"Crumble" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... his fate," went on Babalatchi. "He shall come back, and the power of men we always hated, you and I, shall crumble into dust in our hand." Then he added with enthusiasm, "They shall fight ...
— An Outcast of the Islands • Joseph Conrad
... virgin born of Night, this thy proper task and service, that the rumour of our renown may not crumble away, nor the Aeneadae have power to win Latinus by marriage or beset the borders of Italy. Thou canst set brothers once united in armed conflict, and overturn families with hatreds; thou canst launch into houses thy whips and deadly brands; thine are a thousand ...
— The Aeneid of Virgil • Virgil
... stopped him—like the beast of prey that has caught its claws in the iron network it is trying to batter down, and cannot release them; and there he is still. Meanwhile, in June, seven to eight weeks before the expected moment, Brusiloff's attack broke loose, and the Austrian front began to crumble; just in time to bring the Italians welcome aid ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... his way. The power and dignity of his Conqueror will not permit Him to hasten. For haste would bespeak anxiety as to the result; and that result is in no sense doubtful. The body of the brother shall even see corruption, and begin to crumble into dust, under the firm and crushing hand of Death. Many a tear shall the sisters shed, and poor human sympathy tell out its helplessness. But the Victor comes! In the calm of assured victory He comes. And the "express ...
— Old Groans and New Songs - Being Meditations on the Book of Ecclesiastes • F. C. Jennings
... canst not tell— It has a thousand voices in thy brain. Danced all the leaflets to and fro? —Thy feet have trod them long ago! Sprung the glad music up the blue? —The hawk hath cut the song in two. All the mountains crumble, All the forests fall, All thy brethren stumble, And rise no more at all! In the dim woods there is a sound When the winds begin to moan; It is not of joy or yet of mirth, But the mournful cry of our mother Earth, As she calleth back her own. Through the rosy air ...
— Poetical Works of George MacDonald, Vol. 2 • George MacDonald
... room. At one end it merged into an incline that became a stairwell. At the other it ended in a hole that vanished in darkness below. Light of sorts filtered in through slots and holes drilled into the thick stone wall. Everything was built of the same crumble-textured but strong rock. Brion took the stairs. After a number of blind passages and wrong turns he saw a stronger light ahead, and went on. There was food, metal, even artifacts of the unusual Disan design in ...
— Planet of the Damned • Harry Harrison
... Packenham was dead, Gibbs dying, Keane disabled, and only Lambert left. Their leader, the ablest officers, and all the flower of their bravest men were lying, stark and dead, on the bloody plain before them; and their bodies were doomed to crumble into mouldering dust on the green fields where they had fought and had fallen. It was useless to make another trial. They had learned to their bitter cost, that no troops, however steady, could advance over open ground against such a fire as came from Jackson's lines. Their artillerymen ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt
... vertical eye-glare Of the absolute Heavens. Deep-hearted man, express Grief for thy Dead in silence like to death— Most like a monumental statue set In everlasting watch and moveless woe Till itself crumble to the dust beneath. Touch it; the marble eyelids are not wet: If it could weep, it ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy
... thirst for souvenirs was unquenchable yet, and the masses of struggling humanity that seemed to drop from the clouds simultaneously with every missile to be in at its dismemberment, were as fierce as and more reckless than before in the fight for fragments. When the shells had been wont to crumble accommodatingly, as would a clay pipe, the winning of a curio had—I mix the metaphor advisedly—merely involved participation in a football scrimmage. But since the ball had, as it were, begun to turn "rusty" ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... thickets of the pine-wood, From the dwellings of the fir-glen? Quick retrace thine evil footsteps To the dwellings of thy master, To the thickets of thy kindred; There thou mayest dwell at pleasure, Till thy house decays about thee, Till thy walls shall mould and crumble. Evil genius, thee I banish, Got thee hence, thou horrid monster, To the caverns of the white-bear, To the deep abysm of serpents, To the vales, and swamps, and fenlands, To the ever-silent waters, ...
— The Kalevala (complete) • John Martin Crawford, trans.
... advantage of the door being open. He did not want to listen, so much was he afraid, and he did not want his hopes to crumble with each obstinate refusal of his father. He preferred to learn the truth at once, good or bad, later on; and he went out into the night. It was a moonless night, a starless night, one of those foggy nights when the air seems thick with humidity. A vague odor of ...
— The Works of Guy de Maupassant, Volume IV (of 8) • Guy de Maupassant
... the early days of the Roman Empire," the guide continued. "The first and greatest of the Roman emperors was Augustus, for whom our month of August was named. During his reign many buildings were repaired which had begun to crumble to ruins in the days of the republic, when the Romans had devoted most of their time and money to wars, and many other beautiful buildings were erected. It was said of this emperor that he found Rome ...
— Rafael in Italy - A Geographical Reader • Etta Blaisdell McDonald
... acts, the attitude of receiving, which supersedes painful strife and weary endeavour. To seek after a righteousness which is 'my own,' is to seek what we shall never find, and what, if found, would crumble beneath us. To seek the righteousness which is from God, is to seek what He is waiting to bestow, and what the blessed receivers blessedly know is ...
— Expositions Of Holy Scripture - Volume I: St. Luke, Chaps. I to XII • Alexander Maclaren
... could always see plainly in his eyes. And one day, beguiling him in the depths of the forest, she led him to a fair-seeming castle, and, bidding him enter its portals, offered to show him a realization of his dream. But, lo! even as he entered the stately corridor it seemed to crumble away before him, and disclosed a hideous abyss beyond, in which the whole of that goodly palace lay in heaped and tangled ruins—the fitting symbol of his wrecked and ...
— A Ward of the Golden Gate • Bret Harte
... every one can't entertain. Who could suppose that a sensible man could leave his house, France, his ward—a charming youth, for we saw him in the camp—to fly to the aid of a rotten, worm-eaten royalty, which is going to crumble one of these days like an old hovel. The sentiments you air are certainly fine, so fine that ...
— Twenty Years After • Alexandre Dumas, Pere
... one! Without doubt, all creatures that are born display at first a union (of diverse materials and forces). Dissolution, however, overtakes them at the end. Like bubbles in the water they rise and disappear. All things massed together are sure to crumble away and all things that rise must fall down. Union ends in dissolution and life ends in death. Idleness, though temporarily agreeable, ends in misery, and labour with skill, though temporarily painful, ends in happiness. ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 3 - Books 8, 9, 10, 11 and 12 • Unknown
... mountain must crumble; The strong beam must break; And the wise man withers away like ...
