"Wrecking" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... shape. One wind wheel was broken by a tornado in 1870, and another in 1881 from same cause. Aside from these two, which cost $250 each, and a month's lost time, the power did not cost over $10 a year for repairs. In July, 1833, a cyclone passed over this section, wrecking my will as well as everything else in its track, and having (out of the profits of the wind mill) purchased a large water and steam flouring mill here, I last fall moved the wind mill out to Dakota, where ...
— Scientific American Supplement, No. 446, July 19, 1884 • Various
... future after their conception. The delegates could look only to moral power for the execution of their far-reaching plans, yet they spurned the means of acquiring it. The best construction one can put upon their action will represent it as the wrecking of the substance by the form. By establishing a situation of force throughout Europe the Council created and sanctioned the principle that it ...
— The Inside Story Of The Peace Conference • Emile Joseph Dillon
... they represent, and, with St. Augustin, most of them do not recognize such feelings in the "pagan savage." Moreover, while early Christianity, like all other religions, was an appeal to the broadly human feelings of mutual aid and sympathy, the Christian Church has aided the State in wrecking all standing institutions of mutual aid and support which were anterior to it, or developed outside of it; and, instead of the mutual aid which every savage considers as due to his kinsman, it has preached charity which bears a character of inspiration from above, and, accordingly, ...
— Mutual Aid • P. Kropotkin
... six feet wide, and another in the roof. I had scarcely done examining these phenomena when another crash shook the whole building, and we found that an infernal machine had been exploded in the House of Commons, tearing the doors off their hinges, wrecking the galleries, and smashing the Treasury Bench into matchwood. The French Ambassador, M. Waddington, entered the House with me, and for a while stood silent and amazed. At length he said, "There's no other country in the world where ...
— Fifteen Chapters of Autobiography • George William Erskine Russell
... faked story a mile away, and that, anyhow, all the good stunts had been pulled off. I agreed with him. I remember saying that nothing but a railroad wreck or a murder hit the public very hard these days, and that I didn't feel like wrecking the Pennsylvania Limited. ...
— The Case of Jennie Brice • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... know," the Captain said. "We have a formal complaint from the main offices of Jupiter Equilateral, charging you with piracy, murder, kidnapping of a company official, and totally wrecking a company orbit ship. I don't quite see how you managed it, but we're going to ...
— Gold in the Sky • Alan Edward Nourse
... because of the American Red Cross reconstruction centre, for the fruit trees. Here there had been no Soeur Julie, no reconstruction centre yet. The Germans, when they knew they had to go, gave three weeks to their wrecking work. They sent off, neatly packed, all that was worth sending to Germany. They measured the cellars to see what quantity of explosives would be needed to blow up the houses. Then they blew them up, making their ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson
... "Stop wrecking the furniture," exclaimed Billie, from her corner. "And do stop talking all at once. You make my ears ache. And besides, ...
— Billie Bradley and Her Inheritance - The Queer Homestead at Cherry Corners • Janet D. Wheeler
... whether or not I succeeded in suppressing all signs of my own perturbation, but we have in the Navy now a man who does not hesitate to overturn a court martial, and so I feared a re-opening of the Rock in the Baltic question, which might have meant the wrecking of my career. I had quite made up my mind, if the worst came to the worst, to go out West and become a cow-boy, but a passenger with whom I became acquainted on the 'Enthusiana' informed me, to my regret, that the cow-boy is largely a being of the past, to be met with ...
— A Rock in the Baltic • Robert Barr
... soil—picked men, soldiers all, who were already living to-day in readiness upon the East Coast of England as hotel-servants, clerks or workers in other trades. Our shrewd, business-like friends across the grey, misty sea would take care to strike a blow on our shores by the wrecking of bridges, the disabling of railways, the destruction of telegraphs, and the like, simultaneous with their frantic dash upon our shore. Germany never does anything by halves, nor does she leave ...
— The White Lie • William Le Queux
... hapless Yoruba. Years ago, after the fashion of the Nigritia and the Monrovia, she was carelessly lost. Though anchored in a safe place, when swinging round she hit upon a rock and was incontinently ripped up; the injured compartment filled, and the skipper ran her on the beach, wrecking her according to Act of Parliament. They once managed to get her off, but she had not power to stem the seas, and there she ...
— To The Gold Coast for Gold, Vol. II - A Personal Narrative • Richard Francis Burton and Verney Lovett Cameron
... to explain to you that Providence meant these things for me. You are not acute enough to understand close reasoning. I could not show you that, for the sake of a few coins, which would do you only that harm which would come from their value in cheap whisky or beer, you might be wrecking the future of a soul that is awake. I simply tell you that I shall keep the clothing for myself. Perhaps you can understand that plain statement!" The brown eyes became resolute and piercing. "Even if I had money I would not pay you for these garments. Money does such as you no good; ...
