"Break down" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... anything happened to him, what then?" Mrs. Dibbott's eyes were bright with inquiry. "And suppose you break down, what about Elsie?" ...
— The Rapids • Alan Sullivan
... gone," said the Abbess, "to provide some little refreshment. But it will have little savour to those who dwell in the world; for I, at least, cannot dispense with the rules to which I am vowed, because it is the will of wicked men to break down the sanctuary in which they ...
— The Abbot • Sir Walter Scott
... Neither could bear to face the truth that henceforth their courses lay apart, and that if the sister's life were spared, it could only be at the sacrifice of expatriation for many years, in lands where, well or ill, the brother had no call. Nor would Lucilla break down. It was due to her husband not to let him think she suffered too much in resigning home for him; and true to her innate hatred of agitation, she guarded herself from realizing anything, and though perfectly kind and respectful to Honora, ...
— Hopes and Fears - scenes from the life of a spinster • Charlotte M. Yonge
... his possibilities, as he awakens into a consciousness of his powers and capabilities, he laughs at the old despondent, pessimistic ideas, and discards them like a worn-out garment. Man on the Mental Plane of consciousness is like a huge elephant who knows not his own strength. He could break down barriers and assert himself over nearly any condition or environment, but in his ignorance of his real condition and power he may be mastered by a puny driver, or frightened by the rustling of a piece ...
— A Series of Lessons in Raja Yoga • Yogi Ramacharaka
... him to look after the babies, and he promised her he would. And then she just lay holding his hand till she died. He seemed dazed-like when they told him she were gone, and just went straight out without a word. No one ever saw young Dick break down after that. He's got ...
— The Obstacle Race • Ethel M. Dell
... day of suspense and silence. Suppose the affair were going ill, and not well! Suppose that, after all, the Prefect had refused to gratify the General, and that no imperial command was coming to break down Herve's resistance, strong enough in that quarter! Georges promised her, as he rode away, that the matter should be cleared ...
— Angelot - A Story of the First Empire • Eleanor Price
... truths about the woman question, a headlong assault upon the national decencies. In the South, where the suspicion of ideas goes to extraordinary lengths, even for the United States, some of the newspapers actually denounced the book as German propaganda, designed to break down American morale, and called upon the Department of Justice to proceed against me for the crime known to American law as "criminal anarchy," i.e., "imagining the King's death." Why the Comstocks did not forbid it the mails as lewd and lascivious ...
— In Defense of Women • H. L. Mencken
... seemed to be something compelling about his manner. It was at once sympathetic and persuasive. Quite evidently he was taking pains to break down the prejudice in her mind which she had already ...
— The War Terror • Arthur B. Reeve
... thanks; his heart was too full for him to speak, and he felt that if he said a word he should break down altogether. They rode rapidly along, passed through the little valley where the bear had been killed, without stopping, and went down the lower canon, carefully examining it to fix upon the most suitable point for defence. ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... personal ambition. It was quite otherwise with James. He was by no means fearless, and he cared more for James Stuart than for either England or Scotland. He had an overweening opinion of his skill in kingcraft. In coming to Westminster it was his policy to use his newly acquired power to break down the Puritan party in both kingdoms and to fasten episcopacy upon Scotland. In pursuing this policy he took no heed of English national sentiment, but was quite ready to defy and insult it, even to the point ...
— The Beginnings of New England - Or the Puritan Theocracy in its Relations to Civil and Religious Liberty • John Fiske
... grander—such men as Voltaire, such men as Diderot, such men as the encyclopedists, such men as Hume, such men as Bruno, such men as Thomas Paine? If Christianity is true, that man who spent his life in breaking chains is now wearing the chains of God; that man who wished to break down the prison walls of tyranny is now in the prison of the most merciful Christ. It will not do. I can hardly express to you today my contempt for such a doctrine; and if it be true, I make my choice today, and I ...
— Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Volume I • Robert Green Ingersoll
... of these expeditions. What has to be considered is not how far the troops can go, but how far the baggage animals can keep up with them. Some of the animals are no doubt good, but many of them are altogether unfitted for the work. When these break down they block a whole line; and often, even if the march is a short one, it is very late at night before the last of the baggage comes in; which means that we get neither kit, blankets, nor food, and think ourselves lucky if we ...
— Through Three Campaigns - A Story of Chitral, Tirah and Ashanti • G. A. Henty
... he can render them all, so to speak, by the way, give them all their due without any study of them outside the passing episode. So he can, at least, in general; for in Anna Karenina, as I said, his method seems to break down very conspicuously at a certain juncture. But before I come to that, I would dwell further upon this peculiar skill of Tolstoy's, this facility which explains, I think, the curious flaw in his beautiful novel. He would appear to have trusted ...
— The Craft of Fiction • Percy Lubbock
... and they could never do it, did they not bind hard the stomach, chest and head with strong bands. And each of them carries with him a gerfalcon tablet, in sign that he is bound on an urgent express; so that if perchance his horse break down, or he meet with other mishap, whomsoever he may fall in with on the road, he is empowered to make him dismount and give up his horse. Nobody dares refuse in such a case; so that the courier hath always a good fresh nag to carry ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
... trembling for a moment; 'I want to tell you all about it, and you will see that no one is to blame. The perception has been growing on me for a long time, but I was weak enough to indulge in the dream. It was very sweet!' There again she struggled not to break down, gained the victory, and went on, 'I don't think I should have dared to imagine it myself, but I saw others thought it, who knew more; I knew the incredible was sometimes true, and every little kindness he did—Oh! how foolish! as if he could help ...
— The Young Step-Mother • Charlotte M. Yonge
... he walked into the room. She had been expecting him. She was delighted, and so confused at her own delight that there was a moment, the moment when he went up to her sister and glanced again at her, when she, and he, and Dolly, who saw it all, thought she would break down and would begin to cry. She crimsoned, turned white, crimsoned again, and grew faint, waiting with quivering lips for him to come to her. He went up to her, bowed, and held out his hand without speaking. Except for the slight quiver ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find no such ...