— The Great Events by Famous Historians, Vol. 1 • Various
... reality. When midnight came, and the hammer clanged upon the great bell, a strange fancy took possession of my mind that it would this night strike Thirteen, and that at the thirteenth stroke the clock, the tower, the city, and the whole world, would crumble into atoms. Again I fell asleep and dreamt. I thought that my head was changed into a mighty bronze bell, and that I hung in the tower and heard the clock beside me strike Thirteen. Then came the old schoolmaster, who yet, at the same time, had the features of Elizabeth's father; and, ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. CCCXXXVI. October, 1843. Vol. LIV. • Various
... dim past when the first savage clambered this "Citadel of Cecrops" and spoke, "Here is my dwelling-place." This will be the vision until earth and ocean are no more. The human habitation changes, the temples rise and crumble; the red and gray rock, the crystalline air, the sapphire sea, come from the ...
— A Victor of Salamis • William Stearns Davis
... attack with undiminished vigour.[1] No wonder that superstition should have consecrated this tree, delicate and beautiful as it is, to the gods. The palace, the castle, the temple, and the tomb, all those works which man is most proud to raise to spread and to perpetuate his name, crumble to dust beneath her withering grasp. She rises triumphant over them all in her lofty beauty, bearing high in air amidst her light green foliage fragments of the wreck she has made, to show the nothingness of man's ...
— Rambles and Recollections of an Indian Official • William Sleeman
... seeing his suddenly wakened hope, dead for many a year, crumble before his eyes. He dared not yet drive ...
— A Rough Shaking • George MacDonald
... empire of the Seljuks by the crusaders, and disputes respecting the succession, caused the once formidable sovereignty to crumble to pieces, only, however, to be replaced by others of equally rapid growth, destined to as quick ...
— A General History for Colleges and High Schools • P. V. N. Myers
... in him to do better; if the world's verdict agreed with hers, he was a failure indeed. He had been persuading himself that, after all, he was not a common impostor, that he had genius of his own which would be acknowledged far above his friend's talent; now all at once the conviction began to crumble. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... coffins," he answered, "beginning with that of the old god, since I would rather experiment on him. I expect he will crumble into dust. But if by chance he doesn't I'll jam a little strychnine, mixed with some other drugs, of which you don't know the names, into one of his veins and see if anything happens. If it doesn't, it won't hurt ...
— When the World Shook - Being an Account of the Great Adventure of Bastin, Bickley and Arbuthnot • H. Rider Haggard
... the hills, are sparsely covered with those delicate aromatic herbs which affect a stony soil. Their life is a perpetual struggle against the sun: scorched, dried up, to all appearance dead, and so friable that they crumble to pieces in the fingers when one attempts to gather them, the spring rains annually infuse into them new life, and bestow upon them, almost before one's eyes, a green and perfumed youth of some days' duration. The summits of the hills remain always naked, and no vegetation ...
— History Of Egypt, Chaldaea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Volume 2 (of 12) • G. Maspero
... no harm had been done by the creation of the reservoir, but that, on the contrary, it had benefited the temple. The action of the water upon the stone, they said with vehement voices, instead of loosening it and causing it to crumble untimely away, had tended to harden and consolidate it. Here I should like to lie, but I resist the temptation. Monsieur Naville has stated that possibly the English engineers have helped to prolong the lives of the buildings of Philae, and Monsieur Maspero has ...
— The Spell of Egypt • Robert Hichens
... XV. was a supremely disastrous period for French Colonial aspirations. Not only did the dream of a great French empire in the East crumble away just as it seemed on the very point of realisation, but after Wolfe's victory on the Heights of Abraham at Quebec, Canada was formally ceded by France to Britain in 1763, by the ...
— Here, There And Everywhere • Lord Frederic Hamilton
... their dancing banners shone more fair Than the brightest ray Of the Cuban day On the hill and jungled hollow; And to "Maryland" some in the days gone by Had fought through the combat's rumble And some for "Freedom's Battle-Cry" Had seen the broad earth crumble. ...
— How the Flag Became Old Glory • Emma Look Scott
... time, yet is admirable for carving, yielding easily to the chisel. But time has no influence upon it. Centuries pass, yet still it remains the same: ever youthful, ever hard and cold. It knows nothing of the beauty of age; it does not crumble or decay, or wear away into softened outlines; it takes no charm of tone; no lights and shadows. A dark grey-green it was originally, and so it remains. Thus, in point of effect, a church built of Kersanton stone two centuries ago might, as far ...
— The Argosy - Vol. 51, No. 4, April, 1891 • Various
... All things change and glide, Corrupt and crumble, suffer wreck and decay, But, obstinate dark Integrities, you abide, And obey but them who obey. All things else are dyed In the colours of man's desire: But you no bribe nor prayer Avails to soften ...
— Miscellany of Poetry - 1919 • Various
... earth shall quake, quaking! and the mountains shall crumble, crumbling, and become ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... no defence against the critical understanding, and sinks dumb when questioned. If, in the form of a religious conviction, its assurance is more confident, then, too often, it rests upon the treacherous foundations of authoritative ignorance, which crumble into dust beneath the blows of awakened and liberated reason. Nay, if by the aid of philosophy we turn our optimism into a faith held by reason, a fact before which the intellect, as well as the ...
— Browning as a Philosophical and Religious Teacher • Henry Jones
... God and mine is dead. And Satan in his place—Satan who is The father of the gods—lures on your hearts Unto an idol in the untrodden skies, That, while ye dream oblivious in the void, The earth may crumble. Or if God there be, He is the God of dying hearts and spent— A deity of chaos, for whose ends One thing alone is mete—ruin of life, Of loathings and of longings that on earth Restlessly grapple with the powers of Hell. I know not if in regions yet unguessed Some gods ...
— Mr. Faust • Arthur Davison Ficke
... but my invariable reply has been, human legislation is impotent to cancel the statutes of Almighty God, which declare that only death can free what Jehovah has joined together, and the legal provisions of man crumble and shrivel before the divine command, 'For the woman which hath an husband is bound by the law to her husband so long as he liveth.' With what impatience, what ceaseless yearning, I await the cold touch of that deliverer who alone ...
— Vashti - or, Until Death Us Do Part • Augusta J. Evans Wilson
... Communion has generally been unleavened, or wafer bread as it is sometimes called, from its shape, being made round like a wafer. Unleavened bread is used from a sense of reverence, using something specially made for so holy a purpose, and also because unleavened bread is not so likely to crumble as ordinary bread. It is also believed that this was undoubtedly the kind of bread our Lord used when He ...
— The American Church Dictionary and Cyclopedia • William James Miller
... also in this giant of the text and in the giant of our own century that great physical power must crumble and expire. The Samson of the text long ago went away. He fought the lion. He fought the Philistines. He could fight anything, but death was too much for him. He may have required a longer grave and a broader grave; but the tomb ...