— The Landloper - The Romance Of A Man On Foot • Holman Day
... the day being the only break which they had had in their journey. In fact, as darkness would soon be upon them, it would have been madness to proceed farther, the country having become so broken and wild that it would have been next to impossible to proceed without wrecking the waggon. ...
— The Silver Canyon - A Tale of the Western Plains • George Manville Fenn
... people have a limited scope of knowledge. Such overlooked the real benefits of our civilization, and did not realize that wrecking the constitution would simply destroy the good that had thus far been achieved, and uproot the seeds of promise of usefulness for the centuries to come. They wanted slavery destroyed at once, violently, regardless of ...
— The Life of Abraham Lincoln • Henry Ketcham
... feverish desire to possess and enjoy, that extraordinary perversion set in, growing worse and worse each day, and changing Bernadette's peaceful Bethlehem into a perfect Sodom or Gomorrah. Father Sempe had ensured the triumph of his Divinity by spreading human abominations all around and wrecking thousands of souls. Gigantic buildings rose from the ground, five or six millions of francs had already been expended, everything being sacrificed to the stern determination to leave the poor parish out in the cold and keep ...
— The Three Cities Trilogy, Complete - Lourdes, Rome and Paris • Emile Zola
... will not entirely belong to their parents, but will also be guarded and looked after as an asset to the world. This will, of course, give complete liberty to good parents, but it will prevent bad parents from wrecking the lives of their children, as is the case to-day, unless the parents' wickedness is so disgracefully bad that they come under the eye of the N.S.P.C.C. But the law always shields the wrong-doer. We are far more concerned that ...
— Over the Fireside with Silent Friends • Richard King
... of the delay was due, and all was attributed, to the unusually bad state of the roads. The heavy storms and floods which, by wrecking the road, had delayed us so much, naturally checked the heavy transport still more; and severe congestion of bullock-carts resulted at all the halting-places along the route. Still, the main cause of delay lies in the fact that the monopoly of transport has been granted by the Maharajah to one Danjibhoy, ...
— A Holiday in the Happy Valley with Pen and Pencil • T. R. Swinburne
... ago. It's all over now, but it was bad while it lasted. Perhaps Marian will consider your request more favourably if I put it in the light of a favour to myself. She must feel that she owes me something for wrecking my life." ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1909 to 1922 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... buttons on his waistcoat; he'd pulled them off on purpose. He is a cunning beggar, that Gull. Fancy his staying behind to light the reading-room gas, and telling Lucas he'd only just come! Why, he did more of the wrecking than any two of us ...
— The Triple Alliance • Harold Avery
... iron will with the grip he has on it now he'll pull through—and be a hopeless invalid for life. He will join the great army of industrial cripples—a havoc that makes war seem harmless. The wrecking corporation have already sent their lawyer and settled his case for eighty-five dollars cash: not enough to bury him. He ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... cling to me. What right has your father, or any other father, to blast his child's happiness? Heed him not, love, but come with me. I will never let you feel a single regret. I will love you more than all their love combined. Nay, do not turn aside—you must hear me. Think what you are doing! wrecking my happiness, casting me forth, without hope, to drag out a miserable, useless existence. I may be cursed with long life. Constance, darling, come with me! With your parents it will only be a short grief—disappointed ambition—and, at the most, only ...
— The Rector of St. Mark's • Mary J. Holmes
... the Entente did more than its foresight to bring that consummation to pass. In the main it was due to the gradual weakening and then the collapse of Russia, which first involved the ruin of Serbia and Rumania and the wrecking of our Balkan plans, and finally dissolved the Eastern front. There could have been no unity of command had Russia remained our predominant military partner; and even in the West it never comprised the Italian Army, which retained its ...
— A Short History of the Great War • A.F. Pollard
... slave and to set him to a business which has no purpose whatever, which is as blind as the process of the universe seems to one who has no faith. This struggle for life might just as well be called a struggle for death. It is, in fact, merely a struggle between two machines intent on wrecking each other; and part of the machines are the bodies of men, which behave as if there were no souls in them, as if there were not even life, but merely energy; so that they collide and destroy each other like masses of matter ...
— Essays on Art • A. Clutton-Brock
... at first promised to abolish the Inquisition in the Netherlands, but soon repented of his promise. For meanwhile mobs of fanatical Protestants, far more radical than the respectable "Beggars," were rushing to arms, breaking into Catholic churches, wrecking the altars, smashing the images to pieces, profaning monasteries, and showing in their retaliation as much violence—as their enemies had shown cruelty in persecution. In August, 1566, this sacrilegious ...
— A Political and Social History of Modern Europe V.1. • Carlton J. H. Hayes
... wrecking of London Bridge so many hundred years ago by Olaf, the boy viking of fifteen, may have been the origin of the old song-game dear to so ...