— Famous Reviews • Editor: R. Brimley Johnson
... appellation for himself. Abnormally keen at locating possibilities for extracting "honey" from the governmental affairs in Washington, he invariably led Peabody, representing the hunter with the ax, to the repository. He would then rely on the Pennsylvanian's superior force to break down the barriers. Stevens would flutter about ...
— A Gentleman from Mississippi • Thomas A. Wise
... the first to break down, and about the middle of the nineteenth century the Westminster Play began to observe the true quantities in the antepenultimate syllables. Thus in spite of 'cons[)i]deration' boys said s[i]dera, and ...
— Society for Pure English Tract 4 - The Pronunciation of English Words Derived from the Latin • John Sargeaunt
... single-minded in his aims than his brother, he could hardly help being so; and, having to reconcile so many conflicting interests, he may have swerved from what would have been his own ideal. But that his main purpose was to break down a rotten system, and establish a sound one on its ruins, and that no petty motive of expediency guided him, but only the one principle, 'salus populi suprema lex,' is incontrovertible. When we think of him so ...
— The Gracchi Marius and Sulla - Epochs Of Ancient History • A.H. Beesley
... matter of talk that it is said there is at this hour, in the Exchequer, as much money as is ready to break down the floor. This arises, I believe, from Sir G. Downing's late talk of the greatness of the sum lying there of people's money, that they would not fetch away, which he shewed me and a great many others. ...
— Diary of Samuel Pepys, Complete • Samuel Pepys
... For nobler foe he wished not, could not spy, Of desperate courage showed he tokens true, Where'er he joined, or stayed, or passed by, And cried to the Duke as near he drew, "Behold of thy strong hand I come to die, Yet trust to overthrow thee with my fall, My castle's ruins shall break down thy wall." ...
— Jerusalem Delivered • Torquato Tasso
... appropriately called the Arabs of the west. Between them and the Sacs and Foxes, there has existed, from the settlement of the two latter tribes on the waters of the Mississippi, a hostility of feeling that has kept them embroiled in a constant warfare. The efforts of government to break down their prejudices and make peace between them, have failed in accomplishing that benevolent end. It is not, however, against the Sacs and Foxes alone, that their arms are turned. From time immemorial they have been at war with the Chippeways, and are also constantly making hostile incursions ...
— Great Indian Chief of the West - Or, Life and Adventures of Black Hawk • Benjamin Drake
... break down and cry again until she had reached her own room. Then the tears came in ...
— The Merriweather Girls in Quest of Treasure • Lizette M. Edholm
... of sufficient size and strength could be placed over us we could see ourselves as sieves—our space lattice, as it is called. And all that is necessary to break down the lattice, to shake us into nothingness, is some agent that will set our atoms vibrating at such a rate that at last they escape the unseen cords ...
— The Moon Pool • A. Merritt
... up to even a sixteenth part of thyself, O Dhananjaya, confessing thy own faults, why dost thou not feel shame? I can rend asunder this earth in rage, or split the very mountains in whirling that terrible and heavy mace of mine, decked with gold. Like the tempest, I can break down gigantic trees looking like hills. I can, with my arrows, rout the united celestials with Indra at their head, together with all the Rakshasas, O Partha, and the Asuras, the Uragas and human beings. Knowing me, thy brother, to be such, O bull among ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... and patted, and all seemed to welcome him; he cared for their comforts as he cared for the comforts of every living being around him. He used to say, 'I am all for cheap luxuries, even for animals; now all animals have a passion for scratching their back bones. They break down your gates and palings to effect this. Look! there is my universal scratcher, a sharp-edged pole, resting on a high and a low post, adapted to every height, from a horse to a lamb. Even the Edinburgh Reviewer can take his turn. You ...
— Heads and Tales • Various
... three hours or more two tablespoonfuls of oatmeal in one quart of water. Reduce liquid to one pint and strain. The long boiling is necessary to break down the cell walls and to make the gruel easy of digestion ...
— The Community Cook Book • Anonymous
... at another, he stanches thy sad wound; {and} now he stops the fleeting life by the application of herbs. His skill is of no avail. The wound is incurable. As if, in a well-watered garden, any one should break down violets, or poppies, and lilies, as they adhere to their yellow stalks; drooping, they would suddenly hang down their languid heads, and could not support themselves; and would look towards the ground with their tops. So sink his dying features; and, forsaken ...
— The Metamorphoses of Ovid - Literally Translated into English Prose, with Copious Notes - and Explanations • Publius Ovidius Naso
... How then are we so to reorganize society that we may gain the end in view? It is a question not easy of solution. Granted the fact of social differentiation and the necessity of its recognition, how are we to break down the wholly wrong system that now obtains and substitute another in its place? It would be simple enough if within the period allowed us by safety (apparently not any too extended at the present moment) a working majority of men could ...
— Towards the Great Peace • Ralph Adams Cram
... an evening of rejoicing, for by the addition of our rhinoceros horns, our waggons were piled up to the very top; and my uncle expressed some apprehension that the axles might break down with the weight of the unusual load before ...
— Adventures in Africa - By an African Trader • W.H.G. Kingston
... of the Persians met with very different fates, and by their own fault. When Pausanias went back to Sparta, he found his life there too stern and full of restraint, after what he had been used to in his campaign. He tried to break down the power of the Ephors, and obtain something more like royalty for the kings, and this he hoped to do by the help of Persia. He used to meet the messenger of this traitorous correspondence in the temple of ...
— Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Greek History • Charlotte M. Yonge
... time he had been completely idle—at any rate, as far as the law was concerned—since the day of his great break down on the receipt of Miss Waddington's letter. He still kept his Temple chambers, and when the day came round in October, he made another annual payment to Mr. Die. On that occasion Mr. Die had spoken rather seriously to him; but up to that time his period of idleness had ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope
... many a longing eye is turned towards it as they pass the saddle at the valley head; but the attempt is hopeless, they turn again to the left, and so down towards the rancho, taking care (so the prudent Amyas had commanded) to break down, after crossing, the frail rope bridge which spans each ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... we'll need to guide it a bit, so it doesn't break down too much of the young growth when ...