— New Tabernacle Sermons • Thomas De Witt Talmage
... indefinite they must show this character when exposed to discerning criticism. All categories have to be shown to be so hopelessly confused and to be without any conceivable notion that though apparent before us yet they crumble into indefiniteness ...
— A History of Indian Philosophy, Vol. 1 • Surendranath Dasgupta
... most beautiful lady, Light of step and heart was she: I think she was the most beautiful lady That ever was in the West Country. But beauty vanishes, beauty passes, However rare, rare it be; And when I crumble who shall remember That lady of ...
— On the Art of Writing - Lectures delivered in the University of Cambridge 1913-1914 • Arthur Quiller-Couch
... King, and worthy of all honor. "Nothing," he says in one place, "is truer than the song of Beethoven. It is the song of life, the voice of truth, an infallible voice, which will create a world, and cause the old false world to crumble. Born of the people, the people sing in him, although they know him not." In painting, the heroes of the author are Ruysdael, Rembrandt, Claude-Lorraine, ...
— The International Magazine, Volume 2, No. 2, January, 1851 • Various
... proud throne shall crumble, The diadem shall wane, The tribes of earth shall humble The pride of those who reign; And War shall lay his pomp away;— The fame that heroes cherish, The glory earned in deadly fray Shall fade, decay, and perish. Honor waits, o'er all the earth, Through ...
— Poetical Works of William Cullen Bryant - Household Edition • William Cullen Bryant
... also a bushel of lentils[FN119] and sift and crush and cook them. Then must thou fetch water in barrels and fill the four fountains; after which thou must take three hundred and threescore and six wooden bowls and crumble the cracknels therein and pour of the lentil-pottage over each and carry every monk and patriarch his bowl." Said Ala al-Din,[FN120] "Take me back to the King and let him kill me, it were easier to me ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 4 • Richard F. Burton
... a variety that crumble unless left on the bushes until ripe they do not spoil readily, which is probably due to the fact they are quite acid, and we ship to points in North Dakota nearly as far west as Chicago is east of us with very little loss. Wherever our berries have ...
— Trees, Fruits and Flowers of Minnesota, 1916 • Various
... of man. We know that when we work upon materials, immortal and imperishable, that they will bear the impress which we place upon them, through endless ages to come. If we work upon marble, it will perish; if we work upon brass, time will efface it. If we rear temples, they will crumble to the dust. But, if we work on men's immortal minds—if we imbue them with high principles, with the just fear of God, and of their fellow men,—we engrave on those tablets, something which no time can efface, but which will brighten and brighten ...
— The Choctaw Freedmen - and The Story of Oak Hill Industrial Academy • Robert Elliott Flickinger
... as he saw that all was in readiness. "Lively now! I can see the top of the dam beginning to crumble," and he laid aside the telescope he had ...
— Tom Swift and his Giant Cannon - or, The Longest Shots on Record • Victor Appleton
... no speech prepared. He would not hear of her working in an office during the summer, so her last hope of going to college in the fall went glimmering. But really this last disappointment did not affect her as strongly as the others had done. She was getting used to having everything she touched crumble to dust, and besides, she felt too tired to care which way things ...
— The Camp Fire Girls at School • Hildegard G. Frey
... Stanton, "unless something happens. They can crumble our cities with heat and bury us under ...
— Astounding Stories of Super-Science, March 1930 • Various
... interference heat had burned out the connections and fired everything combustible within the tower. A terrific heat. It began to melt and burn the blenite.[10] The upper portion of the tower walls began to crumble. Huge blocks of stone were shifting, tottering; and they began to fall through the glare of mounting flames and the thick ...
— Tarrano the Conqueror • Raymond King Cummings
... educational discipline go hand in hand.... Both are preserved and fortified by law and custom, and by administrative arrangements skilfully devised to attain that end. But behind all the forms of organisation (which would quickly crumble away unless upheld by and expressing some spiritual force), behind both military and educational discipline, lies the fundamental principle adopted by Scharnhorst's Committee on Military organisation in Prussia in 1807: 'All the inhabitants ...
— The War and Democracy • R.W. Seton-Watson, J. Dover Wilson, Alfred E. Zimmern,
... the emotion that shook his country; his genius, utterly passive, drew apart from the current that swept away entire races. He witnessed the French Revolution in all its terrible grandeur, and saw the old world crumble beneath its strokes; and while all the best and purest spirits of Germany, who had mistaken the death-agony of the old world for the birth-throes of a new, were wringing their hands at the spectacle of dissolution, ...
— Literary and Philosophical Essays • Various
... day I went about the house with my children like one whose world had suddenly begun to crumble. The head of my house was gone. Over and over again I stole softly into his room unable to think of him ...
— A Daughter of the Middle Border • Hamlin Garland
... proceeds. And Khalid follows directly behind, listening to his guide who points out the objects and places of interest. And thus, through the alleys and by-ways, through the nooks and labyrinths of these underground temple-ruins, we get to the rear, where the ramparts and mounds crumble to a mighty heap, rising pell-mell to the ceiling. Here, one is likely to get a glimpse into such enchanted worlds as the name of a Dickens or a Balzac might suggest. Here, too, is Shakespeare in lamentable state; there is Carlyle in rags, ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... needs be an infinite atonement; save it should be an infinite atonement, this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man, must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more. O the wisdom of God! his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more, our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the eternal ...
— Jesus the Christ - A Study of the Messiah and His Mission According to Holy - Scriptures Both Ancient and Modern • James Edward Talmage
... lamps, had been found here. So far as I can make out there is only pottery on this site, and none of it pre-Mohammedan; if a city ever stood here it has been completely entombed, or torn into shreds by the wind, the flying sands, and the heat. Nefta itself, built of soft loam, would crumble away in briefest time if left unrepaired. The acute Guerin was not more successful than myself at Zafrana, nor ...
— Fountains In The Sand - Rambles Among The Oases Of Tunisia • Norman Douglas
... by an Englishman, to whom it was shown privately by a black, was of a substance like quartz, about the size of a pigeon's egg, and transparent, like white sugar-candy. The small particles of crystal which crumble off are swallowed in order to prevent illness. Many other instances of the like superstitious folly might very easily be gathered from the writings of those who have had the best opportunities of becoming acquainted with the manners ...
— Australia, its history and present condition • William Pridden
... doubt that you and I could carry it so far. Halloa, Watson, what's this? It's the man himself, by all that's wonderful and audacious! Not a word to show your suspicions—not a word, or my plans crumble to the ground." ...