— The Junior Classics • Various
... Muffling their face, they dig Their way to habitations where they leave Shame and dishonor. Though He seem to sleep, God's eye is on their ways. A little while They wrap themselves in secret infamy, Or proudly flourish,—but as the tall tree Yields in a moment to the wrecking blast, As 'neath the sickle falls the crisping corn, Shall they be swept ...
— Man of Uz, and Other Poems • Lydia Howard Sigourney
... to meet 'em between Kearney and Julesburg. It's about time they were wrecking another train. Well, so long. Be good to each other." With this parting piece of ...
— Desert Dust • Edwin L. Sabin
... this would have been an ordeal, a nerve-wrecking event. But you've been as cool as a fish—I've been watching you. You might have been brought up in a vice-regal lodge and hobnobbed all your life with ambassadors. How do you ...
— Who Cares? • Cosmo Hamilton
... The wrecking of old Dobbins' house had remained a mystery. Some thought the rope had been cut, while others were of the opinion that it had broken because of the heavy strain ...
— The Boys of Bellwood School • Frank V. Webster
... since the terms be such - No wage, or labour stained with the disgrace Of wrecking what our age cannot replace To save its tasteless soul - I'll do without your ...
— Poems of the Past and the Present • Thomas Hardy
... his leisure with wrecking the happiness of a united family, but he was an enemy open and declared of France. It was his amiable pastime at the dinner-table, when he had first helped himself to such delicacies as tempted his dainty palate, to pronounce a ...
— A Book of Scoundrels • Charles Whibley
... it too late? Won't you listen to reason even at the eleventh hour? It is the greatest folly to enter into this engagement. Never were two people more unsuited to each other! You will regret it all your life. My poor, dear child, you are wrecking your own happiness..." ...
— Sisters Three • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey
... the dressing tent had been apparent ever since he and the educated mule had made their sensational entry into that sacred domain, practically wrecking the place. Teddy and his pet had come near doing the same thing twice since, and the performers were beginning to believe there ...
— The Circus Boys Across The Continent • Edgar B. P. Darlington
... desperately on the afternoon which neither of them could ever remember afterwards without a sickness of the soul, "you're simply building a funeral pyre for yourself. You're wrecking your life and my life because of an insane idea. You're letting the pettiest and unworthiest thing in you—a twisted instinct—consume all that's vital and ...
— The Tyranny of Weakness • Charles Neville Buck
... Ravana. And Pulastya hath a mighty son called Vaisravana begotten of a cow. But his son, leaving his father, went to his grandfather. And, O king, angered at this, his father then created a second self of himself. And with half of his own self that regenerate one became born of Visrava for wrecking a vengeance on Vaisravana. But the Grandsire, pleased with Vaisravana, gave him immortality, and sovereignty of all the wealth of the Universe, the guardianship of one of the cardinal points, the friendship of Isana, and a son named Nalakuvera. And he also gave him for his capital ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa Bk. 3 Pt. 2 • Translated by Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... meat of him—for he is strong meat—and come simply to Jesus, the meek and gentle—the Redeemer, who died that his blood might cleanse our sin-stained souls. Centre your aspirations upon Him, for He is the rock of our salvation, if we believe, or the rock of our wrecking to endless torment if we disbelieve. Do not deny our God who is Jesus, nor disown Jesus who is our God, nor yet question the inerrance of Holy Writ—yea, with its everlasting burnings. "He that believeth and is baptised shall be saved, ...
— The Seeker • Harry Leon Wilson
... will take a bit of help from an outsider, I think we needn't wait for the wrecking-car," he said to the dubious trainmen. "It's bad, but not so bad as it looks. What do ...
— A Fool For Love • Francis Lynde
... pretty costly business, for in each case the ray bored into the corridor and shaft walls beyond its target, wrecking much machinery, injuring the structural members of that section, penetrating apartments and taking a number of lives. Moreover, the "air balls," being destroyed, could not be subjected to ...
— The Airlords of Han • Philip Francis Nowlan
... magnificent saloons were crowded by those ever ready to worship at the shrine of wealth, and rank, and power. But, as the stormy days of the Revolution shed their gloom over France, and an infuriated populace were wrecking their vengeance upon the throne and the nobles, Madame du Barri, terrified by the scenes of violence daily occurring, prepared to fly from France. She invested enormous funds in England, and one dark night ...
— Maria Antoinette - Makers of History • John S. C. (John Stevens Cabot) Abbott
... loud pounding upon the door of our bunk house aroused us from our slumbers, and while we rubbed the drowsiness out of our eyes we heard Foreman McDonald calling to us to make haste, as a wrecking train was waiting to take us up the line to clear away ...