— Wanderers • Knut Hamsun
... choice between these two extremes. Upbraid Philip with his faithlessness? No; not without proofs. What did that hateful letter say? "Wait and watch;" yes, that was what she would do. But she could not wait here; she felt as though she must go somewhere, get some change of scene, or she should break down. She had heard Mrs. Jacobs speak of a village not more than two hours from London that a convalescent lodger of hers had visited and found charming. She would go there for a week, and watch the spring cast her mantle over the earth, and ...
— Dawn • H. Rider Haggard
... diabolically ingenious scheme of revenge. He told his landlady he was going to Devonport, so that if he bungled, the police would be put temporarily off his track. His real destination was Liverpool, for he intended to leave the country. Lest, however, his plan should break down here, too, he arranged an ingenious alibi by being driven to Euston for the 5:15 train to Liverpool. The cabman would not know he did not intend to go by it, but meant to return to 11, Glover Street, there to perpetrate this foul crime, interruption to which ...
— The Big Bow Mystery • I. Zangwill
... and, feeling very sad again, rose to light the lamp in case she should break down. Aunt Hepsy was wonderfully kind that night—she could be kind sometimes if she liked—and, altogether, the evening passed pleasantly. Tom went to bed early, as they were to start by the morning train. Lucy followed almost immediately. About half-an-hour ...
— Thankful Rest • Annie S. Swan
... was done in Africa, and which became afterwards a fundamental principle of law under the empire. From him proceeded the tactics, whereby demagogues and tyrants, leaning for support on material interests, break down the governing Aristocracy, but subsequently legitimize the change of constitution by substituting a strict and efficient administration for the previous misgovernment. To him, in particular, are traceable the first steps towards such a reconciliation between Rome and the provinces ...
— The History of Rome (Volumes 1-5) • Theodor Mommsen
... Of course I do. Or no! Hold on! Wait! It won't do! No; you must take the leading part, and I'll support you, and I'll come in strong if you break down. That's the way we have got to work it. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... and to the maiden, although I might lose everything except a heavy heart for it. And indeed, more hearts than mine were heavy; for when it came to the tug of parting, my mother was like, and so was Annie, to break down altogether. But I bade them be of good cheer, and smiled in the briskest manner upon them, and said that I should be back next week as one of His Majesty's greatest captains, and told them not to fear me then. Upon which they smiled at the idea of ever being ...
— Lorna Doone - A Romance of Exmoor • R. D. Blackmore
... supply and demand, but by the quantity of available products. A general fall of wages in consequence of over-production will be impossible."[1241] In other words, the beautiful schemes of remuneration independent of the laws of supply and demand discussed in the foregoing would immediately break down. In order to redistribute labour, workers would either have to be compelled by direct force to work in those trades which required additional labour, or their wages or hours of work would arbitrarily be altered in order to effect the necessary changes by economic pressure—that is, by reducing ...
— British Socialism - An Examination of Its Doctrines, Policy, Aims and Practical Proposals • J. Ellis Barker
... window. He wanted a minute to think it out, to understand clearly before the tale went on. He could see just how Anthony had read Cousin Jasper's character, sensitive, high-strung, with strong affections that not even great wrongs could quite break down. But how mistaken the man had been who thought Jasper Peyton was a weak-willed person to ...
— The Windy Hill • Cornelia Meigs
... best novel in the English language,—a palm which I only partially withdrew after a second reading of Ivanhoe, and did not completely bestow elsewhere till Esmond was written. And though I would occasionally break down in my spelling, I could write a letter. If I had a thing to say, I could so say it in written words that the readers should know what I meant,—a power which is by no means at the command of all those who come out from these competitive examinations with triumph. Early ...
— Autobiography of Anthony Trollope • Anthony Trollope
... as if he had been let out for a romp; and then came the captain staggerin' along, his face scorched, his coat half burned off him, the woman in his arms in a dead faint and pretty nigh smothered. The old fool had locked herself in her stateroom—he had to break down the door to get at her—cryin' she'd rather die there than be separated from ...
— The Veiled Lady - and Other Men and Women • F. Hopkinson Smith
... to be kept inviolably secret, cannot be doubted by any man who considers, that secrecy is one of the conditions of those treaties, without which they had not been concluded; and, therefore, that to discover them is to violate them, to break down the securities of human society, to destroy mutual trust, and introduce into the world universal confusion. For nothing less can be produced by a disregard of those ties which link nations in confederacies, and produce confidence ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 11. - Parlimentary Debates II. • Samuel Johnson
... back in her chair, and tried to appear at her ease; but her heart was thumping tumultuously. The man was going to propose, she knew—she knew; and she was not ready for him. She felt that she would break down ignominiously if he pressed his suit ...
— The Swindler and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... the transfer of ownership from the masters to the laborers themselves need not necessarily have great effect for the time being upon the actual wealth of the community as a whole. Emancipation would most probably, however, break down the plantation system by making the labor supply unstable, and fill the country partly with peasant farmers and partly with an unattached and floating negro population. Exceptional negroes and mulattoes would be sure to thrive ...
— American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime • Ulrich Bonnell Phillips
... Flannagan had ceased his efforts to break down the door, and was endeavoring to persuade Billy that he might as well come out quietly and submit to arrest. Byrne had drawn his revolver again. Now he motioned to Bridge to come to ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... not dash themselves against a barrier which is entirely closed, even though it be very frail; but if they can see through it to the outside, they will rush against it, and their great weight and strength make it easy for them to break down any but a heavy wall. Mr. Hugh Monroe tells me that he has seen a pis'kun built of willow brush; and the Cheyennes have stated to me that their buffalo corrals were often built of brush. Sometimes, if the walls of the pis'kun were not high, the buffalo tried to jump or climb over them, and, ...
— Blackfoot Lodge Tales • George Bird Grinnell
... of the horn sound in rapid succession. Men and horses collect the last remnant of their strength. Every moment one fancies they must break down. The towing-rope, a three-inch cable, is as taut as a bow-string, and the iron bolt round which the rope is wound is burning hot with the friction. The captain stands by with a sharp ax in ...
