"Go to pieces" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... when you looked at the whole turn-out, it had such a make-shift look altogether. The reins were twisted rope, the wheels uneven. It went jolting along in such a careless, jolly way, as if it would not care in the least, should it go to pieces any minute just there in the road. The donkey that drew it was bony and blind of one eye; but he winked the other knowingly at you, to ask if you saw the joke of the thing. Even the voice of the owner of the ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... omens, have combined to strengthen me in the belief, in the assurance, that Ottilie will one day be mine. The glass with our initials cut upon it, which was thrown into the air when the foundation-stone was laid, did not go to pieces; it was caught, and I have it again in my possession. After many miserable hours of uncertainty, spent in this place, I said to myself, 'I will put myself in the place of this glass, and it shall be an omen whether our union be possible or not. ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... another night of this and I'll go to pieces. You've been this way four days now. You've got to be more encouraging or I can't work or eat or sleep. (He looks around helplessly as if searching for new words to clothe an old, shopworn phrase.) We'll have to make ...
— This Side of Paradise • F. Scott Fitzgerald
... germinate, it is probably necessary that they be kept dry during the winter, and reach the ground after the season of warmth and moisture is fully established. In May, just as the leaves and the new balls are emerging, at the touch of a warm, moist south wind, these spherical packages suddenly go to pieces—explode, in fact, like tiny bombshells that were fused to carry to this point—and scatter their seeds to the four winds. They yield at the same time a fine pollen-like dust that one would suspect played some part in fertilizing the ...
— A Year in the Fields • John Burroughs
... don't faint—don't go to pieces! We'd be lost! We've got a chance. We'll think of ...
— Desert Gold • Zane Grey
... go to pieces after they've been hard up for a while and finally get grub. Then they feed up and get strong again. It's the grub comin' all of a sudden that makes you weak. Your mind feelin' easier, you ...
— The Lure of the Labrador Wild • Dillon Wallace
... will kill some of our most beautiful trees unless spraying is consistently practised. China berry trees, abundant in the South, and box elders, native to a score of states, are quick growing, but they reach maturity too soon and begin to go to pieces." ...
— How To Write Special Feature Articles • Willard Grosvenor Bleyer
... shone on the pale faces of the company, it was possible to see their differing expressions as the boat was lifted high in air by a wave, to be cast back into the dark depths; the shallop quivered like a fragile leaf, the plaything of the north wind in the autumn; the hull creaked, it seemed ready to go to pieces. Fearful shrieks went up, ...
— Christ in Flanders • Honore de Balzac
... said Maxime to himself, "if they could only see!... their whole society would go to pieces,... but they will always be blind, they do not ...
— Clerambault - The Story Of An Independent Spirit During The War • Rolland, Romain
... if it were not for the punctiliousness of the middle-class in these matters all our civilization would go to pieces. They are the conservators and the maintainers of the standard, the moderators of Europe, the salt of society. For the kind of man who boasts that he does not mind dirty clothes or roughing it, is either a man who cares nothing for all that civilization has built up and who ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc
... minutes before, fell with a crash and the front of the house crumbled. There was a moment's pause, and then the whole structure keeled over, away from the boat, and with a rending and cracking of timbers, broke from its foundation. Over and over it heeled, and it looked as though it would go to pieces. From the window overhead came a scream ...
— The Boy with the U. S. Weather Men • Francis William Rolt-Wheeler
... to cry again just because people were paying her compliments! But perhaps she hadn't quite got over last night and not sleeping at all. And then Sadie's letter. Things had piled on top of each other, but she mustn't let herself go to pieces. She must keep her wits and think—think—think how to get at Sadie and what to ...
— Winnie Childs - The Shop Girl • C. N. Williamson
... boots and shoes of London. Already in some provincial towns a great business is done by the conversion of old shoes into new. They call the men so employed translators. Boots and shoes, as every wearer of them knows, do not go to pieces all at once or in all parts at once. The sole often wears out utterly, while the upper leather is quite good, or the upper leather bursts while the sole remains practically in a salvable condition; but your individual pair of shoes and boots are no good to you when any section of them ...
— "In Darkest England and The Way Out" • General William Booth
... took it upon himself to explain just how Brutus in trying to "show-off" before his little girl companions had ventured out too far, and managed to cause his raft to go to pieces. Sarah looked threatening, so Hugh hastened to ...
— The Chums of Scranton High - Hugh Morgan's Uphill Fight • Donald Ferguson
... to the right, far above the lesser and more fertile hills, rose the snowy heads of those stately patriarchs—Ben-muich-dhui and Ben-na-bourd. Oh, those glorious Highland mountains, with their rugged peaks, against which the fretted clouds "get wrecked and go to pieces." What a glory, what a miracle they are! On sunny mornings with their infinity of wondrous color so softly, so harmoniously blended; now changing like an opal with every cloud that sails over them, and now ...
— Wee Wifie • Rosa Nouchette Carey
... said Miss de Lisle, laughing. "If I can't manage to worry out a fish course without you, I don't deserve to have half my diplomas. Run away: the house won't go to pieces in ...
— Captain Jim • Mary Grant Bruce
... his house all the time in a little safe that you could open with a shoe buttoner. Get it. My skill as a tattooer is worth half the boddle. We go halves and catch a tramp steamer for Rio Janeiro. Let the United States go to pieces if it can't get along without my services. Que ...