— The Trail of the Tramp • A-No. 1 (AKA Leon Ray Livingston)
... three miles off; and, with the glass, small boats could be seen shooting away from several of the approaching wrecking vessels. ...
— Wakulla - A Story of Adventure in Florida • Kirk Munroe
... the longings born of her covetousness and ambition. And then, when the Sun-King looked with favour upon her opulent charms, when at last she saw the object of her ambition within reach, that husband of hers went very near to wrecking everything by his unreasonable behaviour. This preposterous marquis had the effrontery to dispute his wife with Jupiter, was so purblind as not to appreciate the honour the Sun-King ...
— The Historical Nights' Entertainment • Rafael Sabatini
... his best work save as he uses his strongest faculties, the first duty of each is to search out the line of least resistance. He who has a genius for moral themes but has harnessed himself to the plow or the forge, is in danger of wrecking both happiness and character. All such misfits are fatal. No farmer harnesses a fawn to the plow, or puts an ox into the speeding-wagon. Life's problem is to make a right inventory of the gifts one carries. As no carpenter knows what tools ...
— A Man's Value to Society - Studies in Self Culture and Character • Newell Dwight Hillis
... the other. "You've 'framed' me! Arranged it between you. Been waiting for me to come back so you could spring your game! If there's any law in this state, I'll have you both where you belong for deliberately wrecking this company—in ...
— The Iron Furrow • George C. Shedd
... were stoicism and bitterness in this answer, there was not deliberate cruelty. Raoul loved his lugger, next to Ghita, before all things on earth; and, in his eyes, the fault of wrecking her in a calm was to be classed among the unpardonable sins. Still, it was by no means a rare occurrence. Ships, like men, are often cast away by an excess of confidence; and our own coast, one of the ...
— The Wing-and-Wing - Le Feu-Follet • J. Fenimore Cooper
... fierce Joy lighting up his eyes. "Now, Reade, I guess you'll admit yourself beaten. An electric spark has touched off a charge of giant powder under the roadbed. The rails have been blown skyward and a big hole torn out of the roadbed itself. Even if you had a wrecking crew at the spot at this moment the road couldn't be prepared for traffic inside of twenty-four hours. NOW, will your through train reach Lineville tonight? Can your road save its ...
— The Young Engineers in Colorado • H. Irving Hancock
... do, but its slaughter has raised greater, graver, and more fruitful issues. We have got to arrest the criminal. We have to see he perpetrates no further crime. A new chapter is now being written for the sinister assembly which is more responsible than any other power for wrecking popular hopes, but which, in my judgment, has perpetrated its last act of destructive fury. They have slain the Budget. In doing so they have killed the bill which, if you will permit me to say so, had in it more promises of better things for the people of this country than ...
— Lloyd George - The Man and His Story • Frank Dilnot
... Dick Sand, alone, did not seek in sleep the repose which was so necessary to him. Thought absorbed him. He dreamed of his companions, whom he would save at all hazards. The wrecking of the "Pilgrim" had not been the end of their cruel trials, and others, still more terrible, threatened them should they fall into the ...
— Dick Sand - A Captain at Fifteen • Jules Verne
... thing is human happiness, that the small matter of a misdirected 12-inch shell should blight the lives of a whole army and tinge our thirsty souls with melancholy. For this clumsy projectile that left the muzzle of the gun with the intention of wrecking the railway station in Dar-es-Salaam became, by evil chance, deflected in its path and struck the brewery instead. Not the office or the non-essential part of the building, but the very heart, the mainspring of the whole, the precious vats and machinery for making beer. ...
— Sketches of the East Africa Campaign • Robert Valentine Dolbey
... dreaming of disobeying the command of John Woodbury. Woodbury—yet the big man had risen automatically in answer to the name of Bard. John Bard! It struck on his consciousness like two hammer blows wrecking some fragile fabric; it jarred home like the timed blow of a pugilist. Woodbury? There might be a thousand men capable of that name, but there could only be one John Bard, and that was he who had disappeared down the steps leading to the garden. Anthony swerved ...
— Trailin'! • Max Brand
... some inexperienced pilot lost control of his machine and came crashing to earth, they would take the air in a body, circling over the wreckage, cawing and jeering with the most evident delight. "The Oriental Wrecking Company," as the Annamites were called, were on the scene almost as quickly as our enemies the crows. They were a familiar sight on every working day, chattering together in their high-pitched gutturals, ...
— High Adventure - A Narrative of Air Fighting in France • James Norman Hall
... dugouts swerved, and the boat of the white men slipped by. At the head of the line they found Tucu and his crew struggling manfully to make progress without wrecking the whole fleet at the turns. Vast relief and instant acceptance of the new leadership followed Lourenco's explanation. At once the floating column began to pick up speed. And it was ...