— Timar's Two Worlds • Mr Jkai
... seaman's work,— a greenhorn, a land-lubber. To make a sailor shoulder a handspike, and walk fore and aft the deck, like a sentry, is as ignominious a punishment as can be put upon him. Such a punishment inflicted upon an able seaman in a vessel of war might break down his spirit more than ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana
... said something to me, I do not know what, which challenged a frank reply; for I disclosed to him, I do not know in what words, my frightful suspicion, hitherto only known to two persons, as regards my Anglicanism, perhaps I might break down in the event, that perhaps we were both out of the Church. He answered me thus, under date of Jan. 29, 1842: "I don't think that I ever was so shocked by any communication, which was ever made to me, as by your letter of this morning. It has quite unnerved ...
— Apologia pro Vita Sua • John Henry Newman
... considering it as the self-acting, independent seducer, would be in direct contradiction to the position assigned to the animal creation throughout Holy Scripture—especially in the history of the creation—and would break down the limits which, according to it, separate man and beast. By such an assumption we should be transferred from the Israelitish territory—which is distinguished by the most sharply defined limitations of the respective spheres of ...
— Christology of the Old Testament: And a Commentary on the Messianic Predictions, v. 1 • Ernst Wilhelm Hengstenberg
... bad for Hull. Don't you think you ought to go to the police with your story? Then we can have Hull arrested. They'll give him the third degree. My opinion is he'll break down under it and confess." ...
— Tangled Trails - A Western Detective Story • William MacLeod Raine
... day of spring is due to arrive, if the calendar does not break down, about the twenty-first of March, when the earth turns the corner of Sun Alley and starts for Summer Street. But the first spring day is not on the time-table at all. It comes when it is ready, and in the latitude of New York this is usually ...
— Fisherman's Luck • Henry van Dyke
... of heart at this sight, and seeing none of his designs succeed, thought best to retreat, but fearing the narrow passage at the gate, sent to his son Helenus, who was left without the town with a great part of his forces, commanding him to break down part of the wall, and assist the retreat if the enemy pressed hard upon them. But what with haste and confusion, the person that was sent delivered nothing clearly; so that quite mistaking, the young ...
— Plutarch's Lives • A.H. Clough
... I break down, John, it won't be owing to the picture itself so much as because of what ...
— Echoes of the War • J. M. Barrie
... "Break down great London Bridge, young hero?" cried the amazed king. "How may that be? Have we a Duke Samson among us to do so great ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... and caught him coming out. I was watching old Johnstone, for fear he would give me the slip. I didn't tell—I wanted to come over here and get the jewels myself. Hang old Ram Lal! He's a cowardly murderer! Telegraph to the Viceroy to arrest the jewel seller; he will break down and confess at once. Make him pay poor Justine Delande all my drafts—Johnstone gave him that money for me to keep me silent about the stolen crown jewels. Now—now, all grows dark! Lift me up high—higher!" he gasped. ...
— A Fascinating Traitor • Richard Henry Savage
... soon as I saw what was coming. Now, my plan is this. We will take the Spanish crowd aboard and run them down toward Mulata Bay, which will put an effectual stopper upon any attempt to dispatch another expedition. But, when we get down abreast of our destination, our engines will break down, and instead of going into Mulata Bay, we shall go driving helplessly away down to leeward before this fine, roaring trade wind; and before we can get the ship again under command the James B. Potter will have discharged ...
— The Cruise of the Thetis - A Tale of the Cuban Insurrection • Harry Collingwood
... society had in England naturally been French lords and English tillers of the soil; but commerce had never accommodated itself to this agricultural system, and the growth of trade, of towns, of other forms of wealth than land, tended concurrently to break down French and feudal domination. A large number of towns had been granted, or rather sold, charters by Richard I and John, not because those monarchs were interested in municipal development, but because they wanted money, and in their rights of jurisdiction over towns on the royal ...
— The History of England - A Study in Political Evolution • A. F. Pollard
... was that burdens were laid upon one man that should have been borne by two or three. To many a man the increase in the number of detachments meant doubling his hours in the saddle and lessening his hours for recuperation. One wonders that more men did not break down under the strain. But for their invariable high calibre this would have been the result. An indication of the way in which the arduous labours of the Police were appreciated is found in the 1909 report of the Commissioner ...
— Policing the Plains - Being the Real-Life Record of the Famous North-West Mounted Police • R.G. MacBeth
... need not be told. Beard stood listening, and when it was finished said, with tears in his eyes, "But Mr. Handel, I can never sing it like that." And so he would tell the story with tears in his voice, such as those best remember, who ever heard him read some piece of his dear old Crabbe, and break down in ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald - in two volumes, Vol. 1 • Edward FitzGerald
... a right to her own visitors—nobody ever dreamed that the thing was permanent, and nobody could break down that adamantine wall of Christian virtue she suffered behind, not owning that ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman
... to achieve a shameful victory, but to give myself to you without reserve, to render you my conqueror and my king. Prove your love by making me happy, break down the barrier which I kept intact, despite its fragility and my ardour, and if this sacrifice does not convince you of my affection you must be ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... Man. These Fiery Lives on our plane correspond, in this controlling and organising function, with the One Life of the Universe,[7] and when they no longer exercise this function in the human body, the lower lives run rampant, and begin to break down the hitherto definitely organised body. During bodily life they are marshalled as an army; marching in regular order under the command of a general, performing various evolutions, keeping step, moving as a single body. At "Death" they ...
— Death—and After? • Annie Besant
... discussing this information with Klearchus, who was much alarmed by it, a young Greek present remarked that the two matters stated by the informant contradicted each other; for that if Tissaphernes intended to attack the Greeks during the night, he would not break down the bridge, so as both to prevent his own troops on the other side from crossing to aid, and to deprive those on this side of all retreat if they were beaten,—while, if the Greeks were beaten, there was no escape open to them, whether the bridge continued or not. This remark ...