— Roads of Destiny • O. Henry
... cabin as to cause the ship's lanterns to burn dimly, so that we feared they would soon be extinguished. Thus we lived amid the raging elements, shut up in a storm-tossed coffin which we knew might go to pieces at any moment. ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... theoretically. The novelists, who are unconsciously among the best psychologists, have thoroughly worked the vein. The average man knows it. "He was disappointed in love," we say, "and we thought he would go to pieces, but now he has found himself in his work"; or, "She will go mad if she doesn't find some one who needs her." It is only lately that science has caught up with intuition, but now the physicians and psychologists who have had the most intimate and first-hand acquaintance ...
— Outwitting Our Nerves - A Primer of Psychotherapy • Josephine A. Jackson and Helen M. Salisbury
... 1827, 43 f.) All endeavors on the part of the Tennessee Synod to bring about an understanding and a unification in the truth were spurned by the other synods "with silent contempt," says David Henkel. (1827, 6. 25.) In the Maryland Synod the prediction was heard: "This Tennessee Synod will go to pieces finally." The Address of the General Synod of 1823 states: "Our Church, which was originally embraced in two independent synods [Ministeriums of Pennsylvania and New York], has spread over so extensive a portion of the United States ...
— American Lutheranism - Volume 1: Early History of American Lutheranism and The Tennessee Synod • Friedrich Bente
... and the Lads' Club, and the Library, and the Men's Class, and the Temperance Union, and all the Guilds. Perhaps, if he went, another curate might come who took no interest in them, and they would all go to pieces." ...
— The Youngest Girl in the Fifth - A School Story • Angela Brazil
... there was less going on. Mr. Rattray had an indefinite idea that in case of a rejection he might find it necessary to go out of town for some weeks to pull himself together again—it was the traditional course—and if such an exigency occurred before July the office would go to pieces under the pressure of events. So he waited, becoming every day more enthusiastically aware of the great advantage of having Miss Bell permanently connected with the paper under supervision which would be even more highly authorized than an editor's, and growing at the same time more thoroughly ...
— A Daughter of To-Day • Sara Jeannette Duncan (aka Mrs. Everard Cotes)
... said kindly, "you ought to pay some attention to your own health. I hate to see a man of your age go to pieces." ...
— The Seventh Noon • Frederick Orin Bartlett
... last began to be felt that the Union would go to pieces and the Federalists be to blame. Accordingly, on the 36th ballot, five Federalists from South Carolina, four from Maryland, one from Vermont, and one from Delaware—Mr. Bayard, grandfather to President Cleveland's first Secretary of State—did not vote, enabling the republican ...
— History of the United States, Volume 2 (of 6) • E. Benjamin Andrews
... sum required, 34,000 marks of silver. Then those who had kept back their possessions and not brought them into the common stock, were right glad, for they thought now surely the host must fail and go to pieces. But God, who advises those who have been ill-advised, would not ...
— Memoirs or Chronicle of The Fourth Crusade and The Conquest of Constantinople • Geoffrey de Villehardouin
... how many more circlings of the clock-hands were measured off before the break came. I lost count of the time by days and was no longer able to think clearly. In perfect physical condition when I was arrested, I began to go to pieces, both mentally and physically, under the strain of suspense. Then insomnia came to add its terrors; I could neither eat nor sleep. I had an ominous foreboding of what the total loss of appetite meant, and kept telling myself over and over that for Polly's sake I must fight ...
— Branded • Francis Lynde
... this shameful confession: "I loved evil and hated the law of God." Not one could confess to passionate, enthusiastic devotion to the divine laws. But every tree not rooted goes down before the storm, and every ship unanchored midst the rocks will go to pieces when the wind rises. Would that we could to-day cause the laws of God to stand forth as sharply defined as mountain peaks before the eyes of all young men; would that we could also kindle in each a passionate love and loyal affection for these holy laws. If the youth of to-day are to be ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... engineering," gibed he, as the little boat sailed under and they looked up like dwarfs at the legs of a Colossus. "The old Roman bridges are good for practically eternity, but these jerry steel things, run up for profits, go to pieces in a mere thousand years! Well, the steel magnates are gone now, and their profits with them. But this junk remains as a lesson and a warning, Beta; the race to come must build better than this, and sounder, ...
— Darkness and Dawn • George Allan England
... lie!" shrieked Jimmie. But they shut him up, and the dignified military machine ground on. Anybody could see that discipline would go to pieces if the word of a jailer did not prevail over that of a prisoner, the word of a loyal and tried subordinate over that of a traitor and conspirator, an avowed sympathizer ...
— Jimmie Higgins • Upton Sinclair
... advance of the centre, and take care that the attack on the rear was not interfered with. Collingwood was given a free hand as to how he did his work. Nelson reminded the captains that in the smoke and confusion of battle set plans were likely to go to pieces, and signals to be unseen, and he left a wide discretion to every one, noting that no captain could do wrong if he laid his ship alongside of the nearest of the enemy. The actual battle was very unlike the diagram in the memorandum, ...