— The Pathless Trail • Arthur O. (Arthur Olney) Friel
... nurse in the dull seasons, but her real occupation in life was attending to other people's business. She had a divine meddlesomeness. She was inquisitive after the fashion of a sympathetic arch-angel. It appalled her to see people wrecking their lives by indecision, vacillation, incapacity, by poor judgment and crass stupidity. Her homely wisdom, the fruit of observant years, her native common sense, her strength and discernment were all at the service of the first comer. ...
— Other People's Business - The Romantic Career of the Practical Miss Dale • Harriet L. Smith
... takes you to see the marks of the intrenchment, plainly visible to this day. With heightened colour and dramatic gesture the belted Earl tells how, on the fourth night after the arrival of the Roman fleet, that great storm which ever comes to Britain's aid in such emergencies, arose, wrecking J. CAESAR'S galleys, and driving them ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 98 January 11, 1890 • Various
... the French continued to raid German lines with good results. In Alsace near Anspach they penetrated three German positions, wrecking enemy works and bombing shelters and returned to their own ...
— The Story of the Great War, Volume VI (of VIII) - History of the European War from Official Sources • Various
... There had been no failure to compare with this one! Herr Freudenberg deliberately, and of his own free choice, was accustomed to take huge risks. When they came he accepted them, but when they were not inevitable he as sedulously avoided them. The wrecking of Julien's apartments in the Rue de Montpelier was by far the most hazardous enterprise which had been attempted since the days of the toymaker's first secret visits to Paris. Half a dozen human beings had ...
— The Mischief Maker • E. Phillips Oppenheim
... inauspiciously by a tremendous gale which swept across the Hampshire Downs, after doing no small mischief in the Channel, and wrecking a good many fine old oaks and beeches in the New Forest. It was only the tail of a storm which had been blowing furiously in Scotland and the north of England, and no one as yet knew the extent of ...
— The Golden Calf • M. E. Braddon
... Napoleon, at St. Helena, put the blame of his wasted cavalry on Ney's hot-headed impetuosity. The cavalry attack, he said, was made without his orders; Kellerman's division joined in the attack without even Ney's orders. But that Napoleon should watch for two hours his whole cavalry force wrecking itself in thirteen successive and baffled assaults on the British squares, without his orders, ...
— Deeds that Won the Empire - Historic Battle Scenes • W. H. Fitchett
... solemnity in his voice and manner. "He is gone; let him go and take the past with him. But one word: Celia, it was Heyton who wronged Susie, it was Heyton who forged the cheque; it was because Lady Gridborough thought me guilty of wrecking Susie's life, that she cut me that morning when she passed us at the gate by the wood. She knows the truth now; for Reggie has got Susie to ...
— The Woman's Way • Charles Garvice
... of that day dragged out to an interminable length. No one spoke of the matter—the question of land in sight was not discussed. Some of the boys went back to poker. Others decided to be seasick, and subsequently wished for a storm and the consequent wrecking of the ship, with ...
— Private Peat • Harold R. Peat
... for it. One of the trainmen went to the nearest station to telephone for the wrecking crew. Fortunately it was not necessary to bring one out from Hoboken, since at Dover, a station some miles down the line, such an equipment was kept. And a little later the wrecking crew was ...
— The Moving Picture Girls at Oak Farm - or, Queer Happenings While Taking Rural Plays • Laura Lee Hope
... shot dead, in December 1917, the machine continued to fly in wide left-hand circles, and ultimately, when the fuel was exhausted and the engine stopped, fell near St.-Pol, some thirty miles from the scene of combat, without completely wrecking itself. When the war broke out Mr. Busk was more than ever needed at the factory. On the 5th of November 1914 he mounted in an experimental B.E. 2c machine to a height of about eight hundred feet. Exactly what happened will never be known; the petrol vapour must have been ...
— The War in the Air; Vol. 1 - The Part played in the Great War by the Royal Air Force • Walter Raleigh
... as he advanced. He succeeded in attaching the end of this to a cowbell without making any noise to betray his presence. He then made his way safely back to his own trenches and from their shelter vigorously pulled the string. A most ungodly clank and clatter resulted, wrecking the stillness of the night. This aroused the Teutons and led them into a solid hour of furious but futile shooting. The string was similarly pulled on several succeeding occasions and always produced the desired result of uproar and shooting, until ...
— The Note-Book of an Attache - Seven Months in the War Zone • Eric Fisher Wood
... chatter about the weather, the merest small change of conversation, especially if that conversation was held between Michael and his father, was sufficient to wreathe her in smiles, and she would, according to habit, break in with some wrecking remark, that entailed starting this talk all afresh. But when she left the room a glowering silence would fall; Lord Ashbridge would pick up a book or leave the room with his high-stepping walk and erect head, the picture ...
