe and ...
— Epistle Sermons, Vol. III - Trinity Sunday to Advent • Martin Luther
... did not appear auspicious to Gard. If Deming got the run of Villa Elsa, he would unsettle things, interfere with his own work. Jim was a good boy but he played hob with study. And he was just the kind of flashy, ignorant Yankee who would prove to Villa Elsa what it claimed about the race. He would disgust the Buchers with his showy superficiality and dolessness. Mere money, everlasting ...
— Villa Elsa - A Story of German Family Life • Stuart Henry
... multitude of suitors equally enamoured, doting all alike; and where one alone must speed, what shall become of the rest? Hero was beloved of many, but one did enjoy her; Penelope had a company of suitors, yet all missed of their aim. In such cases he or they must wisely and warily unwind themselves, unsettle his affections by those rules above prescribed,— [5856]quin stultos excutit ignes, divert his cogitations, or else bravely bear it out, as Turnus did, Tua sit Lavinia conjux, when he could not get her, with a kind of heroical scorn he bid ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... of the range of ordinary toleration, and as founders of new sects and modes of life, and teachers that lead the ignorant public to believe and accept as truth all the folly they contain. And such is their audacity, they even dare to unsettle the wits of gentlemen of birth and intelligence, as is shown plainly by the way they have served your worship, when they have brought you to such a pass that you have to be shut up in a cage and carried ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... "Then you'll have to unsettle it. I have a right to choose my own occupation, and I don't intend to become a blacksmith. Even if I did, I should choose some one else as ...
— The Young Acrobat of the Great North American Circus • Horatio Alger Jr.
... "has awakened to a sense of perception; and all through my fault, for it's that ballad of mine yesterday which has incited this! But the subtle devices in all these rationalistic books have a most easy tendency to unsettle the natural disposition, and if to-morrow he does actually get up, and talk a lot of insane trash, won't his having fostered this idea owe its origin to that ballad of mine; and shan't I have become the prime ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book I • Cao Xueqin
... head often unsettle the intellect. I take that into consideration in dealing with you. If you go home now and recover from your injury your mind will clear. Then you will have wit enough to decide how soon and how often it will be advisable ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... a time. "Not unless I send for you, Wulf. Our meeting has given me much pleasure, and I shall be the happier for it, but for a time our talk of the past and present will unsettle me and stir up afresh regrets and longings. Therefore, it were best that you come not again until I send ...
— Wulf the Saxon - A Story of the Norman Conquest • G. A. Henty
... left unmolested, except from the belief, freely expressed before him, that nature, by depriving him of intelligence, or of speech, had unfitted him for labor, and he resolved to do nothing that should unsettle that belief. But he found it more difficult than he had supposed it would be to preserve this resolution, for he was subjected to the action of a more potent influence than any he had yet encountered—kindness. All were ready to show him this ...
— Evenings at Donaldson Manor - Or, The Christmas Guest • Maria J. McIntosh
... "are divided among the firms in London, Paris, Vienna, and Frankfort, and it would be impossible for them to be combined and used to unsettle the markets of the world. But Mr. —— could do this and prevent ...
— My Memories of Eighty Years • Chauncey M. Depew
... ignorant of traffic, and it might unsettle her opinions of her uncle's stability. If a man does not maintain credit within his own doors, how can he expect it in ...
— The Water-Witch or, The Skimmer of the Seas • James Fenimore Cooper
... settled, and Mrs. Starling made no attempt to unsettle them; on the other hand, she fell into a condition of permanent unrest which I do not know how to characterize. It was not ill-humour exactly; it was not displeasure; or if, it was displeasure at herself, but it was contrary to all Mrs. Starling's principles ...
— Diana • Susan Warner
... flowers of antennaria, or everlasting. The wood thrush frequently weaves a fragment of newspaper or a white rag into the foundation of its nest. "Evil communications corrupt good manners." The newspaper and the rag-bag unsettle the wits of the birds. The phoebe-bird is capable of this kind of mistake or indiscretion. All the past generations of her tribe have built upon natural and, therefore, neutral sites, usually under shelving and overhanging rocks, and the art ...