— Hound of the Baskervilles • Authur Conan Doyle
... world, more venerable and majestic, and Bolvar, higher and brighter. Washington established a republic which later became one of the greatest countries on earth; Bolvar founded also a great country, but, less happy than his elder brother, saw it crumble down; and though he did not see his work destroyed, he saw it disfigured and diminished. The successors of Washington, great citizens, philosophers and statesmen, never dreamed of tearing up the sacred mantle of their mother in order to cover their scars with rags of ...
— Simon Bolivar, the Liberator • Guillermo A. Sherwell
... moon from spacious height, And stars, may crumble into night; Why shouldst thou cease to move forever, A living glow ...
— Song-waves • Theodore H. Rand
... the Hermit, and with such a vehemence that I was startled from the design of revealing myself, which I was on the point of executing. "I would rather that these walls would crush me into dust, or that this solid stone would crumble beneath my feet,—ay, even into a bottomless pit, than meet the glance ...
— Devereux, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton
... "mad-cap treasury of glorious deeds" that laughing she will love him, laughing lose the light of her eyes, laughing they will accept destruction, laughing accept death! Let the proud world of Walhalla crumble to dust, the eternal tribe of the gods cease in glory, the Norns rend the coil of fate, the dusk of the gods close down,—Siegfried's star has risen, and he shall be, to Bruennhilde, for ever, everything! In equally fine ...
— The Wagnerian Romances • Gertrude Hall
... here used, means a soil containing enough particles of sand so that water will pass through it without leaving it pasty and sticky a few days after a rain; "light" enough, as it is called, so that a handful, under ordinary conditions, will crumble and fall apart readily after being pressed in the hand. It is not necessary that the soil be sandy in appearance, but it ...
— Home Vegetable Gardening • F. F. Rockwell
... watched with a faith and delight the changing to a woman of a certain fat and mumbling babe. However, he now saw this machine, this self- sustaining, self-operative love, which had run with the ease of a clock, suddenly crumble to ashes and leave the mind of a great scholar staring at a calamity. " Rufus Coleman," he repeated, stunned. Here was his daughter, very obviously desirous of marrying Rufus Coleman. " Marjory," he cried in amazement and fear, "what ...
— Active Service • Stephen Crane
... which would have made them yield a value even in defeat, she lets herself go and is spoiled beneath them. She has no friend to help or guardian angel to save. We do not blame her, for, with her soft nature, she could not do otherwise than crumble under the hard press of fate; neither can we admire her, for she lacks the adamantine stuff of which heroes are made. This is pathos, not tragedy. And just as most of human life involves tragedy in so far as it develops a strength to meet the dangers which threaten it, so likewise it involves ...
— The Principles Of Aesthetics • Dewitt H. Parker
... was being built, and that one which had been to her all that the temple ever was to Solomon, would be left to the owls and bats—her Zion desolate. Those walls, made sacred by visions of glory and shouts of triumph, would crumble to ruin in the clinging silence. How could she but think that the influence was evil ...
— Half a Century • Jane Grey Cannon Swisshelm
... doubt with a set purpose. Behind the King's most trivial act there was always a set purpose. In a boy's feeble hands, a puppet as he had called him, a king in legal age and yet a child in years and ignorance, this great France he had built up so laboriously would crumble into ruin. Louis was a statesman first and a father afterwards. So Commines must go to Amboise, must sift, search, find—but especially find. Find what? His question had been answered—find and prove the boy's guilty knowledge. But having found, having proved that the King's fears were terribly ...
— The Justice of the King • Hamilton Drummond
... and cradles would not pay here; but it occurred to some one that if a powerful stream of water could be directed against the great banks of earth, as water is directed against a burning building, they would crumble, the dirt could be washed down sluices, and the gold be saved. This was done. Great reservoirs were built high up in the mountains, and water was brought by means of ditches or pipes to a convenient place. Then it ...
— Diggers in the Earth • Eva March Tappan
... a seat on a log, and congratulated myself on the prospect of a good dinner. By the aid of a stone I managed to crumble 'two shingles' of hard bread into a cup of the milk, and then, with an appetite such as I never enjoyed in America, sat to work. I took one mouthful, when, lo! the milk was sour! Hurling cup and contents toward the hospitable mansion, I fell back upon my regular ...
— Continental Monthly - Volume 1 - Issue 3 • Various
... in itself, would imply almost every reform which society is now suffering for. I doubt whether even our public edifices—our capitols, state-houses, court-houses, city-hall, and churches,—ought to be built of such permanent materials as stone or brick. It were better that they should crumble to ruin once in twenty years, or thereabouts, as a hint to the people to examine into and reform the institutions which ...
— The House of the Seven Gables • Nathaniel Hawthorne
... give the dead their way. Lax enough is the helpless hand in the fictitious stiffness of its grasp; and we are not the people to deny it holding, by courtesy at least. Soon enough does the sceptre of mortality crumble and fall. So Abe was buried according to his wish. But when necessity commanded us to add unto ourselves another acre, we took in his grave with it, and the fence, falling into decay, was never renewed. There he lies, in affectionate decorum, beside ...
— Tiverton Tales • Alice Brown
... concede to conciliate Choo Hoo. His person was threatened, the knife was pointed at his heart; could he but wait a while, and tide as it were over the shallows, he might yet resume the full sway of power; but if he exposed his life at this crisis the whole fabric of his kingdom might crumble ...
— Wood Magic - A Fable • Richard Jefferies
... handsomer. The haughty, fierce expression, habitual with him, had given place to a serenity that was wonderfully beautiful, though so like death. As the father contemplated the perfect face and form, so soon to crumble into dust, he forgot, in his overwhelming grief, that the soul of a demon had animated it, and he thought sorrowfully of the great name that had been revered and honoured for centuries past, but which could ...
— Captain Fracasse • Theophile Gautier
... responding each to each in throbbing harmony and perfect tune. They do not know how it happens—they only feel it is. Then, nothing—I repeat this with emphasis—nothing can keep them apart. Soul rushes to soul,— heart leaps to heart,—and all form and ceremony, custom and usage crumble into dust before the power that overwhelms them. These sudden storms of etheric vibration occur every day among the most ordinary surroundings and with the most unlikely persons, and Society as at present constituted frowns and shakes its head, or ...
— The Life Everlasting: A Reality of Romance • Marie Corelli
... ever looked into. It was the Face of Eternity. On its brow was written in words of blazing light the one word "Now." And as he looked into that calm, awful Face and read that word, Mr. Hardy felt his soul crumble within him. When the Face spoke it was the speech of a thousand oceans heaved by a million tempests, yet through the terror of it ran a thread of music—a still, sweet sound like everlasting love—as if angels sang somewhere a divine accompaniment. ...