— Michael • E. F. Benson
... to witness the punishment of the slaves who killed the guardsman. I wish now that I had not left the arena for by this time my friends and I might have made good our escape, whereas this delay may mean the wrecking of all our plans, which depended for their consummation upon the continued sleep of the three Mahars who lay in the pit beneath the building in which ...
— At the Earth's Core • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... of quiet, from his voice to the last harmonious little picture that hung in his hushed room, and a curious figure he seemed—an elegant pale watch-tower, showing for ever what a quiet port literature and the fine arts might offer, in an age of 'progress,' when every one is tossing, struggling, wrecking, and foundering on a sea of commercial speculation or political adventure; when people fight over pictures, and if a man does buy a picture, it is with the burning desire to prove it is a Raphael to his yielding enemies, ...
— Lady John Russell • Desmond MacCarthy and Agatha Russell
... these disturbances in your calculations. Of course, if some one had deliberately made hay with the lot, you would be nonplussed. The chances are, however, that, given enough heaps of clothes, and bar intentional and systematic wrecking of them, you would be able to make out pretty well which boy preceded which; though you could hardly go on to say with any precision whether Tom preceded Dick by half a minute or half ...
— Anthropology • Robert Marett
... a year, he ill-treated shamefully her and her mother, though it was to them that he practically owed his life, ship-wrecked strangers in the eighteenth century being apt to disappear among an inhospitable people. Coppinger lived by smuggling and wrecking; he was brave, violent, and of great physical strength, and he terrorized the population of these little villages by acts of savagery and cruelty. A ganger who had had the boldness to interfere with him he seized, ...
— Lynton and Lynmouth - A Pageant of Cliff & Moorland • John Presland
... beast avarice which Horace recognized as the root of all evil. As if provisions like this of the "vincolo forestale" were ever carried out! Peasants naturally prefer to burn the wood in their own chimneys or to sell it; and if a landslide then crashes down, wrecking houses and vineyards—let ...
— Old Calabria • Norman Douglas
... to say. The brakeman will go as fast as he can, but it will take some time to get the wrecking crew here with a new engine, and then it will take some time to get all the ...
— The Motor Boys on the Pacific • Clarence Young
... of minors was as dead as that of secession. In the general maelstrom, Colonel Gordon's large estate went to pieces; but after a time, Judge Dent took lessons from his new political masters in the science of wrecking, and by degrees, as fragments and shreds stranded, he collected and secreted them. Certain mining interests were protected, and some valuable plantations in distant sugar belts, were secured. As guardian of his sister's ...
— At the Mercy of Tiberius • August Evans Wilson
... small ranchers can feed their stock entirely on their little patches of cleared land, and it is not an unusual thing for most of the herd to run almost wild in the Bush. Now and then, the cattle acquire a somewhat perilous fondness for wrecking road-makers' and prospectors' tents, which explains why a steer occasionally fails to be found and some little community of axemen is provided with more fresh meat than can ...
— The Greater Power • Harold Bindloss
... had thought them, had yielded to the vehemence of Phorenice's attack. And, indeed, it was scarcely to be marvelled at. With all her genius spurred on to fury by the blow that had been struck at her by wrecking so fair a part of the city, the Empress would be no light adversary even for a strong place to resist, and the Sacred Mountain ...
— The Lost Continent • C. J. Cutcliffe Hyne
... wrecking of lighting plants to plunder deserted houses and even to rob survivors of the flood. In West Indianapolis the vandals and robbers became so bold that Governor Ralston placed that section of the city under martial law and sent a company of militia to guard the ...
— The True Story of Our National Calamity of Flood, Fire and Tornado • Logan Marshall
... sacrifice of fifty thousand lives, and the loss of a hundred millions of dollars would mean the blotting out of the whole prosperity of the nation.'' His deep earnestness showed me the impossibility of converting a man of his opinions, and the danger of wrecking our friendship by attempting it. Little did either of us dream that within ten years from that day slavery was to be abolished in the United States, at the sacrifice not of fifty thousand, but of nearly a million lives, and at the cost not merely of a hundred millions, but, when ...
— Volume I • Andrew Dickson White
... fatal to the plan. The ZX-1 can hamper our country's operations when she strikes, but if the ZX-2 were also in action, they would be hampered much more—perhaps fatally. It iss not serious. So we go ahead. Now, Kashtanov, for the last time, the scheme of wrecking Gatun Spillway iss this: ...
— Raiders Invisible • Desmond Winter Hall
... general joy of those who have been my companions in misery; and though grievous disasters are apt to alter the disposition and debase worthy minds, it has not been so with the fair destroyer of my hopes, for with more fortitude and invincibility than can well be told, she has passed through the wrecking sea of her disasters and the encounters of my ardent though ...