— The Two Great Retreats of History • George Grote
... juncture the Articles of Confederation, framed during the war when union was felt to be imperative, did invaluable service. They solemnly committed the States to perpetual union. Their provisions for extradition of criminals and for inter-State citizenship helped to break down the barriers between State and State. Congress, by discharging its various duties on behalf of all the States, kept steadily before the public mind the idea of a national government, armed with at least a semblance ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... a long and fluent grace wherein much latinity was aired, a neat allusion made to the jus divinum, and an anathema hurled against those "who break down the carved work of the sanctuary." Then was uncovered the mighty saddle of mutton, reposing in the dish of honor, the roast pig, the haunch of venison, the sirloin of beef, the breast of veal, the powdered goose, the noble dish of sheepshead ...
— Prisoners of Hope - A Tale of Colonial Virginia • Mary Johnston
... her trouble was very heavy upon her—when Hugh had been more than usually restless, and had spoken irritably and sharply to her—she would break down utterly and nestle her face against his in a ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... already said that one peculiarity of the topography of the sacred city is that, at first sight, the metaphor of my text seems to break down, for nobody, looking at the situation of the city with uninstructed eye, would say that it was compassed all around with mountains. On two sides it manifestly is; on two sides it apparently is not, though the land rises on the north ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... within sight of the dorm so that I can manage to be passing when you drive up, several hours late, with Speed. What happens after that will be regrettable but hardly any fault of yours. Automobiles do break down ... even ...
— Interference and Other Football Stories • Harold M. Sherman
... current theory thus appears to break down over the deities of certain Australian tribes and of other low savages to be more particularly described later, it is not more successful in dealing with what we have called the "fault" or break in the religious strata of higher races. The nature ...
— Myth, Ritual, and Religion, Vol. 1 • Andrew Lang
... these things. Those who believe that sickness is inevitable, manifest it in their life. Morbid thinking produces a morbid state of the body, causing it either to fall an easy prey to infection or to break down into chronic ill-health, or even disease. Allowing the thoughts to dwell upon morbid things is a sure way to sickness ...
— Within You is the Power • Henry Thomas Hamblin
... when you brought us here to convince us that our country was not only responsible for the war, but beaten. You hoped we would somehow bring about the assassination of the Kaiser and the Crown Prince Ruprecht of Bavaria—all the great generals. Is it not so? That would, assuredly, break down the morale of the army, give it a more smashing blow than any it has received even on the Western front. Well, it cannot be done. Even I could not obtain a pass into Great Headquarters. You might as well expect a British soldier to be permitted to saunter over from his lines ...
— The White Morning • Gertrude Atherton
... after stimulus till the brandy, or whatever it is, ceases to have its effect. I knew one poor fellow who used to heat brandy over a spirit lamp to make its effect more rapid. Yes, ceases to have its effect, and more is used. Then the digestive powers break down, the over-goaded brain leaps from its bounds, and we have the delirium that ends in men feeling that life is not worth living, and makes them ...
— Witness to the Deed • George Manville Fenn
... as a guide in the manly exercises which could be pursued in his following with more spirit and zeal than in the Queen's surroundings. The great power of the Douglases, which it took so much bloodshed to break down, and which James II had spent all his life in contending with, extinguished in one branch of the family, seemed now to have developed in another with increased and extended force. Angus was as great, as potent, as universally feared as the Earls of Douglas had ever been; ...
— Royal Edinburgh - Her Saints, Kings, Prophets and Poets • Margaret Oliphant
... so marked that the girl stood speechless, scarcely breathing, wondering what would come next—whether his words would break down the barrier that held ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... needs to break down barriers that discourage U.S. partnerships with international donors and Iraqi participants to promote reconstruction. The ability of the United States to form such partnerships will encourage greater ...
— The Iraq Study Group Report • United States Institute for Peace
... excuse, that Canterbury would be inundated with vicious characters, who would corrupt the morals of the young men; that such a school would break down the distinctions between black and white; and that marriages between people of different colors would be the probable result. Yet they assumed the ground that colored people must always be an inferior and degraded class—that the prejudice against them must be eternal; being deeply ...
— An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans • Lydia Maria Child
... away and stood by the fireplace, looking straight before her. She was holding herself together with a terrible effort; she must quiet her brain and beat back her thoughts. If she thought for a moment she would break down, and during these ten days she had been schooling herself to face whatever might come—shame, exposure, anything—she would not cry and beg for pity as she had done before. But it was the end, the end, the end! The end of so much that had given her a new ...
— The Wooden Horse • Hugh Walpole
... or hellebore. They wrap up fifty copies and mark them C.O.D. But if the expressman, according to that mark, should collect on delivery all the curses that shall come on the head of the publishing house which printed them, he would break down his wagon and kill his horses with the load. Let parents and guardians be especially watchful. Have a quarantine at your front door for all books and newspapers. Let the health doctor go abroad and see whether there is any ...
— Around The Tea-Table • T. De Witt Talmage
... Marion. "Abby is passably good-looking and rather graceful; besides, she has a clear, strong voice, and plenty of self-confidence. She would not be apt to get flustered. Annie Conwell, now, is a dear child; but perhaps she would be timid, and it would spoil the whole play if the Queen should break down." ...
— Apples, Ripe and Rosy, Sir • Mary Catherine Crowley
... these considerations, he meditated a retreat. On the eleventh day of November, he decamped from Faiola, marched under the walls of Rome, passed the Tiber at Ponte Mole, formerly known by the name of Pons Milvius, which he had just time to break down behind him, when the vanguard of the Spaniards and Neapolitans appeared. Part of his rear-guard, however, was taken, with count Soro who commanded it, at Nocero; and his army suffered greatly by desertion. Nevertheless, ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.II. - From William and Mary to George II. • Tobias Smollett
... the tree! He doth not stoop to feed on that which he treadeth under foot! Does the hawk look for the musketoe? His eye is too big. He can see a bird. Go—when the deer have been killed the Wampanoags will break down the fence with their own hands. The arm of a hungry man is strong. A cunning Pale-face hath made that fence—it shutteth out the colt, and it shutteth in the Indian But the mind of a warrior is too big; it will not be kept at grass with ...