— Famous Sea Fights - From Salamis to Tsu-Shima • John Richard Hale
... Voban lay silent again. I gave him more cordial, and he revived and ended his tale. "I am a blunderer, as m'sieu' say," he went on, "for he is killed, not Bigot and me, and only a little part of the palace go to pieces. And so they fetch me here, and I wish—my God in Heaven, I wish I go with M'sieu' Doltaire." But he followed him a ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... by a ball and chain attached to wrist and ankle; "and yet we bear it for her sake and for Freedom's. Who of us regrets that we did not stay at home in inglorious ease, and leave our grand old ship of state to founder and go to pieces amid the ...
— Elsie's Womanhood • Martha Finley
... La Salle broke the silence. "It's no use, boys; we must stay here all night. And first, let's get both boats down to the berg, for this floe may go to pieces any time; but that is all of twenty feet thick, and will stand a good deal yet. Come, pile in the decoys and tools, and let's get under cover as soon ...
— Adrift in the Ice-Fields • Charles W. Hall
... cannot do that; we had better tell him frankly tonight that we have moved the gold and buried it, lest the vessel should go to pieces in a storm, that we intend to give it up to any Spanish or Chilian ship that may come here; but that if it is a long time before we are rescued we shall then divide the gold between us, and that he will get a fair ...
— With Cochrane the Dauntless • George Alfred Henty
... by going to pieces? Do you mean it the way chairs begin to go to pieces when the glue comes off and the legs ...
— Cornelli • Johanna Spyri
... had passed between us, but Clara left me with the old Dissatisfaction beginning to turn itself, as if about to awake once more. For the present I hung the half-naked blade upon the wall, for I dared not force it lest the scabbard should go to pieces. ...
— Wilfrid Cumbermede • George MacDonald
... from the quarry sometimes go to pieces in early winter, when stones which have been quarried for some months ...
— The Elements of Geology • William Harmon Norton
... current of educated thought runs strongly against such beliefs, and I suppose that every thoughtful man among us feels that a great danger to our faith to-day comes from the force with which that current swings us round, and threatens to make some of us drag our anchors, and drift, and strike and go to pieces on the sands. For one man who is led by the sheer force of reason to yield to the intellectual grounds on which modern unbelief reposes, there are twenty who simply catch the infection in the atmosphere. They find that their early convictions have evaporated, they know not how; only that ...
— Expositions of Holy Scripture - St. Matthew Chaps. IX to XXVIII • Alexander Maclaren
... rough shocks and thumps these boats will endure, and what vicissitudes they will live through. Their duration, however, is but limited; they require frequently to be hauled out of the water and dried, to prevent the hides from becoming water-soaked; and they eventually rot and go to pieces. ...
— The Adventures of Captain Bonneville - Digested From His Journal • Washington Irving
... ye think it! For there's nothin' like a man, passon or no passon, for makin' rumples of every bit of clothes he touches, even his own coats and weskits, and I wouldn't let ye lay hands on any o' these things to save my life. Why, they'd go to pieces at the mere sight of yer fingers, they're so flimsy! What I thought ye might do, was to be a witness to us while we sorted them all. It's a great thing to have a man o' God as a witness to the likes o' ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... have to your charity. But for you and—and Jinny I should have gone to the devil. If you and she are taken away, what have I left in life? I was a coward, sir, not to tell you. You must have guessed it. And yet,—God help me,—I can't stand by and see the nation go to pieces. Your nation as well as mine, Colonel. Your fathers fought that we Americans might inherit the earth—" He stopped abruptly. Then he continued haltingly, "Colonel, I know you're a man of strong feelings ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill
... 'inseparable sigh for her,' which Byron in one of the most human of all his very human moods, has so touchingly described. He felt that she was far too young for him, and that the boat of his shaky fortunes was not meant to carry a bright and beautiful young woman in it—a boat that might go to pieces on a rock at any moment after it had tried to put to sea; and which must, nevertheless, try to put to sea. Then again he had been irritated by paragraphs in the society papers coupling his name more or less conjecturally ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... letters from people in Canada and from others in Florida who have suffered nervous breakdowns. In California some go to pieces. I have had many letters from people living there who have broken down. People also break down in Colorado and in New York; in fact, in every state in the Union. Climate does not seem to make any difference so far as this trouble is concerned, ...
— How to Eat - A Cure for "Nerves" • Thomas Clark Hinkle
... to go to pieces—which was the beginning of the end. All hands knew it was to be every man for himself. We had no life preservers, and our one big dory had been smashed when ...
— The Harbor of Doubt • Frank Williams
... Buford's face. "I think I shall have to give that up, on my honour," he said. "We just seem to have started on West, and to have kept going until we got here. It seemed to be the fashion—especially if you'd lost about everything in the world and seen everything go to pieces all about you." He added this with a slow and deliberate bitterness which removed the light trace of ...
— The Girl at the Halfway House • Emerson Hough
... Economics which is close at hand? Make up your mind to be Lord Chancellor some day ... even if it only carries you as far as the silk gown of a Q.C. I suppose I ought now to write "K.C." A few years ago we all thought the State would go to pieces when Victoria died. Yet you see we are jogging along pretty well under King Edward. In the same way, you will soon get so used to the new Head Clerk, Mrs. Claridge, that you will wonder what on earth you saw ...