— The Exemplary Novels of Cervantes • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... was running rapidly around a sandy point, jutting into the bay from the highest mound on the bar, not half a mile from the light-house, and only twice as far from the low, wooden roof of the "wrecking station," where, as Dab had explained to his guests, the life-boats and other apparatus were kept safely housed. The piles of drifted sand had for some time prevented the brightest eyes on board the "Swallow" from seeing anything to seaward; but now, as they came around ...
— St. Nicholas Magazine for Boys and Girls, Vol. 5, October 1878, No. 12 • Various
... who are profoundly concerned about the future of the two and one-half million Jews who are now in America, and of twice that number who may one day be here, cannot but view with the utmost anxiety the danger of wrecking what promises to become the greatest Jewish center in the history of ...
— The Menorah Journal, Volume 1, 1915 • Various
... of which, however, I will not dwell upon because it was successful. We made one or two circles, taking on water the while and then returned into the south bank backwards. At that bank we wisely stayed for the night, our meeting with the Gaboon so far having resulted in wrecking our sail, making Ngouta sea-sick and me exasperate; for from our noble vessel having during the course of it demonstrated for the first time her cataclysmic kicking power, I had had a time of it ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... four years Sir Hiram made numerous experiments with his aeroplane, but in 1894 it broke through the upper guard rail and turned itself over among the surrounding trees, wrecking itself badly. ...
— The Mastery of the Air • William J. Claxton
... of recovery was continued until April 6, when the wrecking tugs were withdrawn, and nothing is now being done in that direction so far as is known; and the last bodies reported as recovered were sent to Key West on the 30th ultimo. No estimate has been made of the portions of bodies which were recovered and buried. The large percentage of bodies ...
— Compilation of the Messages and Papers of the Presidents • William McKinley
... it again," he said, with a sort of glee I had not expected in him, "of course we must make it again. We have caught a Tartar, perhaps, but we have left the theoretical behind us for good and all. If we can possibly avoid wrecking this little planet of ours, we will. But—there must be risks! There must be. In experimental work there always are. And here, as a practical man, you must come in. For my own part it seems to ...
— The First Men In The Moon • H. G. Wells
... Homeric epics prove, the poet was already a man apart—not foremost among statesmen and rather backward among warriors. If we agree with a not unpopular opinion, the poet ought to be a kind of "Titanic" force, wrecking himself on his own passions and on the nature of things, as did Byron, Burns, Marlowe, and Musset. But Tennyson's career followed lines really more normal, the lines of the life of Wordsworth, wisdom and self-control directing the course of a long, sane, sound, ...
— Alfred Tennyson • Andrew Lang
... in this construction is the arrangement of "dummies" L, M, and Z. These dummy rings serve as baffles to prevent steam leakage past the pistons, and their contact at high velocity means not only their own destruction, but also damage to or the wrecking of surrounding parts. A simple but effective method of eliminating this difficulty is found in the arrangement illustrated in this figure. The two smaller balance pistons, L and M, are allowed to remain on the high-pressure end; but the largest piston, Z, is placed upon the ...
— Steam Turbines - A Book of Instruction for the Adjustment and Operation of - the Principal Types of this Class of Prime Movers • Hubert E. Collins
... other. This, the actual conflict of war. From north to south, from east to west, through both countries whose flags were raised over the field of battle, homes not to be numbered mourned in soul-wrecking grief, for husband, father, son or brother who sank beneath the foeman's steel or yielded life within the fever tent, or who, surviving shot and malady, carries back to his loved ones a maimed or weakened body. This, ...
— The Story of the Philippines and Our New Possessions, • Murat Halstead
... gale went shrieking on, And still the wrecking fury grew; And still the woman, worn and wan, Those gates ...
— The Ontario Readers: The High School Reader, 1886 • Ministry of Education
... about the wrecking of the lab had gone about it in a workmanlike way. Whoever had done the job was no amateur. The vandal had known his way about in a laboratory, that was obvious. Leads had been cut carefully; equipment ...
— Damned If You Don't • Gordon Randall Garrett
... driven, and of practically no maneuverability, they stand a big chance of getting to us. Anyway, we must get in touch with them, to find out if they know anything we don't, and this is the only way I know of to do it. Besides, I want to head Dunark off from wrecking this world. They're exactly the same kind of folks he is, you notice, and I don't like civil war. Any suggestions? Keep an eye on that bird, then, Mart, ...
— Skylark Three • Edward Elmer Smith
... narrow circles over the tanker, trying to get directly over the funnel, with the idea, apparently, of dropping a bomb into it and wrecking the engine room. ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various
... from L. W.'s bank and saw the money piling up to their credit; the first thrill of joy gave way to fear—of Stoddard, and what he might do. With interests so vast lying unprotected what could restrain his ruthless hand? And yet there was Rimrock, wrecking his life in New York and letting her watch their mine alone! A wave of resentment rose up at the thought—it was the old hatred that she tried to fight down—and she clasped her hands and gazed straight ...