— The Wept of Wish-Ton-Wish • James Fenimore Cooper
... Ernest saw at once that it was his own leader, as altered and corrected by Mr. Lancaster. He asked the boy whether he might see it; and the boy, knowing it was Ernest's own writing, handed it to him at once without further question. Ernest did not dare to look at it then and there for fear he should break down utterly before the boy; he put it for the moment into his inner pocket, and buttoned his thin overcoat tightly around him. It was colder still in the frosty air of early morning, and the contrast to the heated atmosphere of the printing house struck him with ominous chill as he issued slowly ...
— Philistia • Grant Allen
... to American thought, of self-determination. On returning from abroad toward the end of 1917 I ventured into print with the statement that the great war had every aspect of a race with revolution. Subliminal desires, subliminal fears, when they break down the censor of law, are apt to inspire fanatical creeds, to wind about their victims the flaming flag of a false martyrdom. Today it is on the knees of the gods whether the insuppressible impulses for human freedom that come roaring up from the subliminal chaos, ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... gone. He would not admit that he was ill—dared not. All illness now meant the end of everything. It would wipe out all that they had endured if he were to break down now. It would kill Christine. She must ...
— The Dark House • I. A. R. Wylie
... these feeble Jews? Will they fortify themselves? will they sacrifice? will they make an end in a day? will they revive the stones out of the heaps of rubbish which are burnt? Alas, if a fox go up, he will even break down their stone wall." ...
— The Riches of Bunyan • Jeremiah Rev. Chaplin
... many pages which shall do good to his fellow men, or which shall at the least amuse them. But as you carefully drive an unsound horse, walking him at first starting, not trotting him down hill, making play at parts of the road which suit him; so you must manage many men, or they will break down or bolt out of the path. Above all, so you must manage your own mind, whose weaknesses and wrong impulses you know best, if you would keep it cheerful, and keep it in working order. The showy, unsound horse can go well perhaps, but it must be ...
— The Recreations of A Country Parson • A. K. H. Boyd
... was not to this gay Gordon a "painless languor"; and if she failed to have nervous prostration—under another name—she was cheated of her dues. Wear-and-tear plus luxury is said to break down the human system more rapidly than wear-and-tear plus want; but perhaps wear-and-tear plus pensive self-consideration is the most destructive agent of all. "Apres tout, c'est un monde passable"; and the Duchess of Gordon was too busy ...
— Americans and Others • Agnes Repplier
... she sang of the laughter that is above, she was less unworldly on the morrow. Brother Friedsam, as she had foreseen, began to break down the rebellion about the singing school. He was too good a strategist to attack the strong point of the insurrection first. He began with good-natured Thecla, who could laugh away yesterday's vexations, and ...
— Duffels • Edward Eggleston
... without injury to their essential reality" (vi. 647). In consistency with all this, M. Comte warns thinkers against too severe a scrutiny of the exact truth of scientific laws, and stamps with "severe reprobation" those who break down "by too minute an investigation" generalizations already made, without being able to substitute others (vi. 639): as in the case of Lavoisier's general theory of chemistry, which would have made that science more satisfactory than at present ...
— Auguste Comte and Positivism • John-Stuart Mill
... to break down the stone ramparts; many hundred boats forming a river flotilla covered the Danube, so as to cut off all communication between the fortress and Hungary. During this time Huniades' son Ladislaus, and his brother-in-law Michael Szilagyi, were in command ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... without me?" asked Lily eagerly, not wishing to break down and cry before Jimmy. "Poor Pa! Yes, he was fond of me. He never let me fall on purpose. He did not force me to work ...
— The Bill-Toppers • Andre Castaigne
... anybody. He knew that the voluntary system, in which he believed, was going to break down. We had no national register. A country as big as twenty Englands, with a population about one-fourth as big, had also Quebec—and the farmer. The Canadian census was five years old and useless for anything ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... Plumer's improvements proceed from two series of data. First, certain theoretical inferences from the facts above named. Finding the arches liable to break down, he supports the transverse arch by making the inner surface of the sole corresponding to it convex instead of concave transversely; he makes the middle portion of the sole convex again in both directions to support the longitudinal arch, and for ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Volume 11, Issue 67, May, 1863 • Various
... Glynn, and take a nap. I'd feel less brutally selfish if I could see your eyes calmer. Besides, being shut away here from all I'm dying to have makes an idiot of me. If you stay any longer, looking at me with those queer eyes of yours, I may break down and tell you all about it, just for the dangerous joy of easing my own soul by dumping a load on yours. Good God! Miss Glynn, such women as you should not be nurses; it isn't fair. I'd give—let me see—well, I'd ...
— The Place Beyond the Winds • Harriet T. Comstock
... the table, read a chapter, verse for verse. Then followed the recitation of the catechism in that queer, mechanical gabble that Bessie recollected so well. "If you stop to think you are sure to break down," was still the warning. After that Jack said the collect and epistle for the day, and Willie and Tom said the gospel, and the lesser ones said psalms and hymns and spiritual songs; and by the time this duty was accomplished ...
— The Vicissitudes of Bessie Fairfax • Harriet Parr
... there's no peace in the place for the spite of him, and when they thinks he is safe locked into his chamber, there he be a-clogging of the spit, or changing sugar into pepper, or making the stool break down under one. Oh, he be a strange one, sir, or summat worse. I have heerd him myself hollaing 'Ho! ho! ho!' on the downs enough ...
— A Reputed Changeling • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the Girl. "I will! Oh I didn't know a thing on earth could make me happy! I didn't know I really could be glad. Oh if the ice in my heart would melt, and the wall break down, and the girlhood I've never known would come yet! Oh ...
— The Harvester • Gene Stratton Porter
... the point is that after a time Crawford came around to the belief that there should be a real El Hassan. That the primary task at this point is to unite the area, to break down the old tribal society and introduce the populace ...