— Mrs. Warren's Daughter - A Story of the Woman's Movement • Sir Harry Johnston
... nationalize Constantinople to secure it to her. But it cannot be too frankly said at the outset that any attempt to settle Europe on the basis of the present hemming in of a consolidated Germany and German Austria by a hostile combination of Russia and the extreme states against it, would go to pieces by its own inherent absurdity, just as it has already exploded most destructively by its own instability. Until Russia becomes a federation of several separate democratic States, and the Tsar is either promoted to the honourable position of hereditary President or else totally abolished, the ...
— New York Times, Current History, Vol 1, Issue 1 - From the Beginning to March, 1915 With Index • Various
... Shay" is a perfectly intelligible conception, whatever material difficulties it presents. It is conceivable that a being of an order superior to humanity should so understand the conditions of matter that he could construct a machine which should go to pieces, if not into its constituent atoms, at a given moment of the future. The mind may take a certain pleasure in this picture of the impossible. The event follows as a logical consequence of the ...
— The One Hoss Shay - With its Companion Poems How the Old Horse Won the Bet & - The Broomstick Train • Oliver Wendell Holmes
... the gall-moon has laid bare. You have several times run against these breakers, your hopes have been often shipwrecked upon them, more than once your desires—those of a young marrying man—(where, alas, is that time!) have seen their richly laden gondolas go to pieces there: the flower of the cargo went to the bottom, the ballast of the marriage remained. In short, to make use of a colloquial expression, as you talk over your marriage with yourself you say, as you look at Caroline, "She is not what I ...
— Analytical Studies • Honore de Balzac
... that our children will be all right, your brother must go and do his best to ruin it all! You see how necessary it is for you to be on the spot. We may be able to break the engagement off before it is too late. Leave the mine to take care of itself, or go to pieces if need be. One mine more or less won't make any difference to us. Besides, you must think of your children! Your brother, too; he's ...
— The Smart Set - Correspondence & Conversations • Clyde Fitch
... down and it wasn't so bad. The first scare was over. He did not go to pieces. On the contrary he felt so excited and strong that he almost told the old thing behind him to take off his brush and let himself be pulled. But he was afraid of the cross old car. So he ventured timidly: "Isn't ...
— Here and Now Story Book - Two- to seven-year-olds • Lucy Sprague Mitchell
... in all its details—but as a whole it is wonderful, really wonderful. When one thinks of all the fighting we have had for fifteen years, and finds the very men who fought us every inch, now going far beyond what we asked, I am amazed and sometimes alarmed lest it all go to pieces yet. We have yet to pass the ordeal of public opinion in the several provinces, and sad, indeed, will it be if the measure is not adopted by acclamation in them all. For Upper Canada we may well rejoice on the day it becomes law. Nearly ...
— George Brown • John Lewis
... interest, is not so terrible as a panic when one is by oneself; and such a panic I now suffered. Whither was I drifting? The red-faced man had said that the tide was ebbing through the Golden Gate. Was I, then, being carried out to sea? And the life-preserver in which I floated? Was it not liable to go to pieces at any moment? I had heard of such things being made of paper and hollow rushes which quickly became saturated and lost all buoyancy. And I could not swim a stroke. And I was alone, floating, apparently, in the midst of a grey primordial vastness. I confess that a madness seized me, that I shrieked ...
— The Sea-Wolf • Jack London
... many advantages in this plan of removing the ship, that increased in number and magnitude the more he thought on the subject. Security to the fresh water was one great object to be attained. Should it come on to blow, and the ship drift down upon the rocks to leeward of her, she would probably go to pieces in an hour or two, when not only all the other ample stores that she contained, but every drop of sweet water at the command of the two seamen, would inevitably be lost. So important did it appear to Mark to make ...
— The Crater • James Fenimore Cooper
... Acts began to go to pieces in 1796, when the old rule restricting importations from America, Asia, and Africa to British vessels was withdrawn in favor of the United States; in 1811 the same permission to send goods to England in other than British vessels was given to Brazil, and ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney
... been a hotly contested one was shown by the score in games being 9 to 8 in favor of Miller. If he could make the next game, the set would be his, and with it the championship of the troop. He was counting on the fact that Walter was apt to go to pieces at a critical moment; this helped to keep the playing ...
— The Boy Scouts of the Geological Survey • Robert Shaler
... lose it now. They've never had a man to touch Saunders in this club since it began. I doubt if there's another amateur like him in this country. He's a man to be proud of, although he seemed to go to pieces to-night. They'll all be down on him to-morrow if they lose their money, although he don't make anything one way or another. I believe it's the high betting that's made him so anxious ...
— Revenge! • by Robert Barr
... nerves are now in a little better condition. Since I came here, I've set myself resolutely NOT to think of Will—that is, not more than I can help; there are times when his ghost is extremely active. I'm putting out brain-feelers, for I know that I should go to pieces altogether if I didn't throw myself into some new interest. So that I'm trying a system for the development of one's higher faculties that was taught me by a queer old German professor I met at Caux last summer, who was interested in ...
— Lady Bridget in the Never-Never Land • Rosa Praed
... Kedsty you knew yesterday or for the last ten years. He's nervous, and I miss my guess if he isn't constantly on the watch for some one. And he's afraid of me. I know it. He's afraid of me because I saw him go to pieces when he met that girl. Fort Simpson is simply a frame-up to get me away for a time. He tried to smooth the edge off the thing by promising me an inspectorship within the year. That was this afternoon, just ...