— Rimrock Jones • Dane Coolidge
... field. At Clary's Grove, near New Salem, lived a formidable set of young ruffians, over whose somewhat disguised chivalry of temper the staid historian of Lincoln's youth becomes rapturous. They were given to wrecking the store of any New Salem tradesman who offended them; so it shows some spirit in Mr. Denton Offutt that he backed his Abraham Lincoln to beat their Jack Armstrong in a wrestling match. He did beat ...
— Abraham Lincoln • Lord Charnwood
... as closely as he dared from sonar soundings, finally easing the Sea Hound up to a rocky reef that fingered out from the beach. Then he, Bud, Hank, and Arv clambered out, armed with wrecking tools and ...
— Tom Swift and The Visitor from Planet X • Victor Appleton
... across her course. "What ails that blunderbuss? I have the right of way. Why doesn't he head inshore?" and she signalled sharply on her siren to the landlubber evidently bent upon running down everything in sight, and wrecking the tub he was navigating. Then with a quick motion she flicked over her wheel and rushed by, making as pretty a circle around him as the coxswain himself could have made. "Holy smoke, but ye have given ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson
... are, then, on the highway to this state of degradation, stop. If already you have sounded the depths of lost manhood, then turn, and from the fountain of life regain your power, before you perpetrate the terrible crime of marriage, thus wrecking a woman's life and perhaps bringing into the world children who will live only to suffer and curse the day on which they were born and the father who ...
— Searchlights on Health: Light on Dark Corners • B.G. Jefferis
... Walt, if he had known her soul! Discouraged on disaster's changeful shoal Wrecking, he rested; starved on selfish pride Long years; nor would obey love's homeward tide. And the moon hangs low in ...
— Rose and Roof-Tree - Poems • George Parsons Lathrop
... of launching a torpedo at the moment; indeed they actually did launch it, but by one of those extraordinary flukes that sometimes happen, and are so difficult to describe convincingly, one of our shots struck the weapon at the instant that it issued from the tube, wrecking its propeller and rudder and sending ...
— Under the Ensign of the Rising Sun - A Story of the Russo-Japanese War • Harry Collingwood
... her to almost perfect self-control. There was no danger that she would let herself go. Her strong, passionate heart would never be given its freedom by her, to the wrecking of the life upon which it fixed its affections. She would suffer the more deeply for that very reason. There is no pain so poignant as that which is borne in secret. But still—still she was glad! Such a strange thing is a ...
— The Calling Of Dan Matthews • Harold Bell Wright
... "My God—if only I could see them! If only I could get in there, and watch them at their normal living. But it's always like this. The only glance we're permitted is at a stampede following the wrecking of a termitary. And that tells us no more about the real natures of the things than you could tell about the nature of normal men by watching their behavior after ...
— The Raid on the Termites • Paul Ernst
... rot, we'd get on better," George said curtly, and then turned to his visitor. "I gather that you're afraid of wrecking your church. It's an awkward situation, but I suppose you have made ...
— Ranching for Sylvia • Harold Bindloss
... rattled from its scabbard the old worthy's sword. "Come back, I say, you loafing, miching, wrecking crow-keepers; there are no pickings for you here. Brown, send those fellows back with the bayonet. None but blue-jackets allowed on the beach!" And the labourers go up ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume I • Charles Kingsley
... captive. "My head is broken, and my arms are smashed! What do you mean by tying me up and then wrecking the machine?" ...
— Boy Scouts in an Airship • G. Harvey Ralphson
... were tremendously thick, while the door was of iron, and fastened on the outside by massive bolts. Still I was not altogether discouraged, and, dragging the table beneath the aperture, I climbed to the top. Crash! I had forgotten the broken leg, and fell to the ground, wrecking the table and giving myself ...
— My Sword's My Fortune - A Story of Old France • Herbert Hayens
... killed in High Street, Tonbridge, after wrecking several shop windows. It is thought that the animal had misread the ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 153, Oct. 3, 1917 • Various
... 23d, Secretary of War Long completed arrangements with the Merritt and Chapman Wrecking Company, of New York city, and with the Boston Towboat Company, to undertake to raise the Maine. It was agreed that they were to be paid $1,371 a day for their work, $871 a day for the use of their regular ...
— The Great Round World and What Is Going On In It, Vol. 2, No. 10, March 10, 1898 - A Weekly Magazine for Boys and Girls • Various
... arrangement. You feel in another element when you get into the hostel. It's 'do as you like and don't bother me so long as you don't go too far and aren't found out.' It might be all very well in the old days last year, but it's wrecking the show now. I wouldn't have believed it if I didn't see it ...
— Monitress Merle • Angela Brazil |