— Border, Breed Nor Birth • Dallas McCord Reynolds
... God, as displayed by Milton, is that of a commercial, complacent, irritable Puritan. There is no largeness or graciousness about it, no wistful love. He keeps his purposes to himself, and when his arrangements break down, as indeed they deserve to do, some one has got to be punished. If the guilty ones cannot, so much the worse; an innocent victim will do, but a victim there must be. It is a wicked, an abominable passage, and I would no more allow an intelligent child ...
— The Thread of Gold • Arthur Christopher Benson
... Sarah. There were seven children in the family. How hard it must be for Abraham to bring them up as Christians, in the midst of his heathen neighbors. Even his brothers hate him, wound his cattle, and break down his fences. Once they pointed a gun at him, but it did not go off. Abraham's comfort is to walk over to Kandy every Saturday, to worship God there on Sunday with the Christians; and he does not find fifteen miles too far for his willing feet. May the Lord preserve ...
— Far Off • Favell Lee Mortimer
... held his breath, and remained very still, as if fearful lest word or movement should break the spell. After five years of unloved loneliness, this first spontaneous caress from his wife, with its delicate suggestion of intimacy, seemed to break down invisible barriers and set new life ...
— The Great Amulet • Maud Diver
... establishing the principle of political freedom. The Church was the schoolmaster of the Middle Ages. Culture was the humanizing and refining influence of the Renaissance. The problem for the present and the future is how, through education, to render culture accessible to all—to break down that barrier which in the Middle Ages was set between clerk and layman, and which in the intermediate period has arisen between the intelligent and ignorant classes. Whether the Utopia of a modern world in which all men shall enjoy the same social, political, and intellectual advantages ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Volume 07 • Various
... natural fact. It meant difference, not of rank, but of tribe and language; and India is not, as we are apt to fancy, a nation: it is a world. One must therefore regard this emigration of the Coolies, like anything else which tends to break down caste, as a probable step forward in their civilisation. For it must tend to undermine in them, and still more in their children, the petty superstitions of old tribal distinctions; and must force them to take their stand on wider and sounder ground, and ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley
... their temples were the most perfect models of architecture"; and equally an evidence of the practical energy of the old Romans, that their stone bridges often remain to this hour intact. Our own incomplete civilization is manifest in the marvellous number of bridges that annually break down, from negligent or unscientific construction; while the indomitable enterprise of the people is no less apparent in some of the longest, loftiest, most wonderfully constructed and sustained bridges in the world. We have only to cross the Suspension Bridge at Niagara, or gaze up to its aerial tracery ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 12, No. 74, December, 1863 • Various
... cause his slaughter. To acquiesce, on the other hand, was it not an act of unexampled foolhardiness thus to place himself more absolutely within the power of these savage cannibals? His policy of boldness had availed so far; it would not do to break down at the last moment. So he accepted without ...
— The Sign of the Spider • Bertram Mitford
... like your mistress's tongue, Your speed will outrival the dart: But, a fly for your load, you'll break down on the road If your stuff has the rot, ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... tends, no doubt, to break down some of these popular distinctions. Just as the zoologist sometimes groups together varieties of animals which the unscientific eye would never think of connecting, so the psychologist may analyze mental operations which appear widely dissimilar to the popular mind, and ...
— Illusions - A Psychological Study • James Sully
... to you, I shall impose other conditions to-morrow; but woe unto him among you, who should refuse my mediation; for in that case I should overthrow the whole framework of a false policy, and the thrones standing on a weak foundation would soon break down. I speak to you with the frankness of a soldier and the noble pride of a victorious general; I caution you because I have the welfare of the nations at heart, who more than ever need the blessings of peace. It is now for you to say whether we shall have war or peace, ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... church is in need of something young and lively; now and then it seems to me to be fairly doddering. Poor Scott feels it, too. He can't help it. Every man and woman in the congregation was born, ready made, with a whole set of prejudices, born in a rut that nothing can break down. ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray
... head, but not before Mr. Leslie had seen the smile on her face. "Miss Bessie is laughing at the idea of a possible break down," he said: "but for my part I am quite well able to walk home, and even help draw the wagon ...
— The Old Stone House • Anne March
... sciences. Each man gets his knowledge of his own mental and moral self-hood, not through the senses, but by his consciousness. So there is a mental science that looks inward, and a physical science that looks outward. Break down consciousness and philosophy is ruined. But some ignoramus is ready to say: What care I for philosophy? Poor fellow! He does not know what philosophy is; his ignorance is his trouble. Philosophy simply tells ...
— The Christian Foundation, February, 1880
... although it was north of the prohibited line of 36 deg. 30'. And so it came about that, within four short years after the compromise of 1850, the unrest of the North under the Fugitive-Slave Law, followed by the efforts of the South to break down the earlier compromise of 1821, awoke again with renewed fierceness the slavery agitation, in discussing the bill for the organization of the Territories of Kansas and Nebraska,—an immense area, extending from the borders of Missouri, Iowa, ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume XII • John Lord
... there in his tents, and he was at a stand what he should do, whether to abide the coming of the Almoravides, or to depart; howbeit he resolved to abide and see what would befall. And he gave order to break down the bridges and opea the sluices, that the plain might be flooded, so that they could only come by one way, which was a narrow pass. Tidings now came that the host of the Almoravides was at Algezira de Xucar, and the ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... for ages to come. The comets are attracted by the planets, and conversely, the comets must attract the planets, and must perturb their orbits to some extent; but to what extent? If comets moved in orbits subject to the same general laws which characterise planetary motion, then our argument would break down. The planets might experience considerable derangements from cometary attraction, and yet in the lapse of time those disturbances would neutralise each other, and the permanence of the system would be unaffected. But ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... partially break down the atoms of fuel passing from the tank," explained Dex, desperately attempting scientific phraseology for a matter as far over his head as the remote stars. He raised his hand a trifle, bringing it ...
— The Red Hell of Jupiter • Paul Ernst
... nature of things that under stress such a nature should break down. She nestled close to Dan, promising to be his sweetheart on the condition that, rather than that Duckbill should take her away, he would shoot her. If it came about that the dreadful black man was himself driven off or disposed of by some other means and the country made safe for her, ...