— The Valley of Silent Men • James Oliver Curwood
... here have I been clasped up for more than two centuries, and might have silently fallen a prey to these worms that are playing the very vengeance with my intestines if you had not by chance given me an opportunity of uttering a few last words before I go to pieces." ...
— The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, Gent. • Washington Irving
... enthusiastic partisans of the past. The privileged classes had still too much influence to be attacked with success by M. de Calonne, who appeared to be in himself an assemblage of all the abuses whereof he desired to be the reformer. A plan so vast, however ably conceived, was sure to go to pieces in the hands of a man who did not enjoy public esteem and confidence; but the triumph of the notables in their own cause was a fresh warning to the people that they would have to defend theirs with more vigor." [Memoires de Malouet, t. i. p. 253]. We have seen how ...
— A Popular History of France From The Earliest Times - Volume VI. of VI. • Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot
... some with neither sails nor oars, impelled By some invisible power against the wind, Scattering the spray before them, But of many One is on fire, and one has struck on rocks And melted in the waves like fallen snow. Two crash together in the middle sea, And go to pieces on the instant, leaving No soul to tell the tale, and one is hurled In fragments to the sky, strewing the deep With death and wreck. I had rather live with Circe Even as I was, than flit about the world In those enchanted ships which some ...
— Gryll Grange • Thomas Love Peacock
... day after day, from daybreak to dark, most of the time through spruce bogs where the water was sometimes ankle-deep, and at times up to our thighs. We were wet all the time, and our shoes began to rot and go to pieces. ...
— Ben Comee - A Tale of Rogers's Rangers, 1758-59 • M. J. (Michael Joseph) Canavan
... been dreaming of," he rudely interrogated her, "to let the place go to pieces like this? Drifting behind year after year, and doing nothing to stop it—not cutting down one of the living expenses—not giving us the least hint of ...
— Sisters • Ada Cambridge
... people who "age" long before their time, that likewise great army of both men and women who along about middle age, say from forty-five to sixty, break and, as we say, all of a sudden go to pieces, and many die, just at the period when they should be in the prime of life, in the full vigour of manhood and womanhood and of greatest value to themselves, to their families, and to the world, is something that is contrary to nature, and is one of the ...
— The Higher Powers of Mind and Spirit • Ralph Waldo Trine
... doubt but that, if the ship should get on shore under any unfavourable circumstances, she would immediately go to pieces; but with a soft bottom and smooth water, she might touch for a short time without any worse consequences than to another ship, if she did not heel much; but altogether, we judge it to be much more dangerous for her to ...
— A Voyage to Terra Australis Volume 2 • Matthew Flinders
... give 'way fur the last ten years. It's a big high one, too, and has a heap of timber in it. Just as surely as that mass of stuff comes down the creek with a volume of water behind it, this pier will go to pieces and down will ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon
... over all my fears, for this unspeakable consolation, that nothing can hurt you. I experience for you what I did in my own case, when darkness and tempest added to the horrors of many, while our vessel kept dashing on the rock: I, too, expected her to go to pieces every moment; but the idea was ever with me, 'in the bosom of God's ocean, I shall find the bosom of my Saviour.' On the night of the 29th of March I dreamt my dear J——y fell overboard, and I saw her floating ...
— The Power of Faith - Exemplified In The Life And Writings Of The Late Mrs. Isabella Graham. • Isabella Graham
... and very—terrible, Honor," she said. "I never imagined you could be as terrible as that." Then her lips quivered, and she caught at the girl's skirt, drawing her nearer. "You must go on helping me, or everything will go to pieces." ...
— Captain Desmond, V.C. • Maud Diver
... furniture which looks all right, but which in reality is full of blemishes and weaknesses, covered up with paint and varnish. Glue starts at joints, chairs and bedsteads break down at the slightest provocation, castors come off, handles pull out, many things "go to pieces" altogether, even ...
— Pushing to the Front • Orison Swett Marden
... aunt. "Such a thing would be quixotic. Society doesn't rest upon any such basis. It can't; it would go to pieces, if ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... people convinced themselves that they would never again be forced to go to war; that they had seen the folly of it, and the misery of it, and would devote themselves thereafter to the delightful pursuits of peace. Gradually the fighting ships of the ironclad class were allowed to go to pieces; gradually even the larger ships of the wooden sailing class fell into disrepair; gradually the idea of war faded from the minds even of naval officers; gradually squadrons and fleets, as such, were broken up, and our ships were to be found scattered singly over all the seas, and swinging idly ...
— The Navy as a Fighting Machine • Bradley A. Fiske
... calls his "mug." Take the man, for instance, who deals in the mathematical sciences. There is no elasticity in a mathematical fact; if you bring up against it, it never yields a hair's breadth; everything must go to pieces that comes in collision with it. What the mathematician knows being absolute, unconditional, incapable of suffering question, it should tend, in the nature of things, to breed a despotic way of thinking. So of those who deal with the palpable and often unmistakable facts of external ...
— The Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. (The Physician and Poet not the Jurist)
... The bright face was high and resolute. She was not aware of the danger, but from that look on her face he did not think she would go to pieces when ...