— Robert Hardy's Seven Days - A Dream and Its Consequences • Charles Monroe Sheldon
... the powers of earth shall not prevail. It is just as certain that Virginia would come back to the unchallenged control of her white race—that before the moral and material power of her people once more unified, opposition would crumble until its last desperate leader was left alone, vainly striving to rally his disordered hosts—as that night should fade in the kindling glory of the sun. You may pass force bills, but they will not avail. You may surrender your own liberties to federal election ...
— The Art of Public Speaking • Dale Carnagey (AKA Dale Carnegie) and J. Berg Esenwein
... lies in your way to come to us; but, dear Mahomet, we will come to you. Will it be convenient to all the good people at Highgate, if we take a stage up, not next Sunday, but the following, viz., 3rd January, 1819—shall we be too late to catch a skirt of the old out-goer;—how the years crumble from under us! We shall hope to see you before then; but, if not, let us know if then will be convenient. Can we secure ...
— The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb, Vol. 5 • Edited by E. V. Lucas
... radio-beams were forcing their way out toward the Miran station on Europa, to be relayed to the headquarters on Jupiter, just as Solarian radio beams were thrusting through space toward Luna. Said the Miran messages: "Their ships no longer crumble." Said the Solarian messages: "The ships no longer crumble—but the ...
— The Ultimate Weapon • John Wood Campbell
... exquisite hours with his love, now six weeks ago—a young half moon. Could it be only six weeks? A lifetime of anguish appeared to have rolled between. And where was she? Then, for the first time, the crust of his self-absorption seemed to crumble, and he thought with new stabs of pain how she, too, must have suffered. He began to picture her waiting by the gate—she would be brave and quiet. And then, as the day passed—what had she done? He could not imagine, but she must have suffered intolerably. When could she have ...
— Halcyone • Elinor Glyn
... find that your supposedly level plot is knobby with hummocks. Stand directly over each little mound; swing the back of your axe vigorously against it, adze-wise, between your legs. Nine times out of ten it will crumble, and the tenth time means merely a root to cut or a stone to pry out. At length you are possessed of a plot of clean, fresh earth, level and soft, free from projections. But ...
— The Forest • Stewart Edward White
... spring and made the rain descend. Think not that this is a lie of mine, when I tell you that the disturbance was so violent that no one could tell the tenth part of it: for it seemed as if the whole forest must surely be engulfed. The lady fears for her town, lest it, too, will crumble away; the walls totter, and the tower rocks so that it is on the verge of falling down. The bravest Turk would rather be a captive in Persia than be shut up within those walls. The people are so stricken with terror that they curse all their ...
— Four Arthurian Romances - "Erec et Enide", "Cliges", "Yvain", and "Lancelot" • Chretien de Troyes
... of the blacks died, war was not declared against any particular tribe. As a rule, the body of the dead brave is placed upon a platform erected in the forks of trees, and his weapons neatly arranged below. Then, as decay set in, and the body began to crumble away, the friends and chiefs would come and observe certain mystic signs, which were supposed to give information as to what tribe or individual had caused the death ...
— The Adventures of Louis de Rougemont - as told by Himself • Louis de Rougemont
... little Grandad; Such warriors, surely, A tiny mouse nibbling Could crumble to atoms,' I ...
— Who Can Be Happy And Free In Russia? • Nicholas Nekrassov
... hung with white curtains, their doors are painted green, and on each door is written the use which it serves. Besides drawing water, the windmills do a little of everything: they grind grain, pound rags, crumble lime, crush stones, saw wood, press olives, and pulverize tobacco. A windmill is as valuable as a farm, and it takes a considerable fortune to build one and provide it with colza, grain, flour, and oil to keep it working, and to sell ...
— Holland, v. 1 (of 2) • Edmondo de Amicis
... her another shaft. 'What happiness!' said she to herself. 'Can I overthrow it? Bah! it will crumble of its own accord, even if I did nothing! And my father ...
— The Chaplet of Pearls • Charlotte M. Yonge
... the abbey and the castle were soon together to crumble into ruins; and all the forms, desires, beliefs, convictions of the old world were passing away, never to return;"[27] but this virgin queen was the founder of a new chivalry, whose deeds were not less valiant, and far ...
— English Literature, Considered as an Interpreter of English History - Designed as a Manual of Instruction • Henry Coppee
... darkness hear; Till the Czar quake, till Austria cower for fear, Till the king breathe not, till the priest wax pale, Till spies and slayers on seats of judgment quail, Till mitre and cowl bow down And crumble as a crown, Till Caesar driven to lair and hounded Pope Reel breathless and drop heartless out of hope, And one the uncleanest kinless beast of all Lower than his fortune fall; 270 The wolfish waif of casual empire, born To turn all hate ...
— Songs of the Springtides and Birthday Ode - Taken from The Collected Poetical Works of Algernon Charles - Swinburne—Vol. III • Algernon Charles Swinburne
... "with those fine words, peace and conciliation, which are so often void of real wisdom and courage. The terrible truth is that Leo XIII's eighteen years of concessions have shaken everything in the Church, and should he long continue to reign Catholicism would topple over and crumble into dust like a building whose ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... but, with a little observation, the cruciform outline of the church can be traced, and then its disjointed masses reduce themselves into connected details. The dark-red stone of which the building was constructed is friable, and peculiarly apt to crumble under the moist atmosphere and dreary winds of the northeast coast. The mouldings and tracery are thus wofully obliterated, and the facings are so much decayed as to leave the original surface distinguishable only here and there. At comparatively late periods large masses of the ruins have ...
— The American Architect and Building News, Vol. 27, Jan-Mar, 1890 • Various
... but on account of the structure of its substance. He might indeed, with infinite pains, give it the form, but he could not impart to it the strength and adhesion of particles required to enable it to brave the elements, and the temple it was made to support would soon crumble into ruin." ...
— History of the Thirty-Ninth Congress of the United States • Wiliam H. Barnes
... act. The world's esteemed immortals have survived the shadows of oblivion only because of precious deeds they wrought for fellow men. The rags of yesterday are exchanged for purple robes as the centuries pass, while the crowns of today fade and crumble into forgetfulness. No man succeeds because he becomes a king or fails ...
— Oklahoma Sunshine • Freeman E. (Freeman Edwin) Miller
... turns, with the only knife available between them, the boys began frantically cutting niches or steps in the dirt wall. Fortunately it was packed hard enough so that it did not crumble. They took turns at the desperate labor, one holding the torch, and ...
— Frank and Andy Afloat - The Cave on the Island • Vance Barnum
... when the great wall that held the body of water began to crumble at the top sent a message begging the people of Johnstown for God's sake to take to the hills. He reports no ...
— The Johnstown Horror • James Herbert Walker
... are the wrecks of systems; suns Blaze a brief space of age, and are not; Worlds crumble and decay, creation runs To waste—then perishes and is forgot; Yet thou, all changeless, heedest not the blot. Heaven speaks once more in thunder; empty space Trembles and wakes; new worlds in ether float, Teeming with new creative life, ...