— Tropic Days • E. J. Banfield
... is blue and thin, And its once firm legs sink in and in; Soon it will break down unaware, Soon it will break ...
— Late Lyrics and Earlier • Thomas Hardy
... a vain attempt to torture his language and break down his positions. But he felt that he was contending with weapons whose edges were turned at every blow. When he took his seat again, Wallace merely remarked that he was prepared, without further argument, to submit ...
— Sanders' Union Fourth Reader • Charles W. Sanders
... permanent camp before sunset that very day inspired us to united and vigorous effort. By noon we had the pack train ready. Edd and Doyle climbed on the wagon to start the other way. Romer waved his hand: "Good-bye, Mr. Doyle, don't break down and ...
— Tales of lonely trails • Zane Grey
... normal death the abandoned garment carries an intimate cruelty which will unexpectedly break down control proof ...
— Ambrotox and Limping Dick • Oliver Fleming
... committed to him by God, to the end he may understand that not temporal matters only, but also religious and ecclesiastical causes, pertain to his office: besides also that God by His prophets often and earnestly commandeth the king to cut down the groves, to break down the images and altars of idols, and to write out the book of the law for himself: and besides that the prophet Isaiah saith, "A king ought to be a patron and a nurse of the Church:" I say, besides all these things, we see by histories and by examples of the best times ...
— The Apology of the Church of England • John Jewel
... stood in his eyes and he could hardly speak a word. Even then he thought of that day when he had waked up the sleepy Muggins to take away the beautiful unknown lady. He felt he must be quick about his leave-taking, or he would break down. ...
— A Tale of a Lonely Parish • F. Marion Crawford
... play. Whether the lady Elissa spoke of the gods she serves or of a man is one to me. I care not of whom she spoke, but for her words I do care. Now hearken, you city of traders: If this is to be thy answer, then I break down that bridge which I have built, and it is war between you and my Tribes, war to the end. But let her change her words, and whether she loves me or loves me not, come to be my wife, and, for my day, ...
— Elissa • H. Rider Haggard
... bodies, it might have been unphilosophical to omit ascertaining the precise condition of those bodies at the moment of the experiment. As to the degree of minuteness of the mental subdivision, if we were obliged to break down what we observe into its very simplest elements, that is, literally into single facts, it would be difficult to say where we should find them; we can hardly ever affirm that our divisions of any kind have reached the ultimate unit. But this, too, is fortunately unnecessary. The only object of ...
— A System Of Logic, Ratiocinative And Inductive • John Stuart Mill
... July drew on, Jessica began to look cadaverous, ghostly. She would assuredly break down long before the time of her examination. What a wretched, what an absurd existence! Her home, too, was so miserable. Mrs. Morgan lay ill, unable to attend to anything; if she could not have a change of air, it must soon be all ...
— In the Year of Jubilee • George Gissing
... may be easy enough—in stories. But to doctor a gasoline engine so that it will run for a certain length of time and THEN break down is not so easy. Three o'clock came and the problem was still unsolved. Issy, the perspiration running down his face, stood up in the Lady May's cockpit and looked out across the bay, smooth and glassy in the ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... increased the supply of small notes from the Bank of England, and of coin from the mint. Moreover, they induced the Bank of England to establish branches in a few provincial towns and to make advances upon merchants' goods to the amount of three millions. It cost a greater effort to break down the monopoly of the Bank of England by legalising joint-stock banks in the provinces, though not within a distance of sixty-five miles from London. Such practical expedients as these, seconded by the good sense of the mercantile community, proved sufficient to avert a catastrophe ...
— The Political History of England - Vol XI - From Addington's Administration to the close of William - IV.'s Reign (1801-1837) • George Brodrick
... not speak, but walked on hurriedly. Something had begun to pull and tear at her heart strings—something she was trying to force back. She knew that if that which lay hidden within should burst its bonds and come to the surface, she would break down completely. ...
— The Emperor of Portugalia • Selma Lagerlof
... "Next they break down all the seats, stalls and wainscots that was behind them, being adorned with several historical passages out of the old testament, a latin distich being in each seat to declare the story. Whilst they were thus employed, they happened to find a great parchment book, behind the ceiling, ...
— The New Guide to Peterborough Cathedral • George S. Phillips
... more," Jethro said. "The villains who sought his ruin have triumphed, and a furious mob this afternoon broke into his house and murdered him. Chebron does not know it yet, though he cannot but suspect that something terrible has happened, as I would not answer his questions, fearing that he might break down when his strength ...
— The Cat of Bubastes - A Tale of Ancient Egypt • G. A. Henty
... she ventured, hoping, though subconsciously and without cruelty, to break down his resolution. But he smiled sadly, for ...
— The Halo • Bettina von Hutten
... me and himself; but I persisted in repeating that Lord M. would not set out the day he had intended: that nobody, since the creation of the world, ever set out upon a long journey the day he first appointed: besides, there were at least a hundred chances in my favour that his lordship would break down on his way to Portsmouth; that the wind would not be fair when he arrived there; that half the people in his suite would not be more punctual than ...
— Tales & Novels, Vol. 2 • Maria Edgeworth
... I had this bed, wedded and single, Babette!" exclaimed the widow. "For sixteen years did I sleep on that bed with the lamented Mr Vandersloosh—for sixteen years have I slept in it, a lone widow—but never till now did it break down. How am I to sleep to-night? What ...
— Snarleyyow • Captain Frederick Marryat
... persons. Near that place, at la Rochette, herds of deer and of stags devour everything in the fields during the day, and, at night, they even invade the small gardens of the inhabitants to consume vegetables and to break down young trees. It is found impossible in a territory subjected to a captaincy to retain vegetables safe in gardens, enclosed by high walls. At Farcy, of five hundred peach trees planted in a vineyard and browsed on by stags, only twenty remain at the end of three ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 1 (of 6) - The Ancient Regime • Hippolyte A. Taine |