— Pearl of Pearl Island • John Oxenham
... see The begnet-pint there is to an idee! [Sensation.] Ten times the danger in 'em th' is in steel; They run your soul thru an' you never feel, 110 But crawl about an' seem to think you're livin', Poor shells o' men, nut wuth the Lord's forgivin', Tell you come bunt ag'in a real live feet, An' go to pieces when you'd ough' to ect! Thet kin' o' begnet's wut we're crossin' now, An' no man, fit to nevvigate a scow, 'ould stan' expectin' help from Kingdom Come, While t'other side druv their ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... long time the white hose lacked reinforcements, so that they began to grow thin from top to toe. Martha feared that they would go to pieces in one irremediable catastrophe, like the one-hoss shay. Evidently Eddie's job did not warrant unnecessary expenditures. Then the holes began to appear. Martha tucked them grimly under the glittering needle of the Klinger darner and mender but at the first incision ...
— Defenders of Democracy • Militia of Mercy
... that she is utterly false, yet a glance or two from those dark eyes of hers can make a fool of you! A woman made a fool of me, once; but I learned my lesson; you have failed to learn yours. If you are determined to go to pieces on the rock that broke up Adam, do so! But don't involve me in the wreck, Petrie—for that might mean a yellow emperor of the world, and ...
— The Return of Dr. Fu-Manchu • Sax Rohmer
... wasn't at all rotten and unseaworthy, as they had told me, but nice and white and dry inside. I had grown fond of the ship, on which I could practice my old sailing manoeuvres. The only trouble was that the sails would go to pieces every now and then because ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 4, July, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... lift. It is miserable—that you should have brought so much happiness to us, and then have tired of it all. I don't understand it in the least. Something must have happened to distress you—it can't all go to pieces like this!" ...
— Watersprings • Arthur Christopher Benson
... of love, the sort that makes people go away and cry in the woods—for I've been crying because I'm hopelessly in love, Miss Buchanan, and I presume that you are too—well, that sort of love can't escape ruin sometimes. That side of life may go to pieces and then there's nothing left for it but to cry. But that side isn't ...
— Franklin Kane • Anne Douglas Sedgwick
... them. The short waists modify to the last his visions of Greek ideal. His foregrounds had always a succulent cluster or two of greengrocery at the corners. Enchanted oranges gleam in Covent Gardens of the Hesperides; and great ships go to pieces in order to scatter chests of them on the waves.[122] That mist of early sunbeams in the London dawn crosses, many and many a time, the clearness of Italian air; and by Thames' shore, with its stranded barges and glidings of red sail, dearer to us than Lucerne ...
— Selections From the Works of John Ruskin • John Ruskin
... life: "Last night I was there, far away—all those scores of miles of fields and towns are between!—and to-night I am here. Down there I was nothing but an idler. Here I am the strongest. I am indispensable. I am the one person on whom she depends. Without me everything will go to pieces." And she thought of George Cannon's vast enigmatic projects concerning grand hotels. In passing the immense pile of St. Pancras on the way from Euston to King's Cross, George Cannon had waved his hand and said: "Look at that! Look at that! It's something after that style that I want for ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett
... boy," said he, in a quick, firm tone, "we are ashore. Perhaps we shall go to pieces in a few minutes. God knows. May He in His mercy spare us. You cannot do much on deck. Ailie must be looked after till I come down for her. Glynn, I ...
— The Red Eric • R.M. Ballantyne
... quarter of an hour alone with him it became acute. She was to feel at this crisis that no clear, no common answer, no direct satisfaction on this point, was to reach her; she was to see her question itself simply go to pieces. She couldn't tell if he were different or not, and she didn't know nor care if she were: these things had ceased to matter in the light of the only thing she did know. This was that she liked him, as she put it to herself, as ...
— The Wings of the Dove, Volume 1 of 2 • Henry James
... in a graver tone, "that if I had my way, I'd leave some of the ships out of the production. After you've once seen some big craft go to pieces on the shoals, you rather lose your liking for ...
— The Rushton Boys at Treasure Cove - Or, The Missing Chest of Gold • Spencer Davenport
... very distasteful to many officers of the army; and the croakers and politicians would almost be willing to see the government go to pieces, to get rid of the President and his cabinet. Some of the members of Congress are anxious to get away, and the Examiner twits them for their ...
— A Rebel War Clerk's Diary at the Confederate States Capital • John Beauchamp Jones
... ball?" was his next question, "or Clarence's ball, as you don't seem to take much interest in it, ma'am? You are afraid of being brought in contact with the iron pots, eh? You might crack or go to pieces, who knows, and what would become of me, a wretched widower." Mr. Copperhead himself laughed loudly at this joke, which did not excite any mirth from the others, and then he repeated his question, ...
— Phoebe, Junior • Mrs [Margaret] Oliphant
... hands. 'She's licked me, Doc. She's going to marry that—that—' He choked and muttered, unintelligibly: 'I've reasoned, I've pleaded, I've commanded. She merely smiles and shrugs and says I'm probably right, in the abstract. Then she informs me that abstract problems go to pieces once in a while. She says this—this—Galloping Moose, this yelping ghost-dancer of yours, is the only real ...
— Laughing Bill Hyde and Other Stories • Rex Beach
... in. The French know there's a sort of diplomatic credo at the London Foreign Office to the general effect that England and France have got to stand together or Europe will go to pieces. The French are realists. They bank on that. They tread on British corns, out here, all they want to, while they toss bouquets, backed by airplanes, across the ...