— Whittier-land - A Handbook of North Essex • Samuel T. Pickard
... others under the menace of an early death. Sometimes their defects will save them. Sometimes a book fair to see may—to use a lofty expression—have no individual soul. Obviously a book of that sort cannot die. It can only crumble into dust. But the best of books drawing sustenance from the sympathy and memory of men have lived on the brink of destruction, for men's memories are short, and their sympathy is, we must admit, a very ...
— Notes on Life and Letters • Joseph Conrad
... sections of the coconut tree, covered one end with shark-skin. The first kaekeeke of all Hawaii Ahuna pointed out to me and told me the tale. It was manifestly most ancient. He was afraid to touch it for fear the age-rotted wood of it would crumble to dust, the ragged tatters of the shark-skin head of it still attached. 'This is the very oldest and father of all our kaekeekes,' Ahuna told me. 'Kila, the son of Moikeha, brought it back from far Raiatea in the South Pacific. And it was Kila's own son, Kahai, who made that same journey, ...
— On the Makaloa Mat/Island Tales • Jack London
... By myriads, when they dare to pave their way With human hearts—to what?—a dream alone. Can Despots compass aught that hails their sway?[cb] Or call with truth one span of earth their own, Save that wherein at last they crumble bone by bone? ...
— The Works of Lord Byron, Volume 2 • George Gordon Byron
... have been placed there at some finite time. Only one source for such an object is conceivable; it must have fallen from the sky. On the same plains the stony meteorites have also fallen in hundreds and in thousands, but they crumble away in the course of time, and in any case would not arrest the attention of the traveller as the irons are likely to do. Hence it follows, that although the stony meteorites seem to fall much more frequently, yet, unless ...
— The Story of the Heavens • Robert Stawell Ball
... Alexander perhaps intended to revive its imperial position, his successor, Seleucus, so soon as he was assured of his inheritance, abandoned the Euphratean city for the banks of the Tigris and Orontes, leaving it to crumble to the heap ...
— The Ancient East • D. G. Hogarth
... lecture by the Owen of his future era on the thigh-bone of a minor canon, or the tooth of a dean: the form, qualities, and tastes he would discover from them.' 'It is a great proof of shyness,' he said, 'to crumble your bread at dinner. Ah! I see,' he said, turning to a young lady, 'you're afraid of me: you crumble your bread. I do it when I sit by the Bishop of London, and with both hands when I ...
— The Wits and Beaux of Society - Volume 2 • Grace & Philip Wharton
... an essence of immortality. They are by far the most lasting products of human effort. Temples crumble into ruin; pictures and statues decay; but books survive. Time is of no account with great thoughts, which are as fresh to-day as when they first passed through their authors' minds, ages ago. What was then said and thought still ...
— How to Get on in the World - A Ladder to Practical Success • Major A.R. Calhoon
... moisture present on the forest floor exactly suited to the rapid growth of the mycelium of numbers of species in the bark, sap wood, and heart wood of the fallen trees or shrubs. In a few years the branches begin to crumble because of the disorganizing effect of the mycelium in the wood. Other species adapted to growing in rotting wood follow and bring about, in a few years, the complete disintegration of the wood. It gradually passes into the soil of the forest floor, and is made available food for the ...
— Studies of American Fungi. Mushrooms, Edible, Poisonous, etc. • George Francis Atkinson
... battles, and the wounded men very readily gave me their names; for they were anxious that the account of their misfortunes should reach their families, and I think also, that some martial vanity lingered, even among those who were shortly to crumble away. A longboat came in from the Galena, after a time, and General McClellan, who had ridden down to the pier, was taken aboard. He looked to be very hot and anxious, and while he remained aboard the vessel, his staff ...
— Campaigns of a Non-Combatant, - and His Romaunt Abroad During the War • George Alfred Townsend
... unchecked. Another explosion follows, another burst of flames which soar higher and higher. The men of the Cite seem still more frantic and powerless. All the towers now stand out in bold relief,—as if they were just about to crumble into the seething mass below. Roofs within the walls are on fire, and finally a red tongue licks the turret of the Cathedral. In a few seconds its walls are hideously aglow, and the people in the valley—although they know the truth—groan aloud, so real is ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... she had founded, she had begged as an alms a last resting-place in the vault destined for the religious. Contrary to her intentions, her remains were inclosed in a leaden coffin. By her own directions, her heart was buried under the altar step of the Jesuits' Church, that it might crumble into its original dust at the feet of the God of the Tabernacle, a holocaust ...
— The Life of the Venerable Mother Mary of the Incarnation • "A Religious of the Ursuline Community"
... and pounded, raged and smashed for a thousand years, and then another thousand, and still another, while Mother Earth uneasily thrust forth her rocky children out of the ocean into the light of day. Surprised at such treatment by the storms and seas, the newly born earth masses began to crumble and "weather." The detached fragments slipped back, or were washed back, into the deeper or shallower parts of the ocean, and were there tossed back and forth, pounded and ground into sand and silt, into pebbles and boulders, while more land was slowly being thrust out ...
— The Grand Canyon of Arizona: How to See It, • George Wharton James
... character of a bishop, he expressly names this as one feature of it, "no striker." Let masters give unto their servants that which is just and equal, and all that vast system of unrequited labor would crumble into ruin. Yes, and if they once felt they had no right to the labor of their servants without pay, surely they could not think they had a right to their wives, their children, and their own bodies. Again, how ...
— The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Omnibus • American Anti-Slavery Society
... From the top deck there was a jet of fire, as if someone were turning a hose of flame in the direction of the small boat. Leonard looked back at the dinghy. It appeared as if the ray of light were beating the little vessel into splinters. It seemed to crumble into itself, to wither, to go to dust, and the water beneath it beat up in a ...
— The Cruise of the Dry Dock • T. S. Stribling
... millionaires live in New York at a third of the price they were charging me I was hurt, I was indignant, and said, this is the last feather. I am not going to run this town all by myself. In that moment—in that memorable moment, I began to crumble. In fifteen minutes the disintegration was complete. In fifteen minutes I was become just a mere moral sand-pile, and I lifted up my hand, along with those seasoned and experienced deacons, and swore off every rag of personal property I've got in ...
— Mark Twain, A Biography, 1835-1910, Complete - The Personal And Literary Life Of Samuel Langhorne Clemens • Albert Bigelow Paine
... warfare, a Coalition very rarely holds together under a succession of sharp blows. This is inherent in the nature of things. A complex or heterogeneous substance is easily split up by strokes which leave a homogeneous body intact. Rocks of volcanic origin defy the hammer under which conglomerates crumble away; and when these last are hurled against granite or flint, they splinter at once. Well might Shakespeare speak through the mouth of Ulysses these wise words on the divisions of ...