— Ways of Nature • John Burroughs
... from the patristic standard, that Peter Lombard, Bishop of Paris, collected in four books the various sayings of the Fathers concerning theological dogmas. He was also influenced to make this exposition by the "Sic et Non" of Abelard, which tended to unsettle belief. This famous manual, called the "Book of Sentences," appeared about the middle of the twelfth century, and had an immense influence. It was the great text-book ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... plans, for which I abandon any foolish ones of my own. But I am a poor philosopher, or rather am like all philosophers, have no presence of mind, and must study my part before I can act it. I have now settled myself not to expect you this year-do not unsettle me: I dread a disappointment, as I do a relapse of the gout; and therefore cut this article short, that I may not indulge vain hopes, My affection for you both is unalterable; can I give so strong a proof as by ...
— Letters of Horace Walpole, V4 • Horace Walpole
... the binding; and in attempting to replace the covers, Hudibras gets the cover which belongs to "Barnes on the Acts of the Apostles." An earthquake in the room would be more apt to improve than to unsettle. There are marks where the inkstand became unstable and made a handwriting on the wall that even Daniel could not have interpreted. If, some fatal day, the wife or housekeeper come in, while the occupant is absent, to "clear up," a damage is done that requires weeks to repair. For many days the ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... said I, "you have done wisely in confiding to me alone your most exciting discovery. Unless we know more, we must not unsettle the others by speaking of it; for it appears to me quite possible that these words were penned long ago on some distant shore, where, by this time, the unhappy stranger may have perished miserably. ...
— Journeys Through Bookland V3 • Charles H. Sylvester
... Judith; yes, you do. The poor fellow dotes on you, and when a man has ra'ally set his heart on such a creatur' it isn't a Mingo, or even a Delaware gal, that'll be likely to unsettle his mind. You may laugh at such men as Hurry and I, for we're rough and unteached in the ways of books and other knowledge; but we've our good p'ints, as well as our bad ones. An honest heart is not to be despised, ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... let us talk about anything more that is disagreeable. I do not want to say anything about Julia. You have taken your way—and I do not mean to unsettle you in it; but Julia is in another line, and I cannot have you interfere with her. I am very sorry it is so,—but it is not my doing. I cannot help it. I do not ...
— The Old Helmet, Volume II • Susan Warner
... Nothing we know can remain unaltered; but the smallest improvement takes an unconscionably long while to execute. Haste means folly, and we have to tell ourselves to go slowly. Things as they are have a fixity which demands moral dynamite to unsettle. We ache with curiosity to see how our plans and purposes will work out; we would give anything to be in at the finish. But there is death. We just ...
— Some Christian Convictions - A Practical Restatement in Terms of Present-Day Thinking • Henry Sloane Coffin
... be asked why, on Lamarck's theory, if serpents wanted more legs they could not have made them, the answer is that the attempt to do this would be to unsettle a question which had been already so long settled, that it would be impossible to reopen it. The animal must adapt itself to four legs, or must get rid of all or some of them if it does not like them; but it has stood so long committed to the theory that if there are ...
— Evolution, Old & New - Or, the Theories of Buffon, Dr. Erasmus Darwin and Lamarck, - as compared with that of Charles Darwin • Samuel Butler
... of your country. You are called to do your country's urgent work. Here is your trouble over one girl. Would you make trouble for a million American girls—would you unsettle thousands and thousands of American homes because, for a time, you have known trouble? All life is only trouble vanquished. I ask you now to be a man; I not only expect it, ...
— 54-40 or Fight • Emerson Hough
... were reduced now almost to wondering when de Spain would leave, and, disinclined though she felt to further parley, she believed he would go the sooner if she were to consent to see him again. Everything he had said to her seemed to unsettle her mind and to imperil impressions concerning him that she felt it dangerous, or at least treasonable, to part with. To believe anything but the worst of a man whom she heard cursed and abused continually by her uncles, cousins, and their associates and retainers, ...
— Nan of Music Mountain • Frank H. Spearman
... as could only be secured by remaining behind, and he knew in his heart that there was reason in what his father had said to him of the danger there was that the voyage and the new scenes in a strange land might unsettle his mind from his books. It cost him something to seem content, even while his father was speaking to him, and he knew well it would grieve the rest to know he was to be left behind, so he would say nothing about it, on this ...
— Janet's Love and Service • Margaret M Robertson
... the terms, and whether the negroes were honest, and sound, and all that. Well, though I looked out as often as I well could with civility, I saw nothing of you, and began to fear that something had happened to unsettle the whole plan; but, after a while, I saw Peter, with his mouth drawn back and hooked up into his ears, with his white teeth glimmering like so many slips of moonshine in a dark night, and I then concluded that all was as it should be. But seeing me look out so earnestly ...
— Confession • W. Gilmore Simms |