— Jimgrim and Allah's Peace • Talbot Mundy
... of time by the incidents we crowd into it. The most uneventful days pass the most unheeded. Now to me, it seems but yesterday that I stood on the deck of the ship, and knew that she was sure to go to pieces, and that the chance of anyone reaching that rocky coast alive were small, indeed; when I saw what seemed little more than a black speck approaching, and you and your fisher boy made ...
— Orange and Green - A Tale of the Boyne and Limerick • G. A. Henty
... fouled the wheel; still, we managed to get the vessel round, but scarcely were the braces belayed and the ship on the starboard tack, when she struck the ground broadside on. She was a soft-wood built ship, and she trembled, sir, as though she would go to pieces at once like a pack of cards. Sheets and halliards were let go, but no man durst venture aloft. Every moment threatened to bring the spars crushing about us, and the thundering and beating of the canvas made the masts ...
— Heroes of the Goodwin Sands • Thomas Stanley Treanor
... discharge her cargo in boats as soon as another tide should raise her into an upright position. We felt little hope of being able to save the ship, but it was all-important that her cargo should be discharged before she should go to pieces. Captain Tobezin, of the Russian steamer Saghalin, offered us the use of all his boats and the assistance of his crew, and on the following day we began work with six or seven boats, a large lighter, and about fifty men. The sea still continued to run very high; ...
— Tent Life in Siberia • George Kennan
... lifted his glass. "Time for everything but work, Crowther. She has developed beastly loose morals in her old age. Some day there'll come a nasty bust up, and she may pull herself together and do things again, or she may go to pieces. ...
— The Bars of Iron • Ethel May Dell
... the gig. 'Give her her head, Tom,' cried the host; and away they went, down the narrow lanes; jolting in and out of the cart-ruts, and bumping up against the hedges on either side, as if they would go to pieces every moment. ...
— The Pickwick Papers • Charles Dickens
... France are not diverse phenomena; they are different phases of the same phenomenon. All Europe will go to pieces if new conditions of life are not found, and the economic equilibrium profoundly shaken by ...
— Peaceless Europe • Francesco Saverio Nitti
... husband—the best father that ever breathed the breath of life—my own Denis, is lying dead—murdhered before my eyes? Put your hands on my head, some of you—put your hands on my head, or it will go to pieces. Where are you, Denis—where are you, the strong of hand, and the tender of heart? Come to me, darling, I want you in my distress. I want comfort, Denis; and I'll take it from none but yourself, for kind was your word to me in all ...
— The Station; The Party Fight And Funeral; The Lough Derg Pilgrim • William Carleton
... the fact that he was their bread-winner. With every blow of his hammer the home grew, so he hammered away cheerfully. They were poor, but that was nothing in comparison with the fact that if he were taken away now, things would go to pieces. He was the children's Providence; it was always "Father's going to," or "Father said so." In their eyes he was infallible. Ellen too began to come to him with her troubles; she no longer kept them to herself, but recognized that he had ...
— Pelle the Conqueror, Complete • Martin Andersen Nexo
... well reach the shore. There are scarce three feet of water here, and except where one or two deeps pass across it there is no more anywhere between this and the land. It will not be rough very far. Now, be off at once; the boat will go to pieces before many minutes. I and the two men will take to the mainmast, but I want to ...
— By England's Aid or The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585-1604) • G.A. Henty
... system. Shape everything to it. Divide the twenty-four hours between work, recreation, sleep, and mental culture according to a scheme that suits your judgment and circumstances. Then make things go that way. The scheme will quickly go to pieces 10 unless backed by ...
— Story Hour Readings: Seventh Year • E.C. Hartwell
... poor Tad Warren's wife, bunch of us got together and made up a purse for her. Nothing more pathetic than these poor little women that poke down the cocktails to keep excited and then go to pieces. ...
— The Trail of the Hawk - A Comedy of the Seriousness of Life • Sinclair Lewis
... however, had to be done quickly. The vessel had struck on a great rock, the billows were sweeping over her, and she might go to pieces any minute. The storm, although it had not yet reached its full height, was rapidly rising, the wind blew louder and louder, until we could scarcely hear each other speak. The men we had saved were battered and bruised and nearly unconscious. As I think of it now it is a wonder ...
— Roger Trewinion • Joseph Hocking
... at sea will come, do what you will, and the best boat ever built would go to pieces on those Akimiski rocks," Katherine said, trying to cheer him ...
— A Countess from Canada - A Story of Life in the Backwoods • Bessie Marchant
... companion cover parted company and was swept away; a whole Niagara of water poured down through the opening upon my devoted head, and as I clung to the handrail with the grip of a drowning man the schooner struck a third time, with such terrific violence that I fully expected the hull to go to pieces about my ears. But no, the stanchly built little hooker still held together, although I knew that her bottom must be stove in like a cracked egg-shell; and presently, when I felt that I could not hold my breath for another second, I found my head ...
— Turned Adrift • Harry Collingwood
... up. They're such funny stones. They all go to pieces when you squeeze them," said Zaidee, grasping some with both hands, to illustrate. "Could you put the stool over ...