— William Pitt and the Great War • John Holland Rose
... of a cleft would crumble and fall in as our driving-wheels skimmed along the edge; now, steer with all the nerve and nicety I might, the Gloria would rock as she hung half over a gully. Somehow I coaxed her down the hill, and driving out from the labyrinth of crevasses, I breathed a sigh of relief. But the next instant, ...
— The Car of Destiny • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... with the successful assault at Przasnysz was received with general rejoicing, and the appearance of flags all over the city. The Russian retreat toward the Narew River in particular was regarded by the military critics as threatening momentarily to crumble up the right flank of the positions of the Russians before the ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume V (of 12) - Neuve Chapelle, Battle of Ypres, Przemysl, Mazurian Lakes • Francis J. Reynolds, Allen L. Churchill, and Francis Trevelyan
... very far from warmth and life. He was dying in loneliness. He was perishing in the outer dark, where no hand might reach and no voice console. He had believed—or thought he believed—in God. But now his faith was wearing very thin. Very soon it would crumble quite away, just as he himself was crumbling into the dreadful silence of the ages. His life—the brief passion called life—was over. Out of the dark it had come; into the dark it went. And no one to care—no one to cry farewell ...
— The Safety Curtain, and Other Stories • Ethel M. Dell
... restrain the impatience of his followers; to let the Government lose ground in public estimation gently and considerately, not violently and rancorously; to assist in putting them in a contemptible or inefficient point of view; to render their places as uneasy as possible; and to give them time to crumble to pieces, so that his return to power may be more in appearance the act of the Whig Ministry than any act of his own. Then he may demand, and would probably obtain, as the condition of his acceptance of office, the ...
— The Greville Memoirs (Second Part) - A Journal of the Reign of Queen Victoria from 1837 to 1852 - (Volume 1 of 3) • Charles C. F. Greville
... which never had the support of more than a very narrow majority of the Court, soon began to crumble at the edges. It was a period of immense industrial expansion, and the men who directed this wanted a free hand. In 1878 the American Bar Association was formed from the elite of the American Bar. Organized as it was in the wake of ...
— The Constitution of the United States of America: Analysis and Interpretation • Edward Corwin
... as they always do. Now, this new great idea, if rejected, will disintegrate these old parties; take that which is fit, proper, and deserving for its own great mission, leaving the residuum to unite, and crumble and pulverize together under the ...
— History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II • Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage
... would be of religion, for my mother's faith was no dead thing that must be kept ever sheltered from the air, lest it crumble. ...
— Paul Kelver • Jerome Klapka, AKA Jerome K. Jerome
... us is gone, And we that lost the world's delight Stiffen in darkness, left alone To crumble in our separate night; ...
— The Home Book of Verse, Vol. 2 (of 4) • Various
... were in a state of anxiety on account of one thing, and we kept going to Father Peter's house on one pretext or another to keep track of it. That was the gold coin; we were afraid it would crumble and turn to dust, like fairy money. If it did—But it didn't. At the end of the day no complaint had been made about it, so after that we were satisfied that it was real gold, and dropped the anxiety out ...
— The Mysterious Stranger and Other Stories • Mark Twain
... In his heart he pitied the men about him, who laughed wildly, and shouted, and climbed recklessly to the rails and ratlines. He had been deceived too often not to know that it was not real. He knew from cruel experience that in a few moments the tall buildings would crumble away, the thousands of columns of white smoke that flashed like snow in the sun, the busy, shrieking tug-boats, and the great statue would vanish into the sea, leaving it gray and bare. He closed his eyes and shut the vision out. It ...
— The Lion and the Unicorn and Other Stories • Richard Harding Davis
... regard for facts. No, the circumstance that Ashmole was a Rosicrucian, an Alchemist, a delver into occult lore, is enough, the absence of any allusion to him thereafter only serving to confirm the fancy—the theory being that a few adepts, seeing Masonry about to crumble and decay, seized it, introduced their symbols into it, making it the mouthpiece of their high, albeit hidden, teaching. How fascinating! and yet how baseless in fact! There is no evidence that a Rosicrucian fraternity existed—save on paper, having been woven of a series of romances written ...
— The Builders - A Story and Study of Masonry • Joseph Fort Newton
... giant ice-pan weighing hundreds of tons, tilted it to a dangerous angle, then dropped from beneath it. Marian's heart stopped beating as she felt the downward rush of the avalanche of ice. The next instant she felt it crumble like an egg-shell. It had broken at the point where they lay. With a warning cry of terror she sprang to ...
— The Blue Envelope • Roy J. Snell
... now my soule hath elbow roome, It would not out at windowes, nor at doores, There is so hot a summer in my bosome, That all my bowels crumble vp to dust: I am a scribled forme drawne with a pen Vpon a Parchment, and against this fire Do I ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... a cloud's about to vanish From the day; And a brazen wrong to crumble Into clay! With the Right shall many more Enter, smiling at the door; With the giant Wrong shall fall Many others great and small, That for ages long have held us For their prey. Men of thought and men of action, ...
— It Can Be Done - Poems of Inspiration • Joseph Morris
... not been that it was the capital of the so-called Confederacy, and the fact of evacuating the capital would, of course, have had a very demoralizing effect upon the Confederate army. When it was evacuated (as we shall see further on), the Confederacy at once began to crumble and fade away. Then, too, desertions were taking place, not only among those who were with General Lee in the neighborhood of their capital, but throughout the whole Confederacy. I remember that in a conversation with me on one occasion long ...
— Personal Memoirs of U. S. Grant, Complete • Ulysses S. Grant
... Undaunted then in answer here I cry, 'You wanton, that control the hand of him Who masquerades as wisdom in a sky Where holy, holy, sing the cherubim, I will not pay one penny to your name Though all my body crumble into shame.' ...
— Georgian Poetry 1920-22 • Various
... invincible as the limestone foundation of their beloved college halls. The center from which all strength radiated was Victor Burleigh. Against him the weight of the line-bucking plunged. If he wavered the line must crumble. The crowd hardly breathed, so tense was the strain. But he did not waver. The ball was lost and the last struggle of the day began. Two minutes more, the score tied, and only one chance ...
— A Master's Degree • Margaret Hill McCarter
... of greatness in Pennybet. He willingly acknowledged that the coup d'etat was not his but Salome's, and the riot must inevitably crumble away. So he made a point of leading the cheers that greeted my announcement, and, coming forward, was the first to congratulate me. His example was extensively followed, while he looked on approvingly, as though it had all been his doing, and chirruped every now and then: "This ...
— Tell England - A Study in a Generation • Ernest Raymond
... This was agreed to; and both brother and sister swore, that they had been present, when the devil came to their grandmother in the shape of a black dog, and asked her what she desired. She said, the death of John Robinson; when the dog told her to make an image of Robinson in clay, and after crumble it into dust, and as fast as the image perished, the life of the victim should waste away, and in conclusion the man should die. This evidence was received; and upon such testimony, and testimony like ...
— Lives of the Necromancers • William Godwin
... the workers were filling and sealing small test-tubes with the contents of dishes. These tubes were extraordinarily delicate of structure, and Beale saw at least three crumble and shiver in the ...
— The Green Rust • Edgar Wallace
... have vanished, and the sound of flowing waters has been stilled, there will exist with us yet the recollection of it all. And so at the end the most enduring fabric known to man is woven of the warp and woof of dreams. The canvas of the great painters will crumble, the curves of noble statuary be ground into dust by Time, and all this pageantry of art and commerce disappear. But memory will keep a record of these days as a woman will treasure old love letters, and in the last analysis the ...
— New York at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis 1904 - Report of the New York State Commission • DeLancey M. Ellis
... it were true that the explosion occurred from outside, he would find the money. You see, the message has arrived. After all these years the sea has given up its secret. Marsine will return to Spain with an unlimited credit behind him. The House of Brangaza will crumble up like ...
— Peter Ruff and the Double Four • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... rumbling of thunder, might then be heard many miles, and from its entrails vomited forth redhot stones, with a flood of liquid fire." The crater of the extinguished volcano is still visible, though shattered and powdered down by the tread under which Alps and Appennines themselves crumble away—that of Time. The only point on which we are sceptical is the late origin of the promontory. Nothing beyond a sandhill or a heap of ashes has been produced on the face of nature since the memory of man. That a rock, or rather a mountain chain, with a ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... prominent San Franciscan write, on the Sunday following King's departure to "what lies beyond," these tender words, "Bells sadly ringing this Sabbath morning remind me that one pulpit stands empty; and that it must stand empty, to all intents and purposes, until the church walls crumble, and pulpit, pillars, and all are ...
— Starr King in California • William Day Simonds
... you take me back to the one mother country. Almost your words persuade me that the strangeness of these Western lands is a passing thing. We wonder, and as we wonder they shall crumble away. The sun rises in ...
— The Illustrious Prince • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... is ordered, the final assault is given; and if God does not perform a real miracle to save that soul, the last walls crumble, the doors are beaten down! Then the confessor makes a triumphant entry into the place; the very heart, soul, conscience, and intelligence, ...
— The Priest, The Woman And The Confessional • Father Chiniquy
... shrill cry, and we saw the Prince sway on the verge of the cliff. He threw up his arms and clutched wildly at the air, but he was too late to save himself. We saw the ground crumble beneath his feet, and with a second ...
— The Betrayal • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... the table. I'm tired of these rich people who pretend to be poor, and think it shows a nice mind to ignore the piles of money that keep their feet above the waves. I stand each year upon six hundred pounds, and Helen upon the same, and Tibby will stand upon eight, and as fast as our pounds crumble away into the sea they are renewed—from the sea, yes, from the sea. And all our thoughts are the thoughts of six-hundred-pounders, and all our speeches; and because we don't want to steal umbrellas ourselves, ...
— Howards End • E. M. Forster
... together, but torturing the senses with suggestions of impalement. Sitting or standing, one felt insecure. When would the points run into us? when should we begin to break these incrustations off? and would the whole fabric crumble at a touch into chaotic heaps ...
— Sketches and Studies in Italy and Greece, Complete - Series I, II, and III • John Symonds
... Peter, "all the shot will crumble into dust. It wouldn't do to give raw hands blank-cartridges, because they'd find that out; but with this kind they might sit all day and fire at a baby asleep in its cradle and never disturb it, provided the baby was deaf. And he can't ...
— The Associate Hermits • Frank R. Stockton
... men and women, wearing such a uniform as you wear, and with faces strengthened by discipline and touched with devotion, is the Utopian reality; that but for them the whole fabric of these fair appearances would crumble and tarnish, shrink and shrivel, until at last, back I should be amidst the grime and disorders of the life of earth. Tell me about these Samurai, who remind me of Plato's guardians, who look like Knight Templars, ...
— First and Last Things • H. G. Wells
... a generation our country, shaken to its very foundations by the great social upheavals known as revolutions, has seen its old institutions crumble to pieces and other, entirely new institutions rise in their place; it has seen theories, beliefs, and codes of ethics, theretofore looked upon as immovable, give way to different principles and ...
— The Woman and the Right to Vote • Rafael Palma
... whoso is minded to make him a house must repair to the King and say to him, 'I wish to make me a house in such a place.' Whereupon the King sends with him a band of the fish called 'Peckers,'[FN270] which have beaks that crumble the hardest rock, appointing for their wage a certain quantum of fish. They betake themselves to the mountain chosen by the intended owner and therein pierce the house, whilst the owner catcheth fish for them and feedeth them, till the cave is finished, when ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 9 • Richard F. Burton
... should be firm and preserve a certain amount of moisture, will, when cold, crumble easily when rubbed between the fingers. If, instead, it forms a close, soggy mass, it may be regarded as indigestible. This is one reason why hot, new yeast bread and biscuit are so indigestible. In demonstration of this, take a small lump of new bread, gently roll ...
— Science in the Kitchen. • Mrs. E. E. Kellogg
... strength, and dead, damning silence had answered him. And yet something held him there—something hardened the grasp of his fingers. Newman's satisfaction had been too intense, his whole plan too deliberate and mature, his prospect of happiness too rich and comprehensive for this fine moral fabric to crumble at a stroke. The very foundation seemed fatally injured, and yet he felt a stubborn desire still to try to save the edifice. He was filled with a sorer sense of wrong than he had ever known, or than he had supposed ...
— The American • Henry James
... men had sinned, how did they fall and crumble before the anger of God! they had not power to withstand the terror, nor could there be worth found in their persons or doings to appease displeased justice. But behold here stands the Son of God before him in the sin of the world; his Father, ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan
... to shake and ooze with sweat, His eyes to fever out, his voice to cease. He stood, and heard not Thea's sobbing deep; A little time, and then again he snatch'd 140 Utterance thus.—"But cannot I create? Cannot I form? Cannot I fashion forth Another world, another universe, To overbear and crumble this to nought? Where is another chaos? Where?"—That word Found way unto Olympus, and made quake The rebel three.—Thea was startled up, And in her bearing was a sort of hope, As thus she quick-voic'd spake, ...
— Keats: Poems Published in 1820 • John Keats |