— Cricket at the Seashore • Elizabeth Westyn Timlow
... displaying proudly their red fez in Paris, where the opera permitted them to continue their habits of polygamy; Americans, whose gold-mines or petroleum-wells made them billionaires for a winter, only to go to pieces and make them paupers the following summer; politicians out of a place; unknown authors; misunderstood poets; painters of the future-in short, the greater part of the people who were invited by Prince Andras to his water-party, Baroness Dinati having pleaded for her friends and obtained ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... was one of the heaviest Deck's battalion had ever received, and for several minutes it looked as if the four companies must go to pieces. But the gallant major rallied his forces, and the Confederates were hemmed in so closely that they could neither advance nor retreat. Sabre blows fell thick and fast, striking fire in a dozen spots ...
— An Undivided Union • Oliver Optic
... as we got out into the Atlantic this side of Cape Verde, the ship began to go to pieces. I don't pretend for one moment to understand what happened. But I think Greiffenhagen's recent work on the effects of radium upon ligneous tissue does rather carry out my idea that emanations from quap have rapid rotting ...
— Tono Bungay • H. G. Wells
... all hope of getting anything from it, and now it is booming. My, won't Kit be surprised! I would feel happy to-night but for this other letter. I wonder what I had better do about it. Things are certainly in a bad shape there. He's on the rocks sure enough, and will go to pieces if we don't come to his assistance, ...
— The Unknown Wrestler • H. A. (Hiram Alfred) Cody
... gauzy clouds, that drop on them like fleeces, And make green their fir forests, and feed their mosses hoar; Or come sailing up the valleys, and get wrecked and go to pieces, Like sloops against their cruel strength: ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Jean Ingelow
... nothing else. By gad! it has unstrung the whole garrison, I believe. You never saw our people fall off so in their shooting. Of course we expected Jerrold to go to pieces, but nobody else." ...
— From the Ranks • Charles King
... that alcohol keeps meat from decaying, or going to pieces. We explain that food in the stomach must go to pieces to prepare it to make blood; when mixed with alcohol, it is preserved, and the gastric juice cannot melt or dissolve it. Thus the stomach is hindered from doing its work until it gets rid ...
— Object Lessons on the Human Body - A Transcript of Lessons Given in the Primary Department of School No. 49, New York City • Sarah F. Buckelew and Margaret W. Lewis
... ship would hold together till the morning, when all would be safe. Captain Pierce, observing one of the young gentlemen loud in his exclamations of terror, and frequently cry that the ship was parting, cheerfully bid him be quiet, remarking that though the ship should go to pieces, he would not, but ...
— Reprinted Pieces • Charles Dickens
... would be good if the young man could be got to break his neck out hunting;—or good if the yacht could be made to founder, or go to pieces on a rock, or come to any other fatal maritime misfortune. But these were accidents which he personally could have no power to produce. Such wishing was infantine, and fit only for a weak woman, such as the Marchioness. If anything were ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... with the followers of Breckinridge. He hoped to effect a reorganization of the Democratic party by crushing the disunion elements within it. With this end in view he could not permit the organization to go to pieces in the North. A listless campaign on his part would not only give the election to Lincoln, but leave his own followers to wander leaderless into other organizations. For the sake of discipline and future success, he rallied Northern Democrats for a ...
— Stephen A. Douglas - A Study in American Politics • Allen Johnson
... Nerves go to pieces in the Arctic. Captain Back, who commanded the "Terror" on her first northern voyage (1836), has told how there comes, as the icy night drags on, "a weariness of heart, a blank feeling, which gets the better of the whole man"; and Colonel Brainard, of the Greely expedition, wrote: "Take any set ...
— Henry Hudson - A Brief Statement Of His Aims And His Achievements • Thomas A. Janvier
... made acquaintance with it in a fog, in that sight-seeing visit I paid to town; and its beauty, I must confess, did not impress me. From St. Katherine's Docks you will reach Antwerp in about eighteen hours—always provided the ship does not go to pieces." ...
— The Channings • Mrs. Henry Wood
... perish if what is called the church did go to pieces; a truer church, for there might well be a truer, would arise out of her ruins. But let no one seek to destroy; let him that builds only take heed that he build with gold and silver and precious stones, not with wood and hay and stubble! If the church were so ...
— There & Back • George MacDonald
... another would have done. No, thank heavens, he thought to himself as he leaned over the rail of the ship, fast making its way down the yellow tide, he had still preserved his sense of honour. So many men go to pieces out in the East, but he, somehow, had managed to keep himself clear ...
— Civilization - Tales of the Orient • Ellen Newbold La Motte
... man, because she is so much more fertile in capacities of suffering than a man. She has so many varieties of headache,—sometimes as if Jael were driving the nail that killed Sisera into her temples,—sometimes letting her work with half her brain while the other half throbs as if it would go to pieces,—sometimes tightening round the brows as if her cap-band were Luke's iron crown,—and then her neuralgias, and her back-aches, and her fits of depression, in which she thinks she is nothing and less than nothing, and those paroxysms which men speak slightingly of as hysterical,—convulsions, ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume V, Number 29, March, 1860 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various
... themselves bare-armed and ready for the contest. The English elms are of a more robust build, and stand defiant, with all their summer clothing about their sturdy frames. They may yet have to learn a lesson of their American cousins, for notwithstanding their compact and solid structure they go to pieces in the great winds just as ours do. We must drop much of our foliage before winter is upon us. We must take in sail and throw over cargo, if that is necessary, to keep us afloat. We have to decide between our duties and our instinctive demand ...
— Over the Teacups • Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. |
